Special Needs Students

As a Special Education teacher, I struggle every day with how to best accommodate students with learning disabilities in the regular education setting.  With more and more districts pushing for full inclusion, teachers everywhere are being faced with students with reading and/or math skills that are often several grade levels behind their regular education peers.  How to we provide excellent learning opportunities for students of all abilities in the same class?!?

With that in mind, I thought I’d share 1 quick and easy accommodation I use with my students (all of them, regular education and special education) that seems to have the huge returns as far as their performance, understanding, and just plain enjoyment of being in class goes.  

Guided notes

How do you get a student who can’t read on your grade level to complete a homework assignment of reading 5 pages and taking notes on what he read?  How can you get a student who can’t spell (or who writes illegibly!) to answer comprehension questions in a way that is useful to them and readable by you?

Guided notes can be one solution.  By taking the time to go through the section you want your students to read and giving them guided notes you will be providing your students with an assignment that clearly shows them exactly what you expect them to know.  Struggling readers are able to use the context clues in your notes to help them find the information, advanced students who want to get it all right are assured that they are on the right path, and in the end, you know that if your students have completed the notes – they have an excellent study guide.  It’s an easy way to make note-taking and reading comprehension a bit more accessible for all of your students.

For example, if your goal is to have them read from your text book and then list the 4 main reasons immigrants come to America, what a noun can be, different types of angles, etc.  Then your guided notes might look like a larger version of this:

Name _______________________________________________ Date _____ / _____ / _____ Social Studies Notes:  Chapter 4 Important Vocabulary:  Find the bold words on pp. 33-35.  Add them to the organizer and then complete it with what the word means and what it looks like to you. Vocab Word: What it means: What it looks like to me: Vocab Word: What it means: What it looks like to me: Key Concepts:  Read pp. 33-35, then complete the chart below with the information you learned from your reading. 4 Reasons Why Immigrants Came to America ***************************************************

It might seem overly simple – but some of the best ideas are.  And after years of watching teachers grow frustrated with how long it takes students to copy notes from the board, how students often take notes without knowing what the critical information is, and watching students with learning disabilities struggle with writing legibly, finding the crucial information, and reading the material, I have learned that guided notes can save both teacher and students a lot of grumbling!

I hope that you give guided notes a try if you haven’t yet.  I think you’ll find them helpful.  I know I do!

Meghan Mathis
http:/www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Meghan-Mathis



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Celebrating our Presidents

Nearing the end of winter and cold, long days, the calendar approaches Presidents’ Day.  The elementary classrooms are full of snow pants, boots, wet mittens, and even wet homework papers from damp backpacks.  What an excellent time to study Washington and Lincoln, and turn a corner in the school year!  These great leaders demonstrated perseverance, and they give us a chance to apply this idea in our classrooms as the calendar days march on and we persevere through the dreary end of winter. Washington and Lincoln exemplify strong values and character.  This is an opportunity to discuss role models who are not always considered in today's world of video games and television. Presidents’ Day presents many other teachable moments as well. You can incorporate the holiday into your classroom by trying some of the following ideas. 

•                Compare/contrast the two Presidents using Venn Diagrams.

•                Study character traits in non-fiction sources.

•                Sequence historical dates.

•                Infer:  What is leadership? What does "Father of our country" mean?

•                Discuss differences between long ago and modern life.

•                Compare the two historical time periods of their presidencies. How were presidential elections different long ago?

•                Make art projects to brighten up the elementary classroom, and take those wilting snowflakes down! Perhaps your students could make silhouettes of each President.

•                Distinguish fact from myth in their lives.

•                Consider and evaluate:  Do the myths also help us?  How?  What do we learn?  Why do those stories persist?

•                Silently read the numerous fiction and non-fiction books about Washington and Lincoln available in many elementary school libraries, putting aside modern fiction and fantasy for awhile.

•                Genre study:  What is historical fiction?  What non-fiction conventions do students notice in the reading?

•                Don't forget a chance for an educational video or two and a little breathing room after the 100th Day, Valentine's Day, and helping children with boots and zippers. Whew!

•                Lincoln studied by firelight and wrote on shovels.  Washington had little formal schooling.  What do today's students think is an educational hardship . . . having the Internet down? This is a chance for some great classroom discussion.

•                General Washington led the war at Valley Forge, and was reluctant to become President, but he sacrificed self for country.  Have the students had to make sacrifices? 

 More books have been written about Lincoln than any other human being (16,000).  This gives us a hint of the importance of Presidents’ Day.

Many years ago, my kindergarten son asked me, "Was that the war with the rags on their feet or the one about slaves?"  History through a child's eyes is fascinating, as elementary educators know.


Teachers Pay Teachers - Wise Owl

Carolyn Wilhelm
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Elementary School Learning

Ahh elementary school.  It’s the formal beginning of our education; the foundation upon which each child starts to learn.  There are no more important years for our students, then that of their elementary years.  And there is no time of greater growth in our learning.

For the most part, elementary school years consist of Kindergarten to Fifth grade.  And with our students being so young, little kids to older children, there’s a great opportunity to integrate creativity into our day-to-day.  One aspect of elementary school that I love the most is being able to do fun  arts-focused activities; drawing/painting/coloring, acting out a play or reader’s theatre, dressing up as historical characters whilst doing re-enactments.  Plus, I can take my science and social studies lessons out of the classroom.  How many of you have explored your school campus to see the leaves, grasses, or trees?  Or maybe you’ve had your students see how many different bugs they can find and then draw their own versions?  Really, being an elementary school teacher allows for versatility in the learning; which is the appeal to educators.

As our students start their learning in Kindergarten, play is a huge element; and showing them that playing can also mean learning.  Our 1^st and 2^nd graders are like little sponges soaking up that learning and everything it means to be in school.  Their joy at knowing something is a wonder to see.  For 3^rd and 4^th graders, it’s a different type of joy that we get to experience, we see their personalities develop, along side their strengths and weaknesses.  As their teachers, we have the chance to encourage those strengths, and assist with their weaknesses.  And our 5^th graders, still so young, but like baby birds leaving the nest – they are ready to stretch their wings and find those new opportunities that await them in middle school.

Ahhh elementary school.  The building blocks to our children’s education, the start of it all.  And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

*This article was written by Rosshalde Pak, an admin for the Tchr2Tchr blog.

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www.educationshortlist.com

Here are a few resources that are specifically designed for elementary school classrooms.  We’ve gone through and looked at them individually and highly recommend them for teachers.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Learning-Logs-Parent-Student-Connection-Year-Long-Activities

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/American-Revolution-Enrichment-File-Folder-Activities-Centers 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/PE-Stations-New-and-Improved

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Transition-to-Quiet-with-Sign-Language-Power-Point-4-Minutes