Fun Friday

Happy Veteran’s Day! Today is a great day to discuss courage, honor, and patriotism in your class. We invited a veteran to share with the class. What an opportunity for your students to say thank you to someone who sacrificed  so much! A really fantastic book to read is "H is for Honor." Your students will love the writing and pictures as they learn  about the military.

Kids Say Thursday

Me: “Everything is falling today. First my poster off the wall and now the papers off my desk.”

2^nd Grader: “That’s because it’s the first day of fall!” (It really was! J)

Work It Wednesday

Writing can be a tricky subject. Some students easily come up with ideas, so they get excited when it's time to write. Others seem to sit there forever and get frustrated. To prevent any frustration, I like to give the students a picture (you can use any clipart from your computer or even a picture from a magazine.) They then have to write three sentences (exclamatory, interrogative, and declarative) all about their picture. Not once did I hear, “I don’t know what to write!”

Here's a sample for you to enjoy. Writing can be a piece of cake! :-)

Tip Tuesday

Students progress at all different levels, which can be a challenge.  One way to use this to your advantage is by creating the homework buddy system. If a student consistently gets packed up quickly, I allow him/her to become a homework buddy. I assign them to a student that needs a little more help packing their things. This fosters a classroom where students learn responsibility, compassion/awareness of others around them, and it frees you up to handle those end of the day details.

Memory Monday

Let's face it...sometimes grammar can be a little dull and tedious. My students were struggling, and I need a fun way to motivate them. This led to the creation of Grammar Bootcamp. We begin with our grammar chant. Have fun with it by letting students march and take turns leading it. If a student acts up, you can always make him/her do a few jumping jacks! :-) As students master the main components of the Grammar Bootcamp, they earn a star. They can work their way to being a 5 star Grammar General.

The following is our Grammar Chant (sung to the military sound off chant):

The heads are up, the chests are out,
Arms are swinging in grammar count.

Nouns, verbs! 1, 2!
Adjectives, Adverbs! 3, 4!
Grammar Count—1, 2, 3, 4!

Grammar Boot Camp