Teaching Kiddos

  STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering,Arts and Math) Education activities promote the use of cross-disciplinary tools and critical thinking skills in an inquiry and solution-based learning environment. The Mayflower boat building challenge was not only a fun challenge for our kiddos, but it will allow kids to gain new knowledge that they can then apply to problems they encounter in their everyday world. The students were given : 3 sheets of foil 1 plastic Baggie         With just a small amount of materials, the kiddos had to be super creative with constructing a boat to bring the "pilgrims" over to the New World.   After each group brainstormed the perfect way to construct their boat , they immediately built it. Once it was built it was brought over to the testing area. At the testing area , the pilgrims " belt buckles" we're put onto the boat. This allowed us to see how many pilgrims would be able to be on the boat before it would sink. The team with the h

What do a cowgirl, a mailbox, and a notebook have in common? Actually, nothing … except for the little fact that they all happen to be  compound words .   Most of the time, compound words are easy to tackle if we think of them as two smaller words that are pushed together to form a new word. milk + shake = milkshake  mail + box = mailbox  note + book = notebook But compound words can cause confusion for beginning readers and spellers. Here's a practical tip for teaching compound words.   Teach your kiddo how to look for the two smaller words in the compound word. An easy way to do this is with  letter tiles . Build a compound word such as  bathtub using the tiles. Explain to your kiddo that the word bathtub has two smaller words in it, and invite him to find those two smaller words. Letter tiles are great for this activity because your kiddo can separate the compound word into two words, like this:       Suddenly, longer words are no longer scary. Yay!!See why we love letter tiles

We love getting into character whenever possible. This week,  room 5 became filled with pirates!  We first did our anchor chart that focused on our phonics skill for the week- bossy R.    We talked about letters making sounds in words and how Simetimes two letters put together can make a single sound.  We discussed how we were going to learn about the letters  a  and  r .   These two letters work as a team.  When, we see the letter  a   in a word with the letter  r  after it, the  r  controls the  a.   This means that the sound that these two letters makes is /ar/.          Then it was time to pass out the eye patches ( those make the kiddos " officially" pirates). Once they only had 1 good working eye, it was time for them to search for buried treasures. They found the golden coins and sorted then out .   In the end the kiddos loved it so much , the gave the activity TWO HOOKS UP!

  Learning about long vowels helps kiddos understand different letter-sound relationships. Thus preparing strong reading and spelling foundations. Teaching spelling generalizations with long vowel spelling patterns allows kids to learn and remember that long vowels can be represented in different ways. By the way, there are so many different ways, oh my!   One activity that helps kiddos understand long vowel combinations is sorting. We love to make a game out of anything . And this lesson was no exception. First the kiddos took turns pulling a word out of the jar. Then they had to choose what column it fits in.     Once our kiddos have had repeated exposure to these long vowel letter combinations, they can begin to work on getting to know them, in order to recall them in reading and spelling contexts.

Flow Map The flow map is used for sequencing and ordering information. Kiddos can use it to identify the relationships between stages and substages of an event (or order or numbers, operations, steps, etc.) They can be used to explain the order of events.    This map can be used to plot a story, show historical events in sequences, steps in problem solving math, identify stages of a life cycle and much more. This map can be applied to all subject areas. The best part about it, is that it can be used as a note taking tool before a test and even sometimes DURING a test to help clarify what the story is about.   Luckily for us, flow maps are introduced during 2 nd grade by our fabulous second grade team . This allows us to reintroduce it and take it to the next level in third grade.   Most recently we used a whole group flow map while reading , " There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Frog" we love doing this whole group so all kiddos can get involved. As we read the story and he

Happy Birthday Johnny Appleseed! Today we read about Johnny Appleseed. We are kind of biased because we are teachers, but boy aren't apples the most fabulous fruit around.    After we read about Johnny Chapman ( the name he was given at birth) . We realized this was a perfect day to investigate apples a little bit more. We ventured out to Olive's STEAM lab to become investigators. First we got to observe an apple that had been sitting out during the morning. We could already see how it was beginning to turn a bit brown and shrivel up. We held it, smelled it and looked closely at it so we could ask / answer why we thought it had turned brown.   We then wrote out steps we would take to come up with a solution to make it stay fresh.     We took turns investigating the 4 types of liquids . Soda    Lemon   Milk Individually , we jotted down our observations. Then as a class we shared out our thoughts and charted them.   In the end we made the conclusion that water definitely allows

Topic, Main Idea, and Details:       Ice Cream   Topic, Main Idea, and Details is one comprehension skill that our students sometimes have a hard time with.. When asked for the main idea, they would usually give us a 1-2 details not main ideas.   The problem with most main idea resources is that they don’t teach students HOW To find the main idea; instead, the resources simply provide students with practice of a skill that they don’t really understand. And then students practice finding main idea in the wrong way and form misconceptions that can be very difficult to correct. Over the years, we've experimented with a variety of different ways to teach main idea and supporting details to our students. Below are the different strategies that we found most successful and that helped develop a TRUE understanding of main idea in my students. Teaching Main Idea: Start with the Title Teaching kiddos how to use a title to help them figure out the main idea of a reading passage is one of the

Today we talked about how each and every kiddo in our class is unique. We mentioned that some like sports and others like music, some kiddos enjoy reading while some prefer drawing. This highlights ways that we are different , just like the different fish we decorated . We then discussed some things about ourselves that are the same . The kiddos suggested how they all follow  the same rules, learn the same subjects, and how they attend the same school. The fish are also just like us in that they all swim together. Hence the title we have our art display " we may all be different but in this school we swim together "...... Plus it goes with our class theme this year -MY OHANA ( my family).      Take a look and have your kiddo point out his/her fish! ALOHA

We are just finishing up our spelling unit on short vowels. We absolutely love taking our words and sorting them. Last week we sorted in three different ways.  First we brainstormed ( using a tree map), all the different short vowel words we knew by just using schema ( past knowledge ) .   Then we passed out words from our weekly spelling list and each took a turn putting the words in the correct column . During the school year there will be a similar game on the homework menu. Nothing fancy but it sure gets the kiddos excited to be playing a " game".   Finally after practicing whole group , each child worked independently by looking for short vowel words in his/ her story book.    

CAUSE and EFFECT   Why is Cause and Effect Important? Cause and effect is a theme that comes up time and time again in learning. In math, it is a way to make sense of concepts like the  order of operations  or  regrouping . In reading and writing, understanding cause and effect can help your child learn to read more critically and to write stories with captivating plots and fascinating characters. In science, it will help your child  understand the scientific method ; in history it provides perspective for how a historical event is the culmination in the chain of a series of causes and events; and in social relationships, cause and effect is a key way of learning to engage more appropriately. Today in class we made a cause and effect anchor chart ( shown above)  and discussed with partners some examples.  Then each child was then given a CAUSE in which they needed to write an EFFECT. We had a lot of great ideas.       Another fun lesson with these kiddos. We will review as the weeks co