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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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!

Helping B and D Reversals (freebie included)

B and D reversals are something I see often in my students reading and writing. 

I've posted before {here} about some of the errors that I often see in struggling readers and how I correct the errors while reading {here}.

Today, I'm sharing with you some of the activities that I use to help students practice differentiating between the letters B and D. Sometimes it seems like my students really just need so much practice and lots of visual cues to help them out. 

I like to give my students consistency with how I describe the formation of B and D. I always use the sayings "bat before the ball" for B and "doughnut on a stick" for D. This helps my students remember what part of the letter they need to form first.

I keep some of these types of activities handy all the time. I can easily pull them out whenever we have a few extra minutes or if I just think my students need some more discrimination practice between the two letters.

 You can check these activities out by clicking on the picture below or {here}.

One of my students favorite games is this B and D Zap! game that's a freebie in my store.

We play this game as a "speed" game. I set my timer for 3 minutes and students must quickly say the correct letter to keep a card. We try to do as many as we can in 3 minutes. There are special cards that students can pull, such as the Zap! card. The Zap! card means students must give all of their cards back to me. There is also a skip and reverse card to keep the game fun. My students love playing Zap!

You can check it out by clicking on the picture below or {here}.

 I hope this gives you some helpful ideas for your students!

Encouraging Quality Student Work

Some of my students really struggle with completing acceptable, quality work. We do a lot of do-overs and erasing in my room! Since we're coming back from Christmas break, I wanted us to start off reviewing the expectations of quality work by providing some visuals to help us out.

We also filled out this reflection sheet as a way to really think about whether or work is considered quality work or not.

I'll be adding these reflection sheets to my students' individual Student Data Notebooks as a reminder of what they will need to do in order to complete quality work.

For some of my students that need a more consistent visual reminder, I taped these Quality Work strips to their desks.

If these can be useful in your classroom, you can download them {here} as a freebie.

Back to School Writing Freebie

Today, I'm blogging over at Owl-ways Be Inspired with a great freebie for you! 

If you're like me and have been scouring every Target's Dollar spot section, this freebie will be perfect for you!

Click {here} to stop by and get your freebie!

Spin for Tens (a freebie)

Hi everyone!  Today, I'm blogging over at Owl-ways Be Inspired.

My class has been working on understanding a bundle of ten tens is a hundred.  It's been slow going, so I made this activity to help us.  You can download it as a freebie if you check out my post {here}.

I hope this is helpful!

Reading Wonders Curriculum in my Classroom (with freebies)

My school has recently adopted the McGraw-Hill Reading Wonders Program.  This is our first year using the program, and there has been a bit of a learning curve.  I've been using the program for the last 3 weeks and figuring out a way to best use it in my special education resource room.

It's taken some tweaking (and I'm sure I'll keep making changes throughout the year), but I have found a general routine that is semi-working.

I start each with these planning pages to help me get a good idea of what skills I'm teaching.  I feel like the pacing in the Reading Wonders program is WAY overwhelming and unrealistic (at least with my students).  I'd love to watch a lesson where they do everything in the program and stick with the time lines as suggested.

These lesson planning sheets help keep me on track and make sure I hit the major skills each week.

You can download the overview sheet from my friend Corinna at Surfin' Through Second {here} and you can read about how she's using Wonders in her classroom.  You can download my lesson planning sheet {herehttps://www.dropbox.com/s/q42mkbmghzlai5d/Wonders%20Lesson%20Plan%20Overview.pdf?dl=0}.

My school has purchased the Reading Wonders intervention program, WondersWorks.  However, I only have one interactive workbook and 8 students.  So I've been doing a lot of supplementing.  One thing I don't like about the Reading Wonders program is the lack of hands-on centers and activities.   So I've started supplemental packs for each unit to give my students more visuals and practice.

I keep my morning routine pretty similar each day.  We do the phonemic awareness activity, review our sounds, practice decoding our phonics patterns, and use our SnapWords cards to practice our sight words.

As a group, we'll do some of the center activities found in my Reading Wonders units.  This is from Unit 1 Week 3 and focuses on sorting words with blends by the short vowel sound.

I also try to throw in some kind of activity that has us work on sorting, writing, or building words.  Making Words is our favorite activity so far.  I use these folders for the word building but use the Making Words activities from my supplemental units (beginning at Unit 1 Week 3).  Doing it on the carpet was perfect since the velcro on the letters sticks.  This way none of my students lose their letters.  :)

Or we might work on some of comprehension skills for the story, such as this visualizing strategy.

I try to do at least one writing about what we have read activity each week.  My students need extra support when writing and responding, so I made these freebie reading response sheets to go with Unit 1.

You can download them as a FREEBIE by clicking on the picture below.

It did take me a bit to figure out how I was going to assess my students.  The on-level and approaching tests are just too hard for my kiddos.  I have one who can semi-do the approaching level tests but needs support to get all the way through the test.  Those tests are REALLY long!

The weekly assessment in the WondersWork program is too difficult for my students to read independently, too!  I also didn't like the questioning format of the tests.  The directions would tell students to draw a box around the words that tell them so-and-so was sad.  Or some weird direction like that.  My students can't read the text!

I decided to take the passage from the WondersWork program but redo the questions.  I retyped the questions into multiple choice and added more questions.  I read the test and questions aloud to my students and this way I can assess their listening comprehension.  I may or may not upload these for you guys depending on how I feel it's working out.

I wanted to make sure my parents understood the level their student was being assessed on.  I made this quick sheet that I attach to the students' tests.  For the student who got 8/8 questions correct, I will give him the approaching level test (with me reading it aloud to him) next week and see how he does.

Since my students are struggling readers, I also want to make sure they are mastering the sight words and phonics patterns.  I made these Quick Checks to help me assess their progress each week.

I'm working on finishing the quick checks and uploading them to my TpT store.

For small group reading, I have been using the leveled readers from the WondersWorks program.  I will say that I've had a hard time figuring out how to fit it all in.  I do need to plan better so that I get more small group and one-on-one reading time with my students.  There's so much to do for the program that it can feel very overwhelming.

If you're interested in checking out my Reading Wonders units, you can download my sample Smart Start unit as a FREEBIE by clicking on the picture below.

You can also check out my activities for Unit 1 Week 1 by clicking on the picture below.

I will be making units to supplement each week of the Reading Wonders program.  I have currently finished all the way through Unit 2 Week 3.  

I hope this gives you a glimpse of how I'm using this program in my classroom.  It's definitely been a bit of trial and error to figure out a system.  I'm still working out some kinks but starting to feel like I'm finally getting into a groove.

Meet and Greet for Special Education Teachers (freebie)

My school just had our Meet and Greet before school started.  This is an opportunity for students to come in, meet their new teachers, see their new classrooms, and bring in supplies.  Does your school do something like this before the first day?  

I love this opportunity, but special education teachers (especially if you do pull-out/resource) are often waiting in their classrooms with little to no students showing up.  I realized that most parents probably just don't think about coming by to see the special education teacher or they don't even know where to go!

Every year, I place a card on my students' desks in their gen ed rooms.  

Then I got my room already for parents and students to come by!

And sure enough, it works!  Out of 10 students on my caseload (more will be added I'm sure), I had 7 come see me and all were holding their cards. 

Meet and Greet is a great opportunity to talk to your parents in a low-stress setting.  Oftentimes, IEPs can be really stressful.  I like to be able to talk to parents in other settings.  I really do feel like this helps build those relationships with parents that are so important and lets them know you care.

If you're interested in using these cards, I have an updated set here as a freebie.  You'll just need to print, fill in your room number, and add your name.  I've added 3 different versions that have slightly different wording to suit different situations.  Just click on the picture below to download yours!

First Week of School Activities (freebies)

Last Friday was actually the first day of school here in Hawaii.  But I'm a special education teacher and don't start pulling kids until Monday.  Even though I'm only teaching core academics to my pull-out students, I have most of them the majority of the day.  The first few weeks of school are so important for setting the ton for the rest of the year, and I will be working hard on behavior and community building this year.

I just love these beginning of the year activities by A Year of Many Firsties and can't wait to use them with my students.

As part of our community building, we'll be using these Find Someone Who activity that I made.  I'll be doing a lot of modeling how to approach our classmates and ask them a question.  And I'll be modeling how to use the pictures to help us if we can't read the words.  You can download it {here}.

I bought this Take a Break unit from Teaching in Progress and can't wait to use it with my students.  I'll be doing a lot of practicing and teaching my kiddos how to take a break, hopefully before they need a break.

I have several students with behavior plans and we will be focusing a lot on how to handle our anger. We'll be talking about how we feel and what we can do to help us make smart choices by using some of the activities found in my Making Smart Choices unit.

We can't just focus on behavior though.  My school will be using Reading Wonders for the first time this year.  I made this Smart Start freebie to help us get started.

Best of all, there's a sale starting tomorrow!  You can get 28% off everything in my store by using code BTS14 when you check out.

Groundhog Addition and Subtraction FREEBIE!

With Groundhog Day coming up, I wanted to give you all a little freebie!  I made these cut and paste printables to help students practice their addition and subtraction facts and finding unknown numbers.

There are 2 pages for addition and 2 for subtraction.

Students will need to manipulate the numbers and use some critical thinking skills to solve each equation correctly.

It's a good idea for students to move the numbers around and figure out where they will all go before gluing them down.

I hope this is something you can use with your students!  I'd love to hear your feedback.  :)

You can download it {here}.