Teaching Vocabulary
Jump To FREE Vocabulary Activities Page Traditionally, teaching vocabulary often involves pre-teaching lists of words, copying down definitions from the board, and children spending endless hours looking up definitions from dictionaries. But here is what we know regarding vocabulary development: A vocabulary gap exists among students in different socioeconomic groups. Vocabulary knowledge affects long-term student achievement. We should not wait to teach children words. Current research (Akhavan 2007) suggests we shift our thinking towards: Vocabulary is an extremely broad topic and Katie and I both support this shift in thinking. Referential Vocabulary - The understanding of what a specific word refers to. Obviously, it is important that children understand and use a large number of words. Relational Vocabulary - Refers to a person's ability to understand relationships between words that share a variety of functional and conceptual relationships.
Top 100 Children's Books of All-Time
Developing a love of the written word can begin while your child is an infant. Babies who are read to are much more likely to read earlier, understand concepts better, and be faster learners than babies who do not have the chance to experience books. It is never too early or too late to begin reading to and with your children. Choosing a variety of well written, colorful, and entertaining stories from some of the best children’s books ever will help develop a love of reading and a love of learning in your child. Looking for chapter books? 11 to 20 21 to 30 31 to 40 41 to 50 51 to 60 61 to 70 71 to 80 81 to 90 91 to 100 Famous Children’s Books That Almost Made the List *NEW* 30 Best Children’s Books of 2012
Young Teacher Love
Brave Books for Girls (Not Princesses)
Last week’s Dara-Lynn Weiss debacle reminded me of one of the biggest problems with this whole, endless is weight health? debate: When we focus relentlessly on weight and beauty, we teach girls that their entire value comes from their weight and/or beauty. Just ask all those teenage girls posting YouTube videos about it. This is why I push to separate conversations about health from conversations about size. In our culture, right now, the latter is just too tangled up in the Beauty Myth — start talking about weight or BMI as a non-judgmental health marker and you’ll all too quickly veer into fat-shaming territory with all its moralizing rhetoric. When we don’t even know for sure that it’s the actual excess weight causing the problems, why go there? But it’s not enough to get the Fat Talk out of our health conversations. But when we narrow our girls’ options down to nothing but Pretty/Pink/Princess, we’ve got trouble. So here’s my list, pictured above and Amazon-linked below. Jane Eyre
dandelions and dragonflies
...would find its employee in her office at 5:45am, sitting at her computer, wearing an over sized sweatshirt and ball cap (large Micky D's sweet tea for energy) writing plans for someone to come in, take her place for the day because her child was up at 3am throwing up? I'm sure you have all heard/felt it before...I swear teachers are the only ones that have to do this! Of course my child gets sick on the week that my husband is actually on OUR schedule and in training (therefore can't take off), and I leave my work laptop at school the night before! To top it off...she is perfectly fine today, no fever, not throwing up, nothing...of course. But I would not have felt comfortable taking my child to day care the next day when she was up at 3am puking. Well you guys are the lucky ones because I have been up since 3am and checking things off my "to do" list. The thing I loved the MOST from Teaching in Room 6 post was the task cards(unseen001)!!! Close up of the tubs They are as follows: Math
Math Journal Sundays
With Easter last weekend, I didn't get around to posting our math journal from last week. So, I have two entries to share with you today from our Interactive Math Journals. We're just finishing up our 2D Geometry unit. This journal entries for polygons was near the beginning of the unit. I gave each student an envelope and some coloured paper, and had them work in pairs to construct as many polygons as they could think of. For the proof of learning, I asked students to show the difference between a polygon and nonpolygon. The next entry I wanted to share with you is on division. We made a simple flap interactive tool for this one. For the math reflection, I used my question fans and asked them to connect the concept learned today (division) to another concept they have learned (specifically, multiplication). That's about it for today.
Hello Mrs Sykes - Resources for Teachers: Guided Reading Guide and a Freebie Cheat Sheet!
I've had such fun creating this Guided Reading Guide for grades K-5. Since moving back into the classroom to teach 2nd grade, I've found that I *really* miss one special part of my prior life as a Literacy Specialist/Literacy Coach. I miss working closely with teachers, holding workshops, and meeting regularly to discuss the best practices they are using in their classroom so I can see how best to support their professional growth. I hope you like it, and give me some feedback. Don't forget to follow me on TPT.
Classroom Architect
Literacy Centers {free printable}
Last year my district started using McGraw-Hill's reading series. While the station ideas for each week's main selection are good, sometimes I find myself spending a lot of time explaining the directions. After reading The Daily 5, I decided to create some generic literacy centers that could be used with any story/selection. I created a few stations for Words, Reading, and Writing. Words: Making Words Making Words Recording Sheet (The title font is called Grilled Cheese.) Spelling Activity Spelling Activity Cards can be found {here}.Dictionary Dig Reading:Poetry (lots of resources {here}, and {here}). Partner Reading Read & Respond (lots of graphic organizers found {here}, {here}, {here}, and {here}. Comic Strip Story Listening to Reading (a couple of online story sites {here} and {here}. Read Time for Kids Art (My thinking behind this center is to have seasonal art projects or other art projects that compliment the curriculum.) Writing: Top Ten List Making Sentences Write a Letter Journal Writing
