Cinco De Mayo

I have never before celebrated Cinco de Mayo in the classroom, but for some reason this year my end of the hallway has decided to recognize this day. To be honest, I had to look up the origins of the holiday, and I was quite impressed by the historical significance. Had it not been for the Mexican militia at the Battle of Puebla the French might have established their hold on Mexico earlier and been in a position to support the South during our Civil War. This might have turned the tides of battle significantly. Isn't it a wonder how an event can have such far-flung and long reaching effects? Reminds me of my new favorite show, Touch!

Originally we were just going to do something small, but as the event nears it is getting more elaborate. This is partly due to the fact that those on high were looking for someone celebrating Cinco de Mayo and were told that our three classes were going to be doing a little something in the afternoon. Now a newspaper photographer is coming to take pictures, plus some powers-that-be might stop by, so don't you know, we just have to have something newsworthy going on when they come by. Here's our plans so far:

 We are going to be reading different books - both fiction and non-fiction about Cinco de Mayo and Mexican culture. Here are a few on our list:



We are going to be making homemade salsa in class, and serving it with nachos and cheese for snack. That's to go along with this fun book:

 

My class is going to be all decked out for a fiesta - including my tree! I just picked up a fun tablecloth for my reading area and we also have a pinata! Should be super fun I think! I will make sure to get pictures and post them!

Here's a freebie for you, in honor of Cinco de Mayo, a new set of Roll & Cover addition and subtraction boards to play during your "fiesta"! Just click the picture to download it for free from my TPT store!

Writing Wednesday

Today's post is going to cover how I solve the "How do you spell.....?" question in my classroom. If you are the go-to source for correct spelling in your classroom you're working too hard! Here are my go-to sources for spelling:

Thematic Word Wall: Most of the year our writing is based around themes. Sometimes these are holidays, but mostly just different area of study like Ocean, Zoo, Farm or Arctic, to name a few. For each of these themes I create a mini word wall from a poster board. I made a lot of these during my first year of teaching and I used the word wall cards from Kids Soup. Nowadays I create my own for any new themes I come up with using clipart or photos depending on the theme. A lot of times I find that photos are more helpful as they allow my kiddos to form a realistic idea of the word's meaning. These word walls are incredibly handy for teaching vocabulary - especially for ELL kiddos who can identify needed words easier when there is a picture clue. In addition though, they are a great spelling resource for our thematic writing. I usually keep the theme we're using up on our main whiteboard and hang the older posters up around the classroom for reference.

Picture Dictionary: I am so thankful that Title I bought these for my classroom a few years ago:

I have a class set of 20, but usually less than 10 are being used at any given time, so consider just purchasing a few at a time if you don't have any. This dictionary is great for teaching alphabetical order: "You're looking for the word "octopus" and you're at "rabbit". Does "r" come before or after "o"?" This dictionary has easy-to-understand pictures (again important for ELL kiddos) and over 900 common words. My favorite part is in the appendices in the back which have colorful scenes of places like classroom, zoo, and construction site to show students the words in context . Most of the time, if my kiddos are unsure of how to spell a word, they can find it in this dictionary and solve their own problem without having to come to me.

Super Spellers: Every year I have a few kiddos who are naturally good spellers. I try to spread them out around the classroom so they are readily accessible. Often times as they tell others how to spell words they'll throw out random advice for how they remember to spell a given word that is just priceless. One time I heard a student say "Just think "to get her" and that's how you spell "together"!" and I was floored that I had never thought of it that way! Being utilized in this manner makes the super speller feel good about themselves plus it is sometimes easier for a child to ask a peer rather than come to the teacher. Not to mention it saves me from being interrupted!

Post-its: I favor the mini ones. My former principal gave everyone a personalized post-it holder a few years ago and it was the best gift. Ours looks something like this, but have our names on a little plate on the top instead of a logo:

If there is a word that needs to be spelled and I know that the child will be unable to sound it out (for a while we went through a phase where we weren't allowed to say "sound it out" but had to say "stretch the sounds" instead - does your school have any "banned" words or phrases?) and I know that it's important for the word to be spelled correctly (there are some children who will completely freeze up if they don't know how to spell a word - their perfectionism, for lack of a better term, simply won't allow them to use invented spelling) then I will jot the word down on a post-it and stick it to their desk. This way I don't have to repeat it 5 times as they write it, plus they can pass the post-it on if someone else needs the same word. A few times we have collected the post-its at the end of a writing session and tried to create sentences with them, it was a fun filler activity!

Different kinds of paper: Although we are encouraged to have a writing journal, I find that it leads to boredom. We like to switch it up - sometimes writing in our journals but other times writing on index cards, sentence strips, receipt tape paper, or dry erase boards to name a few. I also like to make fun writing papers like this little freebie that I'm sharing with you to use for Cinco de Mayo:

Cinco de Mayo

I hope this post gave you at least one new idea, I'd love to hear what you do to stop your kiddos from forever asking "How do you spell...?" be sure to rustle up a comment below!

Oh, and I used a random number generator to pick two comments from last night's post to win their choice of one of my Roll & Cover games. Forgive me for not posting the pictures of the RNG as proof, but it's late and I'm tired :) Comments 2 and 8 were the winners, so that's Christine and Kate! Ladies, if you'll email me your choice of Roll & Cover games I'll email it to you tomorrow!

Dew and Glue!

Today was a day! This post is mostly about behavior - the good and the bad:

One of my darlings transferred to our school about 4 months ago and has been a handful ever since. Little miss is very very very chatty. I could add about 50 more "very"s but you get the point right? I can't even get 2 words out without her interrupting with a story or a request for a drink or bathroom or to tell me the sky is blue today. Every other student in class is fed up with her because she is constantly disrupting class. She complains frequently that no one wants to be her friend or play with her, but that's because no one else could get a word in edgewise.

Well, last week her mama came to see me and we had a heart to heart. I explained how concerned I was that she wasn't able to socialize properly, that she was so behind academically even though she is bright etc. I encouraged her again to see a doctor about at least filling out a survey for ADHD. I also mentioned that if she wanted to, she could give her daughter some soda or coffee over the weekend and see if the caffeine made a difference at home.

On Monday, little miss showed up with a note and a bottle of Mountain Dew. The note gives me permission to give her some Dew in the morning and at lunch because mama saw some improvement in behavior over the weekend. So little miss got a cup with breakfast and a cup with lunch and had a pretty good day! I reported to mama that I had seen a change for the better.

Little miss came to school again today with a can of Dew and oh my goodness! I did not have to ask her to be quiet, stay in her seat or do her work at all today! At one point I looked around to see who I could clip up on our behavior chart and she was one of the few actually on task! During a phonics game she was the only good sport on her team, encouraging a teammate who had gotten a wrong answer with "Good job M! You'll get it next time!" My jaw actually dropped to the floor. By the end of the day, all of the children were saying "Wow, little miss had a really good day today, didn't she Mrs. K?!" I got to write another nice letter to mama, saying her daughter's behavior was off the chart today (that's as good as it gets in our class!).

Now, just in case I was unduly influenced by the knowledge that she was taking the Dew, I also asked the PE and Music teachers as well as her tutor and all of them reported a change in behavior, not knowing about the Dew. Then I went and looked at our timed math test that we take every few days. Little miss usually gets about 8-10 addition facts solved in 2 minutes. Today she got 16 in the same time! In 3 minutes for subtraction, little miss usually gets about 15 or so right, today she got 35! I am absolutely floored by the difference. Of course mama is still taking little miss to the doctor for an official diagnosis, but at least we will have a good rest of the year! I hadn't realized how draining it was dealing with her until I didn't have to for 2 days.

On the other hand, our new little friend from another state, hmm I will call him Glue Boy, had another not so good day today. Lots of not listening, getting into everything he shouldn't, including trying to feed the chicks stuff he found on the ground, running in the classroom and playing with glue. Remember, this is the little guy who came with straight A's on his glowing report card, hah! Well today when he got picked up, I was asked "Was he good today?" and I shrugged and said "We had some issues.", not wanting to go into detail with other parents and children still standing around.

 Glue Boy then gets told that he won't get to go to the movies this weekend and if this keeps up he's going to jail next weekend. Yes, jail. Totally serious here folks. Apparently the family has found out about some program called "Reality Check" where they can drop him off on a Friday afternoon and he spends the night getting scared straight. Of course, a bunch of other children were still all there listening, so I'm sure it's going to be the talk of the class tomorrow.

Jail?! For an 8 year old who just needs some discipline?! Who has just moved from another state and is adjusting to a rather crappy living situation?! Well hmmm I guess now I know why that other teacher was giving a good report - to prevent ridiculous punishments on the parents' part probably. But seriously, if you play this card when the kid is 8, what are you going to do when he's 15 and getting into real trouble? Now I have to come up with some super creative classroom management that is going to improve his behavior asap because I don't want to be responsible for getting him sent to jail over playing with glue or talking out of turn.

Oh yes, I had a meeting tonight for parents of children who were given the Maturation Assessment that helps determine if they're recommended for retention, Transitional First or first grade. Out of 40 children, only 5 parents showed up. Of course those were the parents of the 5 recommended for first grade. Anyone see a correlation?!

Hmmmm, rather a downer of a post tonight isn't it? To pep things up, and to thank you for reading this, I'll have a flash giveaway! I've created a bunch of new Roll and Cover addition and subtraction games lately, Rustle up a Response below and I'll choose 2 random commenters tomorrow night at 8pm to win their choice of one of my Roll and Cover games. Check out my newest ones:

 Dinosaur Themed Roll & Cover

Beachy Roll & Cover

 Pirate Roll & Cover

 

 Zoo Roll & Cover