Feeling the Love with a FREEBIE

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody! I hope you are having a blessed day. I don't know about you guys, but I REALLY need a pick me up. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. I didn't have any lemons, but I did have some adorable clip art from Goodness and Fun and made this alphabetical order freebie center to share. The recording sheet includes an alphabet chart, and the beginning letter of each word is highlighted to for prompting. I hope you guys enjoy this ABC Order Freebie!

Video Self Modeling iMovie Tutorial

Video modeling can be beneficial for all students, but particularly so for those on the autism spectrum. Research shows that video modeling is most effective when it's self modeling. Therefore, aps that use avatars to create generic social stories don't measure up.

I use my iPad and iMovie to do video self modeling. Creating videos can quick, easy and even fun.  Seriously. What kid doesn't like to see themselves on camera? You can make videos to show directions, steps in a process or to model a social situation.

To begin, shoot the footage you are going to need in the camera app on  your iPad or iPhone.  Do as many takes as you need to so that you get footage of the child doing the behavior correctly. Once you have your footage, you are ready to open iMovie.  There are tons of supercoolandbeneficial things that you can do with this app. Seriously. It's that good.

Tap plus to start a new movie.

Click the movie icon. Really. It's that easy.

When making other productions it can be fun to go with interesting themes, but for self modeling we need to keep it simple. 

Click in the upper right corner of the app. This will give iMovie access to all of the videos that you have on your device.  Touch each clip to view it. You can trim (edit the length of the video clip) by sliding the yellow bar to the left or the right. It's vital that you trim out any mistakes made by the child. When the child views the final video, he needs to see himself doing the desired behavior correctly. It sounds like a big deal, but it's really not. I wouldn't lie to you. This movie took me about 5 minutes to edit. 

Once you have your clip trimmed, touch the down arrow. This will place it into the movie. Put your clips in order. If you've made a mistake, simple touch and drag the clip out of your movie to delete. When you are finished, click the arrow in the top left corner of the screen. Here you can  name your movie, save it and export. I saved mine to Youtube on private mode. Below is a sample video I made with a student. Total time for filming and editing was 10 minutes. I spend more time looking for the perfect clipart to go on my weekly newsletter. I'm not even joking. 

Stay tuned. Next time I'll show you guys how to use videos and QR codes to make your classroom run more smoothly. I'll also have two math center freebies for ya.  

The Best App I've Ever Purchased Part 2

Last time we talked about how Puppet Pals can help students with story retelling.  It's totally fun, totally beneficial and totally worth the five bucks I spent on it.

Today I'm gonna show ya how to use Puppet Pals to make a lightening fast social story. I used this app for a student with autism who was preparing for kindergarten graduation. I snapped a picture of him in his cap and gown and made him a character in the story. We role played the process of his name being called, walking across the stage and receiving his diploma. He watched the video over and over. It was pure awsomeness.

Here's what you need to do to use Puppet Pals to make a social story of your own. Snap a picture of the child or children on your phone or iPad. You may want to take a picture of your actual environment or search for images in Google that match the environment you want the child to interact in.

Open up the Puppet Pals app. Start a new show, then click "add a character from a photo." Trace around the outline of the student.

I also made this basketball a "character" in our show. I just found the image on Google and save it to my camera roll. I then added it to our show.  Once you have all of your characters, you are ready for the backdrop. Our show is going to take place in a gym. This is where Puppet Pals can be easier than shooting actual video footage. I didn't want to walk down to the gym and take an actual photo of our gym. I just searched Google and saved this photo to my camera roll.  All blown up in the app it's not the best quality photograph, but I'm totally not worried about it. Click "add backdrop from photo" and BAM! You are ready to make your movie.

Here are the reasons why you will love this app for social stories.
1. Filming took 39 seconds.
2. This app lets you roll play situations that you are not really in.
3. Kids like to watch the movies over and over, which reinforces the positive behavior that you want to see.
4. Did I mention that filming took 39 seconds.
5. You can save it in a variety of places.

Check out our easy peasy social story on what to do if you lose a game. I invested a good 3-4 minutes on this bad boy. Enjoy.

The Best App I've Ever Purchased (and I've Purchased a Bunch) Part 1

Every year I set a goal for how I want to improve in my teaching. This year I decided that I was going to revamp my comprehension instruction. When you teach primary special education ( or kindergarten) comprehension and decoding should be taught separately. Let's face it:  "Fat Cat and the Fish" isn't givin' us much to work with in the comprehension department.  I'm pretty pleased with the results. I try to cycle through and hit the same skill multiple times throughout the year. When I can, I use seasonal books to match the skills being taught. In January, every primary teacher in America and  I used Jan Brett's The Mitten. This one lends itself well to retelling. Come to think of it, so does my favorite app.

If you don't know Puppet Pals, you are missing out. I purchased it several years ago for around five buckaroos. There are similar apps that have more bells and whistles (and way more expensive), but I find the simplicity perfect for my students.

I purchased a "Mitten" retelling kit from Oriental Trading Company a few years ago. I had leftover that I used this year. After modeling retelling and then having the students practice with paper puppets, I decided to take this activity up a notch. Here's how it worked.

With my iPad I snapped photos of items that I wanted to use as puppets for our show. I find it works better doing this before launching the app. Then we open the app, start a new show, and click "add actors from photo." 

This gives you access to your tablet's photo steam. Click on the photo that you want to make into a puppet and trace around it.

You will need to do this for each character in your show. It doesn't take much time. For this retelling I didn't find that any of the included backdrops appropriate for our show. I searched Google images, saved a photo I liked, and then chose it as my backdrop. The setup is really.that.simple.  In small groups, students and I did a "shared retelling." I'm pretty sure I just made that term up. 

This is a video I made with a student with autism. He needed some guidance, but he was totally engaged. After the shared retellings, I add the "puppets" to our classroom iPad and encourage students to record their retelling individually during center time. They love it. Something about recording our own voices is SUPER fun.  The kids enjoy watching the retellings of other students. The best part is that you can do this with almost any story using your camera and a favorite classroom book.  Puppet Pals=the best $5 I've ever spent. 

Stay tuned for Part 2 where I tell you what other cool things you can do with this app. 

Sorry. Not sorry.

Currently I’m taking a class on how to effectively technology into the classroom called Introduction to Blended Online Teaching. This course should more aptly be named It’s Not About the Technology,Stupid.  What? Not about the technology?  Confused yet?

The whole purpose of technology integration is to be better able to meet the needs of students. Therefore, the tech should serve a purpose. Read: no electronic babysitters people.  First, ask yourself what you are trying to do. Then, find/ use the technology to help you do that.

Tech doesn’t replace teachers. Unless it does. Let me explain.

In my resource room I am constantly stretching myself to meet the needs of my students. I provide a two and a half hour reading and language arts block to some extremely adorable, always funny and pretty needy kids. I group my kiddos by ability, not age. Every day they have four stations:  with me, my assistant, and independent centers. The fourth station varies. Two days a week they have speech therapy. Three days a week they work on spelling/phonics work. Everyone, that is, except for Tyler.

You’ve never met him, but you already know Tyler. He’s extremely adorable and street smart. He's driven by a motor that never seems to stop. He pretty much hates everything that happens indoors, which includes school. He also has no business working on spelling work for five days a week. Definitely not the best use of his time.  

I knew I had to act fast or Tyler was going to be renamed Trouble. I needed something that would allow me to target what Tyler was going to work on. I needed it to be motivating. I needed to hold him accountable. I also needed it to be something that wasn’t going to take me FOREVER to prep for him.  After coming up short I called in for reinforcement: my tech coach/work brother.

He hooked me up with this program called Scootpad. It’s web based and allows teachers to assign standards that students need to work on. You can determine the number of questions and the number of sets that you would like for students to answer. Each student can be different. Kiddos get immediate feedback on whether they are correct. It isn’t game based or super distracting.  But here is why I really like it.  Any time a students answer a question correctly they earn a coin. Teachers can set up a reward center in the program where students can redeem the coins that they earn.  Examples of rewards that I created by Tyler are eating lunch in the classroom with a friend, extra Lego time, fast food lunch of choice (that one is 1,000 points.)  Tyler knows that if he doesn’t answer a question correctly he doesn’t earn a coin. This has encouraged him to slow down and think about what the correct answer should be. This program doesn’t work well on tablets, so I have Tyler work on a Chromebook at my table while I am working with other students. Because it isn’t gamey, it does not distract the other students. The only frowny face about this program is that it costs money, but since I pretty much break even after buying super awesome toys, games and apps much needed supplies with my own money I’m not really gonna sweat it. Seriously. It’s a drop in the bucket.

Typically I would be very against a program like this. I am not the “drill and kill” type of teacher. I pride myself on differentiation. But when used carefully it is a reasonable teacher stand-in (minus my charm, warmth and ability to deliver an entire lesson in a Mary Poppins voice.)  It allows me to “work” with Tyler when I am physically unable to. He is motivated and held accountable.  He is working on skills that I know he needs to work on. Quite simply, it meets his needs, and that’s what it’s all about.

Full disclosure: Scootpad has not paid me to write this review, but I wish they would.

All names have been changed to protect the (not so) innocent.

The Times, They Are a Changing

So much has changed since I first began Differentiation Station. Initially I wanted this to be a place where I could share free resources that I created for my classroom with other teachers in an effort to pay it forward. Although I sometimes use TPT I never fully felt comfortable in charging my teacher homies for something that I could just give them for FREE. In the beginning as newbie teacher, I was cranking things out all.the.time. I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep for the first two years of my teaching career. Can I get an amen? But now I have curated a large quantity of resources that I utilize frequently in my resource room. So lately I've been cranking along and becoming as comfortable as a teacher who tries to meet the needs of her students and can be.

But the powers that be have CHANGED THE RULES. By changing the rules, I mean that every child in my district is getting their own tablet or Chromebook! At first I felt like Oprah Winfrey had driven down from Chicago and given everybody in the audience (aka my school district) a super awesome gift. Then reality set in. I am totally going to have to change the way that I teach. I'll give you a minute to let that sink in.

 This means that I am going to have to curate a whole new tool box of resources. These will likely not be in the form of printables but rather digital tools. Since I am going to be doing a heckuva lot of work in the coming months I figured that I might as well share the fruits of my labor with youseguys. Below is a link to a Symbaloo page where I have curated some youtube links to some of my favorite brain break videos. If you haven't used Symbaloo, it is a great way to curate resource in a visual manner so that you can easily access the links that you use most often. You can also search for webmixes that others have created. Check it out.

Brain Breaks

What are your favorite brain break songs? Have you ever used Symbaloo to curate resource?

Puzzles and a Giveaway

School has been in full swing for three weeks now! Here in Indiana we are moving toward a balanced calendar. We will have a week off for fall break, two weeks off at Christmas and two weeks off for spring break. This translates to shorter summer vacation (a.k.a. back to school in July!!!).

I've made LOTS of changes to my classroom that I can attribute to my OCD superb organizational skills, but this go round I'm going to focus on my puzzle center that I utilize during literacy centers. This center is especially important for my special needs learners to develop independent work skills, spatial reasoning, problem solving and visual discrimination, which is key to reading.

I've utilized puzzles in my room for years, but I was never quite happy with the set up. This year I decided to completely revamp it. I wanted a way to scaffold students who needed extra help. I started by taking inventory of the puzzles I already had and realized that I had way too many 100 piece puzzles and not nearly enough 24 and 48 piece puzzles. I had a limited budget to work with so I toted a bin full of books that were too difficult for my young readers to Once Upon a Child. The result was over $80 in cash that I used in the store to purchase more books at the appropriate level and puzzles. Check out some of the great bargains I found.

I got two Melissa and Doug floor puzzles for $4.50 each and several Ravensberger puzzles.

This Curious George Ravensburger puzzle was $3.50. The local educational supply store sells them for over $10 a piece!

This Thomas Ravensberger puzzle came in a metal carrying case and was only $2.50. Score! After scouring the earth for puzzles, which may or may not have included begging my Facebook friends to check their closets, I set to making puzzle mats for each.and.every.puzzle. This process involved a collection of neon poster board, more Sharpies than I care to admit (the permanent markers from the Dollar Tree actually work better)and the first two seasons of Breaking Bad on Netflix. I worked every puzzle, traced the outline of each puzzle piece, numbered every spot on the puzzle mat and numbered the matching puzzle piece with that same number. Can you say, "Holy hand cramp Batman!"? The process was slow and painful, but the end result allows my students to work the puzzle by number or picture.

Next, I took an inventory of every puzzle in my collection and ranked them from easiest to most difficult. Each week I put a new puzzle out for my students and mark it on my checklist to keep track of what puzzles we have worked. So far it's gone off like a firecracker on the Fourth of July, only not as loud.

I have tons of other things to share with you guys, but I didn't want to bore you share all my secrets at once. Stay tuned for how I organized my shelves (I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before), my new iPad news and hopefully (crossed fingers) how I built a reading teepee for my room.

In other news, I finally relented and launched my TPT store. I'm giving away my first unit, Short a CVC Mega Pack, to not one, not two, but three lucky follower of my TPT store!

This unit includes everything you need for a week of short a activities including Down on the Short a Farm (a word reading game), a Crayon Short a Word Sort with recording sheet, Out of this World Words (a making words activity with recording sheet), Short a Splat (a making words activity) and a Short a Word/Picture Match.

To enter, click on the link to head to my TPT store. Follow my store and leave a comment on the blog about your favorite back to school activity. I will announce the winners of my contest Tuesday at 6! Good luck!

Free Phonics Centers (3 of em)

Waaaaaaay back in the day (in an effort to promote Differentiation Station) I offered new followers a set of 3 free phonics centers. The give away closed two  years ago, but I still have peeps messaging me in hopes to snag the set. I thought I would help everyone out and post them here. So if you don't have these lovelies, grab em now!

Funny Bunny

Hive Hunt Recording Sheet

Hive Hunt

Oa/Ow in Space

Oa/Ow Recording Sheet

February Top 5 & Freebie Motherload

Things have been going well. Does anyone else get a little nervous when things go too well. Rather than wait for the other shoe to drop I thought it may be a better use of my time to share the five best things from this month.

5. Dental Health: So I've always avoided dental health in my little resource room. I assumed that the kids wouldn't find the topic interesting and that I wouldn't be providing any new information. I was wrong. (My husband has been waiting years to hear those words!) Many students did not know that they should brush their teeth before coming to school and going to bed. Most had family members with missing teeth.  I was so glad that we talked  about it. Plus, we were able to make this cute little craft to go with our writing. Adorable!

(Photo courtesy of Lesson Plan Diva)

4. We have masted addition (cue the halleluiah choir) and are working on mastery of subtraction Please enjoy this pirate themed subtraction game to play with your scallywags. Students take turns drawing subtraction cards. If they get it correct, they keep the card. There are also action cards mixed in (lose a turn, take a card from a friend, etc.) Play as long as time allows. The child with the most at the end of play wins.

3. Things are smooth sailing with my student with autism. He is finding his routine and we thoroughly enjoy having him. I have grown very attached to him in such a short period of time. He calls me Unger. So cute!

2. I had the best Valentine's Day ever. My husband, who is pretty much the best person I know, surprised me with concert tickets to see my favorite band The Avett Brothers. Does anyone else know them?  They just happened to be playing three hours away on Valentines Day. It was a late night, but so very worth being tired the next day.

As far as school goes, I made the superdy-duper-cutest Valentines Day noun/verb/adjective sort. I'm feeling givey (pretty sure that's not really a word) so click below to grab your copy to stash away for next year.

 1. Only twenty days until Spring Break, and I'm going to see Mickey Mouse with my bestie from work and our families.

So, what's the best thing that's happened to you lately?

Triple Blends Game

I have been a busy girl. I took three days off from school (what was I thinking?) to fly to Disneyland for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon. I'm pretty sure I would love to move to Cali. Whose with me?

The sunshine alone was worth the trip, but it's soooo muuuuch woooork to take off. I feel so behind now. And upon my return I received a new student. Let me just say,  nothing changes your classroom like an overstimulated screaming five year old with autism! He really is a sweet boy, and I know things will settle down when he acclimates to his. Somehow this week I managed to create a game for one of my first grade reading groups. We are learning to read words with triple consonant blends, and this group is finding it very tricky.  I uploaded it to google Docs to share with you. Hope you guys enjoy.

Have a great weekend!

Heather

Fact Family Cookies Freebie

Unfortunately this was totally me this week. My kiddos were cuh-ray-zee. Were your students as off the wall as mine? What I need is an Adderall air freshener way make my kids engage and focus for the next two weeks, so I am pulling out all of the stops.

 This week we will be doing Grinch themed activities and next week will be our Polar Express unit. Most of my activities will be hands on centers, and I am trying to pick leveled books that will catch their interest for literacy. We are even working toward having a gingerbread man party. I draw a gingerbread man body on the board. I made a list of everything that the gingerbread man needs. Every time we do an exceptional job of following procedures I will add another piece of the gingerbread man. When he gets filled out all the way we will have a gingerbread man making party.

Last year I found these at Kmart. They were $10, but I got them on sale for $7. Two boxes was enough for my class (remember I am resource), and it had everything we needed. This year I have not been able to find them. I am going to look at two others nearby Kmarts. Wish me luck. You may be asking yourself why I'm going to all of this trouble. Why not just bake some gingerbread men? Well kids, I am challenged in the kitchen. When I say challenged I mean that kids say things like, "Oh no! Mom cooked dinner tonight!" or "Dad's out of town. Are we having Subway or Mexican?" I could share some of my kitchen foibles with you guys, but I would like to keep my self esteem intact today. Moving on.

Last week I made this Christmas cookie fact family activity for my kiddos. I haven't used it, but I think it will go off like the Walmart alarm the week before Christmas. Click below to get yours.

So what do you do to keep your kids on track in the weeks before Christmas? Help a girl out.  I would really like to know!

Heather

Back to the Drawing Board (and a Gingerbread freebie)

Oooooh, math. Why do you hate me so?

 Things in my first grade math group were moving along just fine (or so I thought.) We completed our addition and subtraction  units in our math curriculum. The students in my small group of learning and cognitively disabled students passed both unit tests and could add, subtract, and solve simple word problems utilizing Touchpoints. We were not at mastery,  but we were making getting there. We were ready to move into related facts and fact families, and THAT'S when everything fell apart.

While working with my students last week I asked them, "What does it mean to add?". "Minus," one girl shouted. "Equals," another boy proudly stated. The third little girl stared blankly at me and offered no reply. Houston, we have a problem.

What I was doing clearly was not working. The textbook curriculum had failed them. I knew that I was going to have to rogue on this one. So I dedicated the next three weeks of math instruction to remedy their confusion.

Last Friday I made addition and subtraction anchor charts with them. I may take pictures and upload them next week for you guys if time allows. Tomorrow we start part-part-whole instruction. I made up an addition song up to help support their learning.

 (to the tune of When We All Get Together)
When you add
put groups together, together, together
when you add put groups together
This is how you add

I also have one for subtraction that I made up last year.

(to the tune of the Muffin Man)
When I see the minus sign
the minus sign, the minus sign,
When I see the minus sign,
I know I take away

I spent a good part of yesterday gathering resources to support this, but I wanted a few more activities. This morning I made a gingerbread domino par- part-whole activity. (This upcoming week is also gingerbread week in my room.) I have uploaded it to Google docs. Just click on the image below to grab your copy.

Wish me luck. I think I'm going to need it.

Heather

I Love My Red Shoes

My students have been VERY into Pete the Cat lately. I have to say, I love him as well. In fact, I just ordered a Pete from Amazon for my classroom. There are SO MANY great resources available to go with the Pete, but I couldn't find exactly the center that I was looking for. Said center was a 1-20 ten frame Pete the Cat clip activity. So while vegging on the couch nursing a Black Friday hangover (whose with me?) and watching  endless episodes of The Cosby Show,  I whipped this bad boy up.

Enjoy what remains of this holiday weekend.

Heather

Fall Leaves Word Sort

As I headed out with Hubs for an 11 mile training run this morning (in preparation for the Indianapolis Monumental Half Marathon on November 3) something really strange happened: I.could.not.run. I mean, at all. There was no gas in the tank. I wanted to lay down in a big colorful pile of leaves and take a nap. Sooooo, my 11 mile run turned into a 5 mile walk. I started to beat myself up about it, but then decided to enjoy the beautiful scenery and some alone time to hubby instead.




This morning's pitiful display change in plans gave me a chance to update my blog and share a fall leaves short e word sort center that I made last week. It includes a recording sheet.  Happy fall!

Writing Process

Because I teach primary special education I have always shied away from formally teaching the writing process fearing that it would be too difficult for my students to understand. This year I decided to give it a shot and created these posters (written in kid language) to assist my kiddos. I have been pleasantly surprised that several of them have quickly grasped the concept, so I decided to share them with you. Enjoy!

Race Report and a Freebie

My blogging break is officially over! Much of my recent time has been devoted to preparing for my first mini-marathon that I ran in February. Talk about tough! I have never been a runner (even in my super-active high school days) so I was extremely proud of this accomplishment. I started with the Couch to 5k, and I ran my first 5k in September. My sweet hubby wanted me to continue running and bribed me with a February trip to Disney World to run the Princess Half Marathon. Apparently, I can be easily bought!  The race was February 26th. It started at Epcot and went through the Magic Kingdom and back to Epcot. The most I ran before the mini was 10 miles, so let's just say it was a challenge for me. But I am so glad I did it.

Here I am picking up my race packet at Disney's Wide World of Sports.

Here I am at mile 6. They had characters set up along the race route. I stopped for one picture along the race route with Princess Tiana because she is my favorite princess. 

Now that my race is over I still plan on running, but I will have more time to devote to other pleasures (like blogging!) This week a made a sweet little freebie for you guys. It is a cookies and milk theme noun, verb and adjective sort complete with two recording sheets for differentiation. I think you are gonna like it! Please note, when you go to Google Docs is does something funny to the clip art. Click Download Original to resolve the issue.

Okay, guys. I hope you have a great weekend. Gotta run!

Heather

R Controlled Freebie

My kiddos have been having the hardest time with r controlled vowels. I decided to take the week off from our regular curriculum to review with them. To help I created some r controlled vowel posters that I have hanging in our small group area.  I played a game with them today, and they were using the posters as a resource. I thought they might be able to help your little ones as well. Click below to grab your copy.

Happy Monday!

Heather

We Love Clifford

I love Clifford the Big Red Dog. It's one of the first books I remember my mother reading to me as a child. This summer I purchased three Clifford hard back books (that had 2 stories in each one) from Kohls as well as a Clifford plush dog for $5 each. I LOVE going to Kohls for their books and stuffed animals. My classroom is full of storybook characters that I have snagged over the years (but I digress). We used the Clifford stories as a springboard for a writing activity. My students filled out this web. I had them write in complete sentences, so it served as a rough draft.

 

When they competed their web, they made a final copy and added a Clifford head and paws. You can get yours here.  I thought they were adoooorable.

What do you guys think? Do you love Clifford too? What was your favorite childhood book?

Heather

Bloggy Tag: I'm It

So it's 7:30, and I am totally getting ready to crash. I have been way busier than I would like, but before I crash I though I should answer the questions for Bloggy Tag.  I'm sorry I don't have time to tag back or hyperlink anything. You guys are the best!

Thanks, Ms. Whitetley at Toad-ally Exceptional Learners

1 - What's your favorite season? I love spring. The days get longer and everything starts to bloom. Simply beautiful.

2 - What's your favorite book?  
3 - What's your favorite TV show?   I like Bones, House and What Not to Wear
4 - How do you celebrate March is reading month?  LOTS of Dr. Seuss activities
5 - Where do you live? Indiana
6 - What's your favorite thing to teach?  reading
7 - How do you track student progress?  I have a chart that I record progress toward IEP  goals. Every six weeks I input the information into our IEP program.
8 - How do you use technology in the classroom? I have 2 iPads that students use during center time. I have a Smart board that I used for math.  
9 - Do you use Accelerated Reader? How do you reward kids for points if you do?  nope
10 - Do you play sports? What?  I am a new runner. I am currently training for my first mini marathon which I will run this month.
11 - How much time do you spend doing your hair each morning?   around 5 minutes. Gotta love naturally curly hair!
12 – What’s your favorite memory from high school?  cheerleading


Thanks to Sandra Maddox at Literacy Minute!

1.  What is your favorite snack? ice cream

2.  Where do you shop for clothes? The Limited. Their clothes just fit me so well.

3.  What is your favorite TV show? What Not to Wear

4.  Do you have a pet? nope

5.  Who is your favorite children's author? I can't pick just one!

6. What is your favorite lesson to teach? anything reading based

7.  What travel spot do you like the most?Disney World

8.  What is your guilty pleasure? Britney Spears music

9.  What do you like to do with your best friend? shopping

10.  What is your favorite magazine? decorating magazines

11.  Who inspires you to be a better person? my husband

12.  What would you buy with an extra $100.00? I would blow it at Sephora on makeup and beauty products.

 Thanks, Sarah at Fun in Title Math.

1. How long have you been teaching? 5 years

2. What is your favorite color? red

3. What is your teaching style? very structured

4. Name one best blog you frequent often.Extra Special Teaching

5. What is your favorite movie? The Wizard of Oz

6. Where do you shop to find teacher deals and supplies? Really Good Stuff, TPT, Teacher's Notebook

7. Is your classroom themed or do you change it for the seasons? no themes. Maybe next year.

8. How do you like your students grouped? (rows, clusters, etc)no desks in my classroom. only tables(which is how I want it)

9. What is one classroom rule you think is most important? treat everyone with respect

10. What do you do to relax and de-stress? Running relieves stress (although I do not enjoy it while I am doing it. Foot rubs from my hubby help me to relax.

11. What is your favorite dessert? chocolate anything

12. How long have you been blogging? 10 months

The CUPS Checklist

For a few years now, I have been using the CUPS acronym to help my students proofread their sentences. As a resource teacher, my students struggle with the very basic writing mechanics. This handy little tool reinforces the basic things that all sentences should have.

 Mini Anchor Chart

Capital- Does you sentence begin with a capital letter?
Understanding- Read your sentences. Does it make sense? Did you write what you think you wrote? Many times kiddos will leave out words on accident. This step is very helpful in catching those little mistakes.
Period (or punctuation)- Does your sentence have an end mark?
Spaces (or spelling)-  This is something that a few of my little guys really struggle with. For older or more advanced students, you can change this to spelling. Are word wall words spelled correctly?

This tool should be taught as a mini lesson and reinforce during writers workshop. An anchor chart in the classroom is very helpful.  I will try to post a picture of mine soon.

Each week, I have my students write a few sentences  with their spelling words. I created these pages (one horizontal, one vertical) for independent writing practice. Each sentence includes a CUPS checklist. Students should go back through each sentence and put a check mark by the letter after they have checked or made the appropriate corrections. If students turn in writing that lacking these essential elements, I simply tell them to "check for cups." They know what to do.

Tell me what you guys think? Do you use something similar to this in your classrooms?