Looking Forward to Upcoming Breaks

I know that many of you, like me, are looking forward to the upcoming holiday breaks in the school calendar.  For many of us, these breaks include some much needed time with family and friends.  While this time of year is very busy (and oftentimes packed full of travel), it is important to keep working with your student during this time.  It is a great opportunity to create fun family projects.  I wanted to take the time to create a post with some project ideas that you and your students can work on together over the break.

Make a word cloud together:

Word clouds are a great way for students to express themselves and share who they are with other students.  While these are great "get to know you" activities for the beginning of the year in a classroom, you can also use them to make some really cool, meaningful art for your home.  Head over to www.wordle.net (super easy to use) and create your own.  I would suggest braining storming a list of things that your family is thankful for, assisting your student to type them in, and then choosing fun fall colors.  These could be great gifts for grandma or grandpa too!  By brain storming with your student, you are helping them to practice oral communication skills.  Assisting them with typing helps build small motor skills and keyboard skills. 

Learn about healthy foods (at a time of year when food is definitely on the mind!)

Mind maps help students to take thoughts from their heads and place them on paper in a very organized fashion.  This Mind Map I designed helps students to visually categorize the foods they eat.  It promotes organization, helps students see categorization in a visual way and provides students with quick to answer questions.  
We all know that eating healthy is very important, especially for kids.  Help your student to understand the different types of foods we eat-- what's healthy?  what's not?  what do we need the most of?  After you fill in the food categories with your student, use those answers to create a healthy meal (perhaps a healthy Thanksgiving feast!).  That way, when your child goes through grandma's holiday buffet, he can think back to your map and select foods from some of the healthy categories.
You can access and print the Mind Map here:
http://www.mindomo.com/view?m=bfdd6de693a54e3b9ad6d311ead69f57 

 

Keep up good behavior practices over the holidays:

While having a clip chart at home may be a little much for your student, talking about and practicing good behavior is key during this chaotic season.  Talk to your student about ways to be helpful, things they can do to be a good leader and a good friend (or brother/sister) at home.  When they come back to school, they can share these ideas with their classmates.  Be sure that you reward some of those wonderful behaviors with praise (or maybe even a sugar cookie). 
 

Get ahead:

While the break from school is definitely a time for rest, it is also a great opportunity to get ahead.  After the break, we will continue to work on literacy skills.  It is vital that your student begin her mastery of these skills to become the best reader that she can be.  When we return from the break, we will begin using Voice Thread to record student answers and to assess literacy skill development.  You can help your student practice these skills by participating in the Voice Thread below.  

This screencast will help you and your student get started (instead of using the desktop item, use the link below to access the Voice Talk session).  The screencast will help make using this new technology easy and fun.  Feel free to leave feedback/questions for me here.  
http://screencast.com/t/QUi7KMGy0GUA

Voice Thread practice assignment:
https://voicethread.com/#q.b4931472.i0.k0
I will be emailing you your student's login information later this week.

Last but not least... relax and have fun!

Your kiddos have been working so hard and they definitely deserve a break.  While I know we are all excited for the upcoming time away from school, I am also excited for all the fun we are going to have learning together next semester!  Until the break, I will continue weekly posts to keep you up to date on all of our hard work.

The Compliment Tree brings life lessons to the classroom

I'm double posting today because I have gotten really behind.  But I feel like this activity deserves its own post.  In fact, it went over so well with my Let's Talk About It group that I'm going to incorporate it into all small groups that I work with.

The Compliment Tree isn't an original idea of my own, but I have quickly fallen in love with the results it brings to the group dynamic.  As adults, we all know the value of compliments-- they can make your day.  It's hard to remember that giving compliments is something that you had to learn.  Don't get me wrong, kids say nice things to each other all the time.  However, a little boost encourages them to encourage each other.  I have been so happy to see students congratulating each other on a job well done, boosting each others' self-esteem by pointing out talents, and showing a genuine appreciation for work done by fellow students. 

I started the lesson by showing students a fun PowToon video I made.  You can watch it below:

As I said, students have been giving one another compliments and adding a lot of leaves to our small group tree!  Check out what they've done so far:

Be sure to compliment your student at home, and encourage them to do the same.  It'll brighten your day when they tell you how much they like your shirt, or that they think you are the smartest person in the world.  :)

Have a terrific rest of the week!

New changes to small groups have brought exciting new activities to our classroom!

Hello!  Happy Wednesday to everyone-- I hope your week has been as productive and fun as ours so far!  

Since our classroom and students are constantly evolving, we have made some changes to the small groups we meet with.  Be sure to ask your student what color group they are in so that you can keep up with all the wonderful new things they are doing and the fantastic projects they're working on.  I am so excited that I am now getting to meet with every student in our class at least twice each week.  You guys have some amazing kids!

Yellow Group:  We are working hard to practice our writing skills.  Writing is so important for students-- it helps them to express themselves and also helps to develop literacy skills.  In small group, I ask students to write one sentence and then illustrate that sentence with a picture.  Since we have started sight words in the classroom, they really just need help with sounding out unfamiliar words.  For at home work, you can make sight word flash cards:  is, my, and the are our words of the week.  If you're feeling ambitious, work on writing a short story (as few as 3 sentences) with your child that uses the sight words.  Have them circle the sight words they know when you are done. 

Red Group:  I am also working with the red group on writing.  We will be practicing the sight words of the week--is, my, the--and using them in written work.  The students seem to really enjoy expressing their ideas in writing, and they love to illustrate what they've written.  Tomorrow, we will be reading a short story and writing what we like about it with the prompt "I like...."  This is something you can definitely do at home.  Even if you don't write it down, brainstorm good response sentences to the books you read together.

Green Group:  Green group is making huge strides together on letter and sound identification.  They are well on their way to becoming great readers and writers.  This week we are talking about the letters Q q R r (they're that far along in the alphabet!).  Students practice writing these letters, but also identifying them within a group of mixed letters.  For at home work, take your student on a "word hunt."  Take out a book, magazine or newspaper and "race" your student to find certain letters.  This is a fun, free game to play at home.

Let's Talk About It:  Let's Talk About It students are discussing a picture of a rocket taking off this week.  They worked hard today to write their sentence for the week (responses included "The rocket will go to space." to "The astronaut is fighting the aliens.")  These boys are seriously creative writers.
The best thing to do at home to build good verbal communication skills is to simply talk with your student.  However, finding things that they are really excited to talk about isn't always so easy.  Try checking out this cool rocket launch video and talking with your student about what they already know about space.  If you want more, visit the public library to find kid's nonfiction books about space (The Magic School Bus books are fantastic).

Welcome

Parents and students,

Welcome to our blog!  While I see your students and work with them on a daily basis in small groups, as an aide in the classroom, I rarely get a chance to meet and talk with parents.  I hope this will be a way to change that so that you can easily keep up with what your student is doing in small groups.

I meet with three small groups each day:  Red group, Purple group and Let's Talk About It.  Red and Purple groups are currently practicing letter recognition.  Let's Talk About It is a small group dedicated to the development of excellent oral communication skills (check out this slideshow for more information http://www.capzles.com/#/3eb999a4-630f-4779-87a1-3a7bd37b8cdb). Right now, I have 5 students in each group with a little bit of overlap in Let's Talk About It.

I am hoping that this blog can be a forum not only for me to let you  know what we are working on in small groups, but also for you to have an opportunity to be involved from home.

Each week, I will make a post for each group (Red and Purple will be together for now).  I will include information about what we are learning, fun activities we have done, games we have played, text your students have written, and ideas for how you can help your student succeed from home.

I hope you will feel free to comment with any ideas, questions or concerns you may have.