I,Teacher: Our Class Books

Showing posts with label Our Class Books. Show all posts

Saturday, 20 December 2014

Book Club: Don't let the pigeon drive the bus!

Don't let the pigeon drive the bus! is one of my favourite books for children, since it addresses many behaviour issues from demanding attitude to anger tantrums. It is the first of many in the series of pigeon adventures. It is funny and witty and perfect for beginner readers. So consider getting one of the Pigeon books for Christmas these holidays, they ensure a good laugh.

photo via wikipedia

While you are at it, click on the book photo to visit the official site and play the games you can find there online.

Learning to read is a difficult task. When parents ask me what they can do to help their child start reading with fluency, I can only reply with one answer. Read to them, read with them, let them read on their own. In other words, do what you did when your child was learning to read in their mother tongue. Pick a book they would be interested in. Pick a book appropriate to their reading level, that won’t be that difficult that will turn the reading process into a hateful experience.

There are thousands of books out there that can help your child read faster and better. In this post I list some of the books that I would buy for my child if they were beginner readers.

· 2^nd grade

During our first semester in 2^nd grade, we learnt the alphabet and ventured into the difficult task of blending sounds to read our first words. Here are a few books that will help them practice reading over the Christmas break.

Alphabet and word books:

1. Lift the Flap Word Book by Felicity Brooks

A great book to help your child make that precious word to picture connection. The drawings are very beautiful and it is made out of sturdy material for reading over and over again. Click on the photo for video link.

Grammar Comic Strip

Technology today offers us teachers a large variety of mediums through which to present grammar structures. Last week I discovered a great comic strip maker called toonlet and tried my hand at making a few strips. I can't wait to show my 5th grade.

These strips feature my favourite grammar robot Serious Grammaticus, who has started to become popular among my students. Maybe I should start writing his adventures down!

I Can Do It Class Project, based on E.Carle's From Head To Toe. Εργασία των μαθητών της Γ' Δημοτικού της Σχολής Χιλλ

Just a thought before I start...
It has been a long time since the last time I posted something and I am afraid that was a very conscious decision. The Internet is a world of freedom and information, in which the possibilities are endless. Unfortunately, the possibility that someone may use your photos and text without permission in their own site or blog is equally possible. I was unpleasantly surprised when I found some of my work on other blogs, without a reference to my blog, so I decided to stop posting until I had shorted that out. I am still trying to find ways to secure my work, I am still learning you see, so if anyone has any advise or thoughts on this please let me know.

I Can Do It Class Project

Last month with third grade we learnt the verb "can". I was looking for consolidation activities when one of my colleagues, Zoe, suggested I use Eric Carle's From Head To Toe. The lesson plan I made was based on the PPP, Presentation, Practice, Production model.

Presentation
Firstly, we read it in class and then we had our own circle time asking each other questions. I have recorded that session and is going to be used in the students' Goodbye Interactive CD.

Practice
Then we watched the youtube video based on the book and we learnt the song. There is no need to tell you how much children love action songs! We all had so much fun dancing around to it in class. The video below is from youtube.

Production

The lesson couldn't be complete without some production activity, so I thought of writing our own books. We named them I Can Do it! Each student wrote five questions and answered them according to whether they could do that action or not. Finally we illustrated or books. I made a flipbook out of their scanned work, which you can see bellow.

I can do it! by third grade students.

Saturday, 1 September 2012

Back To School: 2nd Grade Starter Packs

The summer of 2012 is gone. It has been a weird summer for many of us, and it must be said that I welcome the New School Year with somewhat of a relief. Getting back to business, settling down and enjoying the familiarity of day in - day out routine. Before I come to that though, I must undergo the sometimes painful stage of last year's evaluation. I make a point of writing down my plan for every year. Then somewhere in mid July, I read through it and decide what to keep and what to throw away for next year. Now that this process is over, I can finally get down to business and start preparing my materials for next year.

When it comes to second grade I am almost ready, as I am not planning to change much from last year. Most of the techniques I tried worked out fine. I am adjusting some things though and I am introducing others.

One of the things I am definitely keeping is my Class Rules. Class rules should be a few, so the children can memorise them easily. They also must be simple and concise. The class rules I am using are the following:

a. Always raise your hand to speak.

Photo via Discovery Education
Classroom rules

b. Don't talk when someone else is talking.

Photo via Discovery Education
Classroom rules

c. Keep your work and space tidy.

Photo via Discovery Education
Classroom rules

d. Thinking caps on! Always come prepared to learn.

Photo via Discovery Education
Classroom rules

e. Treat others the way you want others to treat you.

Classroom rules

I compiled these pictures in one chart that I give the children every year. These are ready to be printed out, the moment I find out the number of students I am going to have this year.

The second thing I am keeping is my custom made alphabet chart. This is also printed out and given to the children for the purpose of reference.

Alphabet chart that I give out
to my students in Hill School.
Copyrighted material.

The above two materials are used in the children's nameplates. Their nameplates are simple A3 pieces of thin cardboard. The children write their names and draw a picture of themselves on one side. The other side contains the class rules and the alphabet chart. We use the nameplates to get a quick lesson start. The moment we get in class the children have to grab their name plates and find their seat. Each child gets a sticker when they seat and raise their hands. The nameplate also helps them define their working space, so we don't have arguments about desk space. When we do exercises the children can easily refer to the alphabet chart on the nameplate without opening books and notebooks. It also helps when it comes to class management, cause the children have the rules before them at all times and we can easily remind ourselves.

Last year I also used writing samples, in order to give the children a sense of progress. In the beginning of each semester I gave out a name practice chart that the children filled in. This also helps to identify cases of dysgraphia and be able to help the child from the beginning.

1st Semester Writing Sample
Σχολή Χιλλ

Second Semester writing sample.
It is evident how much this child has improved!

This year I am thinking of taking it a step further:

Name Writing Practice Sample

One new thing I am going to try this year is a homework portfolio, so the children as well as the parents at home, know exactly what they have to do to prepare for the next lesson. I am still working on it, so I am going to show you only a few sample pages.

Homework Portfolio Sample
Ctsiagli (c)
Σχολή Χιλλ

These are some of the things I am definitely using this year. I hope they work as well as they did last year. Every time I get allocated a new class of students, I try to keep an open mind. Some materials work like charm every time, others need changing and others don't work at all. What I try to do is start with a chore plan and then adjust as I go.

To see what we did with second grade last year follow the links below:

Beginner Level

Class Books and Readers

Games

Saturday, 14 July 2012

Printable Reader: What Is Blue?

Here is another Reader we used with my second grade this year. You can save and print the pictures to use with your child. This little book was made for personal use only.

From Word to Sentence Level

I am supposed to be on holiday, however today I run into some photographs and scans I had made of my second grade notebooks and thought I should share them with you. On Vocabulary That Sticks I wrote about the way my students tried to internalise and retain new vocabulary. One of the most difficult things for beginner learners is to take that vocabulary and use it into meaningful sentences. As I have mentioned before our focus this year was not correct production but recognition of words and their function within sentences.

My second grade students used their notebooks for this. To begin with we used the new words we learnt in funny sentences, that sometimes even made no sense. The point was for the children to get used to the sound of the word and locate it in relation to other, unknown words in a sentence. I loved the way they painstakingly wrote in the little notebooks, depicting what they wrote . Here are a few samples:

We then moved form writing simple sentences to alphabetical order exercises and simple question formation.

We also used our writing to help us improve our reading skills. It was really rewarding for them to be able to read something they wrote on their own.

When it comes to reading skills I think that simple emergent readers and picture books created by me or by the children on their own helped a lot. I created the What is Blue? reader exactly for this purpose. Here are a few sample of the picture class books we used this year.