Creative Lesson Cafe: July 2014

A is for Accelerated Reader~ Ideas and Freebies

Does your school use Accelerated Reader as part of your reading program? My building is completely AR CRAZY~ in a good way! I am here with some AR photos and resources to share with you!

This is how we AR!

I work AR reading and testing into my Daily 5 rotations. It's a no-brainer and after training my kiddos on procedures, it runs itself. I STAR test my students to find their reading range and assign a best-fit level to each student. Our entire classroom library is organized by AR level. I don't have a check-out policy or sign-up. The kids borrow a book, read it and test the next day. The book gets returned and they pull another at the same level until they have read them all. Then they level up themselves.

This is my book browsing and cozy reading corner.

I have several shelves set up throughout the room so the book baskets are easy to get to. Each book bin is labeled with an AR range so the kids know which one is their browsing basket.

Here are some editable AR labels with the levels shown as I organize them.

They are matchy, matchy for baskets you may have purchased in this popular color scheme. If you like them, you can find a set here.

Tracking Progress

My former teammate, Kathy, shared an idea for communicating progress to parents with a weekly chart. This is SUPER for holding the students accountable for what is largely an independent activity. This handy chart gets stapled into a file folder and sent home on Fridays.

We open the program where all sorts of tracking information is easily found. The teacher enters the date range and can record the average percentage on tests, the points earned for the week and the average book level. I retest every five weeks and then students may be assigned a new reading range.

If you think you could use this chart with your class, you can download a copy I recreated here.

Rewarding Effort

Luckily, we have a pretty big budget devoted to AR. Several teachers volunteer to organize a brag tag incentive program. The tags are collected from grades K-5 and kept on a ball chain.

You may know that I teach at my neighborhood school.

This is my son's loot from his years as a student there.

Each tag is fun and different so the students enjoy collecting them.

We award them for points and certifications like this nonfiction tag.

The necklaces stay at school so the students can wear them at assemblies.

I hang them from push pins on this bulletin board.

If your school uses AR, you can purchase awesome tags from School Life that last forever like the ones shown above.

However, if your school has no budget for things like that, they can be costly for you to reorder year after year.

A less expensive way to go is to create your own tags you can reprint year after year!

Fall Teaching Resources for Apples and Pumpkins

Sweater weather will be here in the blink of an eye and that means classroom fun with apples and pumpkins! We begin with apple week in September around Johnny Appleseed Day. My student's favorite project is making a little apple facts minibook out of lunch bags.

This PowerPoint on the life cycle of an apple tree is a big hit with my class. What I love best about using slides on a big screen is that every student can see the pictures. This one has amazing photographs of apples, orchards, apple products and more. Because we don't have much time devoted to science, I teach with a few slides a day for a week of apple learning.

My class loved putting together the lunch bag book for apples so much that I made one for our pumpkin theme too!

If you think you might like to create these fun books with your class, click on the pictures to grab them!

We always have a project hanging from the ceiling or on a bulletin board for our themes.

Introducing... Johnny and Jenny Appleseed!

Aren't they sweet?
The kiddo's choose a hair and skin color that matches their own and then write their name in the pot!
You can find this craftivity here.

If you're looking for a cute new bulletin board for the Halloween season this year, you can find this little guy here.

So that's all for fall y'all!

Behavior Management Resources for the Elementary Classroom

Every year, it's pretty much a guarantee that we will have at least one special student in our room that demands more of our time and attention because of difficulties with classroom behavior.

I've tried many different systems and plans for behavior management over the years. Whatever was "in" or popular, I used. Each had it strengths and weaknesses. None were just right for me, my kiddos or for my parents.

So I combined my counseling expertise with years of trial and error experiences in the classroom, mixed it all up and created my own system. It has been absolutely perfect.

It's simple, easy to implement, and parents get it!

I'm Lovin' it!

Maybe you will too.

It's a little bit like a clip chart. It's also somewhat like the traffic light system. It has only four steps and is heavy on rewarding the positive and reflecting on making good choices.

The hives shown below come in black and white so you can create your display using any colored paper you like to match your room decor. I don't have a bee theme in my room, but the management system is a theme all its own so it works!

My favorite part of this system is the way it encourages clear communication between home and school.

I keep a stack of the weekly reports in a drawer. At the end of the day, the students color in their bee hive.

My kiddos are so proud to take home a happy note and sticker on their chart when it is earned.

I like to copy my awards on bright paper.

The bees are hung with magnets on my whiteboard so they are easy to move.

Happy bees from Melonheadz = a happy teacher!

You can find a detailed description and the item here.

Buzz on over to see what else my blogging buddies have available today and take advantage of some savings!

"Bee" sure to tell your friends about the sales too! :)

InLinkz.com

Reading Comprehension Resources for Second and Third Grade

Once upon a time, in a second grade classroom, I created an activity packet originally written to be a companion for teaching the Daily 5 CAFE Strategies. Every time we worked on a strategy, I pulled the corresponding page for that skill to use as a follow up. Then came the CCSS, so I made a revision to align it while still keeping true to its original purpose. It's a must have resource for reading comprehension skills that is now aligned with the science of reading research.

The practice pages can be used during small groups, as independent practice or as a whole class activity. The best part is that most of the printables can be used with just about any book!

They are great for mini-lessons on reading skills too!

All of the pages are created in black and white (except for the cute little frog you see), so you just print and go! Here's a little preview!

I start with whole group lessons using these pages with read alouds so every student can participate using a familiar story. Afterward, I use them to differentiate during reading groups and RTI. There are a few assessments included which are great for communicating with parents and progress monitoring. The story summary pages are very helpful in preparing my kiddos for their exiting DRA tests.

You can read more about the Reading Comprehension Companion here.

SO... what do the rest of the students do while I am working on reading skills with a small group?

They are working at their level in reading groups of their own. I call them my BOOK CLUBS. In book clubs, students are working on fluency and comprehension. They run themselves and it's great! All students are reading, focused and pretty quiet during this block, so problems with getting interrupted or distracted at the reading table are very rare. My little group doesn't feel like they are missing out on anything either.

This group of super readers is working on a chapter book. They never finish before the rotation is over. Other groups with short picture books do, so to keep them focused and on task, after reading, they use these Book Club Question Cards.

These are not just for book clubs, however. I also use them to check on comprehension with my small group. The kids BEG to use them!

Each child draws a card, reads it and answers the question! Super simple success and they love the novelty of the little cards!

When I have a sub, I leave a read aloud book and the cards for whole group use. It's an instant lesson plan!

You can find the book club cards here.

Happy teaching!

Tips for TPT Sellers: Using Shape Fill in PowerPoint

I love when I discover how to do something new when it comes to technology! Most of what I know, I have learned simply by trial and error or I found myself a great tutorial! I am here to share a little trick I just stumbled upon by playing around with digital backgrounds.

We teachers love labels of all shapes and sizes for our classrooms. You can easily make your own! I am adding mini-labels to a new polka dot classroom decor set. The problem is that when I filled the tiny square the way I did the larger decor pieces, the dots on the background paper were too small and spaced too far apart to be seen around the cute green frame by Ashley Hughes. It's the case of the disappearing dots! It's not much of a polka dot set with only four semicircles in the frame as you can see. Maybe this has happened to you before as well.

So what do I do? Determined to have my dots, I begin trying to fix it any way I can but without much luck other than turning my dots into lovely ovals. Dots and chevrons are probably the two hardest patterns to work with because they both get easily distorted, especially in rectangles.

I will take you through the steps to get from my before to my after when working with dots!

This can also be applied to many, but not all digital papers that you plan to use to fill a shape.

First, insert your shape in PowerPoint as you normally would.

For mostly white backgrounds, I like to add a faint cut line around the shape.

Then, follow these steps below to fill the shape with your favorite digital background papers.

** It's been my experience that not all papers are created equally. Some tile more nicely than others inside a shape. Watch out for visible seams. If you have them, you'll want to choose a different paper.**

The most important step here is to be sure to check tile picture as a texture to avoid the stretch with patterns! When I did this last step, I now have the large dots from the pretty paper I chose (which is really just a .png image) inside my shape. Normally I would stop there.

Here is the shrinking part of the tutorial:

Find where it says Scale X and Scale Y.

I've seen them there every time, but completely ignored them for years because I had no clue what they were for!

(It's OK. You can say "duh" if you already knew this. I have many "duh" moments!)

So I just started fiddling around with it and discovered the shrinky dink effect!

See how the default is set to 100% in the picture above? Use the down arrows or type in a value less than 100. I gradually worked my way down until I adjusted the dots to be the size I wanted them to be.

My dots stayed nice and round when I changed both X and Y to the same value. 47 was my magic number.

For some backgrounds you may also find that adjusting the alignment will place your patterns where they may be better seen and not be hidden behind any clip art or frame.

Save Time!

Once you have shape fill in general and these tricks mastered, it's super easy to just click on every shape on your page to select them all at once, rather than filling each shape individually.

Follow the same series of steps to add your backgrounds quickly!

Here is the finished product~ teeny tiny dots on teeny tiny labels!

Hope you learned a little something here!

If you are a PowerPoint user, try it out and let me know how it works for you! Maybe you'll discover something to add here! For those of you just getting started with using PowerPoint, you can find many great beginner tutorials out there if you search!

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