New Year!

Happy New Year to you! As 2014 unfolds what are your resolutions for the up coming year?

This is something that I feel should be shared with students. Tell them some of your resolutions (school appropriate of course). After discussing yours have the students write some down for themselves.  Save these and during the last week of school pass them back out and see who is following their resolutions still.

With this new year try to come up with a pact with your students to stop bullying.  A new year can be a great time to talk about bullying.  Talk about what they should do if they see bullying. Explain how the victims feel when they are bullied.  Tell them the consequences of bullying.

Overall with this new year encourage your students to be better people!

I hope you had a safe and happy New Year!  I look forward to writing many new posts this year.

Stop Think Points

During this past semester I learned about a reading technique called Stop Think Points. Stop Think Points are places in a story where the teacher has the student stop and think about something. These can be made into a bookmark which each student will receive before beginning to read. 

This can be a great way to teach reading to the whole class. The teacher is able to have the class read a book and even with the different reading levels they are able to participate and do the same activities. 

When the students stop the teacher has a lot of options they can have the students:

•  think about a question and be ready to discuss 
• summarize what they have read
• draw a picture
• etc

This activity can be used for any grade and some Stop Think Points can be more challenging for the students who are reading above grade level. 

I used this activity in a second grade classroom where I taught a guided reading lesson. I had the children read a couple pages stop and pick out certain information to share with the group. This activity really worked for me and the children were all on task!

Here is the Stop Think Point I made :

This is a great  way to keep children on task and to see if they are fully understanding what they are reading! 

Change

Hello everyone! It has been very busy on my end. With school, work, tutoring and babysitting life has been kind of hectic. I have decided to change my major slightly.

Instead of going and becoming a teacher I will now have a BS in Education called Early Childhood Education Services. This is a program offered at CALU which is very similar to the Early Childhood Education with Teaching certificate. I will still be able to get my teaching certificate if I decide to go back and get my masters. I will also have a minor in Psychology. I am very excited to finish this degree and find the perfect job for me. 

With finals just around the corner I plan to post a lot more on my blog. This semester has given me a lot of wonderful ideas to share with everyone. =) 

Have a wonderful holiday and I will be posting more shortly.