Teachers on Holiday Break!

Welcome to BREAK!  U did it!  Teachers bring so much joy to their students during the holiday season.  When I walked down the halls this week,  I saw carefully planned holiday bulletin boards displaying your student's smiling faces & their artwork.  As I visited your rooms, I saw elves, crafts, holiday stories and treats.  Teachers dressed as reindeer & even Santa made a visit.  

I just wanted to take a moment and say- THANK YOU!  What you do in a normal week for students is amazing, what you do the week before Christmas is ABOVE and BEYOND. 

If anyone scoffs at your holiday break time, I want you to share this video from Haley Cuffman with them.   

If you decide to do a little shopping over break don't forget about these discounts just for TEACHERS!
Thank you Static Parade for putting them together!

Ideas for relaxing over break!
1. Make homemade hot cocoa and snuggle up with a good book! Click image for a recipe from Living Well!

2. Make a chunky hand knitted blanket for you or as a gift!  From Instructable.com

3. Start the 30 Day Yoga Journey with Adriene!  

Sign up for 30 days of FREE YOGA!

4. Download the CALM app!

5. Random Acts of Kindness

6. Read some new BLOGS!

7. Check out FREE Events around Mooresville! 

8. Binge watch a new series on Netflix!  Click the image to read a list of must-see shows!

9. Create a self-care box for the NEW YEAR!  Click below to check out some ideas from Anatoli Wellness!

10. Just hug a family member or a friend-its good for your body & mind!  Click the image to read more from The Healthy!

Enjoy your much-deserved break!  See you in 2020!

Working Memory

Let's head back into the world of Executive Function! 

Grab this FREE poster from Pathways 2 Success!

This week on the blog, I wanted to share some activities that support Working Memory. 

What is Working Memory?
Working memory is a cognitive system with a limited capacity that is responsible for temporarily holding information available for processing. Working memory is important for reasoning and the guidance of decision-making and behavior.

Check out this blogpost from The OT Workshop!

Check out this TedTalk by Peter Dolittle, How your "working memory" makes sense of the world. 

Working Memory Tips & Games

Check out this blogpost from Meraki Lane, it is filled with tips and games to support working memory. 

I love this activity for supporting working memory from Ms Gardenia!  Having students recreate patterns that are flashed on an iPad screen.  This would be a simple activity to do with the smartboard in the classroom.

Here is a freebie from Teachers Pay Teachers!  It is a playoff of the oldie but goodie Simon Says.  

Monster Says-Thank you Samantha B!

You can totally get some math in along with working memory! Thank you Games for Gains!

Handwriting and the Brain

Handwriting and the brain...some say handwriting is a lost art. If handwriting is a lost art,  we are losing a valuable skill that is GOOD for our BRAINS!

Handwriting does more for us than just allow us to communicate with each other.  Handwriting fully engages your brain by using motor skills.  Cursive handwriting especially stimulates both sides of your brain because of the loopy strokes-crossing the midline!

Check out this video on Brain Balancing exercises to support reading and writing!  This is a perfect brain break or just add it to your writing center for a warm-up!

This video is AMAZING!  It talks about motor memory and the brain using lazy eights.  The really neat part is the connection to how the lazy eights support lowercase letter formation! 

 I love this article from Red Booth about the benefits of handwriting and memory!  Click below to visit the site and read. 

Knowing this information now, getting pencils into our kiddo's hands as often as possible is super important for the transfer of new information in the brain.  

Mini-lessons and large group reading of text are great opportunities to get pencils into your student's hands.  

• Bring wipe boards to the carpet to have them record their visualizations.
• Provide double-entry journals for students to record their thinking.
• Provide graphic organizers for students to record their thinking.
• Pose open-ended questions during the story for students to write short answers to and then turn and talk with a partner.

Center time is another fantastic time for students to write. Add this music to your classroom center time to activate your student's brains to 100%.  I listened to this while writing this and it was amazing how focused I felt!  

• Authentic Writing can be as simple as journal writing or provide prompts for students to write about. 
• Making lists
• Graphic Organizers
• Beginning research projects
• Writing Letters

Independent Reading time is also a perfect place to add in writing.   

• Provide post-it notes for students to record their thinking. 
• Add graphic organizers
• Use questions from the F & P Prompting Guide for students to answer. 
• Provide students with reading journals
• Ask students to create a sales ad for their book (Persuasive Writing)

Discover Words is also a perfect place for students to extend their words in narrative stories or use their vocabulary in sentences. 

Don't forget our handwriting binder that can be used during enhancement or during a center. It is located on the PVES Info Site under Enhancement Resources. 

My big take away from this post is students are doing MORE than just writing when they pick up a pencil.  They are activating their brain and we all know when a brain has activated the transfer of new information to the hippocampus is faster and stronger!

Why Teach Poetry?

We do such a great job teaching fiction and nonfiction text structures in our classrooms but there is one structure that sometimes gets left behind...
POETRY!

The amazing thing about poetry is its versatility!  Poetry can be taught in reading, writing, and language.  It also can support math, science, and social studies!  Poetry easily follows a theme and can be part of our morning meetings or shared reading times in the classroom. 

I loved using poetry during our study of fairy tales.  My 2nd-grade students jumped at the chance to write shape poems about Goldilocks and the Three Bears. 

 

Poetry also allows us to hit our speaking & listening standards along with fluency!  Great discussions can be had and students will have opportunities to focus on meaning, connections, and visualizations.  

Students will be able to explore language through rhyme while also supporting grammar, sentence structure, and parts of speech. Poetry also builds vocabulary by exposing them to words they have not heard before.  

Older students can begin to analyze poems.  Watch this short video that will walk you through 5 simple steps.  

This video is a great explanation of the structure of a poem.  Click below to view!

Check out these freebies on Teachers Pay Teachers!  Lots of goodies to get you started!

Be sure to head over to Teaching with Jennifer Findley and read all about poetry in her classroom.  Plus, download her FREE poetry booklet!  Click below!

Her poetry BINGO is super fun too!  

Be sure to check it out!

Get your kiddos writing poetry using this nonfiction book on Epic Books called, How to Write a Poem.  Touch base with nonfiction text features while you are at it.  

Teaching poetry is so powerful and it can be pushed out to support so many different curriculum areas!  Think-your READ centers!

Literature Circles

Have you even joined a book club?  Delicious snacks, fun company, and engaging conversations!  This idea can be brought to life in your classroom through Literature Circles.

What is a literature circle you ask?
Literature circles are small groups of students who have gathered together to discuss and analyze a piece of literature they chose. 

Each member of the group is assigned a role to help guide the discussion. Click below to watch a video about possible jobs/roles for students during a literature circle. 

Literature circles provide students with the opportunity to think critically as they read, share their thinking, ask questions, and respond to the reading selection.  Giving students the opportunity to discuss the text supports critical thinking and listening to other's ideas helps them form new ideas. 
(This is a GREAT opportunity for students to use their DOK flipbooks to support their questioning or our reading salads to engage metacognition.) 

The key to a successful literature circle is organization that supports collaboration. 

Want to get organized for literature circles?
Check out this freebie from Tales from a Very Busy Teacher to get started! 

Grab there FREE Literature Circle Bookmarks from Inspired Elementary!  While you are there, be sure to read the post Literature Circles 101!

Teacher Thrive has great tips for getting your LC up and running right away! 

I Love this blogpost and the freebie over at The Measure Mom.  She has discussion questions and book talk guidelines that will help you dive right into your literature circles!

Now here is a fantastic post from Glitter in Third Grade to help you begin to compile books for your Literature Circles!

Be sure to scroll to the bottom to view some wonderful book lists!

Numberless Word Problems

This week on the blog,  I would like to jump into the world of numberless word problems! 
We want our students to be able to process what the problem is asking before they jump into the numbers.  How do we get them to do that? 
Take the numbers out!  

One very important strategy we can borrow from our reading instruction is visualization! When you present word problems without numbers, students are forced to visualize what is happening in the problem. 

Without the numbers, students are not distracted by the roadblocks of numbers.  Their thinking becomes more open & flexible.  You will see students beginning to feed off of each other.  All of a sudden, word problems will be fun, their favorite part of math!  

I found this amazing blog post from Primary Bliss Teaching!  It walks you through the steps you need to instruct students with numberless word problems.  There are also 2 free downloads of resources to use in your classroom! 

I love this Notice and Wonder strategy from The Teaching Channel to launch a numberless word problem!  Take a peek below!

You can grab a FREE recording sheet from Miss Poulson on TPT by clicking below! 

NWP in KINDER!!!!  Check out these little problem solvers in Kindergarten.

  

These students are so engaged in the discussion.  Along with math thinking, students are practicing their speaking and listening skills too!

Where the Magic Happens Teaching has a great post on numberless word problems and an easy to use math frame to support students with organization and showing their work. Read more about the Protocol by clicking below!

DOK Questioning

This week on the BLOG, I want to share some resources about Webb's Depth of Knowledge. In PLCs,  we have been exploring Marzano's High Yield Strategies and our Keys to Literacy supports Bloom's Taxonomy.  DOK questioning fits perfectly into this instructional focus.  

What is Depth of Knowledge? 
DOK is the depth of understanding required to answer or explain an assessment item or classroom activity. 

Below is a great video to get you thinking about Depth of Knowledge and the classroom! 

 (Note the video states that DOK isn't just for upper grades!) 

Explicitly teaching students the different DOK levels and asking them to think at certain levels is essential.  When students can identify at what level they are thinking you can determine at what level they are understanding the curriculum. 

I love this graphic on DOK!  There are provided activity ideas under the DOK wheel to support DOK in the classroom.  Just click to download. 

Howes in the Middle has a great poster to use in the classroom that explains the levels.  

Mrs. Vanmeter also supplies us with a FREE DOK anchor chart to use in the classroom!

Another thing I love about using DOK in the classroom is that it crosses all subject areas.  

Check out this infographic for DOK in math!

How are you using DOK in the classroom?

Teaching with Text Mapping

This week on the blog,  I thought I would share a strategy to help support you with our up and coming standards RI.5 and RL.5

 

One of my very favorite strategies that supports text features & structure is text mapping!  It is a visual way for students see how information is organized.  It allows them to see the flow of the text and reinforces vocabulary & text features.   

Tips: 

• Choose a text that connects to a fiction story from your mini-lessons. 
• Color code the text features.
• Allow them to record what they discovered. 
• Model, model, model!
• Display their work!

Here are some of my favorite videos:)  

This is a great blog about text mapping!

CHECK this OUT from the Creative Core!

Text mapping is such a fantastic way to get students reading closely with a text!