It's a friendship easter egg hunt!

Do you ever see easter eggs on sale after the holidays for pennies? I do, but then I also buy them =)
They've been sitting in a closet for a while and my amazing intern finally got some use of of them.

In each easter egg we put a scenario or quality of a good or bad friend. Students had to go around the room and find the eggs. Then open the egg, read the scenario, and sort them into a basket at the front of the room.



*Tip: we had about 40 eggs. So we told each student to find one and then help a friend find an egg so that everyone had a chance.

September Lesson Plans

Finally getting around to sharing what I've been up to. What a school year!!

Here's what we are doing in our class in September. I'll upload my lesson plans to Google Drive and keep updating them there so check it out here.

gonoodle.com

K and 1st: Let's Listen

We started by reading Interrupting Chicken.  Then we practiced our skills by learning the chicken dance on Go Noodle.

gonoodle.com

Then we talked about all the body parts it takes to listen (eyes, ears, body, brain, etc).  We then met Howard B Wigglebottom who is also learning how to listen. After watching our story,
we practiced again by playing Freeze It on Go Noodle.

http://speech-specialed.blogspot.com/p/whole-body-listening.html

Follow up: We did a cut and paste activity about whole body listening.

New book buys

Here are a few books I picked up this week, that I am excited about for next year:


" With the help of his imaginary friend, Weasel, Ellison finds his very own voice - a jazzy sound that charms all the other animals!" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/563061.Ellison_the_Elephant?from_search=true).


How I want to use:  This comes with a CD so it would be a great read aloud for students (I can save my voice) to talk about friendship and finding your talent. I also think this would be a great book to lend teachers to continue the lesson in the classroom. They can use it as a Daily 5 station and the students can listen to the cd.



"This endearing friendship story about a boy and his dog from a Pulitzer Prize–winning writer gently explores a timeless question: who’s really in charge?
Meet Sid. He’s an ordinary kid. He’s far from perfect. But to Murphy, Sid’s faithful dog, Sid is the whole world. Murphy thinks Sid is the absolute best—and that he’s in charge of everything.
Sid loves Murphy right back, but he can’t help but wonder what Murphy would think if he realized the truth: Sid’s just a kid, and Murphy’s just a dog, and neither one can control the world." (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18122696-me-dog)

Topics to cover with this book: self control, friendship, respecting adults/teachers, rules, perfectionism, self acceptance and self esteem, etc.

"A boy rides a bicycle down a dusty road. But in his mind, he envisions himself traveling at a speed beyond imagining, on a beam of light. This brilliant mind will one day offer up some of the most revolutionary ideas ever conceived. From a boy endlessly fascinated by the wonders around him, Albert Einstein ultimately grows into a man of genius recognized the world over for profoundly illuminating our understanding of the universe. "  (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14955390-on-a-beam-of-light?from_search=true)

Back To School Book Wish List

How I plan on using it:
*Collaboration with our school librarian and teachers for non fiction research. I got this idea from Sarah Svarda, librarian genius. She had her students research about an animal and then write a script before they used Chatterpix to make a fun recording about what they had learned.  You can read all about it here. She also had one of our friends, C Jayne Teach, write about about a similar lesson, where the students used persuasive writing to talk themselves into liking certain creatures. I am going to try and collaborate in a similar way, but with a career focused twist.

*One of Sarah's students branched outside the box and created this amazing Chatterpix. So here is my prompt for students. After researching your animal, what job should/would they have if they were human and why? Or, what job should they not have or why? They need to talk about skills, talents, hobbies, interests of the animal and connect it to that career. For example, social animals might make great helpers. Animals that run a lot might not want to work in schools, but would make a great police officer.

Read all about this amazing book here: http://www.upworthy.com/this-adorable-kids-book-lets-boys-know-tough-guys-have-feelings-too

How I plan on using: in my boys small groups, morning meetings with boys, and even in classroom guidance. 

How I plan on using it: Connect, compare, and contrast with When Pigasso Met Mootisse. Then partner students to create a friendship Venn Diagram.  Here is a great lesson idea.

Lessons for November- friends, safety, empathy, decision making, thankfulness, and bullying!

It's almost time for Thanksgiving break!!!!! Until then, here is a little about the fun we are having in class..

K-
We are talking about being a good friend.

Intro: We started out by reading "Let's Be Friends" on BookFlix.

Next, we watched "Rainbow Fish" on Storyline Online to talk about how good friends put others first and share. 

The class shared examples of good friendship skills that I wrote on starfish and fish.  To end each student decorated his/her own rainbow fish that we put on our bulletin board: "We are all friends in our school" (get it school haha!) 

Need more: Check out the word match on Book Flix:

1st Grade: Our character education word of the month is citizenship. We are reading "Michael, Recycle!" This is such a cute rhyming book and it has a lot of big vocabulary words for 1st grade, like crusader! 

In the past I have used this amazing Rhyme, Define, Rhyme pack by Speech Snacks I found on TPT.

I really like it, but I think its too hard for 1st grade. I would definitely use it for 2nd or 3rd. If your students are up for the challenge there are rhyming cards in the TPT pack- you could hand them out to each child and them find the partner whose card rhymes with theirs. There are also some great discussion cards you could play Quiz Quiz Trade with. 

First, we read and slowly discuss the book. I let the students turn and talk and share their ideas and answer questions. Then at the end the students draw what they would do at school if we had a "Be Greener Campaign." 

Book Fair Books

The problem with your best friend being a librarian is you always have to buy books...I mean how could I not. Seriously she inspires me to add to my collection- I can't wait to share with the kids!

I got some great books at book fair this year check them out:

You know I can't get enough of the "3 Ninja Pigs" and this book has been on my wish list for a while. I can't wait to use this book along with Corey Rosen Schwartz other books to compare and contrast, talk about point of view, etc. Need ideas - no worries- here is the teachers guide.

Here is the book trailer:

I love this book by one of my all time favorite authors Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

This is a great way to add non fiction into your lessons. This book talks about bug manners and it's GROSS, which means the kids will love it. It would be super fun to have the kids vote on which but they think has the best and worst manners and why. Get the teacher's guide here.

I also grabbed a Tom Litchfield book. This book is going to be so much fun for our career unit and talking about not giving up on your dreams. Read the story behind the story here.

If you have "When Sophie Gets Angry" then you have to  check out this sequel.

This is a great book to talk about conflict resolution and problem solving skills. It would be fun to read it and then follow up with a socratic seminar on dogs vs. cats.

Helping With Jealousy

With field days and contests upon us we have started talking about jealousy, pride, and self esteem.

I got to share a super fun book "Ping and Pong Are Best Friends Mostly."
It's about two friends (Ping and Pong) and one of the friends Pong is better at everything than Ping. It's a great way to introduce the feeling of jealousy. When I asked the 1/2nd grade students how Ping must be feeling, many said mad or sad, but none could identify the feeling of jealousy. When I asked by students why he was having those feelings, many said because Pong was bragging. As you will notice in the book Pong doesn't brag. In fact he's a good friend that just happens to be better. This lead to a very interesting discussion!!!

I love the book so much I made a TPT packet for you.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Activity-Packet-For-FriendshipSibling-Rivalry-1785793

I love the book "Ping and Pong Are Best Friends (Mostly) to discuss feelings of jealousy. I created this packet for small groups, individuals, or classroom lessons. It can be used for feelings of rivalry between peers or siblings. The packet includes: 6 versions of Venn Diagrams to compare characters, students, and siblings, 2 self esteem pages where students write/draw about what they are good at, 2 feeling and strategy pages, a problem solving page.

*please excuse that it prints out a few blank pages. No matter what I do it won't delete them =/

Not soon after I started this lesson I got a request for help with sibling rivalry so I added some sibling questions and pages to my packet. 

Funny Friends

Are you guys loving this Android commercial as much as me?

I adore it!  I knew I had to sneak it into one of my lessons. I also had to share with one of my favorite collaborators, S. Svarda, School Librarian extraordinare. Check out her blog here!!!

 This month my lesson with 2nd/3rd really continues to morph, especially with Valentines Day. Here's a rough sketch of what I did and how I used this wonderful video.

Introduction: This month we are talking about respect, being a considerate classmate, and bullying prevention. I introduced the topic asking students to share with a neighbor one way they include others at school.

Lesson: Next I asked them to look and see if they could see any of their answers in our story and we read the  award winning and wonderful book "Each Kindess" by Jacqueline Woodson.

Next (depending on time) we played Quiz Quiz Trade using my "Each Kindness" cards. You can get them on my TPT store for $1. Some classes we played a short game (find 5 partners) and some classes we played a longer game. It really depended on time and what I had planned next.

Follow Up Fun - Here are 2 options for what to do next.

New Favorite Book and Activity Guide

Thanks to my favorite librarians I found my favorite new book! "Pirate, Viking & Scientist" by Jared Chapman is so adorable, funny, informative, and well so much more. It's the story of Scientist who is friends with Viking. He's also friends with Pirate, but Pirate and Viking are not friends. What is a Scientist to do? Hysterical experiments to bring his friends together of course!


I am in the special area rotation 2 days a week and my classes are 45 minutes. So you can stretch reading this book out for 45 minutes, but I also shortened it and did this lesson using technology into 20 minutes.  

I created a 24 page activity guide that's in my TPT store and having a 15% off sale for #NSCW15. I hope you find it as useful as I have.

Here's what included: This activity pack is to be used in conjunction with the book "Pirate, Viking & Scientist" by Jared Chapman. It includes two pages of lesson ideas, a list of CCSS Standards met, ASCA and TN State School Counseling Standards met, 7 versions of Venn Diagrams, 34 vocabulary cards, a before reading, a during reading, and after reading worksheet, a formula for friendship worksheet, angry feeling ranking cards with 4 different variations to help differentiate for your learners.

I would also suggest these two awesome TPT finds to go along with this book:

Extend the conversation by tying in career awareness with this "What Does A Scientist Do?" adorable packet from Creating With Crayolas.  I love the idea of using this as a follow up lesson to the book. It's a great way to talk about how scientists solve problems and how all of the students are scientists because they are always solving problems with friends.

Working on more ELA standards? Use this adorable Story Map Packet by Nicole Baranov.  It's an adorable way to extend the discussion, but would also be super fun to encourage teachers to download so they can use it in their room. It would be a great collaboration. 

If you want a shorter version or are using technology here's what I did:

 We read the book at a faster pace and then I made a quick Kahoot.  Here is the short 5 question game I created for my 1st-2nd graders: https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/bfd759d6-9c46-4868-8cb9-b6f040742e80. 
We used the librarians iPads to play and they loved it!!!

What I really did to prevent invisibility......

So I finally got to do my lesson on "The Invisible Boy!" Like all good lessons I started out with one plan, changed it, changed it the morning of, and then during my observation changed it again. Ha!

Well here's a rough draft of how I used this incredible book. Also, here's how it connect to Common Core Standards.

Introduction: 

I started having the kids gather around for a "science experiment."
Here's how it works:

        1. In a plate/flat container that's full of water I pour in pepper. I ask the students to think of the pepper as people. We call them our "pepper people." I ask them to notice that the pepper is floating together, almost like a family or a community This is a good place to discuss people coming together in the community, at school, etc. You can ask them to think of all the different ways people work together.

Just pour pepper into a plate filled with water.

        2. Then I introduce the "soap." Put the soap in the middle of the pepper. In previous lessons I have introduced the soap as a "bully," however this time I asked them to just think of the soap as a person.

Next take a bar of soap and place it in the middle of the pepper.

        3. As you will notice when you put the soap in the water the pepper immediately darts away from the soap. I asked the kids to tell me why the pepper would be running away from the soap. Some said that the soap was a bully, others said it might be someone who is scared, etc. This time I asked them to imagine the soap was not a bully, perhaps a new student or even a student they have known a long time. I then asked them again, why would the pepper run away?


    4. This was a good place to introduce our vocab. words of the day: exclusion and inclusion. I explained that the pepper were all off by themselves and the soap was left alone. We discussed the word exclusion here, when one student noticed that some of the pepper had stuck to the soap. She commented that if the soap were a bully perhaps they were joining the bully or maybe trying to stop him. I asked them to discuss why else the pepper might stick to the soap.



   5. Next we talk about inclusion and that it's important to include everyone and it just takes one "sugary sweet" random act of kindness to make a big change. As I talk about this I pour the sugar where the soap was and slowly you will see the pepper coming back together.

Lastly, pour sugar into the middle of the plate.

Lesson: Next I read the story, stoping frequently to ask the students to make connections between our experiment and the book; looking for pepper people, the soap, and the sugar. I also asked them to make text-to-life connections. Many of my students really opened up!

Game: Next we played Quiz Quiz Trade using the discussion questions in the back of the book. I had a student demonstrate with me how to play and model how to restate an answer. I asked everyone to show their listening skills by restating what they heard and repeating it each partner. They did a great job, I loved the "I heard you say that you think..." or "So you are saying that...." It was amazing.  I also added a few like: "What do you think exclusion is?" "Do you think exclusion is bullying?" and "What food have you tried from other countries?"

I don't have a Smart Board yet so I wrote the directions of how to play on the board. I had the students turn and talk with a neighbor to practice our level 1 whisper voices. They had to share one text-to-life connection using their level 1 voices. 

We discussed answering the same question again. I asked them to use high order thinking for repeat questions.

What if I don't have a partner? I asked a student to model with me how to ask for a partner before we began.

Get your game cards here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Quiz-Quiz-Trade-Game-Cards-for-The-Invisible-Boy-1745395
Get the lesson plan with CCSS and ASCA standards here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_6T4rR2pFj5SlplTndNSE1GRU0/view?usp=sharing


Exit ticket: To leave the room I gave each student a post it note and asked them tell me what stuck with them.