Class Antics – Inside Elementary Education

Notebook paper, whether wide ruled or college ruled, is great.  It’s cheap, and can be used for many assignments.

Kids and other teachers have taught me that notebook paper is also really useful when it’s turned sideways.  Then you can use the lines to help you line up math problems.  This really helps kids keep everything straight, and makes little mathematicians much more successful.

It’s a quick tip, but a good one.

I have found a magical teaching tool: Spectrum Publishing’s Little Critter Reading.  It’s a workbook with the perfect format: an engaging story based on the Little Critter books by Mercer Mayer, followed by a worksheet covering comprehension, phonics, and study skills.  Students beg to use it and groan when we put it away.

In my experience, Little Critter Reading improves a reader’s skills by a whole grade level.

You can buy Little Critter Reading at two levels: grade 1 and grade 2.  Grade 2 is appropriate for students in second and third grade.  Grade 1 helps students make the remarkable transformation from reading three sentences on a page to reading several paragraphs—in the space of one workbook.  Grade 1 is great for English Language Learners.

I recommend Little Critter Reading books for the classroom and for the home.  At home, a parent or older sibling can tutor a struggling reader with Little Critter Reading books.

How to use Little Critter Reading:

1.  Read the story to your students.  Very important—think how much better they can read if they already know what it sounds like!
2.  Let the student(s) read aloud with you.  This way, you’re pulling the student along and helping her experience fluency.  For the whole class, choral read the passage.
3.  If time and patience allow, the student can read the story aloud without your help.
4.  Do the worksheet that goes with the story.  You might have to teach a mini lesson on topics such as root words, ABC order, verb tense, etc.  Kids quickly catch on and complete the lesson easily.
5.  Review the lesson.

One caveat: you are not supposed to photocopy Little Critter Reading workbooks.  I applied for a grant and bought a class set of the workbook.  I use it with my third graders at the beginning of the year.  We put a page protector over the worksheet page and write on the page protector with an Expo marker.  We erase with old socks.

Students who behave well get to draw on the page protector for two minutes!

Seriously, I can’t recommend Little Critter Reading highly enough.

Great news!  My album, Best Multiplication Songs EVER! won two awards for 2010:  Dr. Toy’s Top 100 products and Dr. Toy’s Top 10 Educational Products.

Click here to learn more about the album.

Who is Dr. Toy?  Stevanne Auerbach, PhD, is one of the nation’s and world’s leading experts on play, toys, and children’s products.  Dr. Toy started her career as a teaching and reading specialist, helped establish the first childcare centers for federal employees, and founded the San Francisco International Toy Museum.

With 30 years of specialized experience, Dr. Auerbach evaluates educationally oriented, developmental and skill building products from the best large and small companies in four annual awards programs.  Parents, teachers and toy buyers rely on Dr. Toy’s guidance in selecting products for children. 

Dr. Toy’s motto is “Let’s play!”  Best Multiplication Songs EVER! perfectly fits Dr. Toy’s philosophy that play is educational, and education can be fun.

Thank you, Dr. Toy!

The Math Worksheet Generator (math-aids.com) is an awesome FREE site!  Parents and teachers should know about it.  It’s beyond awesome.  It’s great that you can generate worksheets for basic facts practice…but the awesomeness extends far beyond that.

I will definitely be telling my fifth and sixth grade colleagues about the PEMDAS worksheets.  I didn’t learn about the order of operations until junior high (in an advanced class), but now the Department of Education thinks that 10 year olds can do it.  Now we teach fifth-graders how to do PEMDAS: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction.  As you can imagine, the kids need tons of practice.  Once they understand the concept, they can’t get enough PEMDAS worksheets!  It’s really fun to do big kid math.

The math worksheet generator has a great section on rounding.  Rounding is an extremely difficult concept for children.  Many students struggle with it all through elementary school.  Kids can’t get enough rounding practice.  Teachers will be glad to have great worksheets that provide this practice.

The kindergarten section is wonderful.  It can be tricky to find good practice for kindergartners, and this site certainly delivers.  At home, the kindergarten worksheets would be great for older siblings to use when they’re playing school with younger siblings.

I could go on and on about the sections on money, graphing, time, measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode), exponents, ratios, fractions, and more…but I think it’s really time you stop listening to me and go visit the Math Worksheet Generator!

Introducing kids to school staff is a good first-week-of-school activity.

Since everyone on staff is especially busy during this time, they probably won’t be able to visit classrooms.  You might want to take pictures and prepare a simple PowerPoint slide show.  (Or just print the pictures, if time or resources are limited.)

You might like to ask each staff person to tell you little bit about their job, how they serve students, and how students can help serve the school community.  Add a little personalization with hobbies or interests, if you’d like.

This way, your students understand that it’s personal when they mess up the lunchroom, ask to go to the nurse when they really don’t need to, or make extra demands on the school secretary.  The kids might come to understand that the principal is a real person with more to do than discipline naughty children.

Your students will feel inspired and empowered by the tips on how they can serve the community.

Start with the custodian/building manager and whoever will be your Special Person for the day.

After that, here are some suggestions for people to “meet”:

> Specials teachers (Music, PE, Art)
> Principal/Vice Principal/Dean
> Secretary/Attendance Clerk
> Nurse
> Social worker
> Recess monitors
> Psychologist
> Cafeteria manager
> A representative of Instructional Aides, and certainly the ones your class will work with
> Resource teacher (if he/she will be working with your class)

This is a lot of information.  Prioritize, then “meet” one or two people a day.  Your kids can’t remember much more than that.  You can review this little presentation after each school break for a quick brush-up.

Make a little quiz if you’d like!  (Sample question: who takes care of sick students and tests vision?)

Teachers, students, parents—you can download a FREE* computer program, Best Addition Practice EVER!  to help kids study their basic addition facts.  (*Free for non-commercial use — it was designed for home and classroom use; it’s available for PC only,  Windows XP or newer.)  Click here to look at screenshots and detailed descriptions about the program.

Best Addition Practice EVER!  really is the best.  The program is simple and easy to use.  It’s customizable, letting kids teach themselves addition facts, practice, and test themselves.

Teaching Tips, a button on the screen, explains how you can show your students to use the program to teach themselves, then test their progress.

For example, beginning students can practice with adding 0 and 1 to the numbers 0-12.  Students could also choose to practice adding only 0 through 5.  Students who think they really know their addition can select all numbers and test themselves on all 169 facts.

Students can practice with facts that give them trouble.  Many students struggle with adding 9.   Students can start by adding 9 to 0, 1 and 10.  Then they can add an additional fact, while constantly reviewing what they already know.

My dad wrote a version of this program for my younger brother and sister years ago.   I have used it in my classroom for several years.  Students from my class—and others—love to use it for practice.  It works like magic!

Best Addition Practice EVER! complements my new CD, Best Multiplication Songs EVER!   It features simple lyrics and tunes you know.  The songs help kids learn their times tables quickly and permanently.

Give them a listen!

Best Multiplication Songs EVER!  is available for purchase at Abligio.com.  If your school is interested in buying multiple copies, contact Abligio Books for a special school rate.

I hope that Best Addition Practice EVER! and Best Multiplication Songs EVER!  help your students as much as they have helped mine.

You can download a FREE* copy of a special computer program, Best Times Tables Practice EVER!   (*Free for non-commercial use — it was designed for home and classroom use; it’s available for PC only,  Windows XP or newer.)  Click here to look at screenshots and detailed descriptions about the program.

This free software complements my new CD, Best Multiplication Songs EVER!  (More about that later in this post.)

Best Times Tables Practice EVER!  really is the best.  The program is easy-to-use.  It’s customizable, so students can practice one or two times tables at a time, review all of their facts, or even teach themselves.

Teaching Tips, a button on the screen, explains how you can show your students to use the program to teach themselves, then test their progress.

For example, students can begin to learn their 6s, a difficult times table, by practicing with ONLY 6 times 0, 1, 10 and 11.  Once students know this, they can add an additional fact, while constantly reviewing what they already know.

My dad wrote a version of this program for my younger brother and sister years ago.  I have used it in my classroom for several years.  Students from my class—and others—love to use it for practice.  It works like magic!

Best Times Tables Practice EVER! complements my new CD, Best Multiplication Songs EVER!   It features simple lyrics and tunes you know.  The songs help kids learn their times tables quickly and permanently.

Give them a listen!

Best Multiplication Songs EVER!  is available for purchase at Abligio.com.  If your school is interested in buying multiple copies, contact Abligio Books for a special school rate.

I hope that Best Multiplication Songs EVER!  and Best Times Tables Practice EVER!  help your students as much as they have helped mine.

Remember how you learned your ABCs?  It was easy.  You sang a simple song with simple lyrics.  If you’re like many people, you still hum the tune to yourself when alphabetizing.

My new CD, Best Multiplication Songs EVER!  lets kids learn their times tables just as easily.

I stand by my claim that they’re the Best Multiplication Songs EVER!  The songs are catchy and easy to memorize.  The lyrics are simple and the tunes are familiar.  Your class can listen to all times tables, zero through twelve, in 8 minutes.  Special music-only performance tracks let kids test themselves—or put on a show.

Best Multiplication Songs EVER!  helps students access their times tables using multiple intelligences: linguistic, logical/mathematical, musical, and bodily kinesthetic (because these toe-tapping tunes get kids dancing!)  The result is that students learn more quickly, more permanently, and make more connections in their learning.

In teacher terms, the songs build a prior knowledge.  Times tables are boring, difficult, and abstract to most children.  The songs put the times tables in students’ heads—prior knowledge that makes the task of memorization easier.  You’ll notice students singing the songs to themselves as they complete multiplication practice sheets.

Best Multiplication Songs EVER!  is available for purchase at Abligio.com.  If your school is interested in buying multiple copies, contact Abligio Books for a special school rate.

This one-minute YouTube video explains Best Multiplication Songs EVER!  and samples several of the songs.  I hope you enjoy it!

This is part of a series of posts about special area teachers, whose subjects include music, art and physical education.  Today I’ll discuss how classroom teachers can optimize their relationship with special area teachers and help their students learn more from every “special.” 

It all comes down to respecting the teacher and teaching children to reflect on the day’s lesson.

Before the special area class:

Ask your students what they did during the last session.  What do they hope to get out of today’s lesson?

Take a moment to calm your students, so your students are primed for learning when they begin their special area lesson.  My class usually needs a calming thirty seconds in line before a special area class.  It makes a difference.

Leaving your class with the special area teacher:

Greet the teacher by name.  Smile.  Exchange pleasantries about how much your class is looking forward to the lesson.  Without taking a lot of time, show an interest in what the class will be learning.

Make sure the students are calm and ready to learn before you leave the class with the special area teacher.

Picking your class up from the special area class:

Greet the teacher.  Ask if your children behaved well, and promise to follow up if there were any behavior problems.  Ask one student to recap what they learned.  Remind your students to say thank you.

Special area teachers, do you have any additional tips for classroom teachers?  How can we support you?