Hands On Moffatt Math Practice Success

Philippians 4:9 Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

This year my goal was to add some new 'hands on' math practice to my resource math class. I have many of the same students for math and English several years in a row since I teach grades 4-6 at a small school.  I am always trying to find new products to keep them engaged.  

Over the summer I read a lot of reviews about THE MOFFATT GIRLS Teachers Pay Teacher products. She is a homeschooling mom who makes resources to use in any classroom. I purchased the multiplication, division, addition and subtraction packets.  I also bought some colorful tubs (Dollar Tree) so the students can grab their binder and a tub full of supplies as they walk in the door. They are LOVING The Moffatt Girls math practice pages! SUCCESS! 

Everything is Packed Up But the Kids Keep Coming- Quick Picture Book Study

 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. Romans 15:13

It gets to be the end of the year and most of your belongings are packed up. You still want an engaging lesson to keep those students busy. The perfect solution-a picture book study! 

Everything had been returned to their homeroom teachers so I grabbed an OLD picture book off my shelf. I chose it because it caught my eye and I love to have the experience of a new book right along with the kids. Thankfully in our school teachers often remember the resource room when they retire or clean off their shelves and I get a lot of unique books that way.

This little gem was called, NO BOYS ALLOWED, by Ursula Moray Williams, 1972. The kids thought it was pretty cool that it was published before I was even born.  We did the normal book study stuff-analyzed the cover, predicted the genre, and dove right into this amazing little book. I projected the pages onto the big screen as I read it to the class. 

What made it even more fun was that it had several unfamiliar words that I had never heard before (archaic words were used a lot in this story about a group of cousins sailing on a ship in the 1800's). I had a great opportunity to model using context clues and then going on line to see if I was correct.  

The kids were engaged and really enjoyed the lesson. After completing a story map, I dug out some island themed paper and they illustrated what they predicted happened after the story ended.    

Virtual island on YouTube - projected so we could hear the waves crashing as they worked. This is a camera on a beach in real time. 

Happy Happy Happy New Year

They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. Lamentations 3:23-24

The new year is here and we start back at school tomorrow. The year ended with some challenging behaviors that I continue to reflect on and plan for daily. I am blessed to have a new morning presented to me each day. I can leave my worries behind and start fresh. Great is thy faithfulness. I will hope in HIM.

A fun literacy center (I split the students into pairs or "centers" for this activity) I use each year is called Happy Happy Happy Camo Literacy Center for Big Kids by Melissa Dalton on Teachers Pay Teachers.  

A friend of mine made this cute Christmas tree for my classroom out of a pallet. I let my students paint and decorate it. 

We made BFF ornaments on the day before our holiday with pictures of the kiddos and their friends together for them to take home and put on their own trees. Some of my kiddos don't really have a BFF so we did BFF for the day-pick someone to be your BFF today and I will take your picture together for an ornament. This worked great and everybody was a good sport about it. Everybody "played along" and nobody felt left out. 

Fall Fun and Fluency Phrases

Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh the joys of those who take refuge in him! Psalm 34:8 

Fall is my favorite time of the year whether the weather is unseasonable warm or cool. Colors are vibrant, change is in the air, and there is a lot to look forward to with the coming winter holidays. 

My group of students are very creative this year and love a chance to pull out the craft supplies and get busy. 

I picked up a mini pumpkin for each student at the grocery store and we had a pumpkin decorating contest on the day of our fall festival. The kids completed some Halloween themed task cards and we read, listened and watched some 3:15 Stories. 

I am always on the look out for reading fluency ideas because my students are mid level age and can memorize passages pretty fast when presented with material at their reading level.  A sixth grader reading at second grade level can remember second grade material easily so I have to keep changing it up. It also helps keep them interested and build their confidence when we keep moving on to new things. The past couple of weeks during reading interventions I have been using the Star Wars themed fluency phrase task cards from Teachers Pay Teachers. They are always a hit with my low readers because they are a fun way to practice commonly used phrases.  

Our school uses the Journey's reading curriculum for grades K-6 which is available digitally and hard copy so we can listen to each story as a class. A student can go back and re listen to certain sections, as needed.  This allows my students to hear grade level content so they are not getting further behind.  They all LOVE e books that include audio.  A few websites we use this year for ebooks are: Capstone, Epic and True Flix. This allows all students to have access to grade level texts that they normally could not read. I am always on the lookout for more ebooks. Gone are the days trying to find batteries for clunky C.D. players! We still have some lying around, but every other disk is always scratched up so ebooks are definitely the way to go in the resource classroom. 

Interactive Spelling and Fun Friday Behavioral Program

    Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

Cute library pockets I found on Amazon.

I was a little hesitant to start the new spelling curriculum I purchased from Jen Bengel at TPT (just because it was different than what I am used to), but it was a huge success!  The students help come up with the words each week (that go with the lesson taught) and then they choose their own lists. This was a major success!  My student are at very different levels and this lets them choose their words off our class list we came up with together. They had fun copying their lists onto paint sample strips that I picked up at the local hardware store. They had fun  choosing the color and Sharpie to brighten up their list. They ended up with a list to take home and a list to keep at school. They keep their classroom list in a cute library pocket. Every day there are different activities they use the personal word list for.  

Student copies personal word list onto a paint sample strip.

My students always want to sit in the teacher's chair which is not allowed. This year on their birthday they get to sit in the special chair. The young man who got to sit in the Birthday Chair Tuesday was grinning from ear to ear. He happens to have me three periods a day so it really did brighten up his special day. I had some streamers hanging off of the back you can't see in the picture. 

This is a simple but fun reading activity. Number some sentences one through six ( a few for each number) and the student rolls a die. They get to read a sentence based on the number of the die.  When they can read the sentence perfect with no help, they get to check off the sentence. 

This year I have some students with behavioral problems (more than usual). I came up with a behavior incentive program where they work for free time on Fridays. Part of the free time involves crafts or painting (depending on what I set up for the day). Most students have me several periods a day. IPADS and computer games are available certain periods of the day. This way they can have free time but not sit in front of a device several hours a day if they earned free time in all of their classes with me. 15 minutes of reading fun time is always listening to me read to them while they eat popcorn. They enjoy this as much as the crafts and IPADS! 

Fun Friday behavioral incentive table. This week it was set up for painting.  Did I mention Fun Friday not only has improved my behavior problems-it gives me time to put in grades and work on special education paperwork while keeping an eye on their activities? I never seem to have any behavior incidents during this time.  And everyone works hard all week to get their time. Usually each period someone is sitting with their head down (based on penalties from the week) but this is getting less and less I am noticing so it really is working! They get minus five minutes per check. I do erase checks and add checks throughout the week for improved behaviors so they have an incentive to be really good again if they are a kid who always seems to get in trouble.  An important part of this is that nobody ever gets a minute of "FREE TIME" Monday-Thursday. If they finish their classwork they work on "earlier finisher" task cards or read their AR books.  

I just love fun tape and Sharpies! Have a Great Week! 

Fluency Fact Cards

  Psalms 68:16 This is the hill which God desireth to dwell in.

I am still in the place of developing new relationships with my students and gaining their trust. I have several autistic students this year with challenging behaviors. I have to remind myself that this is my hill-The Lord's Hill- and there is a purpose for the challenges that I face. One of my boys will shout out in the middle of a math problem, "I love you Miss!" In eleven years of teaching high school I never had students randomly shout out true love for me. When I am tired and frustrated and he will not follow directions or sit in his seat, I am just getting through the moment. It is important to reflect on God's word and the reason he put me in their lives this school year. 

One of my favorite reading intervention resources are fluency fact cards. My students enjoy learning about the different topics as they practice their fluency skills.  CLICK ON LINK!

I hang them on 3m hooks by set. Each topic has a set one and a set two with about 16 questions per set. 

I store the questions in a 3 ring binder and use the Avery Ready Index I order from Amazon to organize the answer pages and answer keys.  Click on Link!

I need to move up to a bigger binder to store the answer sheets. I didn't take a picture but I print the answer keys on yellow paper and put them behind the answer sheets so the students can check their answers independently when they finish a set. 

The student reads each card three times, making a check mark after each read. Then they answer a comprehension question related to what they have read.  Since my class is a resource class, I either read the card to them first or at least listen and correct them as they read it the first time to make sure they are saying each word correctly. I only have two or three students working on these at a time so I can provide enough help. I sit on my red carpenter's chair between them so I can easily slide back and forth to make sure they are on task. I have a daily rotation set up for reading interventions.  My other students are working on Reading Eggs or E books when it is not their day for task cards.

Next week I am going to implement Jen Bengel's Reading Intervention passages during my reading intervention block. She has a great webinar offered to teach teacher's how to use this research based program in the classroom.  Click on Link!

Get to Know Me-First Week of School

I needed a few more decorations for my classroom so my cousin suggested this:  On the first day of school I passed out canvas and brushes to the kids. I only passed out the colors of paint that matched my classroom. They all enjoyed painting and it gave me a chance to get to know them (who was serious, silly, wild, etc.) before planning a seating chart or going over class rules. 

They are proud to see their artwork decorating my room. 

We also had fun with the more traditional get to you know activities.  This is a good way to see who has difficulty with spelling and following directions, while learning about my new students.