Less than, Greater than and Equal

Today I had a presentation for my Math for elementary students. I decided to do fractions and to play a game with my class to compare them. 

I started off with small popsicle sticks and painted them green, blue and purple. 

After the paint dried over night I took the blue pieces and glued the ends to make a less than sign. 

I then took the purple pieces and made a greater than sign.

The green pieces I then used as the equal sign.

 I put the signs on plain popsicle sticks so that they could hold the signs up with ease. 

 For the game I wrote two fractions on the board and asked my classmates to see if they were greater than, less than or equal. This is also a great activity to use when you are first teaching less than, greater than or equal.

ABCya!

At the daycare center where I work one of the main pages the children go on when they choose the computer center is abcya.com. I have only seen a couple of the games that they play on there but I decided to go on for myself and take a look. 

This site has educational games for grades K-5. It does not just stop there! Some of these games like Spanish Bingo which can be found in as early as first grade can be used for adults who are learning Spanish! I went in to see what topics are covered. The child will pick at least two of the following:

• animals
• clothing
• colors
• days of the week
• food
• around the house
• months of the year
• numbers 1-20
• people
• sports 
• transportation

After they pick they will then decide if they want a 3X3, 4X4 or 5X5 grid. The game allows the word to be shown while it is said and will tell the child if they are correct when they find it on their board. They are also able to say if they want English to Spanish or Spanish to English. This would help ESL students learn English as well. 

As I continued my search on this website I found starting in the 2nd grade section there is a typing race. Here students are a vehicle and they have to type the words that appear during the race. You can select from 17 different levels. The 1st level has the home row keys (asdf jkl;) and level 17 has all of the keys. During the game there are single letters, simple/shorter words and longer words. These can come in all lower case letters all upper case or a mixture of the two. It keeps track of you accuracy and tells you the WPM that you type also. I have been using this game to help improve my typing skills. 

There are also pac man like games. There are holiday, math, alphabet/language, other and just for fun games. This website offers many great games and I highly recommend going here and trying them out. Your kids will surely be happy to learn! Or even as adults you will have fun trying to improve your Spanish or even typing skills. 

The Magic Adventure (big book)

For my Language, Literacy and Literature class I had to create a story and make it into a big book. I used felt, glitter glue, Microsoft Word, card stock paper, and paint. Here is my final product. 

Sensory Friendly Films

I was very excited to see that AMC Theaters has teamed up with the Autism Society to have "Sensory Friendly Films."

During these special showings the:

• Lights are turned up 
• the sound is lowered 
• they are allowed to bring their own gluten-free and casein-free snacks into the movie
• there are no previews show or ads before the movie
• the "Silence is Golden" policy is not enforced 
• the tickets are $4-6 

I think this is a wonderful program that will really help some of these families who want their child to experience different things with out being judged by other people watching the movie who are not always sympathetic and nice. 

Once of the theaters is relatively close to my house and yet I have never heard of it. I am hoping that more people will become aware of this amazing program and participate. I also hope that more theaters will start participating and giving these wonderful people the same experiences that AMC Theaters is giving their viewers. 

Since I am from the Pittsburgh area I found the closest theater that participates around here and it is AMC at the Water Front 22. 

For a full list of theaters near you check out: 

http://www.autism-society.org/get-involved/events/sensory-friendly-films/

Tutoring

On twitter I recently came across My Town Tutors which is a tutoring site for current teachers or retired teachers. I know that when I begin teaching I would love to tutor children. 

This site believes that teachers are the best tutors which I feel is very true. Teachers have a passion for teaching and helping children. By tutoring they are helping some children even more than just in the classroom. 

They verify that all applicants are currently teachers or that they are retired teachers. Parents will have that sense of confidence that their child is going to be tutored by some of the best.  

They also have an ease of payment. You can write a check pay the teacher cash or make and online payment. 

If you are looking for an easy way to help children learn check out http://www.mytowntutors.com/   you will not be disappointed! 

Autism Awareness Month

It's April which means... it's Autism Awareness Month!!

The Autism Society had been celebrating the National Autism Awareness Month since the 1970s. 

This is a very important to me as an upcoming educator to help spread the word about Autism.

In case some of you do not know Autism is a complex developmental disability which will usually appear within the first three years of a person's life. It affects a person's ability to communicate and interact with other people. 


Since March of 2012 the number of children born with Autism has gone up to 1 in 88 births in the United States. It is almost 1 in 54 boys. 

To care for an Autistic Child it costs about $3.5 to $5 million dollars. 

The U.S pays around $90 billion annually for Autism:

• research 
• insurance and non covered expenses
• medicaid waivers
• educational spending 
• housing
• transportation
• employment
• therapeutic services
• caregiver costs 
  

Inclusion.... as adults

This past weekend I was in Greensburg, PA at a bar called Vickie's Crossroads to see a band play. There were people dancing while the band was playing when I noticed something that as an education major made me very happy. A man who has a disorder went onto the dancer floor right up to a lady and asked her to dance. The lady said yes and they began to dance for quite some time.

When they paused dancing together he went up to other groups of people on the dance floor and began to dance with them. These groups included him in their dancing instead of turning away.

During the concert the singer of the band walks around during some of the songs and has people say one or two words into the mic. The singer went up to this man and had him sing into the mic.

It made me very happy to see how all of these people were including this man like he was one of them.  He seemed very happy to me as I watched the band and people dancing. All of them seemed to have so much fun up there dancing.

I wish children would look at those who are a little different and accept them the way these people accepted this man. It would make life for these individuals a little easier and it would bring joy to so many people.