Paper Scraps Art

It's been WAY too long since I posted. I will try to get back into it in 2013! At any rate, there were many times we did cute things and I took pictures, but often with the school camera, so they never made it home and online.

Before the holidays, I was trying to clean up my messy desk and piles of things I always save just in case I might use them for a project. Well, we had a ton of colored paper scraps, and while I have often tried to encourage the children to use them during free coloring/art time in the mornings, it seems I had to make something myself in order to inspire them. I actually love the way the paper looks when you simply tear it into shapes - this can also make the paper curl a bit like hair, so that's even better! 

Below are some examples of our creative recycled color paper art (the top left is my own):

Back to School Already!

Well, I did do a pretty good job "turning off" for the last month before school :) I am very excited about the new school year, but even after the teacher prep week, I am already exhausted and realizing that all those things I planned to start in September are going to be really hard to fit in (yoga classes, Czech classes, social events...). I did do an amazing thing (inspired by two teachers at my school who run marathons) and went running TWICE in the last three days. It was actually fun, and it is much cheaper and less time-consuming than going to the gym or fitness classes. Also, it's nice to have alone time while running. We'll see how long it lasts!

In other news, the weather has appropriately become UNsummer. It is cold and gray and rainy and it has been like this all weekend. It makes my head hurt, makes me feel lazy, and is really not helping me pump myself up for the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL tomorrow!

At least I am VERY happy with my new assistant, and all of the new teachers at our school. It's going to be a great community and I know I will learn a lot from the new blood :)

I have put some cute posters I made for my class on TeachersPayTeachers. They are FREE, so check them out!

Classroom Management Posters

I will post some pictures of my cute bulletin boards soon!

London Bus Activities!

I finally got around to taking some picture of our summer art projects! I was very happy with how the bus came out! I actually worked together with a colleague and I loved her idea of painting the bus, the cutting it out and gluing it to colorful paper. The children then put themselves in the drivers' seat and added a few friends in the windows. I let them do silly faces when I took their pictures, but you can make that decision yourself :) I love it!!

How we did it: Printed out the London bus template from my London Unit Deluxe. The children painted the bus red using their fingers. When dry, the teacher cut out the bus, and the children glued their buses on the desired color of paper. Meanwhile, we took pictures of the children making silly faces, and cut them out. 

I do have a bus template in the same unit, which looks more like a normal bus (not a double decker) and could be used as a school bus project for back to school! Not quite so recognizable when you live in Europe, but for all you teachers in the US, that could be a fun idea!

Daily 5 Chapter 5

Read to Someone

Why should students be reading to someone?

Students gain confidence and independence when reading to someone. It also gives them an opportunity to have fun during a structured reading activity. Some children in pre-K really crave human contact and snuggling, so teaching them to read together in a constructive way could be really great for some of those children.  

How can your students EEKK?

I will allow my students to sit at a table together, sit crisscross on the floor, or even lay on their bellies with the books. The hardest part might be spreading them out enough so that partners are not disturbing other partners. We don't have a ton of space or much carpet or surfaces that absorb sound. Oh well! I definitely need to work on noise level and will have to make sure that my assistant is on the same page with that. I have recently noticed myself whispering or speaking quietly a lot just naturally in order to get the noise level or keep the noise level low, so it's good to remember that's a helpful strategy!

How can your students read to someone and how can you model these ways with your students?

My students cannot read the words, but they can read the pictures or retell stories to each other. I think they could take turns with "reading" page by page or even picture by picture. Perhaps with some simple repetitive books, they could even try "I read, you read" and repeat the same sentence in the book. I would model the ways to read together just as the sisters do in the book.

What is the one thing you have done with partner reading that ensures the success of your students?

I have never tried this partner reading idea. Sometimes when we have quiet reading time after lunch, students are reading together, but sometimes the noise begins to escalate or there are too many children reading one book, so I think teaching this system of Reading to Someone carefully will make the whole Quiet Reading time much more beneficial to the students. Right now it is more of a quiet, relaxing time after lunch, but I look forward to creating a reading time, where the children are learning! Actually, every part of the day should have a clear purpose and procedure and I hope to make it happen this year!

Listening to Reading

How will you instill the importance of Listening to Reading in your students?

Most of my children naturally love to listen to reading. When we use special equipment such as a CD player or computer, they are even more excited, even those who do not know English. Of course, we will also talk about how it can help us become better readers, etc. but my kids will be most excited about the technology! It's something special to them, even if they have a lot of it at home.

What devices or strategies are you going to use? 

I have recently discovered that we do have a set of six headphones in our school, which can be connected together. However, I have a complicated stereo system high up on a shelf in my classroom, so if I decide to use the headphone set, I would have to use it with the computer or bring something from home. I do have a CD walkman, which I haven't used in years, so I might bring that to school as an option. I also know there are some good read-aloud web sites, which would be great, especially for the English language learners, as there is often a bit of animation involved. I also read on a blog once about recording your own voice and using i-pods in the classroom. I would have to use my own i-pod, so I am still kind of mulling it over. My other thoughts now are that I will have a parallel 4-5 teacher this year (no other age in our tiny school has more than one class, and this is the first year it's happening!), so I would need to collaborate and make sure we provide similar opportunities to the kids in both classes. Definitely I will use the computer, though, and the CD player. Oh, and it just occurred to me that we might even use i-pads for this, as we have a set in the school, but it will take a lot of training to teach the kids not to switch away from the story and start playing games...

What expectations will you have for your students during Listen to Reading, and how will you keep them on task and independent?

I think the sisters' suggestions of using some tech-savvy students as helpers is a great way to keep the kids from constantly asking the teachers for help. I might also start out with just doing Listening to Reading with partners and pairing children together with tech-savvy children. I do a lot of partnering during the first weeks of school anyway, trying to keep kids helping each other and not constantly asking me for help. 

The expectations of course will be a quiet environment, and if we do lots and lots of modeling, I think we will have minimal problems.

Do you have enough Listening to Reading materials? If not, what ideas do you have for securing these materials? Where will you store them? How will your students retrieve these items? Where will they be used?

We only have a few books with CDs at school, but I did think about recording myself reading some books and making a CD or playlist using my own reading voice. I would also use some of the websites such as storynory.com. 

I would probably keep anything like the portable CD player or i-pod somewhere in the closet and just take them out for the designated period. The CDs are going to mostly be shared with the whole school, so I won't have them all the time, and will probably also only take them out when we use them. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of space to keep things that the children can get independently. 

I might keep one table designated for the listening to reading near the computer, which would also be another listening station. 

How do you feel about listening response sheets? What will they look like?

I would definitely not use response sheets all the time, but it might be something I teach the children to do later in the year. I would probably allow it to be optional. I think at this age, it will be most important to have a discussion after reading time, allowing children to verbally reflect on their activities. I do, however, want to try it out this year, see how it goes, and I will post my experiences..

How can this station be differentiated to meet the various learning profiles, interests, and/or readiness of your students?

I will be flexible in the types of books they read, etc. I will try to match children to the type of listening center best suited to their needs. I will also give them options with reflection such as verbally discussing a story with me, drawing or attempting to write some response or summary.

Summer Olympics!

We are learning about the Summer Olympics at our summer session this year. I have created my own flashcards and images to illustrate all 36 sports, thanks to the ipad app Inkpad. It is on sale now right here at TPT. I spent a lot of time on these images, and started to feel like maybe it was a WASTE of time, but my colleague yesterday morning said, Hey, I was looking for exactly this! So hopefully it will be useful for someone!!

Still behind on the Daily Five.... oops.

Daily 5 Chapter 4

Beginning Read to Self

I think that a form of Read to Self could be implemented in my pre-K class as early as October or November. I already have the routine of quiet reading time after lunch each day, even with children who are still four. Most children are able to read silently and alone for at least ten minutes, and this is without teaching them the different ways to read or modeling all of the appropriate behaviors. I really think I would like to try this in October. In September, we will have a lot of other routines to master, but I think we could try this the second month of school. I really think that teaching them the different ways to read a book will boost their self-esteem and set a great atmosphere for the rest of the year. I really wouldn't want to wait until too late in the year to get started with this.

Children as Readers

I think that emphasizing the different ways to read a book will help many prekinders view themselves as readers. I would also take pictures of all children during Read to Self and make a poster, so that they can literally see themselves as readers. I will also be sure to give them a lot of encouragement and send notes home to parents about how well they have done. I think it is really important at this emergent literacy stage that children start to see themselves as readers. We want them to think "I CAN!"

Launching Reading to Self in Pre-K

To me, the routines described by the sisters on launching Reading to Self seem like they would work fairly well in Pre-K even without alterations. I am not sure about the modeling of incorrect behaviors, however. I feel that my prekinders get more out of modeling the correct way. If one child models the incorrect way, they will ALL want to do it. I think it would be best for me to choose those who want attention to simply show us the right way. This could be different depending on the children in the class, however.  The main difference to me is that I doubt I would work up to a 30 minute period of Read to Self. I will probably have a goal of 15 minutes and maybe push that to 20 minutes by the end of the year. I could be pleasantly surprised, though. Who knows!

Teaching Children the Importance of Read to Self

I think one great way is to talk about the joy of reading and be a model. We might also have children from older classes come and read to us occasionally. Seeing children just a little bit older, who can read, often excites the children about reading. Last spring we had a Reading Week at our school, during which we had a form of Drop Everything And Read. Little things like this can help children build a positive frame of reference when talking about books and reading. 

Checking In 

I think that checking in is a very important routine, especially with young children. It reinforces the importance and relevance of the Read to Self lesson and helps the children hold themselves accountable for their actions during the period. I would try doing it just as suggested in the book and then at the end of each session once we reach our stamina goal. I suppose I might be doing it a lot, actually, if I stop the session every time someone is off task. I was wondering how I could keep myself from managing the kids during Read to Self, but I guess if we gather together whenever it stops floating merrily along, I won't have to worry about the micro-managing tendencies. I am really excited to try this out!

Anticipated Problems

Well, if I imagine the class I had this year, I can anticipate problems from one or two students, who really have trouble being alone. However, I have faith that even they are able to work alone at least for a few minutes, as I have seen it before. I also think that when enough modeling is done by the teacher and children, there should be minimal problems.  

I am wondering about the book boxes, though. I certainly don't have the materials or space to do this, but I realize that in order for the Read to Self time to run smoothly, each child should have a set of books already prepared. I was thinking about maybe letting them choose one in the morning or some time before the session, and we can put it in their folder slots. Then I could add a teacher-selected book or two. Perhaps we can also try making some emergent readers throughout the year and keeping those in the slots for Read to Self time... hmmm, anyone else with ideas?

I also worry that we don't have a lot of space or comfortable places to sit during Read to Self. AND I was wondering if we need to show them where to sit every time or just until they get the hang of it? I will have to read others' posts and see what has been suggested!

London Unit!

I have been having a lot of fun with my Inkpad app on the ipad. Olympics flashcards will be coming soon, but for now I have a lot of activities, templates, and clipart for the London Unit for sale on www.teacherspayteachers.com.

Check it out: London Unit Deluxe

And some flashcards of London landmarks for FREE: London Flashcards

OK and soon I need to get caught up on my Daily Five reading...

Look what I made!

I am falling behind on the Daily Five study. Summer school just started this week. At my school, it's basically mandatory to teach in the summer (if you're a pre-K or K teacher), but it's basically like summer day camp. Not too many kids, plenty of teachers and volunteers, and a lot of fun!!

Our four-week summer program is centered around the Summer Olympics 2012. Next week we will learn about London, so I created a little Unit for TPT. I am very proud, because it's the first time I have done my own pictures/clipart. I purchased Inkpad and have been using that on my ipad to create images. I am not so amazing at it, but I'm sure I'll get better with practice.

Check out my London unit here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Miss-Caroline

OK, chapter four from the Daily Five is coming soon...

Daily 5 Chapter 3

1. A Gathering Place

If I do try and establish some form of the Daily Five next year (with my pre-K kids and with the limited amount of time we have each day), I will need to pick a gathering place. Even if I simply use elements of the Daily Five, maybe not just for literacy centers, but for our centers or Montessori time,  I do want to make the time, space, and habit of coming together afterwards and reflecting on what each child has done. I believe this will make their time spent with books and time in centers much more meaningful. So, I have to choose. Normally, for our Morning Meeting, we place circle carpets at the front of the room. However, a quicker meeting spot for this purpose would be the carpet in the book nook at the back of the room. I never called it the Book Nook until just now, but maybe this is a great name for it :)

2. Good Fit Books

I agree with some of the other teachers that my kids may not be ready for really picking out "good fit" books, as they mostly look at the pictures. Again, it is Pre-K and 4 to 5 year olds, so they can still get along well with most books, looking at the pictures and making up the story. However, it will also be important to include books with simple repetitive rhymes or statements that the children remember and can really start to read on their own.

3. Create Anchor Charts

I really like the idea of creating anchor charts, and I have been wanting to do this all last year. My problem is that my boss does not allow us to hang much on the wall, and our bulletin board space is limited. I'm going to ask about having some strings or hooks put in place this year so that I have more space to hang anchor charts and similar items. I think it really helps kids keep important things in mind. I always see the children looking around the room and pondering the work they've done before. I can see how the learning is cemented in their brains when they see it each day. 

4. Short, Repeated Intervals of Independent Practice and Setting Up Book Boxes

This year, the children had time to read after lunch every day. Usually it was about ten minutes, but some children can barely manage that without getting off-track. I would like to use one of the many stamina charts I have found through this Daily Five reading group. I think once we set a goal and purpose, it will start to be easier for my kids to build up stamina. Also, using good fit books will help, too!

As for book boxes, right now I just have some book display shelves, which I hate, because the books fall down all the time. I would much rather use boxes, and I'm hoping to convince my boss about this as well. 

5. Calm Signals and Check-in Procedures

I really like the chimes that the sisters talk about in their book. I was thinking about maybe buying a little music box and using that. I don't know if it will be loud enough, but if everyone's working quietly, it should do the trick. I definitely need to come up with a plan so that we can practice the procedure at the beginning of the school year. I'm so excited about this!

I actually started trying out the thumbs up check-in before school got out at the end of June, and I really like it. It's amazing how honest many of the children are. They also quickly got the hang of not worrying about others' thumbs. I am sure if I teach this procedure well at the beginning of the year, it will have a great positive impact on my class!

6. Using the Correct/Incorrect Model Approach 

I agree that modeling incorrect and correct procedures is very important. My assistant and I often model the incorrect behavior and allow the students to correct us. It was an interesting idea in the book to choose some children to model the incorrect behavior and then the correct. I might try it out and see how it works.

Daily 5 Chapter 2

1. Do you trust your students? How do you build this trust? Are you able to trust them and allow them to be independent throughout all aspects of your day? Are you going to be able to stay out of their way?

I think that I do trust most of my students most of the time. There are some times in our day, especially transitions, in which I've been thinking I need to be more in control of them. For example, when some are finished with lunch, we sometimes ask them to wash their hands and wait for us in the hallway, but they often become rowdy and run down the hall and get crazy when alone. I was thinking I need to take them or send them with an assistant, but maybe the answer is to teach them to respect our community and rules and trust them to behave well? I will work on this! Generally, however, I trust them. We have time each day when the children work on Montessori games, and most of them are able to work nicely and follow instructions (such as we are working independently now, or working with one friend quietly). There is one in my class, who is just so sneaky! He has to be watched all the time! Any advice? 

2. How much choice do you give your students throughout the day? Do you go over  your daily schedule with your students or is it just "posted" in the room?

I am very bad about doing the daily schedule. At my last school, I had it posted and we often went over it in the morning. At this school, however, it just never got made. One of my challenges here is that we don't have a lot of space to hang things on the wall, and my director does not like us to use sticky tack to put things up. I have allowed that to limit me a lot this year, but next year I will make these things a priority. Maybe we will have less space to hang up art, but we can change it more often? I definitely do want to make a set of class activities with pictures, and I'd like to go over it each morning during our morning circle. 

3. How are you going to create that sense of community where students will hold each other accountable? 

I think part of creating the sense of community is really getting to know each child at the beginning of the year. I like to have time for children to share each morning, and to get to know each other in the beginning of the year. We often assign buddies the first few weeks of school, and pair children with new children or bilingual children with those who don't yet speak much English. I sometimes pair the boys and girls just to get them to make friends with children they often don't play with. There are a lot of ideas in the The Morning Meeting Book, which I meant to implement this year. I at least did the morning greetings each day but never really got past that. This is another book I need to spend more time with this summer! I do think it's important to spend some time each day building community, as it can help prevent a lot of problems later. One tip is just saying good morning to each other with names every morning. Easy, but it makes a big difference. Everyone feels welcomed and loved, and they start to have that sense of community. I do also try to encourage children to talk to each other and not come running to me every time someone misbehaves, but this is not always working. I need to spend more time in the beginning of the year talking about our rules and why we have them and what we can do when we or someone we see is having trouble with them.

4. Student ownership in learning? How do you instill this in every child?

I think it is important to let children know why they are doing each activity. I also want children to have the desire to be the best they can be, so I have started talk about this with my kids. One of our class rules is "Do your best," but we had never really talked about WHY we should do it. Last week we had a discussion about it, and we started to try self-evaluations. We would work on an activity and I would ask the children to show me how they think they are doing. If they think they are doing their best, they show a thumbs up. If they think they could do better, they show me a thumb pointing to the side. It's surprising how honest many of them can be, and I really feel it helps them start to develop this sense of ownership in their learning as well as their behavior. I don't want to be the one judging them and correcting them all the time. I want them to be able to look at themselves and see what  they can improve and what they do well. 

5. Stamina! How are you going to build stamina with reading? Independent work? Will you use a timer? Will you set goals?

This is really something I want to work on, and I have downloaded some of the worksheets from Pinterest, which show the goals of reading for five minutes and then longer. After lunch each day my children take a book to "read" alone or with a friend, and some of the children could do it for ages, but many are always asking, can we play yet? Can we draw? I think that setting goals and using a visual representation of how long we've been doing something will really help a lot! I will be excited to get started with this in September. I think Caitlin did make a good point that we need to make sure the children are not so focused on the time goal that they don't focus on what's important. Children can be very competitive! However, I think this will not happen if we review why we are doing what we are doing, and continue to self-evaluate the work they are doing and not just the timing. It is all connected, though, isn't it? 

Daily 5 Chapter 1

I got the book Daily Five when I was in the States in April, and of course I haven't really looked at it. BUT finding this book study through this site  gave me motivation to read! And even more than that, to reflect, discuss, and network! Yay!

So, here goes, bearing in mind I teach 4-5 year olds mostly, so not quite K.

How do I teach new behaviors?

This is something I know I need to work on a LOT, and I am promising myself to be better next year. I usually ask the kids first, show the kids, tell the kids, and often ask for them to demonstrate. However, I do not do enough repetition and practice, AND I realize that I am not always clear enough. I have to be more organized myself so that I can get them to be organized!

How do I teach expectations?

This is another thing I need to work on! From next year, I will work harder to give children AND parents clear expectations about school, behavior, everything! These past few years I have just kind of assumed everyone knew what to do, since they have mostly been going to school for at least a year or two. However, it's important to be crystal clear, post lots of pictures around the room, and be a good example.

How do I monitor student behavior? Whole group? Small groups? Individuals?

I like the idea of self monitoring, and I would like to try more next year. I often get kids to help me, and they are often very well-behaved when one of them has the job of monitoring a small group, for example. I have an assistant, and we both keep our eyes and ears out of mischief. However, I hate to be the one complaining all the time, and I want my kids to start to take control of their own behavior and to WANT to be the best they can be!

What do I do when a student is not exhibiting desired behavior?

This is something else I am working on! In six years I still haven't found the perfect fit, and I would actually like to steer away from sticker charts, traffic lights, etc (all of which I have tried and none of which seem to make much difference in the long run). I think it's a great idea to have the student model the appropriate behavior. I guess I do this with small things such as how to enter/exit the room or walk down the hall. My classroom is a straight shot from the bathroom and it's really hard for some of my kids to resist just running down the straight shot into the room.

Whose classroom is it?

It's MINE! I really need to work on that. Even when I talk about how to treat the things in the class, I say that this book is mine or this one belongs to the library or these games belong to the school. I think it will be best when I start to talk about OUR things and OUR classroom and maybe it will help them feel more of an ownership and pride in keeping it tidy and keeping things in one piece :)

Locus of control?

While I have tried many sorts of organized rewards/charts/etc in the past, I have given it up (except for the occasional random sticker for awesomeness), and I do think it's important for kids to WANT to behave well and to have a sense of pride about how they behave. I start to see it from time to time. These 4 year olds are just starting to be big enough to really be independent and they usually feel so happy with themselves when they know they are doing their best, being responsible little students :)

Where are supplies stored?

Most supplies are within reach of the kids. We rarely use the stapler or tape, but when we do use tape, I get it out and let the kids who are interested use it. I am pretty good about letting those, who want and can, do things independently. Gotta be careful, though as this age is just experimenting a lot. I have some papers with the date stamped all over them :) Goes back to my problem with teaching procedures I guess...

I keep thinking I need to start a blog, so here it is. I am not yet the teacher I want to be, but I hope having a blog will help motivate me to do my best and move in the direction I want to grow.