What will I do differently?

I'm linking up with Finding JOY in 6th Grade for:

 See what I hope to do differently!!

•  This year was my first year in a new school division, school and position.  The majority of the year I spent learning about the school and the students.  I was definitely not the most efficient and effective teacher.  Next year I plan to set up my targeted literacy group using a Daily 5 / 4 Block for Literacy model.  I have used this model in the past, but this year it just didn't happen.  I plan on making sure my targeted strategies are in place at each centre.  Stay tuned, as I plan more this summer (we still have 4 weeks left with kiddos) I will share my templates.  I'm taking a Reading disabilities course during the first week of July.  I'm hoping to incorporate what I learn into this structure!

•  I just finished taking a course on Assistive Technology Implementation from Portland State University.  The course was pretty good.  It made me analyze how we implement AT and how to review the AT plan.  We already use the SETT (Student, Environment, Task, Tool) framework to assign AT at my school but we need to collect more data to see if the AT we are implementing is actually making a difference.

• I am going to graduate next spring with a MEd in Special Education!  I am so excited, but I'm unsure what I would like to do after the fact.  Time will tell hopefully!!

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Kelsey

Picture Choice Boards

I use picture choice boards in my classroom all the time!  I use them with students that have little to no verbal communication, with students that have a hard time expressive language, and with students that have english as a second language.  I use them so that all of my students can participate in group conversations or activities.  I also like to use them because they are a low tech option that are super quick and easy to create!

Making a Picture Choice Board:

1. At the beginning of each new story or theme I make a list of new and repeated vocabularly that I will be using.
2. Next, I think about the activities I am going to be doing during with the story or theme and make a list of words needed.
3. I usually use Boardmaker (Mayer-Johnston) to create my choice boards, but you can use any images you like or draw or pictures you take.  Next put the pictures into cells or a table making sure that the pictures are large enough for your students to see.  I also like to pair each picture with the appropriate label (I never hurts to increase the amount of print the students see!).
4. Use it with your students!!!

This is a picture choice board that I created for the story "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak.

Animal Life Cycles - Part 1

As part of my grade science curriculum, every year I complete a unit on animal life cycles.  I LOVE this unit.  Not only is it fun for my students to watch the metamorphosis (frogs, butterflies) in different animals, but I love the literature that I use during my guided reading block to accompany the unit!!!  I thought I would share some the literature ideas and activities that I use.

We started this unit with the life cycle of a butterfly!

I started this unit out by reading the story "Waiting for Wings" by Lois Ehlert.  This book has beautiful pictures in it!  This story shows the metamorphosis of the butterfly.  Not only do we read the story as a "shared" reading, we also do partner reading.  For my students who have limited verbal or reading skills I use a couple of technology resources to include them in partner reading.  First, myself or I will ask another student to read the story on to a step-by-step switch.  The second resource I use is "Bookflix" ($).  This is an online scholastic book club that has over 100 fictional titles in digital formats.  For every fictional title their is a paired non-fiction book.  There are also comprehension activities for each pair of books.  Luckily "Waiting for Wings" is on Bookflix.

The second title we read for the life cycle of the butterfly was "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle.  This story is an oldie but a goodie!!!  My students love this story!!!  They all read it out loud as i read it to them!!!  This book is on the Online Storytime on the Barnes & Noble webpage.  I always love for my kiddos to interact with different versions of books - digital, classroom made, big books, iPad books etc.

Attached is a smart notebook file that I created with my class.  It has a KWL chart in it and a few vocabulary activities.  There is also a link for the students to create a tagul for the information they learned about the butterfly life cycle.