The Art of Teaching: The What, How, and When

Teaching is an art! This blog post contains a hodgepodge of ideas that explore the what, how, and when of teaching. When should we teach skills to those who struggle? How can we best deliver instruction? and What do we do to maintain control? Be sure and read to the bottom of this post to grab your free file!

Interventions
Interventions are essential. One of the first skills we want our kids to master is to recognize the letters of the alphabet. Here is a easy way to tackle that skill!

Using the Alphabet Book:

• Test all of the children on their letters--capital and lower case. If they know between 20-26 of the capital and 20-26 of the lower case, don't worry. They will learn the rest just by participating in classroom activities. They do not need to make a book!
• The children who know none, or very few of the letters, need to just spend time in school.  We often try to intervene on kids before they are ready! Give these kids some time!
• The "other" children are the ones to begin with! They are the ones that are ready to learn them.
• For those children, photocopy, cut, and staple the My ABC Book.
• Invite the children to cut apart the pictures and put them in a baggie.

 

Once you get to here, now you are ready to use them.
Have the children glue the pictures in to match the letters that they already know.
Add in 3 more that they don’t know.
Each day have them “read” the book to you by naming the letter and the picture.
Skip the pages that do not have a picture. As the children learn the ones you added, add more!
They will know all the letters before you know it!

 

All of the pages and directions are in this free file. You can snag it at the bottom of this blog post.

 

Wonderful World of Words

The framework used in the workshop model of teaching as essential as the content. Here is the language and steps used in that model. Connect: “Remember yesterday when we…” First remind the children of what you did yesterday.

Teach: “Today I am going to show you how….” Teach the new concept.

Active Engagement: “Now it’s your turn.” The kids practice.

Link: “Remember today and every day good readers…” Remind them of the standard you taught.

 

This anchor chart would be 7 different mini lessons to teach reading strategies.  At the end of the unit, we made these cute little tool boxes. The kids made their own set of reading tools.  The boys love these. This fun activity is from Building Foundations. Want to read more about the workshop model of teaching? You can find it in this blog post. The blog post also includes video clips!

Making the Most of Your Math Small Group

How do you organize your math time? We start our lessons with the new learning and a time to practice. Then, we move to centers. Once our kids are working independently, we begin to pull small groups.  I plan my small groups so that I can use the same lesson with all of the children with only little tweaks to differentiate.  Here is a blog post I wrote on setting up your math workshop.

 

For this fun headbands game, here's what you do:
Differentiation:

Intervention level- Teacher will provide prompts for students who might have trouble describing a shape by its defining attributes. For example: Prompt a student by asking, “How many sides does the shape have? O.K. Tell the person wearing the headband that the shape has ___ sides.” Continue to support students in this manner until they are able to generate describing statements independently.

On-target level- Students generate describing statements without assistance from the teacher. The teacher is there to facilitate and observe.

Challenge level- The child who is wearing the headband will ask questions about the shape on his/her headband to determine what it is. Ex. “how many sides does my shape have? Does my shape have any faces, or just sides? The teacher will facilitate turn taking and observe students as they are playing the game.

Want to see more small group math activities? This resource as your entire year of small group planned and ready to go!

Writer's Workshop

 

The framework is important in all content areas. I use the same "language" during math, reading, writing, etc. This trains the brain to know what to expect next. Want to see more about using this framework in Writer's Workshop? See this blog post.

 All Eyes on You

 

Classroom management is a concern due to its impact on instruction. It is essential to find ways to monitor and manage your classroom in an effective what that doesn't distract from learning. I love this little non verbal reminder. Just put a few magnets on a cookie sheet along with the “rule” you are working on. While you are teaching your class, if someone yells out, instead of stopping and verbally correcting, just pull down on the the magnets! No words needed! It is a great way for children to have a visual reminder!  Want to read more ideas for classroom management? You can find them in this blog post.