High Five's for Multiplication

As I planning my lessons and activities for the upcoming week, and by that I mean getting absolutely distracted by browsing Pinterest.  I came across this pin:

I thought to myself that this would be a great way for the third grade students to practice their multiplication facts.  So I took the idea from Pinterest and made it my own.  I focused on the 6's, 7's, 8's and 9's, knowing that these are the facts that my students struggle the most with.

It was amazing how quickly the students took to the multiplication hands, and were giving high fives while repeating the facts as they walk through the hallway.  Here's hoping the facts sink in and they learn their facts without realizing it.

Managing Behaviors

Since coming into my new position, I have been having quite the adjustment.  It's really hard to jump in during the middle of the school year with 3 different teachers that all have 3 different approaches to behavior management.  This is the first year that my new school is departmental starting for students in 3rd grade.  So my students travel to reading/writing, math and science classes, and I jump in and work with them in all three settings.

          

My biggest struggle so far has been working out a system that I can use with my students across different classrooms, but is not intrusive when it comes to the other teachers management styles.  So I have developed these behavior folders.  The students and I monitor their behavior throughout out the day, and they move a clip up and down based on their behavior.  So far my students have been really receptive to the system, and the general education teachers have been really supportive as well.  They have done a great job rewarding the positive behaviors, as my students are always real proud to share and show their charts.

The Mid-Year Transfer

I have been navigating the 3rd largest school district in the nation for almost 8 years now, and it is definitely not the easiest thing to do.  I started my teaching career in a large elementary school on the west side of the city.  The last year or so the commute and the politics at my school started to become more than I could handle.  I knew that I wanted to transfer schools, but it wasn't going to be easy.  I made the really tough decision to transfer schools at the end of the first semester.

While I am really excited to be starting a new position tomorrow, I am feeling really guilty about leaving my students and co-workers behind.  In order to ease some of the transition for my students and the new teacher who should be coming into my position, I have been trying to leave things in place for them.  I put together portfolios for my students with their work from math, writing and reading.  I explained the portfolios to the students and the paraprofessional so they would be able to share that information with their new teacher.

I am also not the type of person to leave someone else in a bad place, so I've put a lot of pressure on myself (as you can see from my todo list above) to leave everything pretty much done and set up for whoever comes into my position.  I even made a binder with unit guides, and all the information the new teacher will need.  I truly hope this will help make the transition for my students as easy as possible.

New Year - New Goals...With a Bit of Arts and Crafts!

Being a special education teacher, much of my practice is centered around setting goals for my students.  With my student's IEPs the goals are often coming from a team of adults, teachers and other specialists, using data from the student to help them grow.

I do always try to start the year when we return from break with my students setting goals for themselves.  This year I wanted to do something a little different with my students and I found this great freebie on TpT from Created by MrHughes.  The mobiles were exactly what I was looking for, something that got my students writing and offered a chance to be creative with some coloring, cutting and gluing.

We started off by watching BrainPop's video on Setting Goals.  This really helped my students understand what a goal is, and how to write a good goal.  Next we took the time to write a first draft of their goals.  Then both myself and the paraprofessional held writing conferences with the students, and we provided support with spelling and grammar, as well as provided clarification for goals as needed.

The 2016 mobiles are a great decoration and inspiration for our classroom.  They have been a conversation starter for everyone who stopped by to visit our classroom.  The students enjoyed sharing which mobile they made and what their goals for 2016 are.