Horton Hears A Who

With it being Dr. Seuss week, I came up with different activities to do with different books. We started out with Horton Hears A Who. My students absolutely loved this book. Throughout the book they were coming up with ideas on how they could save the speak. Once we got done with the reading, we talked about character traits with Horton. This is what they came up with....

Once we got done talking about the character traits, it was time to get them up and moving. I took words out of the story and made a hop scotch game out of it. I couldn't get them to stop going through the game. Some of my students I had to help with the words. This activity also worked with gross motor skills.

Another activity I did with them is I took two shower curtains and cut them apart, taped them together. Once that was done I had made pockets in them to be able to insert cards in them. I took words from the story and the kids got to walk like elephants across the curtains.

The students loved it! Tomorrow we are working on The Sneetches!

Happy Learning!
Shannon

The Lorax

Even though Dr. Seuss week is not until next week, I like do reading units with my reading group. For one of my units I started with The Lorax, because it had a movie to go with it and it's awesome to make the students do a compare and contrast between the two. With this one I started searching a website called www.bookpagez.com and found a teacher's guide. From there I went to www.teacherspayteachers.com I found this awesome small unit from Mimi B. that had cause and effect worksheets and a memory match game for rhyming. With working in a self contained special education classroom we will complete the worksheet together.

Here is is what I did for the start of Dr. Seuss week outside my classroom!

Frankenstein

So, I found this awesome art project on Pinterest which of course lead me to teacherspayteachers. I believe the activity was free, but not only did it have an art project that came with it....it had writing it too!!! I started out by reading the two recommended books and comparing theming.

My kids adore the art project and we started that yesterday and today we are doing that today. With being in a self-contained special education classroom, when it comes to writing it's a lot of doing it together and some on there own. I will share when we are done! Here is how their monsters turned out!

Happy Learning!!
Shannon

4th of July Art Projects!

With the treatment facility the kids never leave, so I go in and complete art projects with the kids, watch movies, picnics and have water fights!  For 4th of July we did projects that pertained to 4th of July.  Once again with the treatment facility, you cannot take pictures of the kids nor their names. There are 3 pictures in here which have my 2 MHA's helping me and one has names which are my kids names.  We also, made an American Flag with their feet and hands.

We used Elmer's glue then sprinkled salt over it.  Once we had salt on it we shook it off.  We took water color paint and got it EXTREMELY wet and lightly touched the glue and salt to let it bleed on the glue and salt. 

MHA

My son and daughter

Straw painting.  Take 7 bendy straws and rubber band them together and put one color on them and paint on the paper, then the next color.  Never change straws.

Feet painting time.  Another MHA.

My very proud Art Wall!!!

Happy Learning!!

Shannon

The Lorax

So.....it's been since May I believe since I've posted and a lot has changed.  I've went from a treatment facility to now a school district.  I have learned a lot working at a treatment facility and I am very grateful for that.  With that being said, when I was at the treatment facility, there was no curriculum provided and in which I had to come up with my own reading, writing, math, science and social studies.  I was kind of shocked, but in the end it left me with endless possibilities.  In the unit that I ran, I had different age ranges and different learning abilities.  We did different units and I tried to incorporate all the different learning subjects into one, so it made it more fun for them and interesting.  One of my units that I did was, "The Lorax."  We did writing activities, an art project and math.  With the art project, I searched around the web for some ideas, but then kind of came up with my own and went from there.

I started out reading the book to the kids and no matter how old the kids are, they love being read too. Then we went into compare and contrast activities.  Since I worked in a treatment facility, I was not allowed to take pictures.  The only thing I took pictures of was the end art projects with nobody around.  So, with the compare/contrast projects you can pick different characters and compare them. You can do journal prompts from the story or ask the students how they would change a part of the story.  The ideas are endless with this unit.

Here is how the art project turned out!

Happy Learning!!

Shannon

Name Graphing

It has been a very long time since I've posted, but a lot has changed as to where I am at in my life.  Since the last time I posted, I am no longer in a school district, but a all behavior classroom in a treatment facility.  Let me tell you that I crave behaviors.  We all have a passion and something that drives us with our teaching and with me it's behaviors.  I resigned early from my last position early due to the last school not following special education laws and I have worked way to hard for my license.  So, anyways I am now in an all behavior classroom with ages 9-14 year olds and I absolutely love it!!!  Everyday is something new and brings a challenge.  It's like being in a special education classroom, because the students are all at different levels.

Anyways, with math I wanted to do a class activity with graphing, because not all the kids understood the concept and so I began my search online.  I found a picture of a worksheet where they took the names of the students in the class and tally how many letters in the upper top of the worksheet.  So, if they had 3 letter's they put one mark in that box...if they had 6 letters in their name they put a tally mark in that box and so on.  Once they completed that, they went to the bottom and started to graph it.  The student's really enjoyed this activity.  My next project I want to do with my students is with M & M's and then something with the presidential election and the state's they been going too.

I am going to link up the worksheet and feel free to use it.  Also, there is a cute book you can read to your class called, "The Great Graph Contest" by Loreen Leedy.

 

Name Graph Worksheet

 

Happy Learning!!!

Shannon

Funny Farm Number Recognition Game

      Yee HAW!!!!  How's everybody doing on this snowy day!  Well, it's snowing here in Montana and it's COLD!!!!!  So, as you can tell today it's a "Funny Farm" type of day.  In my room, I'm always looking for new ways to make it fun for my students to learn.  Having them sit at a table or on the carpet is not only boring to me, but to them.  So, I'm putting a twist on teaching student's to recognize numbers 1-30.  With this game, there are "funny farm" cards and "boom" cards.  How this works is you have all the students either stand up in a line or in their carpet squares and you go around presenting a number to them.  If they get it wrong they sit down.  If they get it right they continue to stand.  There are the two cards that say "boom" and "funny farm."  If the student get's the "Boom" they automatically sit down...BUT...if they get "funny farm" the people sitting down stand up and the people standing up sit down.  There are no real winners in the game. Head on over to my TPT store and rope up this game!!! Click on the "Funny Farm" picture to pick up your copy of the game!!

Happy Learning!!

Shannon