Question of the Day

This teaching tip starts with something that I bought from really good stuff.

A picture of it, with a link to the item, is featured above.

As you can see from the picture, at its simplest level, kids can answer a question of the day with their name magnet. The kit includes many questions that you can ask such as favorite color, pet, etc.

I use mine in a slightly different way that I think makes it a more valuable classroom tool. I have the kids answer the question first thing upon entering into the room. Then when I take roll, I go over to the question. If a kid's magnet is not on an answer yet, I mark them as absent (of course spot checking the room to make sure that no one forgot).

Later in the day, I include this question as part of our opening. Part of my opening student's job is to read the question of the day, and tell the class which answer was the most popular, and also answer a few more questions about the chart which require graphing skills. For example, I might ask how many more students chose one answer than another, or how many students chose two answers combined etc.

While sometimes I choose a question that is just for fun, most of the time I choose a question based on what we learned about the previous day, or something we will be learning about on that day.

I really like having this question of the day because it is an easy way to take roll, it helps kids practice their graphing skills (which is a 2nd grade standard), and I can use it to do a quick review or pre-assessment of any curriculum that we are learning about during the day.

I encourage you to have a question of the day, in whatever form you choose to use it.

Class Money/ Store

I want to start by saying that I fully acknowledge that this is a somewhat controversial classroom practice. I am a huge fan of it, but if you feel strong personal convictions against it, then don't do it. My reasons for doing it are explained at the end of this post.

I have a classroom economy. I print up money for my class, and they earn money for certain things, and they lose money for other things, and they can go shopping with whatever profit they have every other week in our little class store.

My class earns money for the following:
- Homework. I pay 1 class dollar for each paper turned in, with a 3 dollar bonus if you turned in all of your papers for the week. This I do because I am not allowed to give a grade for homework, and I wanted them to have an incentive to do it.
- Working hard/ independently. During reading groups, my class aide watches the rest of the class while they do their seat work. I have some kids who buckle down and do it quietly, and others who goof around, or talk to their neighbors instead of working. To try to encourage most of the class to be in the first category, we randomly will pay for this good behavior.
- Good line behavior. Similar to the working hard reason, we want the kids to be good in line, so exceptional line behavior sometimes gives them a class dollar.
- Prizes for games. Educational games are a big part of my classroom, and part of the fun in playing is that some games earn prizes.(See Scattergories) The easiest and cheapest prize for me to give is class dollars.
- Good behavior during a certain event/ day. Some times of the year I use this more than others, such as the last week before Christmas break. On these crazier days I offer a big prize (5 or 10 class dollars) for whoever does the best all day long. I only give out one or two prizes, but I have 90% of my class under control on days that some teachers would just give up.

I am sure there are others, but those are the main ones.

The students can lose class dollars for the following offenses:
- Losing their place. During class reading, such as science or history, it is important that every child is following along while I or another student reads. So, I will occasionally pull class cards during the story, and if they know the next word on the page, I keep going, no consequence needed. If they don't know the next word, they pay me a dollar. Truthfully, most of the time, the threat is enough that I don't get any money by the end of the period.
- Bathroom use at an inappropriate time. The two inappropriate times are right after lunch and right after snack. Other times, they can go, and I just don't like it, but these two times, there is no excuse, they should have gone during their break. So they are charged.
- Bad line behavior. Just as you can earn money for being good in line, you can also lose it for being bad in line. Enough said.
- Forgetting materials. Mainly forgetting their reading book, which is brought home for homework and supposed to be back the next day for reading time.

I know there are more times that I charge fines, but I can't recall them at the moment, but you can decide what is worth a fine in your class.

The class store is mainly supplied by parent donations. I have been fortunate enough that I haven't had to buy things for the store for a long time. When I did, I would usually go to the 99 cent store, and buy party favor sets. This way I get 5 or 6 little items for a dollar. Garage sales usually have used toys pretty cheap as well. Every so often I also hold a garage sale in class, where every student brings their own toys from home that they want to sell, and then they can use that money to buy other toys that other kids brought. They are really happy after one of these days, the only problem is that the money doesn't come back to me (it is just exchanged between kids). I also sell things that are free to me but expensive to the kids, such as a lunch with me, or one seat work paper they don't have to do, etc.

I would like to take a minute to explain my rationale for this class system, and also explain why I don't consider it bribery.

It is not considered bribery when you get paid for your job. If you work hard, you generally earn more, if you are lazy, you earn less. You then exchange your money for other goods and services. That is all I am doing in my classroom. Some people say that kids just should be good and do their homework, etc. without any reward. I agree... but I am also practical, and I know that the majority of kids will not just be good. In the same way, there are amazing people out there who spend most of their time volunteering and helping people without any reward. I admire those people, but that is not the majority of people either. For those teachers who are able to get homework turned in, supplies always ready, and your classroom runs smoothly without any reward system, I applaud you. But for me, this method works, and my kids do great with my system in place.

Oh, and I should also mention that I rarely have cases where I always give class dollars. I want the kids to know that they will sometimes be rewarded for their actions, but not to expect it. I have long held the policy that if you ask for a reward, you don't get it.

My own personal opinion is that having class money and a class store is an easy, all inclusive system of class management that continues to prove successful in my class.

The most important class job- inspectors

Like many other classrooms, I use class jobs. Each student is assigned a job for the week that benefits the classroom in some way.

I have many of the same ones that I know every teacher has- door, lights, line leaders etc. But I have two jobs that might be more unusual, and are easily the most useful jobs I have.

They are both inspector jobs.

The first job is floor and desk inspectors. I assign two students this job for the week. After our clean up time, where every child is responsible for their own floor and desk as well as their assigned job (library, boards, etc.), I give the inspectors a minute to check.

Every piece of trash they find, either under or in a desk, they charge the guilty student a class dollar. Dirty/unorganized desks also can be charged the dollar fee. The inspectors get to keep all of the money they make inspecting.

This works great for many reasons. First, my students are diligent about checking the floor around their desk and keeping their desk neat because they don't want another student to get any of their money. Also, the inspectors do an excellent job checking (much better than I would do, or want to do) because they benefit from finding a problem. In addition, having the two inspectors means that no one is free from having to clean, because the inspectors can check each other's area. I encourage you to try it. It does take some training in what is a big enough piece of trash to charge a dollar for, and how big of an area each student is responsible for, but once the kinks are worked out, it works well enough that I couldn't imagine clean up without it. (the janitors have complemented my clean floors too, they said they almost never need to be vacuumed)

The second inspector job that I have is snack inspectors. One of our health units for the year is nutrition, and so I encourage my students to eat a healthy snack. Just one of the methods I use for this is snack inspectors. I have the class start getting ready a few minutes before recess and they stand at their desks with their snack. Then I have my snack inspectors go check everyone's snack. Healthy snacks- like fruit, string cheese, nuts, etc. can earn a class dollar from inspectors. Medium snacks- chips, cheese its, muffins etc. are allowed to be brought out, but don't earn a dollar. Desserts- cookies, candy, cake are not allowed to be brought out at snack time at all. These students are asked to bring out something else, and to save their dessert for after lunch.

Some benefits of snack inspectors is that every child learns what a healthy snack is, either by being paid for it, or knowing that you, as an inspector, can give a dollar for that snack. Frequently I am asked by my inspectors if ____ is a healthy snack, and I can answer honestly, and explain why it is or isn't. The students learn what snacks to pull out of their lunch bag, and also what snacks to ask their parents to pack, based on what they can be paid for. I, of course, have had some students who don't care about the dollar, and bring out chips everyday. I am not their parent, and so I don't push the issue more than simply rewarding the healthy snacks.

I recommend adding these jobs to your class job list if you haven't yet. You won't regret it.

Scattergories

This classroom game was inspired by the game pictured above, Scattergories.

The board game is played by rolling a letter dice, and having a set amount of time to write an answer for each category on the card, but every answer has to start with whatever letter you rolled. Then you go around the group, and any unique answer that you have you get a point for.

The way I play this is the classroom is a bit different.

First, I primarily use it for phonics, so my explanation of the game is going to come from that. At the end I will also list some additional ideas I have for this game.

Each of my students has a white board in their desk as one of their school supplies for the year. We play this game with these boards. If you don't have access to this, the game could easily be played on paper, with you just checking the papers instead of the boards.

I name a special sound (the way our curriculum refers to unusual sounds such as "sh," "ough," etc.). Let's say for this game I say "sh."

Then each student has to write a word on their board that uses this sound. Then they hold the board to their chest. After some time has passed, and it looks like all my kids are done writing, I have them hold their boards up. Like the original Scattergories, any word that is duplicated in the classroom is eliminated. So, if two students have the word "shoe," they both have to put their boards down. Then I go around and check to make sure that the words are spelled correctly. The original game does not have this rule, but is obviously an important change needed to play this as a class. If a child wrote "shu", they would be eliminated. I do allow suffixes as enough of a difference to stay, where in the board game you wouldn't. For example, "shirt" and "shirts" would both get to stay as long as no one else wrote either of those two words.

Any word that survives both parts of the elimination (unique word, and spelled correctly), and uses the sound correctly is considered a winning word. The writer of that word then receives a class dollar. I usually do a few rounds of this when we have time to play, and it is a real treat for the kids. Later in the year, it gets to the point where kids are frequently asking if we are playing scattergories that day.

Variations of the game:
-I have played it where instead of a sound, I will do a prefix or a suffix, and they have to put it with a word.
-I have played it where I give them a part of speech (like noun, verb, adjective) and they can put any word as long as they can argue that it is that part of speech. This takes a bit longer to decide if they have a "winning" word or not because of words like paper. In "I have a piece of paper," its a noun, but in "I brought a paper bag," its an adjective. As long as the kids can justify their decision, I let it stand.
- With higher levels you could have them write an alternative word to "said" or a synonym for any other too often used word.
- In science, you could have them write an animal that fits within a certain category (like mammal) and then pay for unique ones. I think you could do the same with rocks, but I don't cover that in my year, so I'm not sure.
- In history, you could have them write a name of a person important during the civil war, or revolutionary war, or other unit in history.

There are a lot of possibilities with this game, and it rewards those kids who are able to think outside of the box. I encourage you to try it in your classroom.

Sign Language

This is a quick tip, well, relatively.

I think that sign language is a very useful tool in general. Playing charades with my husband to figure out what he wants me to bring out while barbecuing is only so helpful. I should teach him sign language...

Anyways, I think that many rooms use sign language to some extent. For example, kids that have to go to the bathroom. Having them raise their hand is only so helpful, and you don't want them to have an accident because you thought they had a question and it wasn't question time yet. I use the asl letter "r", (fingers crossed) sign for those kids who have to go to the restroom. I respond with the sign for yes, and then they can go without my lesson skipping a beat.

Another sign I use frequently in my classroom is the sign for clapping. It is hard for me when the kids are all excited and screaming when their team wins a point, because then the game takes a really long time as I refocus them after every point. Instead, they can do the silent clap, and then it stays quiet and we can continue, but they still have a way to vent their excitement. (See the last few seconds of the video below to see this).

I also use the sign for wait for when I am going too fast during test time. Instead of them raising their hand or shouting out that they need me to slow down, they do the wait sign. I see it, and pause for them, and then make sure they are ready before I continue.

I work sign language into spelling practice too as I have them sign the letters for the words that we are practicing spelling. I feel that getting to do the letters with their hand is more fun for them, will help them remember, and it is teaching them the asl alphabet as well.

There are 3 more signs that I teach my class, and intend to use a lot more than they are actually used. They are from Rick Morris' work, and it is having a sign for if they have an answer (letter "a"), a question (letter "i") or a comment (letter "c"). This is to eliminate the problem of the teacher looking for an answer to a question she asked, sees a raised hand and gets a question (or worse, a question off topic) or a comment (this weekend we saw apples, and we picked them, and they tasted nice...). While these work great in theory, and I appreciate the kids that use them, I honestly forget to enforce them, and some kids never catch on, or will do the wrong sign, which doesn't help.

To see deaf applause, watch the last few seconds of this video.


Also, check out this website for any sign that you might want to use in your class:
http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi

Pen Pals

This post, as you can see from the title, is about Pen Pals. Now I am fully aware that pen pals are an old idea. I found on one of the websites that I will link to below, that just their organization has been around since 1936. So this is absolutely nothing new.

However, being aware of an opportunity is not the same as taking it. The first year I did pen pals was last year, and I plan on doing it again this year. My class became pen pals with a class in Hungary.

My primary goals were to teach them about another culture, and to teach them how to write a letter. I knew that having pen pals would help me accomplish both goals in a fun way. What I didn't expect were the results.

My class looked forward to every letter, and any day that the package arrived for us was a great day. When I told the students they could keep the letter from their pen pal, they were in awe. They treated this letter from another country as a priceless jewel, and I was the amazing teacher that let them keep it. I hoped they would be excited, but this kind of enthusiasm was unexpected. Unfortunately, I also didn't anticipate the complete and utter disappointment when a few of my students did not receive the last letter because their pen pals no longer attended the school. They had truly become attached, and the loss of it was a big one. Both show the value that my class placed on the experience.

I was hoping on teaching them about how different our culture was from Hungary's culture, but what both my class and I learned instead is that they are not so very different from us after all. Many of the TV shows that my kids are familiar with, they are too. My kids would ask if they knew what soccer was, and the kids in Hungary said that it was one of their favorite games. Many of my students asked me at the end of the year if they could keep writing to their pen pal, and fortunately, because of smart thinking on the part of the other teacher, they could, because the kids included their home address in that last letter. I hope that they do continue the friendships started in my class.

If you haven't become brave enough to do this before, I encourage you to try it. The rewards are huge, and the cost is small. Partly because my pen pals were in Hungary, we only were able to exchange letters every other month or so, and that made it easy to fit into my daily schedule. It only cost me 6 dollars or so every time I shipped a packet of letters, and since I was only doing it every other month, it was a small price to pay for my students' happiness.

Here are two links that you can get started with, but you can also search google for pen pals and find lots more.

http://www.theteacherscorner.net/penpals/index.php

http://www.pen-pal.com/index.php

Another Favorite Website

I first came across http://mathfactcafe.com when I was a student teacher. Since then I have recommended it to teachers everywhere I have taught as well as to parents who want have their kids practice math facts.

On the home page you can choose Build it, premade, flashcards, or time and money. I most often use build it, but sometimes premade can help.

The premade page has the sheets sorted by grade, and then by concept. They are great if you want a page for teaching the five times table, or something simple and straightforward like that. It is also a faster option.

I like the build it page, because then I can tailor a review designed for my class.

The build it screen looks like this:


I can use their options to design a math fact sheet that has them practice addition problems from one digit problems to 4 digit problems.

This is just a quick tip recommending the site, I am not going to go into a lot of details about how to build worksheets, because you can experiment with it and see what works best for you, and they have frequently asked questions to help you as well.

Enjoy!

What Troubles Me Paper: How to deal with tattlers

I hate tattlers.

Not the kids themselves, because I have always loved all of my students, even the tough ones, but tattling drives me nuts. It takes soooooooooo much time to deal with all of the complaints to the tattler's level of satisfaction, and it frequently involves other students in other classes, and none of it matters (thus why it is tattling and not just telling me about a problem).

So... something had to be done about it.

My first attempt was to bribe the kids not to tattle. I issued a rule that if anyone tattled on someone else (I have very clearly defined rules of what a tattling is) the tattler would have to pay the "victim" 5 class dollars (a relatively high fine).

If you are wiser than me at that time, you will know the result of that... and why it was such a bad idea.

"Johnny did this" says the tattler... "He owes me 5 dollars" says Johnny... or even better... "Sam was going to tattle on me so he owes me 5 dollars and he won't pay..." you get the picture. Bad, nightmare bad idea. It didn't last long.

One day I saw this:

(Click on the picture if you want to buy that, I didn't, as I will explain in a minute)

I am guilty of frequently seeing stuff in stores or online, being inspired by them, and then using handy programs such as word and Microsoft Publisher to make my own (cheaper) version of the product.

This is no exception.


The idea of writing down the message instead of telling me sounded like an amazing idea. They get to voice their concerns, and I don't have to spend 20 minutes after recess sorting out all of the incidents that happened during recess. I, like the turtle poster, made sure that kids know that if someone is hurt, they can bypass this system, but otherwise, write it down, and put it on my desk, and I will deal with it when I can.

With a little bit of training (so that I don't get 5 papers from students telling me what 1 girl said to 1 other girl), it has worked GREAT!

The kids are satisfied that they get to tell their story, and frequently forget about what they wrote down (I know this because the ones that I read and think... this is absolutely nothing... I just throw out, and plan to deal with if it comes up again... and it doesn't).

Another trick with this is that I usually "don't have time" until their next recess, or P.E.. When faced with dealing with the problem that happened at snack or getting to go play, I have had many kids decide that it wasn't a big deal or they had already made up, and then I don't have to spend any time on the problem.

So... if you have tattling kid problems like I do, I encourage you to try this in some form. My principal, in hearing about this idea, really liked it too, and he hopes that more teachers in my school will adopt this idea as well.

Introduce the World

As a student teacher, I was frustrated every time that I heard the statistics about how poor our country does on geography, particularly when it is anywhere but our own country, while students all around the world know geography quite well.

As I teacher, I found that it is still true in my classroom. They are not sure the difference between country, state, continent, and city! When I asked what state they lived in I heard answers such as "Costa Mesa" and "United States." When I introduced the continents, I would sometimes hear that our state was North America as well. I decided that I needed to do something about it.

My class is as busy as the next person's, but I felt this was important enough that it needed to be fitted in somewhere. I decided that I could squeeze it into our opening time. We do the flag, calendar, etc. but we also learn 1 fact a day about a country, with a new country each week.

My board is set up like this:




It is a pocket chart that I mounted on the wall, and I used sentence strips to write the facts. The facts I found from a variety of resources, but mainly searching on the internet for things about the country that I thought the kids would find interesting. Any big world records, largest waterfall type stuff were great, as were customs about birthdays or names. You know what your age group finds interesting, write those down.

On the map I put a pushpin for each country we study so by the end of the year we can look back over all the countries we learned about. While I have my student write the date, I review the 7 continents, and talk about what countries are on them. At the beginning their knowledge is sparse, but by the end of the year, I can name a continent and students are fairly accurate at naming countries found on that continent. (I also ask the opposite way, what continent is China on, etc.)

In addition to the fact of the day, I make available for centers crafts based on that country and I bring food that is typical or native to that country every so often. This year I plan on bringing parents into the geography more by seeing if any parents want to bring food based on where they or their parents immigrated from. I had one family do this last year and it worked out great, and I would like to build on it.

I timed the countries around holidays as much as I could, with China around the time of the Chinese New Year, and Ireland around St. Patrick's day etc.

The kids love it, the parents love it and best of all, they have a better understanding of the world.