Halloween fun!

Hello there,

Just a quickie today.  I thought I'd share a bit of literacy fun we had in class today.

I had a Surprise Bag - filled with Halloween goodies from various $2 shops.  Here's what was in our bag:

First part of session we talked about describing words - students and staff gave a few examples with support which I wrote on the whiteboard.  To improve this session I could have had a few non Halloween items with similar textures to the "in the bag" bits - but I wasn't that organised today - next time though I will be - promise : )

Anyhow- I digress - the students then took it in turns to "be brave" and put their hand in the bag (no peeping) - they had to describe what they felt and pull an item out.  They loved it !!!


(Gosh - why didn't I brush my hair before this shot!)

We wrote sentences on the board to make a Predictable Chart -
e.g. Johnny found a hairy spider in the bag.
       Mary found a fluffy ghost in the bag.
       Harry found a scary witch in the bag.         etc.....

In this case the students had to write their name, the item they found in the bag and the adjective - or their best shot at it.  The rest of the sentence was written (ie filling in the blanks). (N.B.  I have a couple of students that use a "virtual pencil' - more on that in a future post).

This is a great link to more info on Predictable Chart Writing:

Predictable Chart Writing

We took photos of the students picking the item out of the bag.  We will use these photos and their sentences to make a Halloween book on this.

You could adapt this activity to any event, celebration, theme you wanted - Have fun!!

Fidget, fidget!

Hi Everybody and how are you today.


This post is about fidgeting, movement, wiggling, squirming, and various other adjectives to describe the same thing.


I have been prompted to write this blog after reading this article:


Why so many kids can't sit still in school today


Also we had a recent staff meeting in which we thought about our Morning Circle time.  One of the questions which came up was - do we ask students to sit too long at these times?


After thinking about this I have split my morning circle.  I do about half what I did before as usual first thing in the morning.  The rest I do later.  I think my morning circle is a work in progress and thinking about movement as part of it has inspired me to make a few changes.


Some ideas you may like:
A couple of morning songs (by Dream English Kids) from YouTube that include movement:







Here is a Goodbye song that includes movement:



I'm sure you can find many more - let me know if you find a great one.


I shall continue on this theme later - I am now off Rock Climbing with my family - woo hoo!!!!!

Praising students

Hi everyone,

And Congratulations/Well done/Great Effort - on reading this blog.

As you may have guessed this blog is about praising student's.

My personal belief is that you can never give anyone too much praise (as long as it's genuine!).  As far as I know no one ever died of a praise overdose.

Of course there are a million and one ways to praise kids I am sure.  For today's blog I thought I would just share a couple of things I do with my class.

In my class I have a Star Chart wall.  The students each have an individual star chart.  I just downloaded a ready made one from the internet.  However in previous lives (ie other jobs) I have made personalised ones with pics of the student's interests, etc.


Click on this link to view some of the many printable reward charts available on the internet:

Reward Charts


Here is a pic of my Star Chart Wall:

I dish out stars for all sorts of things - small and big - a great answer, following instructions, effort, helping, noticing someone being "good", etc.  You name it..... well you get the gist.  I also give my Teacher Aides free rein to dish out the stars too.
This does mean that the star charts fill up pretty quickly so I have a supply ready printed.
I did think about laminating them and using a dry wipe for the stars - but they can get pretty messy like this - and also the student's like to take home the completed charts to show off to mum and dad.  One mum told me her fridge is pretty much covered with all the star charts - but she loves it.
We all make sure that stars are added to the charts as soon as poss after they are awarded.
Anyway - once a star chart is completed the students receive a certificate.  I just made the certificates using Office Publisher - again I keep a ready printed supply to hand:

This certificate does not appear particularly child friendly.  I have a class of intermediate students (10-13 years).  I gave them a choice of certificate and they chose this design -  because it looks like a "proper" certificate.

I also give out a Student of the Week certificate to a student in the class.  They receive a certificate and also get their photo on the Star Chart board for the week.  Again - a very basic certificate just made using Office Word:

 When I award the students a certificate I make it into a bit of an event.  Star chart certificates are handed out on the day the star chart is completed.  Student of the Week certificates are awarded at the end of the day on a Friday.  It is a timetabled event and has it's own symbol for the schedule.  The certificates are presented, a photo is taken and a round of applause is given.  They love it!!!!!!
When receiving a certificate the students get to stand on the "Star of Fame":

This is a highly technical piece of equipment - a piece of sticky back chalkboard on the floor.  Simple - but again - they love standing on it to get their award.  They also like to take it in turns to draw the star.

All the photos get placed on the "Wall of Fame" - as you can see now it's now Term 4 and the wall is getting quite full:

By the way - the Teacher Aides and even moi - have their photos up there with a certificate (I can supply autographs on request).
I put all pics with certificates on the wall as well as Principal awards/Special Olympics certificates and anything else that may crop up.

As a reward for achieving Student of the Week - that particular student gets to pick the Letter of the Week for the following week.  They do this via a "lucky dip" - no peeping!!!
They then get to place the letter on the letter chart - via another technical tool - Velcro.
The students see this as a great honour:

That's it for now - see you next time.    

Repetition with variety - more

Hi all,

I spotted this information about letters and names on Facebook (thanks to Julie from Click Special Ed for posting):

letter/name activities

Links in with my previous post.  
I can say from experience that the students in my class love it when work relates to their name .  The motivation levels are high for these types of activities.

For the activity where students have individual letters to make up their name - I have the students who are working at this level do this activity every morning during morning circle. They now see it as part of the routine.    At first we started off with simple matching.  Then we progress students to make up their name without the example there.   We are also trying  leaving a couple of letters out - may be start with the first or last letters.  We also let the students try making their name up with no support.  I have taken a few photographs of their progress over time - definite progress!
I know how hard it is to fit everything into the day - a little activity like this can be done in a minute or two as part of the routine.  The students enjoy it.  We only do one of the variations per day so keep it short, sweet and focused.

Repetition with Variety - Letter of the week

A recent literacy training I attended emphasized the need for repetition with variety - so important when teaching students with Special Educational Needs.
Like many classes I have a letter of the week.  I have been trying to cover this in as many ways as possible while making it appropriate for the range of abilities in my class.
Just a few ideas I have used are:

• I spy - you can do this as a turn taking game - giving a more challenging item to the more able students.
• What am I thinking of? The students love this one - I give clues - which you can adjust to match each students level.
• Looking for words in books starting with the letter or have the letter in them.
• Writing the letter in flour during a cooking session.
• Writing letters in the air - P.E. 
• I particularly like the You Tube Letter Clips by Have Fun Teaching.  They are musical - sort of rappy (is that a real word?) - I have intermediate age kids so they love it.  Also covers sounds as well as the names of letters and gets the kids to write in the air.

Here is the link to the Have Fun Teaching letter A song - Check it out to see if it would be useful for your class:

Letter A song

From here you can find all the other letters too.  Enjoy.