Brain Breaks with GoNoodle.com!

Have you heard of GoNoodle.com?  

Well...you need to go, if you haven't!  It's a super fun brain breaks website for your class.  It features tons of dance and kid-friendly videos to move to.  It also has relaxation videos.  You and your class can create an avatar.  This avatar grows and becomes a champion as your class accrues more minutes doing brain breaks or exercises.  My first grade students last year...LOVED it!  

Classroom management tip here:  I told them they needed to show me UH-MAZING focus during our lesson and independent work and if they did well...then...GO NOODLE!  They got to work and stayed focused ASAP...with the excitement and anticipation of a brain break in mind!  

On top of fun...it's free to sign-up!  And you know how I love FREE.  :)  

Please come back and post a comment about how your students reacted to it.  Thanks!

Enjoy!

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It's Been Awhile!

Hello again!  Wow...it's been awhile...a LONG while!  If you're still sticking around...I THANK YOU!

Why have I been MIA, you ask?  Well...since my last post 10 months ago, I bought a house in England, visited family & friends in CA, one of my dogs passed away, friends came to visit, and the most exciting and educationally-related change is...

...I'm back in special education, as both a resource specialist and special education chairperson for my school!  It's been a good 2 years in general education and as much as I loved being a first & second grade teacher, my heart and passion continues to be in special education.  So when the opportunity presented itself...I grabbed it!  It's another change and learning curve for sure.  My previous sped experience have ranged from mild/moderate to moderate severe pre-k & kinder students.  Now...I'm working with fourth & fifth grade students with mild to moderate special needs in the general education population.  My awesome students come to me in the resource room and we work on their individual needs.  On top of that...I'm also the special education chairperson for my school.  Nothing like leading a team to jump right back into sped.  Another experience to add to my repertoire! Learning curve?  Yeah...just a little.  Stressful at the beginning, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

So...I'm back!  I have my forever friend, Michelle Strazzeri, owner of www.queenofartspaint.com in Orange County, CA and www.michellepartyof5.blogspot.com to thank for being an inspiration. 

How's your school year going?  I'd love to hear it!

Stay tuned!  

Cheers!

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Write.

To write your mind is to create your story.

One of my New Year Resolutions is to write more...create.

I often tell my students that writing is simply putting down what you are thinking on paper. Writing can be about anything that is in your mind.  Writing can be recreating your day's story or creating a fantasy.  Writing is beautiful.

My students used to often say to me, "I can't write."  I tell them, "There is no I can't. What you think in your head, you can write.  Just say the word slowly to try to hear all the sounds in the word.  You can do it."  (By the way, I don't tell my students to just sound out the word, I find "say the word slowly to try to hear all the sounds in the word" is more directive and effective.)  

I love to see my students write their thoughts onto paper.  I love seeing them grow in their fine motor skills, spelling, sentence structure, grammar, and thinking.  The more my students practice their writing, the more confident they become in creating, dreaming, and sharing their stories, which is the goal.

However, the more I think about my writing, I've also realized that writing is difficult.  As an educator, I want to write to inform and inspire my readers, as opposed to writing (or "blogging") just to fill in space.  I want to create something that is worth reading because in today's world I know how valuable our time is in this infinite chaotic space that is the WWW.  

Being more selective and thoughtful in my writing is for me.  Writing for my young students is a completely different story.  

My first grade students this year, they write something every day.  They have writing journals that they write in every morning during morning work.  The writing prompts can range from what they did over the weekend, their reflection on a topic we learned, their thoughts on an event that happened, etc.  Beyond the daily writing journals we also create class books for our classroom library, which they love to read from.  

Like I said, writing is creating a story.  I'd like my students and their parents to look back in their writing journals at the end of the year and see the amazing growth they've made.  We started school in late August and the difference in their writing from beginning to present day amazes me.  Some of my students came to me with the emergent stage of writing (stringing random letters together to represent words) and within 4 months, they've past the transitional stage of writing (spelling words correctly by recognizing patterns) to the fluency stage of writing (writing in sentences resembling adult writing).  

I appreciate your time.  How do you get your reluctant students to write?  Please share your thoughts.  Thanks for stopping by.  

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Motivation (Intrinsic & Extrinsic)

During my undergraduate years, I remember taking a psychology course and within this course, I still remember learning about the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.  The topic still intrigues me and I'm always drawn to articles related.  

Motivation.  According to Psychology Today, "Motivation is literally the desire to do things."

There are two types of motivation:
1: Intrinsic Motivation.  It is that inner desire or drive that makes you do something because you want to because you enjoy it or are interested in it.  You doing something for the sake of doing it and not for anything or anyone else, but doing something for you. 

and

2: Extrinsic Motivation.  Doing something for an external or tangible reason, ie helping another person out because s/he asked, working to earn money, or acting on something for a praise or encouragement.  Extrinsic motivation is doing something and seeking something in return.  
---
Now, yes, we all act for both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons, but today I came across another article regarding praise.  Praise is an extrinsic motivation that educators use daily.  There is a right and wrong way to praise as an extrinsic motivator.

As a teacher, I'm all about intrinsic motivation within students.  How?  Strangely enough, encourage students extrinsically (to a certain degree) in hopes to achieve the intrinsic motivation within themselves.  To feel proud of their work and act on their own without always searching for a tangible or verbal reward from others.  When I praise my students, it's about acknowledging a specific effort, as opposed to just a "Good job."  Good job to what?  Be specific.  If a child reads 10 books, state the fact that the child read TEN books!  If a child drew a beautiful picture, comment on what you like about the picture.

I prefer praise to be specific, but I also prefer praise to be minimal and/or random and unexpected.  Sometimes I reward my students with ClassDojo (see the ClassDojo post) positive points or other external rewards (lunch with teacher, bring a stuff animal to class, etc.) for doing good, other times I don't, even if they did something good (hence the "to a certain degree" comment).  I often tell them "Sometimes you get rewarded, sometimes you don't; do you feel good about what you did?"  They always respond with, "Yes."  I smile and simply say, "Okay." 

I often hear them tell each other, "It's okay, sometimes you get rewarded, sometimes you don't."  

I like to keep them on their toes.  Will intrinsic motivation grow and resonate with them?  I will be biased and brag and say that my students are the kindest and will do things for others on their own.  Intrinsically motivated?  I hope so.  :)

What do you think?  What's your take on motivation these days?  How do you motivate your students?

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Ms. Lulu Teaches' 2014 New Years Resolutions

Yikes!  

It's almost 2014 and as I've sat here for the past 2 hours, I've perused the net (as I usually do) and looked back at what I've written and shared with the WWW (hehehe).  

Now, I don't normally do new years resolutions, let alone share it...but I've seen results in writing things down.  It's an accountability thing, as well as affirmative statements turn to successes-type of action here.

Ms. Lulu Teaches' 2014 New Years Resolutions

1. Write more...Create.  Whether it is in a journal, blogging, tweeting, or creating classroom materials.  Ideas as an educator.  Diary life.  Those in-the-moment epiphanies.  
• Goal: Write at least 4 times a week.
2. Read more.  Whether it is news & research articles on education or daily news in general.  Fiction.  Non-fiction.  Best sellers.  Classics.  Firing up that Kindle.  
• Goal: Read daily for both pleasure and education-related thoughts.
3. Exercise consistently.  I exercise throughout the year.  I get into Beachbody programs, like P90X, Insanity, and currently with Focus T25.  
• Goal: Exercise 5 days/week & be consistent.

So, there you have it.  Keeping it short & simple.  Keep me accountable?  :)

HAPPY NEW YEARS, EVERYONE!

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Bring Coloring Pages to Life in 3D with ColAR Mix App!

Recently, I stumbled upon this cool website/app called http://colarapp.com/ .  You need to check it out.  Kids can turn a picture into 3D art with a mobile phone or iPad.  1) You print a coloring page from the website. 2) Kids color the page in crayon or colored pencil (markers don't seem to work).  3) You or their parents download the ColAR Mix App onto mobile phone or iPad.  4) Using the App, you take a
picture of the colored page.  5) Voila!  The kid's colored page comes to life in 3D!

I think it's awesome for all ages.  It promotes fine motor skills and technology at the same time!  And if you're creative enough, you can implement it into your curriculum.  

I tried the bird and worm coloring page with my first graders, as it corresponds with our animal theme in science.  My students loved it!  

Enjoy!

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Great Apps for the CC (Common Core) Classroom

Thanks to Frizzle, a Scholastic blog, here is an excellent website that lists Great Apps for the Common Core standards classroom!

They are not all free, but I've downloaded a few on my iPhone and I love them as a teacher and organizer, while my students are engaged with these tech savvy websites to help them learn and play in the areas of language arts and math.

I'm interested in this Shake-a-Phrase app, but hesitate in buying it right now.  If YOU buy it, please let me know if you recommend it or any of the apps listed.  Thank you kindly!

What do you think of Common Core?  

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Behavior Think Sheet

If you read my Beginning of the Year Information, you would find the documents I sent out to my first graders' parents this year.  

Within this document it talks about my class' behavior plan and how I incorporate ClassDojo, which my first graders love!  I talk about giving my students 3 strikes when they break a class rule.  

1st strike is just a verbal warning and a negative point on ClassDojo.

2nd strike is to take time during their afternoon recess to reflect on their behavior with the Behavior Think Sheet.  Rather than have my students lose recess by just sitting out, they need to reflect on what they did on the Behavior Think Sheet.  Once they finish the sheet and we've discussed the behavior, then they're free to play again, if there's time left.  This Sheet goes home with the student with the expectation that parents discuss it with him/her, sign it, and return the Sheet the next day.

Feel free to use the Behavior Think Sheet.  Please leave me a comment and let me know how it goes for you.  

Thank you!

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Beginning of the Year Information

Hello there!

I just wanted to share with you the information I send out to parents the first week of school.  In this pdf file, you will see:

-Introduction to me 
-Class information
-New school year questionnaire 

When I send several papers home at a time, I make sure they are in different colors.  One, so it's colorful.  Two, so parents can see the different & separate information.  Three, in case the student does not return a certain paper, I can identify the needed document by color.  Some of these pages (2 & 3 and 5 & 6) I print front & back to save paper, and because they just go together.

I hope this helps smooth things out for you and your beginning of the year!

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Recite.

Okay, so if you are about making posters of quotes then this is the site for you!  Recite is where you can "turn a quote into a masterpiece."  Pretty neat.  You can type just about anything and they have a plethora of backgrounds and cool fonts that will create your quote into something awesome!

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My Mini-Me

Lately, I've been looking around for some site or someone to create a cartoon of me and I happily came across The Library Fox aka Crystal on TeachersPayTeachers!

She did an amazing job on my mini-me...as you can see!  I highly recommend her as she listens well to your requests and is detailed and creative!  I made my 3 revisions since I'm indecisive at times, and she nailed it!

Check out her store on TeachersPayTeachers!  She has a blog, too!
Thanks, Crystal!  You are awesome!!!

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My 1st Grade Classroom Set-Up

It's been a wonderful first week with my first grade class!  

My body is exhausted from the change in schedule and 12+ hours/day of work.  Hope my body gets adjusted and back in the swing of things, without it crashing on me by 9pm.  

Nevertheless, I'm loving my new class and school!  

I've never taken pictures of my classroom and shared it, but I am doing so now.  

As a teacher, I love seeing how other teachers set-up their classrooms, so I thought I'd put in my two-cents.  

I'm a minimalist, so I don't have clutter or tons of "stuff."  In fact, since I've moved so many times in my life, I've purged and thrown or given away a lot of my things.  I had over 20+ boxes of teacher materials that I sorted through and ended up recycling a bunch of resources.  Why, you ask?  Well, most of my lessons in the past I've never reused; plus, I have most lessons on digital files.  

So, as a minimalist, I'm starting with a pretty clean slate as a first grade teacher.  And I feel so good about it!  My classroom theme this year is Hollywood, still putting the details up.  It will eventually get done.  ;)  There are a million things on my to-do list as a teacher...all the time.  Is that you, too?  

The view of my classroom at the door.  As you can see, I have 5 long tables as my students' desks.  I prefer tables over individual desks, as it allows them to learn to work together and share the space.  In each basket are pencils, erasers, markers, and crayons for them to share.  They are responsible to keep it neat and tidy and put everything back nicely at the end of each day.  Yup, I'm a little OCD.  And so far, my first graders are doing well following my expectations! 

To the left of my classroom door is the sink and the only built-in storage cabinet I have.  Good thing I'm a minimalist!  This will be my science/social studies/art area.  

As we go around the room, clockwise, here is my writing/math table during centers.  Behind that are my LA & Math manipulative/games bins.  I did not label those cubby bins.  The teacher who had the classroom did!  Thank you, Ari!  The whiteboard will house social studies, science, and math-related materials.

My computer area and word wall in the Hollywood movie strip style that I downloaded for free from TeachersPayTeachers from Kimberly Moon.  Thank you!

A first grade classroom needs a carpet for circle time.  The shelf holds the supplies I need for the day.   In the corner is my big books cart/stand and where I make anchor charts with my students.  Then, there's the whiteboard.  On the wall, there's our classroom Code of Conduct aka rules and expectations.  My students' work on how to be a good listener.  And the red pocket chart holds our daily schedule.  

Here you have my teacher desk and our birthday wall, which needs a title like "A Star is Born" or something similar to go with our Hollywood theme. 

The shelf on the left holds all our supplies, like pencils, folders, glue sticks, markers, erasers, etc.  To the right of that are my students' cubbies for classroom textbooks.  To the right of that will be their book boxes and subject folders.  The red boxes and carrier was a find as other teacher's were cleaning out their classrooms!  Total score for me!  I will be labeling them by student numbers, so I can reuse them year after year.  The wall will be my CAFE menu, since I will be implementing Daily 5/CAFE with my students.

This is my teacher/small group table with my whiteboard easel and pocket charts behind me.  The shelf holds curriculum and leveled books and any other teaching material.   

As we take a 360 around the room, you will end with my classroom library.  I need a little carpet here to make it more cozy.  Those beanbags were purchased at Walmart years ago for $20/each.  Love them!  You can see the library/literacy wall.  I will put up more Daily 5/CAFE info here.   The cabinet to the right is my other storage closet.  

As you can see, I don't have clutter.  I feel that if you have too much stuff around the room it overstimulates the students!  I keep my room pretty clear and now it's up to the kids to fill up the walls!  

I'd love to hear from you, let me know what you think in the comments!  Thank you!

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Daily Class Reflections Idea

Holding students accountable for their learning is a learning process.  It teaches them to think about what was taught and whether they learned it or not.  But more importantly, it teaches them to set goals to achieve what they want to learn.  

I think a daily end-of-the-day class reflection is a fantastic way to bring the class back together, discuss what happened that day, which subjects/things they liked or disliked, and which subjects/things they feel they need more help in.  

Don't forget to maintain a positive welcoming environment for those shy students to share what they feel they need to work on.  With a group discussion, acceptance and acknowledge of each others' comments are necessary.  

Write these daily class reflections on a whiteboard.  Have a student record, or copy, what you write and put it in a binder and put it in the classroom library for students to read.  This can become the classroom newsletter!

If you have older students, eventually have them lead the end-of-the-day reflections and have them write and record!

Plus, this is would be a great way to see where your students are at and see if you need to reteach a lesson!

Please comment and let me know what you think!  Don't be shy to share your ideas, too!  Thanks!

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Clever Student/Parent Reminders!

I've posted about The Mailbox many times because of their clever ideas.

Here is one that I think will work in reminding students and parents what is needed:

The next time a child needs to replenish a school supply or you’re requesting that students contribute to a class project, try this! Have each child write a short note to his parent(s) on the outside of a folded paper sack that, when unfolded, can be used to carry the needed supply to school! These unique requests really deliver!

See!  Clever!

I definitely recommend subscribing to them!  Thanks, Mailbox!  

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Dollar Deals is back!

I've posted about Scholastic's occasional Dollar Deals before and now, it's back!  Again!

For 3 days (Wed. Sept. 11 to Sat. Sept. 14), they are selling 1305 items/ebooks for $1!  These products are usually $10.  Quite a steal!  You can sort items by subject or grade.  Once you purchase them, you download them electronically. 

Stock up on your teacher resources for the school year!  

If you miss out this time...don't worry, I'll let you know of their next sale!  

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Reward Your Students with Coupons, not Candy

I prefer to reward my students with experiences, as opposed to candy or toys.  

As a fan of TeachersPayTeachers.com and liking their page on Facebook, I recently came across a first grade teacher named Laura Martin, who has reached $20,000 in sales this year on TpT!  That's awesome!

Laura created this 

Classroom Reward Coupons-50+ Coupons to Reward and Inspire Packet.  Some coupon ideas are Lunch with Teacher, Good Behavior Phone Call, Sit at Teacher's Desk, etc.  Pretty fun and definitely something a child would want!  Makes he/she feel extra special that day!

I downloaded something similar last year and put it in a folder for my students to flip through and choose what they would like.  It was something they looked forward to when I surprised them with these rewards at random.  

Thank you, Ms. Laura Martin for your time and creations!  You are awesome!  

Oh, and check out her website, Peace, Love, and First Grade, too!

Enjoy! 

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Free Back-to-School Printables from Scholastic

Scholastic is a great resource.  You can truly find a plethora of things there.  

As we celebrate Back-to-School, here are some free back-to-school printables provided by Scholastic! 

Enjoy!

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Reading Is Fundamental

Reading is Fundamental (RIF) is the largest children's literacy nonprofit in the U.S.  

RIF created this fun site for the early childhood group, which I love!

In the Babies & Toddlers section (ages 0-2), there are stories, nursery rhymes, lullabies, games, and finger plays, all to help parents/teachers to stimulate babies and toddlers in the early stages of literacy development.  

In the Preschoolers section (ages 3-5), you can read, sing, play, doodle, and explore.  

And of course, there's a Grown-Ups section filled with articles, activities, and more.

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SchoolTube?!?

I am so excited about this one!  There's SchoolTube!

It's like YouTube, but videos from students and teachers everywhere!  Many school districts restrict access to YouTube, so perhaps SchoolTube.com will work!

Pretty cool if you ask me!  

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Back-to-School Time for Parents & Teachers!

It's Back-to-School season means all sorts of feelings from children and parents and teachers!

There's excitement in the air...nervousness, sadness, happiness.  

Here is a fantastic resource for PARENTS and teachers regarding Back-to-School jitters at Reading Rockets.  Ultimately, Reading Rockets is a non-profit organization that teaches kids to read and helps those who struggle.  It's not just about the kids, but teaching parents how to teach their kids, too!  And of course, teachers.

For Parents:  here are some great tips on how to ease back into school, like:

Talk it up!

In the weeks before school starts, share your excitement about school with your child. Focus on the fun things he'll learn during the year, and all the different things he'll get to do, like go to P.E. class, music class, art class and the library. If you're excited, your child will be too!

For Teachers: here is a list of Top 10 Resources for Back to School, like:

Literacy-Rich Environments

Learn the "why" and "how" of creating a language- and literacy-rich classroom, especially for kids with special needs.

Happy 1st Day of School!

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