Thursday, September 22, 2011

What's my name? Where's my stuff?

Well, here's a cool idea to help young children learn their name. Recognizing, identifying the letters in their name, and writing those letters in the order they should appear in their name.

It's called a Name Puzzle; I keep my class set in this box, labeled so that they get their own. Everyone knows what their face looks like, right? :o)


  Each laminated envelope has their face clear taped to it for them to identify and choose. (I believe in enabling my students to be self-sufficient in every possible way. It takes more planning and creating but it is super awesome in the long run!)


let me preface this by saying that I LOVE VELCRO!!  I have that stuff all over my room!  It is clean, fast, and neat!  Anyway, so I put velcro on the envelope flap so that they close and open easily without having the puzzle pieces slip out.


They take it to their seat and take the pieces out and the example (green) (all those parts are laminated as well. I also live off laminating things. It makes a good idea last forever, then it becomes a genius idea!) The child uses the example to see what the finished product will be like.  Then they have to arrange the letters in that order. This one is cut up into syllables, not each letter.  After the child has become more proficient in creating and writing his name, I cut it down to each letter.
To me it is very important that the child see their name written in correct print. They are learning the shape and formation of letters now and need the structure of a specific guideline....later on they can develop their own writing style.  Penmanship is under-rated.
 

After they arrange it correctly, they get a slip of paper from a stack that I have made ahead of time. They are to then copy their name onto it with crayon. The puzzle pieces come in handy because you can isolate 1-2 letters at a time for them to copy.  This is my example ....theirs will probably not look like this. :)



After the first copy they write they choose a different color and trace over the previous color, and then again a third time. So that you end up with 3 colors - Rainbow Name!

For the struggling student, I have them trace the example with crayon. (crayon writes just fine on laminated surfaces and it wipes off with a firm rub with a Kleenex) Then they can move onto the copying on the slip of paper.
They take their Rainbow Name home and they put everything else in their envelope and back into the blue box for the next day! :)


Here are pictures of my students work baskets (work supplies). A great way to, again, make them self-sufficient. It also makes my life easier too. :)

Two students share a work basket.  Their name tags are attached with velcro (they use these for center time as well)  In the basket they find everything they need to work at their tables:

Name tags

Glue for each person.

Scissors and pencils for each person as well.

And of course the mandatory set of crayons. (actually two boxes in each can)  These cans are recycled baby formula cans. perfect size and height. :)
Finally here is the Writing Journal Box per table.  It doubles as a library book storage too.






Everything has a place and everything in it's place. ;)
Here are my Writing Journals for each child:






This I attach to the first page so that I can easily keep track of their writing progress over the course of the year. I label each stage with the date at which I observe they have mastered that stage. 

This clip is to make the next blank page, easy to find. For them and me.

I stamp the date, but soon they will be able to copy the date form the board and write it themselves. They write their name and then their picture/story entry.  I take dictation from what they tell me beneath the picture.

The next blank page. I move the clip after we conference about their picture/story.
The End!

I am so tired!  But I really wanted to share this. Hope you guys enjoy it! 

Leave comments! :o)

Friday, September 16, 2011

NEw ClaSs RoOm pics!

 It's about time!  I know! I am so excited to have a new camera and even more for the quality that this one has! It has 16.2 mega pixels!!  Almost triple what I had before and man does it show!  I think you will agree. :o)
Anywho....here are new pictures i took today of my class and a few classroom management/ organization techniques I use That you might enjoy.
This is a picture of the entrance. Much less busy than last year and I'm liking that. Finally put up some student work for Open House last night.

The area from which i do most of my teaching. (Circle Time)  The large clear boxes have the books that I will be using for the theme I'm currently on. The Lazy Lady Bug is there....she helps me teach, when she wants to. ;)

This is the puzzle center table (for now) and the Sensory Table in the back to the left.  I have pinto beans in it now with a variety of 'treasures' hidden in there that they have to use their 'senses' to find and sort in clear little bottles. 
These are the baskets I decided to use this year as their children's mail boxes. Here they keep their Take-Home Folders and I place their work or anything I want them to take home. They share their basket with a partner, the one they sit with.

This is the Construction Center. The children are only allowed to play with what is on TOP of the table. I rotate the materials about every 2 weeks, depending on their interest, popularity, or the theme for the week.

One technique i use for crowd control on the centers (especially this one), is the picture clue of how many people can be there at one time.  I put up the gingerbread men and the dots and the number.  Plus, beneath the Center sign I have slots with black velcro dots where the children will place their name/face to show that they have chosen this center. Once the name/faces reach the Stop Sign, the center is full and no one else can play there at that time.  Self correcting, although I have a few creative ones that try to get away with placing their face on the ledge there...:o)

This is the Kindness Tree.  It is part of the discipline system (Conscious Discipline) that I am using in my classroom this year. I am enjoying it more than I thought, to be honest.  And so far so good with the results. The tree functions in this way: The children have learned a different behavior that we have promised to commit to every week (ie. Kind words, helping hands, big voice, etc.) If I catch them doing any of these things, they get to place a heart on our kindness tree. (the hearts are velcro'd on) The hearts are taken off and we start again every week.

This is student work that I displayed about brushing our teeth.  Mine is the big white chart paper that i used to model and talk about keeping out teeth clean etc. I love the sticky back chart paper!  I simply tear it off and stick it up anywhere to display. Instant print rich environment!
This is my Classroom helper chart.  It is pretty much self explanatory, but a fun feature is that as you can tell, that is not my whole class there as helpers. This is because some children are not ready to be any kind of helper just yet, and so the rest that aren't 'working' in the classroom are 'on vacation'. :) No one feels bad.

Close up. I created this last year and laminated everything, so i just had to whip those babies out and presto!: Helper chart assembled. :)

This is my Bilingual Pairs Chart. The children on the left column are more English dominant and the right are Spanish dominant. They will eventually have a blue or red border to denote this fact. (blue-English, red - Spanish)

Close up. It's still a work in progress and it will not be the same partners all year. It should be fluid.









Friday, September 2, 2011

The camera is in the building!

My camera got here today!  So excited! It's gorgeous, with a touch screen and new features like HD video and 3D images, but way lighter than my old one!  Go figure.

Can't really take a picture of the camera but a post without pics is kinda boring so here are a few old old old pics that I stumbled upon as I was organizing my imported pics from my old computer. See how many people you recognize!


My brother Steve with his full head of hair. :)

Steve (with hair), Kemelito, and Esli with hair too!!

Kemelito making cookies with me one Christmas long ago...

Same Christmas - Jacob

Same event - Isaac Daniel (Jason was being born that night)

Steve, Kemelito, Matt, and Seth
well, there's alot more where that came from...so...keep coming by!

Mitch