Saturday, January 21, 2012

Recap

Here are some of my products and pictures of them being used:

Know, Show, Level of Thinking
This year we started using Task Analysis in our district. I had used SIOP for so long so objectives for me are like second nature, but this new way of doing them are a bit different. We are to post our Know: The subject, Show: How are the students going to show proficiency on the subject, and Level of Thinking: Bloom's. Writing those labels every time I changed the concept was a hassle plus my handwriting was driving me bonkers. So I created some cute labels students can relate to, typed my Know, and Show, and created some flash cards with the L of T and vuala we had a great success for the students and mostly for me! I stopped staring at the board and getting jittery.

Bloom's Butterfly

Now we had to show Bloom's on the board, but how were we going to convey that to our little ones? My coworkers and I had to think of a way that it made sense to them. My coworker found a extremely cute half butterfly with the Bloom's levels on it, but it wasn't everything we wanted for it. We needed something that as teacher's we didn't have to look at 2 or 3 different places to find the correct Bloom's level, and we wanted to provide the definition and verbs for every level. So I took the  half butterfly and added the definitions for every level, inverted it and added the verbs. Now my students and I can easily figure out the level of thinking for each activity, or how my students learned it the level of brain power the activity requires. The farther you go from the body of the butterfly the more brain power the activity requires.
Disclaimer: My picture shows a different version. I created the entire butterfly but didn't know how to make the small image into a larger one for a poster size. At our school we have a poster maker so I took the picture and blew it up in black and white. In the poster you were unable to see the different levels an it was so boring so it was driving me crazy. I created the different levels with construction paper and wrote the same information as the poster on the construction paper. It is exactly the same, just constructed differently. I now have figured out how to make a picture into a 4 page poster, which is available in my shop for FREE. 

On the Road Again

It's been a long time :) Since the last time I created a blog, but there is so much I wanted to share and say.
I have been extremely busy. My Master's homework, creating my ideas, being a mom, celebrating my parents birthday and my daughters, and having new responsibilities at work have just kept me extremely busy. For the past 2 weeks it has been non-stop. Not a single minute to just sit and take a breath, until today.

My students have given me a challenge and have made me change my teaching mentality. I was in 3rd grade for 5 years, by Christmas the light bulb usually turned on and they were test prep ready. This year 2nd grade has changed all my rules and way of seeing education. They have grown so much since day 1, but they are just no where near where I want them to be. Many times I have to keep on reminding myself that I am teaching 2nd graders, where even the handwriting is different, but I just want so much from them. The positive side it has given me a whole new perspective in teaching, and great ideas.

I have been working on many different projects. Many of my new projects are at  TeachersPayTeachers  - Lesson Plans,Teaching Materials and Other Teacher-Created Resources or 

There are others that I have not completed or are still in my head and I have not had time to actually do them. More to come.