Classroom Songs

Corporations sell billions of dollars worth of junk just because they have a catchy song or phrase attached to it.  I'm a teacher, I don't sell junk, but I DO sell education - to my students, every single day.  I am a firm believer in marketing.  If they remember it, they will buy it.  Because of this, I make up hand actions for all kinds of things (QAR, Rules, vowel sounds, etc.), I try to think up acronyms or mnemonic sentences, and - my favorite technique of all - I sing.  Now, my repertoire of songs is minimal and my vocal chords are generally off key, but oh, give me a good sort of mono tone song about academics, I'm sold!  Anyone remember Animaniacs?  They had some great songs that I always loved and still use today: Presidents, states, capitals, and more.  Too bad most of them are for subjects a bit higher then first grade.  Still, I have some good ones for our firsties.  I have no idea who wrote these, but please know NONE of these are my personal creation.  I only dream of being that creative!

Handwriting (to the tune of "If You Are Happy and You Know It")

Always start your letters at the top

Always start your letters at the top

When you write a letter

you'll get better and better and better

If you always start your letters at the top!

Doubles Rap

It's the doubles baby, 

let's go, let's go

It's the doubles baby,

and it starts with zero!

0+0=0 oh!

1+1=2 ewww!

2+2=4 more!

3+3=6 kicks!

4+4=8 great!

5+5=10 again!

Place Value (this one I got from teachertipster.com)

It's an army marching song, the kids repeat each line after you say it.

I don't know but I've been told

(I don't know but I've been told)

10's are tall and 1's are small

(10's are tall and 1's are small)

First you count up all the 10's

(First you count up all the 10's)

Then add the little babies on to the end

(Then add the little babies on to the end)

Water Cycle (to the tune of "Oh My Darling, Clementine")

Evaporation, Condensation, Precipitation on my mind

Their all part of the water cycle

And they happen all the time

Those are the best ones I have but I am ALWAYS looking for more.  If you have some great ones, let me know.  If you have friends that have great ones tell them to log on here and let me know.  Lets get all the great academic songs in one site!  That would be awesome.

Educational Websites

Happy 100th day!  (well, to those of you who started August 10th or 11th or so).  I will have to post some of the activities later.  Tonight, let's focus on the world wide web.  The treasure trove of, everything.  I find it hard to invent my own things because, well, most of it has been invented!  I'm sure with my exploration of technology I will tweak lessons in new ways, but the days of creating lessons that work without knowing of someone who has done it before are quickly diminishing.  Blogs and community sights like ProTeacher or A to Z Teacher pop up everywhere with amazing teaching ideas.  So many that they can sometimes be overwhelming when you just need something specific.  I surf the web a lot, but I like to have islands I can land on when I'm too tired to sift through the waves.

For reading comprehension I have found amazing lessons on Readworks.org.  Not only do they lay out 2 or 3 great lesson for each reading skill at every elementary grade level, but they also align each of those lessons to every states standards AND the Common Core State Standards.  Don't have the book that they suggest to use in the lesson?  No problem!  The site also lists alternate books for each of their lesson plans.  So far each lesson I have used has been wonderful.  The best part about it?  Every part of this website is absolutely free.  It's run by a not for profit that just wants to make sure everyone figures out how to read.

Another great site is themathworksheetsite.com.  If you want access to the entire site you have to pay, but the fee is minimal.  Still, what you can get for free is awesome.  You can create math worksheets for any subject and they are good!  Simply choose the number of problems, the parameters, etc and hit publish.  Voila, yours for the taking.  Need multiple versions of the same quiz?  Done!  Not just facts either - they have geometry, time, money, measurement, early education, place value, fact families, function tables, graphing, algebra, logarithms, games, tangrams, checks and registers, and more!

A great site to have an actor read some great stories to your kiddos is storyonline.net.  The Screen Actors Guild members got together and volunteered to read stories of some really great children's books.  They do the voices, show the pictures, all of that.  It's fun for the kids.  Great for you if you don't have a book and they have it on there, or if you just want a picture book told to your students by someone who can tell a story better then you.

For my fun, crazy, classroom songs I turn to teachertipster.com.  This guy teaches 1st grade and has loads of fun with his kids.  I'm a rockstar at heart, so I have no problem belting out these tunes in an off key voice and my kids love it!

Of course there is teacherspayteachers.com.  This site has so many activities created by teachers for teachers that it can be too much.  However, they just reworked their site so you can now narrow by subject, type of document, grade, and price.  I spend a lot of time in the "free" zone.  Every seller is required to have at least one item offered for free so there are a TON of things in all subjects that are available for download without paying a penny.

What are your "go to" websites?  I am always looking for more islands!  Surfing is hard work!

Frustratingly Funny

Smaller... a seemingly simple word.   Apparently with only one meaning for one of my students.  This boy has a really rough time with subtraction and addition.  He always wants to add regardless of the sign or story problem, but he can't add or subtract anyway so the answer is never right.  I am really beating my head against a wall with this kid.  So today, I send him to study hall to try to finish more subtraction practice.  The other first grade teacher looks over his paper when he is done and says "No, we are subtracting, not adding."  "Subtracting?" My student says.  "Yes, see the minus sign."  "Minus sign?" my student says.  "Yes, when you subtract the numbers get smaller."  "Smaller?" my student says.  "Yes, smaller."  "Smaller." my student says.  The teacher smiles and off my student goes to try again.  He returns moments later and (I wish I had taken a picture of the paper) the answers are erased and rewritten in the tiniest handwriting he can manage.  He wrote the exact same answer just SMALLER.  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

A Piece of Classroom Management

I realize classroom management is more then just the consequences (good and bad) but that is my focus today. Last year my kids were jumping off the walls.  Literally.  I had an observation by my principal and during the lesson one student got up, ran across the room, jumped off the wall and ran back to his desk.  I was mortified! I needed a better system.

Our school all goes by a color system for the most part.  "Green" is good, "Yellow" is a warning, and "Red" is a call home, or note, or whatever the teacher decides.  Nothing wrong with this system, but over the summer I found one I liked even better.  I actually saw it in several different places so I don't know where the idea originated exactly.  It is the same basic idea as the green, yellow, red - it just has more levels.

My kids had a great day today!  Anyway, every one starts on Green "Ready to Learn".  If they make good choices they go up to Blue "Good Choice".  If they do a great job they go up to Purple "Great Choice."  Should students decide to make poor choices they go down to Yellow "Warning", Orange "Loss of Privilege", then Red "Call Home."  I like this system because the students can go up as well as down.  It makes it easier to make an example of the good kids.  

Some logistics... I had the banner printed at Vista Print (great site if you have used it... you can get loads of free stuff, though I did pay for the banner).  It was their small banner.  I just uploaded a PDF document that had the colors and definitions on it as my image. Click on the link below to access the PDF.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B0niKLdbTCbGOTlhZjM3ZmUtYWRmYi00YzdjLTkxYmYtNGFkZTBiMjYxMjFk

If my kids end on Purple they get a Money Card

These are again from Vista Print... 250 free business cards!  I just used one of their already made templates and changed the wording so it worked for me.  They also get a sticker to wear home (again Vista Print free address labels)

If they are on Blue they get two tickets (like the carnival tickets at a fair) and a sticker to wear home...

If they are on Green they get one ticket.  5 Money cards or 10 tickets buys them a prize from my prize box. It seems like a lot, but really, it takes a few seconds at the end of the day to hand out the money cards and tickets.  The kids like it.  They are sooooo excited to get the stickers and end up on purple or blue.  

This is individual behavior.  The class as a whole has the challenge to fill up a hundreds chart.  Each time they get a compliment in the hall from another teacher, or I think they have done an exceptionally good job at something as a class, they get to pick a random number from a bag and put it in the hundreds chart.  If they get 10 in a row we have a Popsicle party.

We have had one so far this year... we are working on our second!  Anyone else have a great system they use?  I'd love to hear about it!  I'm always looking for ways to make mine better.

Valentine's

I was playing with my daughter today and we were looking at all the stuff she had in a gift bag from a recent birthday party.  One was a maze.  You know, the cheap little circular ones...

I thought I would buy a class set of these and attach a cute tag that says "You aMAZE me!" for Valentines for my kiddos.  

I am sure someone out there has thought of this before, but it is a great new idea for me!  I'll post the finished project when I get there.

Fact Families

I started my fact family unit by drawing a picture of a house.  I asked the students what it was... and who lives there.  I explained that people who live in the same house are related.  OOPS!  Half of these kids have one person, if not more people, living in their house who are not related!  So I backtracked a little and explained that who you live with is your family.  Ok, moving on.  I drew three numbers in the attic of the house.  The "daddy" number at the top point, the "mommy" number to one side and the "baby" number to the other side.  I asked them how they were all connected.  I explained that they each had something to do with the others.  The kids had a really tough time with this so I had to suggest that the two small numbers added up to the big number and if you subtract one small number from the big number you get the other small number.  Then I showed them the facts that belong in the house and sent them to their desk with their own piece of construction paper.  I told them to draw a house, I gave them three numbers and they were supposed to write all the facts.  I have 20 kids... .two got it.  A disaster! You think I moved a little to fast?  :-) - Back to the drawing board.

The next day I brought them all to the carpet and we looked at connecting cubes and squares.  I put 3 connecting cubes in one square and four in the other.  I moved both sets to a big square.  I showed them the addition problem.  I moved one small set back and modeled the subtraction problem.  I moved both sets forward and modeled the turn around fact.  I moved the other small set back and modeled the other subtraction problem.  I put them in partners with their own squares and connecting cubes.  About three more got it.  Ok, making progress!

I visited the house idea again.  Now that I had some kids getting it they were able to help me with the lesson.  I used a premade house this time (learned my lesson on that!).  I modeled using a domino to get the "mommy" and "baby" numbers and then adding those together to get the "daddy" numbers.  We filled out the house as a class.  Next, I paired those 5 with 5 who weren't getting it at all and put the others in partners as well.  I gave each pair a domino.  They had to find the three numbers in the fact family and then find the four facts.  If they were successful, they brought me the page and I gave them each their own domino and house to complete on their own.  Once they did that successfully they were able to color the house to add to our fact family neighborhood.

More kids were getting it, but we needed to catch the rest of them.  So I made up a wiggle dance.  They held 4 fingers up on one hand, and five on the other.  We wiggled our left hand and shouted four.  We wiggled our right hand and shouted 5.  We put them together and wiggled our whole body while shouting nine.  We did this over and over again adding the words "Four ::wiggle:: plus Five ::wiggle:: equals Nine ::body wiggle::"  We repeated this with the turn around and subtraction facts.  Super fun.  

The activity I did yesterday has been my favorite so far.  I made five sets of signs (just sharpie on white copy paper) Each set contained three related numbers, an equal sign, and a plus (one one side)/minus (on the other) sign.  I asked for five volunteers.  I gave each volunteer a sign.  First we looked at the numbers in our fact family.  We found the daddy number, mommy number, and baby number.  We reviewed that the mommy and baby add up to the daddy.  We made this number sentence with our signs.  Then we did the turn around fact.  I stressed that the daddy number stayed at the end of the number sentence!  Next, we did the two subtraction facts and realized that, again, the daddy number did not move and stayed at the beginning of the number sentence.  After this was modeled I split the class into 4 groups of five.  I gave each group a set of signs (each set used different numbers).  I assigned a scribe.  Their job was to find all the facts in the fact family, write them down and be ready to present to the class.  They LOVED this.  I walked around the room and heard lots of great explaining going on.  No one dominated the conversation or just directed people around (which is great, because that happens a lot)  When they all had their facts written down each group had a chance to go to the front of the room.  They had to state the numbers in their fact family and then arrange themselves to show us each fact.  This physical movement helped out a lot. 

Have all of my kids mastered fact families?  NO!  Tomorrow I am going to split them into groups again and give each group an addition number sentence.  They are going to work together to find the other three facts in the family.  After that, I'm out of ideas.  Anyone else have any???????

New Year's Resolution Writing

Alright, so the entire class isn't done, but half of them are!  The other half... most are almost done.  So I thought I would post about it!  We read the book (remember?  Squirrel's New Year's Resolution)  We talked about what resolutions were.  Then we brainstormed what we did well in 2011 and some things we would like to do better on in 2012.  They used this organizer to help them with each paragraph:

This is what I gave them to write on:

The next step with this organizer will be to have more yellow and red sentences in a paragraph, but starting with just one is OK with me!

After they were done with their final draft, we pasted it onto black construction paper and dazzled it up a bit.

We have sparkly New Year's resolutions!

I think they did great.  Don't you?