Talking About Money, American Symbols, and Fractions

K-2
Kindergarten:  The students are reinforcing their American Symbols lessons in class during technology specials this week.

American symbols from Patty Blanchard

The students then head to computers to practice their knowledge on an awesome BrainPop Jr. game about American Symbols.  They have the option to "Play Again" or "Learn More" and so many students are enjoying the videos after about George Washington and other historical figures.
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First Grade:

First grade math includes various aspects of counting money.  I remember from my many days as a first grade teacher that this was a difficult skill to teach, and there never seemed to be enough time in the day to remediate those students that didn't understand the concept.  ABCYA. COM is a great educational game site for kids, and I have been checking out the ones on counting money.  So, the students are clicking on a desktop link at their computer that brings them to this site.  This is a website I created to be able to have several links for students on a page, as well as videos, etc.  The three game links that are on the page have various levels of money-counting tests.  The favorite part of the class has been the groovy counting money tune in the video.





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Second Grade:

Second grade has a similar website link to navigate to.  However, the second graders have to type in the web address to get to the link, and these games all have to do with fractions.
The web address has been shortened via Tinyurl.com to:  http://www.tinyurl.com/ababv7b for easier typing.  The students are typing in this web address and heading to games on fractions, the math skill that they are learning presently.  Here is the fractions song that accompanies this lesson:





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Part 2 of this blog post = 3,4,5 and 6th grades

S.M.A.R.T. goals

In this blog post, I wanted to make a log of SMART goal resources.  I have created SMART goal record sheets for K-1 as well as grades 2-6 at our school.  A search for SMART goal info results in a plethora of information on the topic.  I will try to link as much of it here as possible.  It seems that this type of goal setting and reflection is something that can carry a person through a lifetime.

Front of Grades 2-6 goal sheet

Back of Grades 2-6 goal sheet

K-1 Goal Sheet (reflection written or drawn on back)

• This is an AMAZING poster!  This would work great with the older kids.
  
• I love that this article is written with the adult in mind.    Again, my thinking is that if we start this with the youngest kids at our school, they will grow through the grades being very familiar with the SMART goal setting process and will internalize it very quickly.
  
• This information is from the Douglas County School District in Massachusetts.  There were a handful of attachments I wanted to make sure and save for SMART goal setting at the staff level in a school.
  

Why couldn't someone have shared these with me in 1997??

So as I was searching for various sites to plan lessons in technology, I stumbled across some classroom management sites that I deemed important and helpful.  I knew if I let them slip through, I would be wanting to refer to them again one day, to assist myself and refocus on classroom management as well as possibly help out a rookie one day.

As yes, I too was a rookie teacher way back in 1997, and wow, classroom management was just not something we talked a lot about in undergrad school.  Of course, I am not sure to what degree those talks would have helped me. It is definitely an art that must be mastered by doing.  As a beginning teacher, you feel like you can change the world just by being present, and that all in your room will focus on your voice and be entranced like the animals in Snow White when she sang (or in Shrek when Fionna sang).  I also only had one child at the time, a very quiet little 2 year old who, at the time, never gave me much grief.  My experience with children was limited to my babysitting experiences in high school and my brief stint as a student teacher, where I had Mrs. Carlos to maintain control.  (I did learn a lot from her about classroom management, that is for sure.)

Back to the links on classroom management.  Pass them on~
Have some awesome ideas???  PLEASE PLEASE comment and let us know!

• Five Essential Classroom Management Strategies
• Five Critical Classroom Management Domains
• A Classroom Management Wiki
• Classroom Management Entry in a forum
• 5,4,3,2,1- a blog entry from an ESOL teacher in South Korea

NOTE:  I have to add my idea from when I was teaching first grade.  Now this is in a school with daily conduct charts.  I tried various methods and none seemed to really work for me, until the "GOLDEN CLIP".  I wish I had a picture of it to share, so let me describe.  I created a chart out of foam board, library card pockets, and index cards.  Each student had a number, so the pockets were numbered.  Any visitor on any given day did not know who's pocket was who's, so therefore no embarrasment on the kids who were having an off day.  The cars were color coded, and the students all started on green, and moved down through the colors in the pocket.  I cannot remember the order, but I know I am not a big fan of red for failure, so the last color was definitely not red.  The students knew the consequences for a move-down of each color.  (Parent note home, parent phone call, etc.) 

The students could move UP in color throughout the day for good behavior.  If they were already on a top color they would earn the GOLDEN CLIP, a clothespin that I spray painted gold.  In my last year, I also had golden bejeweled clips, which were like super awesome terrific.  The rewards for these clips were big "I did it!" stickers at the end of the day, plus smaller scratch and sniff stickers, and also good notes home, good phone calls home, etc.  I had a treasure box, if I remember right, but attempted not to use that too often as that was the extrinsic reward the kids always jumped for.