Funny of the day- Spirit Lady

I was shopping at a store and saw a pretty headband. It was thick and silky. I was excited to wear it. I wore it to school the next day. Many of my students asked about it throughout the day (a teacher can't change a look without comment).
My favorite was one student. She looked at me and with all seriousness said, "you look like one of those spirits."
"What?" I asked in confusion.
"You know a lady who talks to spirits."
Hahahahaha
Meet my fortune teller look.

Polar Bear Writing Unit

I had so much fun with my polar bear writing unit. I learned how to use the green screen, learned new facts about polar bears, and just plain had a great time.

We used the green screen pictures to go along with our polar bear pet stories. Learning to use the green screen was so much fun. My little guy was such a trooper as I practiced on him. The app that I used was Green Screen by Do Ink. It costs $2.99. It is very easy to use.

We used graphic organizers for our pre-writing and rough draft. They can be found at my TPT store.

 

I found a great polar bear pet story about a man who actually had a polar bear pet. It had a video that I showed my students. It helped my students to be able to gain an understanding of what it would really take to own a polar bear. The story can be found here.

We also read polar bear books and then did animal reports on what we found out. Here is a list of books we used-

Nonfiction

•Born to be Wild Little Polar Bears- By: Valerie Guidoux

•Polar Bear Math- By: Ann Whitehead Nagda and Cindy Bickel

•Wild Bears! Polar Bear- By: Jasona and Jody Stone

Fiction

•The Three Snow Bears- By: Jan Brett

•Big Bear Little Bear- By: David Bedford and Jane Chapman

As we read the books students filed out a book study page.

 Students were also able to watch videos found on National Geographic Kids and fill out fact pages.

Students then used the information they learned to write an animal report about polar bears. They used pre-writing and rough draft pages.

I work with students with limited expressive abilities. I created a chart to help students be able to convey the information they wanted to let me know. I found the hardest was what polar bears eat.

We also used the Polar Bear word bank extensively.

We used the cute polar bear template found here to hold up our animal reports.
We also used a great Ranger Rick magazine. It had such great pictures Dec/Jan 2016.

Polar Bear Research and Writing Unit -New Product

I just added new things to my TPT store. A fun polar bear writing unit. The students loved this. We truly put polar bears to the test, we researched them, wrote nonfiction, and fiction about them, and generally just enjoyed these beautiful creatures. I hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

What is a Bay? Funny of the Day

A fellow teacher shared with me a good funny. She was teaching a reading lesson and they came across the word bay. Checking vocabulary she asked, "what do you think a bay is?"

Many guesses were made and finally a student said, "is it the name of a lake or water?"

To which the reply of a fellow student in disguised replied in a condescending tone, "no it's the name of a girlfriend."

They may be young, but it is never to late to have a girlfriend.

For The Love of Music and Math

One of my favorite things about being a teacher is being able to see where a student is and figuring out how to get them where they need to be. I am a Special Education Teacher so this can be very interesting as you add in differing abilities. Recently my students and I were working on money. We were specifically working with counting nickels. I had worked for several days trying to help my students to grasp the concept and remember how to count by 5's.

First strategy- Drill and Kill

I know this strategy is not very affective, but we had already learned 5's at the beginning of the year. I thought a little practice and it would come back to them, so we drilled. I tried adding some rhythm, movement, clapping, and other things in. They were able to do it with me, but they were not successful alone. 

With some formative assessment I could see this wasn't going anywhere fast.

Second Strategy- See and Say

I felt that maybe my students just needed to visually see how the pattern was going. We used the hundreds chart. We started with just pointing to the 5's as we said them. The connection between the nickels and counting still felt week. We then physically placed the nickels on the hundred's chart. This strategy worked with two of my student's, but my one student was still week. The two who were catching on were still not at 100% accuracy. I still felt like I needed something, but what?

Third Strategy- Music

I pondered how I would help my students remember the pattern. We had been playing games, visualizing, reviewing, and nothing seemed to get them to a 100% success rate. The idea popped in my head to use music. A quick youtube search brought me to Mr. R. His music is so fun to listen to. It is catchy and fun. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDSWMjtMff4

It was a huge hit. The student's loved it. Soon my students could count by 5's with a 100% success rate. I am so grateful to people who take the time to add such great and helpful resources. Mr. R defiantly has a talent that I am thankful for. I still catch my student's singing the song. 

Happy Teaching!

Games used during this unit-

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nickel-Money-Games-Race-to-the-Bank-and-Concentration-2434574

Graphics for this post-

http://the3amteacher.blogspot.com/

What Kind of Play Dough is That?- Funny of the Day

For counselor week our wonderful counselor took the students and did activities with them. One of the activities this brave counselor did was make homemade play dough with all of our students. She went through so much flour. I am thankful for a great counselor who is willing to do fun things with the kids.
The funny enters when one of my students comes back with the play dough. My paraeducator told the student to put it in their cubby. My other para asked, "what is that?"
"Sensual play dough," was the innocent reply.
"What?!?"
"Oh I mean sensory, SENSORY,"

It was in front of kids and everything. Luckily they are too innocent to know what was said. You have to love freudian slips.

Funny of the Day

As one of my students was reading to self they were reading out loud. I was working at my table. I look over at the student. She looked right at me and said, "I will lick your face." I started to laugh. She said, "no it's in the book." She turns the book book around and there is a picture of a dog licking a child's face. The rest of the day randomly the phrase, "I will lick your face" ran through my head.