Diary of a Spider

Today we read the story Diary of a Spider as a follow up to Diary of a Worm both by Doreen Cronin. The kids really enjoy these stories and I find them great for helping to teach the kids about perspective. During this language group, the OT often pushes in so today we did a craft that required them to cut and plan how to make their web. We just made cuts into a paper plate around the edge and made a hole in the middle to give a starting point. The kids then needed to pull the string around the plate and criss-cross the strings in order to build a web. We then just used a little puff ball, google eyes and pipe cleaners to make a spider for the web.






Unrelated student quote for today: While looking at a dinosaur book during free reading:

Student: I really like the veggiesaurus!
Teacher: The what? Which dinosaur is that?
Student: The one that only eats veggies so they won't eat me!

We Love Spring!

We are so excited that spring is finally here! Our Physical and Occupational Therapists took the group outside today to collect objects for a reverse scavenger hunt. The students were asked to pick out 5 different  objects from the school yard. They found sticks, rocks, grass, bark, moss, pine cones & needles and even a little dog poo. (Yes, you read that correctly) When we returned to the classroom, they needed to spread out their items and create the scavenger hunt list of objects. This activity integrated their PT & OT needs as well as the classroom theme.

Pleasantly Surprised!

Today we gave the assessment for the core knowledge module we piloted. I was very nervous about the language and instructional style of the modules but the kids did great! It took them a few days to get used to the extended time being still and listening, but the number of opportunities for discussion throughout the lessons was enough to keep them engaged. Some students did thrive more than others, but based on the assessments they were all taking the information in. The students learned and were able to use words like nutrients, germinate and photosynthesis. More than any plant unit that I have taught in the past, I feel like the students really learned the parts of a plant, the plant life cycle and better understand the vocabulary involved.

We had spring break during the module so we did several review activities and read a couple additional texts related to the topic: The Secret Life of Trees by Chiara Chevallier and How Does It Grow: From Seed to Sunflower by Ian Smith. I also created a SMART Response activity to review the plant parts and evergreen vs deciduous trees.

I am still concerned about how this new instructional program will be effective over time in a multi-age special education classroom but I do feel better about jumping into the listening and learning modules in the fall.

SUCCESS!!

I found this awesome number of the day idea on pinterest in the beginning of the school year. We have been doing it daily and I change it up every trimester. I'll post them to my TPT store if you want to check them out. Anyway....we have seen a huge change in our students ability to understand and use numbers this year compared to years in the past. Most of my students are now able to write numbers to 100 without a model and all (except my kindergartner who did get to 34) are counting beyond 100! I couldn't be prouder today!!

My neglected blog, 100 days, Valentines, Phew...

February was a busy, busy month!!

I hate to share too much personal stuff, but I just bought a new house and it sure has kept me busy. What a crazy process that has become over the past few years, but I love my new space!

February always seems to fly by with our winter recess in the middle. We celebrated 100 days, Valentine's Day, learned about dental health and studied George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

We had the students work with the number 100 in so many different ways. They each brought in 100 items to share; we counted by 1's, 5's and 10's to 100; we did 100 exercises throughout the day

The kids had a great time creating special Valentine's for their loved ones. Valentine's day is always a great time to remind everyone how much they are cared for and mean to us. Hope everyone had a great day!

With all that candy we had to work with our class on brushing their teeth. We took a few minutes every day after lunch for the kids to practice brushing their teeth. We were able to get toothbrushes and toothpaste donated by a local dentist and sent them home with the kids at the end of the month. They really learned how easy and quick it can be to brush your teeth.

We will be attempting to teach a pilot unit from the Core Knowledge curriculum this coming week. Hopefully. We planned to do this past week but our SMART board projector broke. The part of the curriculum we are trying out is the Listening and Learning section. It is completely dependent on an interactive whiteboard. This makes me nervous for implementing this curriculum in the fall. We will be dedicating 180 minutes of our school day to it. What will we do if our technology fails us, like it is right now.

Check back for updates on how it goes! I've heard good things and am excited to see how my students do with the "new" instructional style.

Groundhog Day

Happy Groundhog Day!

Today we celebrated by learning more about Groundhogs. Did you know that inside their burrows, they create a separate location for sleeping and using the bathroom? This was just one of the very interesting facts our kiddos got a kick out of!

We used a really neat SMART board presentation to introduce the holiday and learn a little more about groundhogs. Then we did a groundhog craft. I got the idea here, but tweaked it a little bit to create the 3-D image in the pictures. The students used black construction paper and white chalk to create the "shadow." We then taped just the feet of the ground hog (face down) to the page and taped a pipe cleaner to the back so it can stand up and see it's shadow.

We read the story "Groundhog Goes Outside" from readinga-z.com as a class and played a memory game matching objects with their shadows.  

The kids wrapped up the morning with writing. They had to answer the question "If you were a groundhog, what would you want to see? Shadow or no shadow?" We reviewed writing a complete sentence using the words and details from the question. Then to see how well they understood the legend of groundhog day, they had to draw a spring or winter picture depending on their desire.

The students homework for the weekend is to try and find out if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow or not. We graphed their predictions on the SMART board and they can't wait to see if they were right. They voted 5-4 that he would see his shadow.

Core Knowledge and the Multi-age Classroom

So last week we learned that NYS is now requiring schools to adopt, adapt or align to the Core Knowledge curriculum. It is a new way of looking at the way we teach and seems to be a different approach than what I have experienced over the last 12 years of teaching. It is more theme based to ensure that students build the same knowledge base across school districts. I don't have much experience with it so far, but one BIG question is brings up for me is how do we use this new scripted (to the number of days for each theme) program into a multi age special education classroom. The themes for each grade level are very specific and build on one another. We are not a typical multi age classroom where the same set of students loop through, we have different students every year. How could I teach a 2nd grade theme when I have new kindergartners... All questions to ponder over the next few months as it seems our district is going to adopt this new program. Here is the link to the Core Knowledge website if you want to check it out. Feel free to share your thoughts or point me in the direction of more resources that help connect this to the special education world.