Thanksgiving Write the Room & Publishing Kinder Writing

Okay so I have to start this post by telling you about my crazy news. I found out I'm getting a subpoena next week to appear in court! Apparently I'm supposed to testify in a hearing between the parents of a former student and their home school district. Thank goodness for the super friendly and thoughtful paralegal who called and told me ahead of time before I had a panic attack about "being served" in front of my class without any warning. It seems like my part isn't really a big deal, but it still makes me nervous to have to testify in court. I'm hoping I at least get an extra day off out of it. Thankfully another staff member (my friend) got the same call, and hopefully we'll get to keep each other company in the court room. We're both secretly hoping they say "you've been served!" like they do on Law & Order when they bring the papers next week. Hehehe.

Okay...now on to our regularly scheduled blogging...

I introduced the first part of our literacy centers today. My kids LOVE Write the Room! One thing I really love about this one is the way I set up the cards and student response form. I broke the lists into thirds so the cards have 3 different picture options (pilgrim hat, cornucopia, or turkey). Aside from the super awesome fact that the kids instantly apply their holiday vocabulary, this also makes recording easier because I put 3 different sets of pictures on the recording sheet. When the kids reach the last 2-3 words it can be confusing to figure out which ones they have completed or not. By having the pictures it helps us narrow it down to "one more turkey word" then the student can look around the room for only those pictures to find the last word. My favorite part was the school tour that came through as my kids were doing this activity. They were super impressed :)

Hard at work copying words from walls and bookcases

If you want this little gem of an activity, just go to my TPT store.

Today was also my first attempt at having my kinder kids publish on the computers. It was an even better success than I ever could have dreamed! One kid honestly refused to go to PE because he wanted to finish. It took some convincing in the form of me showing him the flashing red battery light to explain the computer would probably die before he finished anyway. I was shocked at how hard they worked and how little help they needed from me. I was also able to see which letters they could match from their lowercase draft copy to the uppercase letters on the keyboard. My favorite kid quote of the day came while I was setting up the computers for Kinder while also verbally giving instructions to the 1st/2nd guys. One little stared at me doing this and said, "Miss Lisa, you are one busy woman!!" Tomorrow we will finish typing, print, and illustrate. Cute pictures of the final projects will come soon!

 

Thanksgiving Math and Literacy Centers

Today my little guys got super excited by the new math centers I made for them. The main goal for this month is for the kids to practice learning their numbers to 30 (for my kinder kids).  My math "Write the Room" activity was a HUGE HIT!! This is part of my Thanksgiving Numbers to 30 Math Centers.

Thanks to a bit of a meltdown during lunch for one little guy, I didn't have time to put up my turkey numbers for Write the Room. My little guys saw them and asked what they were for. I told them I was going to hide the numbers around the room and they would need to find them and write them down using the special clipboards. (BTW I learned my 2 little leftys need to use the clipboard the opposite direction as I use them, so they don't bump their hands on the clip. Funny discovery). Anyway... the kids were so excited that they didn't want to wait until tomorrow. They agreed to do their math worksheet outside the classroom door on the bench so I could have time to hide the numbers. This was the hardest quietest work I've ever seen! Then they came in a squealed at the turkeys all over the walls. They were so hard at work and I never had to prompt them. I also was able to use this as an informal assessment for their number formation as well as their ability identify the numbers.

Turkey numbers hiding on walls and bookcases

The Lefty way of using a clipboard

Great number for the beginning of kinder!

This wonderful success lead the kids to begging me to let them do it again tomorrow. I decided it would be a great time to introduce Write the Room to my literacy centers too. They weren't ready for it earlier this year, but now I know they can do it. So this little goodie made me motivated to make a whole set of literacy centers with a Thanksgiving theme. They are ready for you to pick up in my TPT store now too! If you think of a great topic to add to the literacy centers, I'd be happy to add to the unit.

Lastly, for those wondering about my Nurtured Heart Approach, my test kid is doing even better! He stayed on a good behavior chart color all the way until lunch when another student was being very mean and picking on him. He tried to use his words first (this is a big deal!) then he lost it when they didn't listen. On the upside, he's making huge improvements and he has gotten so much work done! This has still been a tough week though for another student. There was about an hour worth of screaming in my room. Clearly one of my kids needs to learn "size of the problem/reaction." That will be on tomorrow's agenda...

Nurtured Heart SUCCESS! And Duck for President

Happy Tuesday friends! Today was Day 3 of Nurtured Heart Approach (see yesterday's post) in my class and it is already paying off! My kiddo who is almost always a huge behavior problem had a mostly awesome day! He had 9 of his 12 sections of his behavior chart as a good color (blue and green... yellow and red at the bad choices colors).  This is a record for him! What makes it even better is how much the kids just love giving each other complements. If all the kids are off task all I have to say is "I need someone to give a complement to!" and everyone is in their chairs hard at work in 2 seconds flat! Below is a picture of my color chart and a mini one I just made for a student who wants it at home, and his parents think it will help too.

Mini version with Velcro dots

My big version on the wall with Velcro strips

Ok, back to test case kiddo. He's super, duper smart (I have my theory that he might be a genius...literally, no exaggeration) but he is by far the biggest challenge I've ever had behaviorally. I've had violent children that were easier to figure out and help than this little adorable boy. He is doing so well with "reset" and it really gets him back on track. All I say is "Reset" in a calm even tone and he runs outside, counts to 60 then comes in and gets right back to awesome work. I do this each time he breaks a solid rule, not if he's just bouncy/off task.

For instance, if he's distracted or asks a kid to be quiet I'll just complement him for something he's doing right such as being polite and keeping his body to himself. If he invades personal space by touching someone/grabbing/yelling/being disrespectful, then I'll tell him to "reset." Today I saw a mixture of intentional limit testing, and actual mistakes/struggles, but overall he responded really well. On the playground I saw him grab someone and I yelled "RESET!" He instantly ran to the side, counted to 60, went back to the play area and apologized to the other student, and they played really nicely for the rest of recess.

Someone asked me how I "make him count to 60" and this is a really good question. I have him count aloud so I can hear him, and I don't engage with him (talk to him) until I hear him do it. I try to avoid prompting him, but when I do I simply say "I'll talk to you when you are done resetting." I also don't talk to him about what he is resetting for because this focuses on the negative and I only want him to get attention for the positive. At one point he intentionally rocked back to far in his chair and fell backward on the ground. I saw he was fine and simply said "reset" and he kept asking me why. I didn't talk to him until he "reset" and returned. I turned the question back to him and asked him why I would say that. He said, "because I wasn't sitting in my chair the right way and made myself fall." Kids know when they did something wrong, they don't really need you to say it. 

Since I've been giving so many complements to all the kids all day, they've started doing it to each other too. Every time a student moves up on the behavior chart they cheer! Also, my kid who struggles will talk about his behaviors because he hears me complement him. Today he said, "I thought about grabbing him, but then I stopped myself!" and I gave him a big hug! Yay for self-regulation!


Okay, back to general ed stuff... Election Day!
I may teach special ed, but I keep my expectations high. My kids always work at grade level with appropriate support. Today I read Duck for President and then I had the students respond to the story differently depending on their grade level. My kinder kids created adorable campaign posters while my 1st/2nd kiddos completed a True/False worksheet I got from Scholastic based on events in the story.

I secretly love that the stripes go the wrong way

Nurtured Heart Approach AKA Kill Them with Kindness

(My Thanksgiving Word Freebie as at the bottom, so read to the end)

Today was the second day of implementing the Nurtured Heart Approach in my classroom. Last week I used only the positive praise portion of the strategy and today I implemented the consequences portion. If you'd like to read about it, check out the website. I'm in no way encouraged to promote for them, I just really needed a great new strategy to use with a kid who has REALLY been struggling with significant behavior problems. The mom found a set of CD's explaining it, then let me borrow it. We've got home-school teamwork on our side! Click the picture below for a link to the site.

I have to start by saying today was the first day back after the kids had 4 days off during conferences and the weekend. It was a SUPER rough start for several kids. The main concept of the strategy is focusing on the good, even in a terrible moment. I refer to this as "Kill them with Kindness." For instance, the focus kiddo was off task so I complemented him for being so quiet because it's respectful to his peers who are focusing on their work. When he was bouncing in his chair I complemented him for working so hard on his assignment. When the kids are being good I flood them with specific praise. Not just "hard work," but "great focus on your letters." Instead of "good job" I said "thanks for being a good friend by sharing." Many of these things are basic teacher skills. Super easy to just step them up a few notches.

The consequence is a simple "reset." I must say, I had my doubts on this one. The reset I agreed on with his mom is for the student to sit and count to 60, then come right back to his task. This seemed an absurd consequence for a behavior disruption and I really wasn't so sure how this would work. The idea behind the consequence in this system is that it is NOT the focus. The focus is making good in class SO EXCITING that being bad and counting to 60 keeps him out of the fun.

The results of today:
SUCCESS!! Okay, well I mean success in the same sense that cleaning a room sometimes makes a GIANT mess before it all comes together again and looks great.Haha. The deal is you say "reset" and nothing else. No other feedback for the bad behavior. The kid knows they've done something wrong if they are getting a reset. Anyway... counting to 60 seemed useless at the beginning of the day, and didn't seem like a consequence at all for the action. But the trick is that a kid with a big behavior problem breaks a lot of rules.

So the first time or 2 is simple and easy. But then by the 25th time my student had to go count to 60 he was so angry he screamed "I'M TIRED OF COUNTING!!! I'M NEVER COUNTING AGAIN!" And then he tried much harder to follow the rules. When he was calm and in a good mood he told me he really didn't like counting and I reminded him he'd only have to count when he broke a rule. So the less rules he breaks, the less he has to do that. I was super excited about this. I don't think you understand, consequences have never worked for this kid. He's always been just as happy to be on a bad behavior chart color and a good color. He enjoyed sitting on a bench when other kids played, he thought having us ignore his bad choices was fun, and he couldn't care less about earning rewards. Today was the first day where he actually cared about his consequence. Even better... He actually got all of his work done for the first time since...well...ever! YAY!! Don't get me wrong... today was a mess and it did take at least 25 times of making the kid count which means at least 25 rules were broken, but it's progress. We finally found a motivator to do better. He was testing limits and today I won that battle. He found his limit and had a great end of the day. He went an hour and a half without breaking a rule!
 
Stepping it Up!
Today I also focused on encouraging the kids to "give each other complements." A big part of Nurtured Heart is lots of praise, but I'm doing 3 things at once in my multi-age class and it's just not realistic for me to praise every minute or 2. So I created a rule that when you want to tattle or be bossy you have to stop yourself and find someone to give a complement to instead. All this cheerful positiveness is contagious, and now every time a kid moves up on the behavior chart and on to a better color all the kids in the class cheer for them. It's great!

Last but certainly not least, my FREEBIE in case you missed it on Friday.

November Currently

It's that time again... CURRENTLY! I know it's silly, but these little things feel cathartic for me. It's like I get out these little ideas and suddenly feel better. You should go to Oh Boy 4th Grade and link up too.

Listening- My doggie is an adorable Akita-German Shepard and tends to get his way when he wants something because he is HUGE. He'd never hurt a fly though...well actually a fly yes, I've seen him gobble those...but he's a good dog. His sister is a bit of a meanie and she looks like a wolf. I feel like I should have named her The Big Bad Wolf, but that's too long of a name for a dog anyway.

Loving- I got to sleep in for the first time in weeks! This time last week I was gearing up to get muddy at the Warrior Dash! Super fun, but ruined the day I usually sleep in. I certainly made up for it today.

Thinking- Conferences went well overall, but my very last one threw me for a loop yesterday. I was very sad, because I've seen it happen before and I worry how the rest of my year will go. I teach SPED so significant behavior problems come with the territory. Unfortunately, my school lies to parents when they enroll in our private school and tells them we don't take kids with those troubles. What they really mean is we don't take very many kids like that. This year I have a kid having a terrible time behaviorally and he threw scissors at another student this week. He missed and hit the wall and I removed him from the class. I talked to the other student and he said he was fine and never mentioned it again. He struggles with verbalizing emotions and I discovered yesterday he was quite upset by it and now talks about all the terrible things my other student does when he gets home every day. The parents are mad now that I have a severe behavior problem in my class, as I'm sure I would too. I'm doing everything to help the kid, but it's SPED...you get what you get and throwing a fit never helps. The student gets me at my wits end many days, but there isn't much more I can do that I haven't already tried. It's not like the kid will magically start being great...although I'm desperately trying. Nurtured Heart Approach is my latest experiment. Have any of you ever used it??

Wanting- My friend (who teaches at my school) and I decided we need something fun to do today! Any ideas? It's the Bay Area, there's a million things to do, but I was hoping something close by and I'm in a boring suburb of the city. Great if you're raising kids, not so exciting for childless 20-somethings like us who want a fun day out.

Needing: My vacation plans fell through over the summer so it's been a LONG time since I had a true escape. I really need one! Perhaps I can plan a weekend getaway for myself to go somewhere relaxing.

Music: Pandora was a wonderful invention! I put on "Kids Bop" or a classical artist while the kids work and they love it. In the mornings while I'm getting the classroom ready, I put on the good stuff for me! I love working to music!

Okay...that's enough babbling for one day. I've decided I need a day just for me to decompress with friends. I have zero intention of lesson planning/creating today. It's a gorgeous 71 degrees in sunny California today and I plan to enjoy it.

Freebie Friday Thanksgiving Style

Happy Friday! I'm only 2 conferences away from my weekend! Actually more like 2 conferences and a cocktail party for the big school foundation donors...then my weekend! Either way, you get a freebie! I'm super excited to see I'm only 12 followers away from my next giveaway!

This week's freebie is a Thanksgiving Word Matching for kids to practice their holiday vocabulary. Click the words to go to my TPT store, or the image for a Google Doc. Either way it's free :)

Don't forget to check out my Thanksgiving Numbers to 30 hands-on learning centers!

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Conferences with Parents

It's conference time! Today and tomorrow are days off for kids while teachers meet with parents. I think I have the best parents ever this year! I just love them. They are super realistic about their kids, willing to do anything at all to help, and I don't feel like I need to sugar-coat information when things get tough.

I live in the Bay Area and we have some incredibly intelligent people here. I'm talking insanely smart, successful people who design/create/invent every piece that goes into your computer. I think a good chunk of the parents work at Google (or other high tech mega-company). This means some incredibly thoughtful discussions during conferences. Brain mapping was even a part of today's meetings.

At one point I was talking to the the parents of my most challenging little guy and the mom started snorting because we were laughing so hard! We have a great relationship. Apparently her little guy loves me so much that he "teaches" at home now and makes up little assignments. I swear it's a good thing that kid is so loveable! He's really expanding me as a teacher. Just when I thought I had things down in my 7th year, he threw me for a loop. Mix a genius brain, with a body of a teeny, tiny kinder kid and you get a whole world of adventure. I'm finding new ways of teaching, and trying to shift my thinking to make the classroom work in a new way. I've had to create a whole different curriculum just for him that mixes high level thought processes with kinder level wiggle time/hands-on learning and short task duration.

I have a small class so today was a day to catch up on planning and cleaning up in the 5 hours between meetings. I swear only a teacher could say "5 extra hours and I'm still not done!" I still brought things home... Time to read more about the Nurtured Heart Approach.