Teachers' GO TOs...
Let's begin with some key tools to be an effective teacher. First, you must communicate openly and clearly with your scholars' parents/guardians, independent of the language they speak. Next, you must track your scholars' progress. With so many data points, it is important to make things easier and readily accessible. Then, get to know your scholars. Let me share with you TalkingPts, iDoceo, Culture Crossing Guide, an important document on Comparison of Language Differences Versus Disabilities, Smore, Time Management, ACCESS Testing Practice, Reward System, and Crayola Colorcycle.
TalkingPts
Empowering teachers and families!
TalkingPoints’ multilingual texting platform easily connects teachers and families through text messages. Create classes, enter scholars name and phone number, choose the language the family is mostly comfortable communicating with, begin sending messages... you type in English and your family receives in the both the chosen language and English... the awesome part, they can do the same. They may reply using their language and you will receive in both English and their preferred language. You can share photos too!!! No more excuses!
*TalkingPoints translation is available in 20+ languages
iDoceo
iDoceo is your powerful and easy to use teaching assistant for the iPad.
It consists of:
- Fully fledged gradebook, configurable and with custom calculations; Lesson planner: Week/Day views; Diary: Day/Week/Month/Timeline views of a single class or multiple classes; Seating plans; Resource manager that will help you keep track of PDFs, audio,files,links,images, etc.; Notepads with handwritten text and drawings; Configurable reports; Backup all data on Google Drive, Dropbox, icloud; and so much more.
Culture Crossing Guide
Culture Crossing Guide is an evolving database of cross-cultural information about every country in the world. Easy to Navigate and free to use, the Culture Crossing Guide provides an opportunity for travelers, business people and students to:
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Find information on 200+ countries and add your own knowledge to our guides
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Connect directly with community members from around the world
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Access global resources to further your cross-cultural exploration
Comparison of Language Differences Versus Disabilities
This tool is taken from Meeting the Needs of English Learners with Disabilities: Resource Book by Jarice Butterfield, Ph. D., Santa Barbara County SELPA, on behalf of the SELPA Administrators of California Association. In the tool below, L1 refers to the student’s native language and L2 refers to the student’s second language (English). It is reprinted with permission of Dr. Butterfield.
Smore
Create beautiful flyers and newsletters!
Talk to your principal today! Great way to send all the information needed to the entire school weekly. Don't miss events, important documents or shout out a colleague/scholar. Parents will appreciate receiving these beautiful pre-set designs with information about their little ones too. SGE uses to communicate with our staff weekly and share upcoming news, projects, important dates and more. It is a great way to eliminate the need to send several emails to staff and keeps the information organized in one place. View the information by clicking a link on your computer or phone.
Time Management
I have been looking for a way to help me manage my time. Carrying on multiple classes makes this task even more challenging. I wanted to have an alarm set for each period, that was fun for kids and kept all of us on check. It is our signal to rap it up our work and move on to the next part of our day... for me, my next group of kids. This tool is an online timer that allows you to set multiple alarms, change colors and select from a few different alarm sounds. My learners love it and even silently I see them moving to the song. It works for us! I hope it works for you too!
Preparing Students for ACCESS Testing
Helping teachers and students to prepare for ACCESS testing. Here you will find links of documents available from WIDA, teacher-made materials, and other sites... all in one place.
Paper-based Writing Sample Items
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Grade 1, Tier A: Indoor Play
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Grade 1, Tier B/C: Making Bird Feeders
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Grades 2-3, Tier A: Flowers at the Park
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Grades 2-3, Tier B/C: Our Town
Online-based
Discover 700+ typing activities for all grade levels – and unleash the joy of typing in your school
FlipGrids already created for ACCESS speaking practice. These are not all geared toward elementary, some are better for middle & high. You may need to create a FlipGrid account to view these.
https://admin.flipgrid.com/manage/discovery/16687?ns&search=ACCESS
https://admin.flipgrid.com/manage/discovery/16657?ns&search=ACCESS
https://admin.flipgrid.com/manage/discovery/8373?ns&search=ACCESS
https://admin.flipgrid.com/manage/discovery/16098?ns&search=ACCESS
https://admin.flipgrid.com/manage/discovery/16097?ns&search=ACCESS
https://admin.flipgrid.com/manage/discovery/14958?ns&search=Speaking
Building Vocabulary Grades K-2
Sometimes is best to go back to basics
I have a few copies of this book and the children love to use as an iSpy activity, reinforce basic knowledge skills of color, shapes, and names of objects, people, and places. I have attached below a few images I use that can be easily found online but I gather them here to make this your one-stop-shop. I hope this is helpful to you and your students!
I highly recommend this book!
There are pages also about:
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Doing things
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Animals
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The street
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The kitchen
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Colors and Numbers
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and so much more
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SOLD on Amazon, eBay, etc
Other versions: Spanish, French, German and Arabic
Writing Strategies & Practices Grades 2-5
Writing Stories - Sequencing - 2nd & 3rd Graders
This is a practice writing for students to write stories using details and the basic story sequence with a beginning, middle and end. I use "Finish Me" story images where students must focus on the details of each picture and create 2 sentences per box/picture. Where are they and what are they doing are the key questions students focus on.
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Example Using WIDA test sample - YOU MUST HAVE A WIDA LOGIN TO VIEW
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WIDA test scoring scale - YOU MUST HAVE A WIDA LOGIN TO VIEW
Comparison and Contrast Paragraphs 4th & 5th Graders
This is a scaffolded structure for students to learn how to write a comparison and contrast essay. There are 3 steps I use to get students comfortable:
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1st - Sentence Starters/Paragraph #1 - comparing them to me, then them to a classmate
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2nd - Sentence Starters/Paragraph #2 - comparing a given game to a game of their choice
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3rd - Independent writing - comparing 2 of their favorite game/sport, then two countries and/or state, and finally a given life of a child in another country to their own. WIDA test sample example response.
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WIDA test scoring scale - YOU MUST HAVE A WIDA LOGIN TO VIEW
Speaking Strategies & Practices Grades 3-5
Speaking Image Prompts for grades 3-5 based on South Carolina Standards with a word bank. When utilizing the word bank, give each student a number of chips or other manipulative to represent the number of words learners will use for each slide. Learners will be able to track how many words they were able to use in their response.
The general speaking practice slides work great with grades 1 and 2. Students can use the images to write words about what they see and engage in discussions about what is happening in the picture.
Reward System
Reward your students and teach: responsibility, money, priority, goal, investment, and so much more.
In my class I PAY my scholars. That's right! My scholars get paid for their work, effort and participation. This is how this works for us:
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First, I created and printed our class realistic money
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Then, I assigned each aspect of our work a monetary value
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$1 for class participation
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$5 for homework completion
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$10 for each reading level growth on TRC 3 times in the school year
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$100 for completed individual summer packet
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x number of books read, x number of written responses, x number of articles and questions, etc
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a deduction of $10 for each missed or incomplete homework
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a deduction of $5 for each time scholar interrupts teacher and/or classmate, etc
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The next step is to make sure the scholars understand what this can get them. So here is where you must do a little extra work and also, follow through with the reward system. In my class, based on the scholars I serve, most need help with getting school materials, supplies throughout the school year such as backpacks, notebooks, pencils, etc. Instead of having a treasure box where scholars can choose a prize, my scholars engage in a prize auction. I choose the prize and the starting price, then, based on scholars' interest, they begin bitting on an item. It is so much fun and there are so many lessons to be taught as we go... from scholars learning the value of hard work and money, as well as what matters to them most.
I truly enjoy this reward system and so do my scholars! Some save money, some share money, some spend it all... in the end, it is their money to do what they please and they can even use the following school year if they haven't spent it all!
Click the money below for REALISTIC PLAY MONEY TEMPLATES.
Crayola Colorcycle
Crayola and schools across North America are banding together to help kids understand the importance of their role in protecting the environment. That’s why we launched Crayola ColorCycle. Through this initiative, students in K-12 schools across the continental United States and parts of Canada can collect and repurpose used Crayola markers.
ColorCycle is also a great opportunity for teachers and their students to explore eco-friendly practices. Specially developed standards-based lesson plans are available to enrich instruction and promote lively class discussions.
