Search results matching tags 'special education' and 'language arts'

Making an Inference

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 13:00:00 GMT

Making inferences is on of the hardest skills for my students. Having to hear something or looking at something and read between the lines is not easy for a child who is a "typical" learner, let alone for one who has various challenges.

Recently I was given the opportunity to use Inference Task Cards made by Rachelle Lynette who is the author of the blog/website Minds in Bloom (Where she has lots of freebies. I freebies!!). These task cards are for students in Grades 1-2 and present a short story with a question at the end. They can be used in a small group, for an individual writing activity, or as 1:1 intervention. I used them as both small group and for 1:1 intervention. In both situations, the students LOVED them!! Depending on the student, I read the card to the student or the student read it to me (with me re-reading it to them). Then we read the question. Sometimes the student was able to figure out the answer quickly, other times we had to work together to figure it out. I found that life experiences played a huge role in the situations that my students understood. Some have never had the opportunity to go to the beach or they do not have soup when they are sick. This made the cards harder, but also gave me an chance to work on expanding their knowledge of these situations.

In the packet, Rachel includes a tracking sheet so that students can keep track of which cards they have done (all of the cards are numbered) and also an answer sheet. These cards are ready to be printed off and then used. All you need to do is laminate (if you choose) and cut them out. Rachel even includes a label so that you can put your cards in an enveloped and already have a matching label to go with on it.

Rachel has developed an entire site dedicated to Task Cards and how she uses them. You can check it out to find more ways to use the Inference Task Cards or other task cards Rachel has developed.

I am heading over to Rachel's store now to see what other cards I would like to purchase for my classroom. I am sure I will not be able to choose just one!

March Shapes

Anonymous — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 13:00:00 GMT

Every month we practice a different skill using shapes. I have shown this before in one of my sight word posts.

This month we have community signs on shamrocks. We also have a few coins thrown in there with an American symbol or two. Just trying to keep it ~~crazy~~ interesting.

Sometimes I use these as flashcards, but most of the time I spread them out on the carpet and call one out for the kids to find. This is a great way to work on receptive language. Occasionally I will have one student tell the others what to find. Now we are throwing some expressive language in there. This also provides the opportunity to work on some gross and fine motor skills. The kids needs to bend over to pick up the shapes and I usually make them out of thinner paper so they need to really use their fingers and pincer grasp to pick them up.

I love activities that practice multiple skills at one time!!

OH PEEP!! Preview

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 21:30:00 GMT

I love making various versions of the game Oh No!, but I always wonder how they go in other classrooms. So to find out I asked a few of my fellow teacher bloggers to help me out. The first one who used it was Patty over at Second in Line. If you have not checked out her blog, you really should. She is hysterical!! She has lots of pictures and explanations about Oh PEEP!

When I first added this game to my store, I also gave it away to one of my Facebook Fans. (Here comes the shameless Facebook plug) Other times when I have posted a new item I have made it free for 15 minuets and announced it on my Facebook page. My point here..... if you are not a fan on Facebook, sail over and board the ship! You never know what good deal or great idea I might post or share! You can get to the Facebook Fan page by clicking here or clicking on the Facebook icon to the right.

If you would like to check out OH PEEP! or any of the other sight word games I have made check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store or my Teacher's Notebook Store. I am always adding more!! I also love suggestions on what you might like to see or changes I can make to make a game or activity better.

I am done with my plug now!! If you have hung on this long, I highly suggest going to check out Patty's blog.

Sight Words: Embedded into science

Anonymous — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:00:00 GMT

As I have mentioned in previous post, we practice sight words all the time. During our science lesson is another great way I can add in a little practice. Since my students LOVE music and they seemed to hang onto information better if I put it to a tune (the best one is my song for an author that I completely made up on a whim). Our current science unit is about the 5 senses. I projected a song on the board and after we sang it, we took a few minutes to circle the sight words in the song. I called outa word and one of the kiddos would find the word and circle. An easy way to get them out of their seats and to practice sight words during a time dedicated for science instruction.

Sight words: word walls

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 20:00:00 GMT

We have two word walls in our room. We have one that is up all year and we add words to it throughout the year. (Although this year, I have been really bad with this). It is on the back of a shelf that runs along our carpet. I thought this would be a good height, but I actually think it is to low and the kids don't even realize it is there. I use computer labels to add the words. I could print them on the computer ( and use different fonts), but I just end up writing them with a marker.

We also have a seasonal/unit word wall where I change the words with each unit. Currently we have winter words up. The students match the words to the pictures or the pictures to the words. I scramble them up every few days so that the kiddos do not simply memorize where they are. Some of the list I come up with on my own and some I have found on different websites all ready to go and free. (If you have been reading my blog for awhile you know that I love anything free.) I am amazed at how quickly the kids pick up on these words and then start generalizing and using the words in other settings.

Here are some free ones I just found:
Winter Words
Christmas words
Spring Words

Do you have a word wall in your room? How do you use it? Where is it located?

Singing our sight words

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:00:00 GMT

In addition to the games we play with sight words we also sing ~~some~~ A LOT of songs that often include our sight words. One we sing everyday during our morning circle is our sight word for the week song. This is sung to the tune of bingo and I often see it one other sights as the sight word of the day. Sometimes the sight word will go for two weeks if one of the weeks is short. When I fist made the little chart to go with it I decided to use velcro, but if I was redoing it, I would just write the words on with a dry erase marker. It would be a big time and velcro saver.

We also sing songs that relate to our current unit and use those songs to find our sight words such as like the Martin Luther King Jr song.

Another way we incorporate our sight words into our singing is I find videos on YouTube that also display the words. A class favorite is this version of jingle bells. I know you tube can sometimes bring up some scary stuff, so a use a site called safe share that makes all of that stuff go away. I will write more about that soon, but the picture below is from that site.

The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 22:30:00 GMT

We spent all of last week working on the book The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything. I love to use this book because of the interaction you can have with it. We have movements for each part of the book. Shoes (stomp with our feet) Pair of Pant (wiggle our bottoms) Shirt (Shake our arms) Gloves (clap hands) hat (nod head) Pumpkin Head (say boo!) We also use props. I start the book with visuals on the board. We then add a hat, shoes, gloves, etc, and each student has a responsibly for a part of the story. This helps to keep them engaged.

This year we used story sticks from Make Learning Fun (If you haven't checked out this website, it is fantastic!) She suggested using paint sticks to make the story sticks, but I didn't have any on hand, so I used two Popsicle sticks hot glued together. I found out quickly that this would not work for my students, so on to plan B. I used duct tape to hook the two sticks together. This not only accomplished the task of keeping the sticks together, but made them stand out more also. I used the sticky puddy like stuff that you can use to hook posters to the wall to add the pictures. This made the pictures removable and I didn't need to use Velcro. (which I am quickly going through this year) My students used theses during the story by adding each item as the Little Old Lady came up to it in the book. They also used it to sequence the story and to retell the story.

Oh turkey! (Revisit)

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 12:00:00 GMT

I have gained a lot of new followers since I posted this last year. I thought we should revisit Oh Turkey! so all of the new comers to check it out also (and those of you who missed it or forgot you had it can get it also!).

Here is the description from my TPT store: This 15 page document includes various versions of the game "Oh Turkey!" for your students to enjoy. The first set is all of the upper and lowercase letters. The second set is numbers 1-20 along with turkeys programmed with dots for numbers 1 -10 so that students can also practice 1:1 correspondence. The third set is the Dolch pre-primer sight words. To play students pick out one turkey from a basket and read the letter/word/number. If they get it correct they keep the turkey. If a student pulls "Oh Turkey!", then they must put all of the turkeys back in the basket.

I will say my students LOVE this game! I can't wait to pull it out so we can start playing again. Click here to go to my TPT store and download it for free. You can also find other Thanksgiving freebies by checking out the freebie tab up top!

Wordle

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:42:00 GMT

I have been attending Tech Trek this week and learning all kinds of new educational things to use in the classroom. One that I have been very excited to share is wordle. It is such a neat way to display a bunch of words and I have thought of so many uses for it already. You could have the kids list adjectives that describe a character in story, you could put all of the names of the kids in your class, words that describe China and the list goes on and on. There are also so many ways that you can edit your wordle to make it unique. I have already introduced this to my oldest son A who is going into first grade and he loves it! How do you think you may use this tool in the classroom?

Pirate Roll a Word 2! (FREEBIE!!)

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 20:00:00 GMT

Hello Everyone!! I wanted to share a freebie with you. I made this for the young lady I tutor(she is going into 1st grade) and she loved it. I added a pre-made die template this time and also the words to add to your own die. You can click here to check it out in Google Docs. If you have not seen the other pirate version you can check it out here. There is also a fall version here.

Roll a Word Pirate Edition 2

If you have an special requests for certain words, just let me know and I can make it for you! Just in case you are looking for some of the dice where you can change out the words here are a few on Amazon.  

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