Building Character: Encouraging Problem Solving

My focus this school year will be building character with my students. The recent tragic events that have happened in our country have made me even more certain that building character and working on problem solving skills in my classroom are more important than ever. 

As I reflected on last year's students and class, I realize that I should have been more explicit in teaching and modeling how to solve problems between students. I have already been planning for next school year, and I will be heavily focusing on building our classroom's community. One of my main focuses at the beginning of the year will be teaching my students how to solve conflicts between each other.

We will be doing a lot of modeling and role playing  how we can solve the problems that might come up in the classroom. Some of the problems that came up often in last year's class were:

*He's talking too loud!

*He's too close to me!

*He's cutting in line!

*He's not my friend!

And yes, I had a class of boys last year! This year will be discussing these issues, and I will be giving my students specific strategies that they can use to solve these problems themselves (and not coming to me for every little thing!). 

In one of my teacher Facebook groups (collaborating and talking to other teachers is my favorite) another teacher suggested a Solution Wheel. What a brilliant idea! I made one for my classroom, because I loved the concept.

You can download one for your classroom by clicking the picture above.

We will spend time discussing the difference between small problems and big problems. I also loved the suggestion from the other teacher that she encouraged her students to try 3 solutions before coming to the teacher for help.

I absolutely love using mentor texts with my students. Mentor texts are so useful for so many things, and I have spent my summer researching and collecting high quality mentor texts for my classroom. Here are some of the mentor texts I will be reading to my students as we discuss problem solving and handling conflicts.

One by Kathryn Otoshi

The Boy Who Wouldn't Shareby Mike Reiss

When Sophia's Feelings Are Really, Really Hurt by Molly Bang

Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns We Can All Get Along by Howard Binkow

The Juice Box Bully by Bob Sornson and Maria Dismondy

The Selfish Crocodile by Faustin Charles and Michael Terry

If you are interested in more mentor texts, I have created a new Instagram page where I will be focusing only on mentor texts. You can follow me at @extraspecialbooks or use #extraspecialbooks if you have some great mentor texts that you would like reposted.

If you're interested in joining the Facebook group I mentioned earlier, click the picture below.

Do you have any great strategies for teaching problem solving in your classroom?

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PINTEREST APPROVED RECIPE LINK-UP: JUNE EDITION

Hi everyone! It's that fun part of summer where we're busy having BBQs with all of our friends. I don't know about you, but this is one of my favorite parts of the summer. With July 4th coming up, I've already started thinking about what kind of desserts I'll be making. 

I'm teaming up with my blogger friends, Courtney, Nicole, and Tonya to bring you some meal ideas!

So here are some of my favorite dessert recipes that are a total hit with my own kids and anyone else who has sampled this deliciousness!

Peach Crisp with Maple Cream Sauce by The Pioneer Woman

Oh my! This is absolute deliciousness! If you've never tried a Pioneer Woman recipe, you definitely should. Her recipes are easy to make, because she gives you step-by-step photograph instructions. You seriously cannot mess up one of her recipes. 

Eclair Cake by Paula Deen

If you're looking for an easy prep recipe that you can make the day before (or even morning before), this Eclair Cake is the perfect dessert. Actually, this dessert is so simple to make that my 10-year-old daughter has taken over as the Eclair Cake maker in my house. Not only is this a chocolatey delight, it's also an ideal dessert on a hot day since it's kept cold. 

Strawberry Shortcake Kabobs by Sugar Apron

A July 4th BBQ requires some kind of red, white, and blue dessert. These Strawberry Shortcake Kabobs will definitely be a winner with your guests. I like to add blueberries to mine to help keep with the theme. 

We'd love for you to link up with some of your favorite June meals and recipes that you are making this summer!

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An InLinkz Link-up

A Journey Into Flexible Seating

Hi everyone! I'm sure by now you have read many posts and seen many Instagram photos about flexible seating. This past school year, I really started thinking about how flexible seating would work in my classroom and if flexible seating was really even possible.

I had been reading some of the great blog posts out there, such as this one from Kayla at Top Dog Teaching {here} and even a blog post from Kayla's principal {here}. Lucky Little Learners {here} has a great FAQ about how flexible seating works in her classroom, and I used a very similar anchor chart when I first introduced flexible seating with my students.

We started the year off with this set-up.

After all of my reading, I stayed late the last day before Christmas break and completely rearranged my classroom. Who does that? I was determined to make it work though and wanted a fresh start in January. My students walked into this after their return from Christmas break.

Since I was teaching a resource room, my students were already used to sharing community supplies. I kept their pencils, crayons, and scissors in blue baskets. What I found so funny is that my students basically just sat in the same spot as where their desk had been previously.

The standing desks were a huge hit and one of the most used spots this school year. I had several students who were ADHD and extremely energetic. These were fabulous for those students, and I noticed that they typically chose them on their own as a working space.

Along the way, I wrote a Donors Choose project for 8 stability balls and was fortunate enough to have it funded pretty quickly.

I also lowered a circle table and pulled out my crate seats. For testing, I just told my students to find a good place for them to work and grab the dividers (manila folders laminated together).

I used this front carpet for any whole group instruction that required modeling with the document camera. My students were already used to using clipboards, so this wasn't a new skill for them. However, I quickly realized that stepping over students as I was going back and forth from my document camera to the board was not a good choice.

Which lead me to buying another rug from Target, and I came up with this set-up. My rule for students was that your body must be on one of the carpets. This way I had an aisle as a walkway for me to go back and forth from the table to my board.

One day, I happened to come across the highly sought after Scoop Rockers by pure chance. I scooped up four of them, and my students were in love! Have you ever seen anything as adorable as this Kindergartener reading?

This picture here is my proudest moment as a special education teacher. I have always struggled to get my students to independently read. I'm not sure what I did differently this year (other than the flexible seating), but I had students reading independently. 

My students knew that a clipboard was always a choice they could pick for seating.

 By the end of the year, I had come up with this configuration. I "think" I've worked out all the kinks and will be starting off the year like this for next year, with a few minor changes (such as that gray cabinet has been taken out).

 After looking back at this year, I feel like giving my students a choice in their seating was absolutely a positive thing. There were only a few times that I had to make a choice for someone and move them. Whenever that happened, I made them come sit at my kidney table until they could show me that they had earned back their right to choose.

How do you feel about flexible seating? Is this something that would work in your classroom?

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Pinterest Approved Recipe Link-Up: May Edition

Hi everyone! It's that time of the school year where life is just so hectic! I have been struggling to get through the month of May and that means dinner has been hard to get organized and prepared for my family. 

I'm teaming up with my blogger friends, Courtney and Nicole, to bring you some meal ideas!

This month is all about survival in my house. Here are some easy meal suggestions that can be thrown together quickly. Sometimes I just need meal ideas because my mind is burned out from work.

My kids love club sandwiches. They're super easy to throw together and adding a toothpick makes my kids think it's fancy.

Chicken Cesar wraps are another go-to meal I can pull together quickly. I usually have my husband grill a few chicken breasts with some kind of seasoning that will go well with Cesar salad. While he's grilling, I put together a Cesar salad from a bag. Then we add the chicken and salad to a wrap. Easy meal that's done!

Chicken salad sandwiches are so yummy and make great leftovers to take to work the next day. I make my chicken salad with boneless chicken thighs. I feel like chicken thighs just tastier than chicken breasts and use them often instead. To my chicken salad, I add diced celery, green pepper, onion, salt, pepper, and mayonnaise. I dice the vegetables up pretty small though. 

I hope this gives you a few ideas for how to get dinner on the table quickly. We'd love for you to join up with some of your favorite recipes that get you through the month of May!

An InLinkz Link-up

How to Merge Two PDF Files on a Mac

Hi everyone! One of the teachers I work with needed help merging a landscape PDF file with a portrait landscape file. She wanted one PDF file but not every page going in the same direction. 

To help her out (and maybe some others), I made a quick video showing how I merge two files together.

Hope this is helpful!

Pinterest Approved Recipe Link-Up

Hi everyone! I'm super excited for you to stop by a new monthly blog post that should be a lot of fun!

Some of my favorite blogging friends are Courtney, Nicole and Tonya. We're always talking about how we can make our lives easier and simpler, because everyone knows teaching can be stressful! 

Figuring out what to feed my family is often one of my biggest stressors. I love finding recipes on Pinterest, but I'm often unsure of whether the recipes are actually good! 

On the 3rd Sunday of every month, we will be hosting our Pinterest-Approved Recipe Link-up!! 

We will share our favorite, *successful* Pinterest recipes that we've done in the past or throughout the month and we hope that you will share yours too!! 

The rules for this link-up are simple:

We're a family of 6, so I'm always looking for easy dinners that are delicious but can come together quickly. This is one of the big reasons that I love my Crock Pot! I use it pretty much weekly! 

This Slow Cooker Broccoli Beef from Creme de la Crumb is one of my go to recipes!

It is so delicious and really is better than take out! It's even a hit with my kids! You can find this delicious recipe {here}.

If you want to see more recipes that my family loves, and I've actually tried, you can check out this Pinterest board {here}. This is my collection of recipes that I've tried out that have been successful!

We would love it you'd link up with us. Don't forget to leave some love for those you visit ;)

An InLinkz Link-up

Do You Like These IEPs?

So many fun things are happening this week in schools across America. In my class, we'll be doing lots of reading rhyming books by a Dr. who cannot be mentioned due to trademark laws and a bunch of other technical stuff.

If you follow me on Instagram @extraspecialteaching you'll be able to check out these awesome 

t-shirts my team will wear on Wednesday and some other fun stuff my class will be doing.

A few years ago, I came across this poem somewhere and spruced it up some. It cracks me up every time I read it, especially since I'm drowning in IEPs right now! You can download your copy by clicking {here} or the picture below.

Happy celebrating reading week!

Gearing up for Standardized Testing (freebies)

I know a lot of you are gearing up for the big state tests.  I'm fortunate that this year I'm teaching 1st and 2nd graders, so I don't have to worry about high stakes testing THIS year.  Who knows what next year will hold though.  

Standardized testing can be so stressful for students (and teachers). Just last week, I found my 4th grade daughter checking the calendar out at 6:45am. Turns out, she was counting the days until standardized testing. Talk about breaking my momma heart. :(

A few years ago, I wrote about this letter that I sent home to my parents.  It's so important for parents to help out during that stressful testing week by being supportive and encouraging at home.  You can get your free copy by clicking on the picture.

A few years ago (you can read about that here), I was spending a lot of time doing test prep with my kids when I realized they were struggling just to read the test questions.  Some of those words are hard to read!  So I went through all of the test prep questions and picked out any of those words that I thought might be tricky, such as italics, paragraph, sidebar, etc., etc.  I made a fun game for my students to practice reading tricky words, and it gave us opportunities to discuss the meaning of those words.

If you downloaded this game a few years ago, you'll want to redownload.  I've updated all of my games so that they have easy to read fonts with no confusing letters.  Just click on the picture to download your free copy.

Good luck to all of those who will start testing soon!

Testing Accommodations for the Primary Classroom

Even though I teach special education students in a resource classroom, I am still expected to teach the general education curriculum and give the assessments that accompany the district-mandated curriculum.

My students do have accommodations listed on their IEPs for testing, but I want to give them as much support as possible to help them succeed. These are some of the tips I use in my classroom that have really helped my students show mastery on grade level assessments.

My number one tip is to staple your tests like a book, not in one top corner. I know this is a little more time consuming on your part but so worth it. Flipping pages over, especially on double-sided copies, can be so confusing for struggling students. 

For our math workbook pages, I am very explicit in my instructions, such as "open, flip over, look for the picture of the blue bird" or whatever is on the page. This helps make sure we're all on the right page.

Our reading tests, have an oral portion where students have to listen to my directions. Unfortunately, this part of the test is in the middle. Strange place to put it if you ask me. I always have my students turn to this page and do this portion first.

After we have done the oral and grammar portion, we turn back to the story. Even though my students have accommodations, I cannot read the story to them. After all, it is a test of reading and not a test of listening comprehension. 

I always go through the test first and figure out which portion of the text refers to which questions. On this test, question numbers 1 and 2 come from the first page of the story. I tell my students to read the first page and raise their hand. That way my faster readers aren't waiting on my slower readers, and my slower readers aren't rushed.

Once students read the first section of the text, I have them turn and answer just the questions that pertain to this section. This is huge in helping my students answer comprehension questions successfully. By breaking up the text, my students don't feel so overwhelmed.

I tell my students to raise their hands after they have answered questions numbers 1 and 2. 

 Then I turn the student's page back to the next section of the text that they need to read and repeat the process all over.

The downfall to testing this way is that I do A LOT of walking around from student-to-student. If I wore a Fitbit, I know I'd have way more than 10,000 steps on testing days. But I will say the effort on my part is worth it to see my students succeed on grade level assessments.

How do you accommodate students on testing days in your classroom?

Touch Spelling

Do you have students that struggle with spelling? Spelling is an area all of my students struggle with in their writing.

When students are "touch spelling" I always have them hold their pencil in their dominant hand and use their other hand to touch spell. Students will say the word slowly and touch one finger for each sound they say. After the student says each sound, they can then write the word.

Touch spelling has been HUGE in helping my students write down all the sounds they hear in a word. This is especially helpful with blends. As I watch my students touch spell, I can pinpoint where they are not hearing the sound, such as the 'l' in the word sled. 

If a student has written the word wrong, I will touch spell directly over the word they have written. This helps them easier see if the sound matches up to the word that they've written.

If a student doesn't know how to spell a word, my go to response is always say the sounds and touch spell. I rarely spell a word for a student since I want to encourage them to write independently.

Here are some other activities I use to help students understand the spelling of words and how to manipulate sounds.

Building words is an activity that I use frequently in my classroom. I try to fit this in weekly. It's great for my students to practice listening to sounds, manipulating sounds, and making sure they understand phonics patterns in a hands-on way. You can check this activity out more by clicking {here} or the picture below.

I use this Making Words activity with my students who have stronger writing skills and have a larger base of spelling/phonics patterns and known words.

There are 4 different themed words for each month of the school year. Students cut out the letter tiles and try to make as many words as they can. They love trying to figure out who can find the mystery word first. You can see more about this activity by clicking {here} or the picture below.

I hope these tips are helpful in your classroom!