Learning to count is an essential skill for kids to learn, so why not make it fun?! Last November, I created and shared a printable Thanksgiving themed I-Spy page. You can find it here. Since last year’s page was only in color, I thought I’d share a black and white I-Spy printable this year!
These I-Spy/ Find and Count pages are great for early finishers, class parties, fun math activities, or even as a game. Parents can also print them for their kids for long car rides, waiting rooms, quiet time, or to be used to keep kids entertained while the turkey is cooking!
**Printable is free, but is intended for classroom or home/personal use only. It is not to be sold, reposted, or claimed as your own.**
School dress up days— the bane of every parent’s existence. These days range from super simple (I see you, Crazy Sock Day) to wildly outrageous (Dress Like Your Favorite Book Character Day I’m looking at you!). The students love them, the teachers tolerate them, and the parents could do without one more thing to add to the calendar.
Why even have special dress up days? Will crazy hair day teach kids to stay drug free? Probably not. Will they remember the dress up days when they are adults? Again, probably not (unless it was extra cool and memorable). So if they don’t really serve any sort of educational purpose, why have them?
I think the easy answer to that is that dress up days are fun. They bring a silly, creative element to a normal school day, and students thrive on fun and creative. In addition to that, there is usually a “punny” saying that is made up to help students make a connection between the dress up day and the lesson/theme for the day— such as “Team Drug Free!— wear your favorite team’s color or gear!”
This week is “Healthy Choices Week” at my kids’ school, and boy were they excited for the week to start! I started to grumble and mumble about it as soon as I saw the email in my inbox. My feelings changed, though, when I opened the email to find that the dress up days were incredibly easy— still fun— but easy enough that we didn’t need to do any extra planning or creating, and easy enough that little thought or effort has been required of my thinking skills… and that’s a win in my book!
I appreciate when the school staff doesn’t go too overboard with these kinds of days. It truly makes my mornings easier! This week’s dress up days include:
Drug Prevention Monday: Be “RED”y to say no to drugs— wear red
Tasty Tuesday: Add colorful fruits and veggies to your diet— wear the color of your favorite fruit of veggie
Workout Wednesday: Get up and move— wear your favorite workout clothes
Online Safety Thursday: “Hats off to online safety!” — wear your favorite hat
Get Good Sleep Friday: Help your body grow by getting enough sleep— wear your pajamas
These kind of dress up days involve the kinds of things my kids wish they could wear to school more often, especially the hats and pajamas! It makes it easier for them to want to participate when it’s stuff they already have, actually want to wear, and doesn’t cause them any extra attention. There are many students who don’t enjoy participating in dress up days when they involve them going beyond their comfort zones and doing wacky and crazy things.
While dress up days don’t typically serve an “educational” purpose, they do give something fun for students to look forward to and provide them an opportunity to get involved in a school wide community. They may not be for everyone, but that’s ok! What’s your take on dress up days?
Today is Veterans Day in the United States. It’s a day we pause to honor and pay tribute to the brave men and women who have so diligently served our country and sacrificed so much for the citizens of our nation. Because I have family members who have served in the military, and a husband who works with veterans suffering from service connected disabilities, I understand the levity of this day, and have always done my best to think about and honor military members, past and present.
We can do our part to honor service members by talking about them, their bravery, and their service. Were it not for our brave service men and women, we would not be able to enjoy the freedoms we enjoy. Our lives would be much different than they are. In order to ensure that our military continues to receive the honor and thanks they deserve, we must teach our children and our students to respect and honor this day.
This can look like many different things, but all are appreciated by those being honored. Some ideas include:
Writing thank you letters to soldiers who are currently deployed
Writing thank you letters to veterans who are no longer actively serving
Create a video montage with students expressing their gratitude
Visiting with retired veterans and listening to their stories
Schools can hold an assembly to show pictures of, share memories of, and even hear from service members
Talking to our students about the profound impact that members of our military have made
Every year, I would have my students take some time to make a card or write a letter that would be sent to a soldier currently deployed. It always amazed me how much thought they would put into the words they wrote. There were even a few years we got some letters back, and it made the students so happy! There are many organizations who will collect letters and send them for you— a simple Google search will usually guide you in the right direction.
Not every student fully understood the magnitude of what soldiers do for us. Others, however, did, as they had a parent actively serving in the military. But regardless of their depth of understanding, they did know that soldier are important and that they ought to be honored and remembered, and that’s a lesson I hope they have carried with them as they have grown into adulthood.
If you’ve been in the classroom for any length of time, you have likely witnessed first hand just how mean and destructive bullies can be. It’s a problem that seems to have existed for as long as humans have been around, and it doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. In fact, it’s becoming more prominent with social media being so accessible. Students need to understand that bullying is never ok and is never the answer. The repercussions of being the target of a bully are long lasting and can be quite detrimental to a person’s health, confidence, and self image.
As teachers, it is crucial that if we see something, we say something, and that we teach our students to do the same. We need to teach our students what bullying is, what it can look like, how it feels to be the victim, and how to address it when/if we see it happening. I found a few picture books that did a great job of teaching these concepts— take a look!
Giraffe is Left Out written by Sue Craves, illustrated by Trevor Dunton
Giraffe, Little Lion, and Monkey are all friends. When Leopard moves into their class, Giraffe is not excited. He does not want to let Leopard join their friend group, and purposely excludes Leopard from any and all activities. Leopard is sad and feels left out. When it comes time to pass out invitations to his birthday party, Leopard gives one to everyone else, but doesn’t give one to Giraffe. Now Giraffe is the one who feels left out. Soon, he begins to understand just how mean it is to leave people out, and he learns that Leopard is actually a really good friend. Giraffe mends his ways and becomes a friend to Leopard in the end.
I liked how this book showed that excluding people is a form of bullying, and that it can be hurtful to others.
Billy Bully by Alvaro & Ana Galan, illustrated by Steve Simpson
When Billy Bully comes to the playground to play with the other kids, he takes over and makes the fun go away. He takes toys, cuts in line, pushes, breaks others’ things, tricks people, and won’t take turns. No one wants to play with him. With every mean thing he does, another kid leaves the playground. Soon, he is left with no one to play with, and he starts to realize that the things he was doing weren’t nice. One by one, he goes to his friends and apologizes and makes up for the things he had done. Soon, all the kids have come back to play together.
The illustrations in this book are so cute, and the story is easy to follow. There is also a counting element as Bully’s friends leave and come back one by one. I loved how it depicted several ways that someone can be a bully to help kids understand that bullying can take on many forms.
Eddie the Bully written and illustrated by Henry Cole
Eddie is mean, mean, mean. He says unkind things about his friends, teases them, ruins their art projects, and more. No one likes to play with him. He’s always picked last for teams, left out of the fun, and ignored. When Carla, a new girl, moves into their class, she is assigned to sit right next to Eddie. Everyone expects Eddie to say and do mean things to her, but before he has the chance, Carla compliments Eddie on his sweater and tells him that everyone must want to be his friend! Eddie is unsure what to say to this, because he knows that it isn’t true. Carla asks Eddie to help her make new friends, and Eddie agrees. He quickly learns that it feels good to be nice, so he changes his ways and starts over, this time, being a friend to everyone.
Similar to Billy Bully, this story shows different ways that bullying can happen, helping kids to understand that bullying isn’t just one thing.
Bullies Never Win by Margery Cuyler, illustrated by Arthur Howard
Jessica is a first grader who worries about a lot of things, one of which is Brenda, a girl at school who likes to bully and be mean. Brenda finds a way to make fun of everything Jessica does, so Jessica slowly stops doing all the things she loves to do. Jessica finally has had enough and breaks down crying to her mom. Her mom suggests that she stand up for herself or tell their teacher. Jessica is worried about what she will do or say to Brenda to make her stop being a bully. The next day at lunch, Brenda continues to tease and say mean things. Jessica has had enough, and stands up and tells Brenda that, “… bullies never win!” Brenda is embarrassed and doesn’t say anything else to Jessica. That night, Jessica feels proud of herself for standing up to Brenda.
I loved how this story showed how to stand up to a bully. It was an empowering story!
Bully written and illustrated by Jennifer Sattler
Bully is a bull frog, and he wants all the lily pads on the pond all for himself. He won’t let any other pond friends eat them, smell them, or look at them. Soon, he has chased everyone away and is all alone. There is only one flower left, and he wants it just for himself, so he sits on it to protect it. A bee comes up to him and tries to save the flower by reminding Bully that he’s sitting on it. Bully is mean and asks the bee what he’s going to do about it. The bee has an idea, and buzzes away to gather his friends. Together they reclaim the pond and chase Bully away. The lilies begin to grow again, and the pond is back to its thriving self. Bully moves to a new pond, but is sad to see that it’s just a pond of mud, and he is all alone. Still, all he cares about is that the pond is all his.
This story showed that it can be powerful to stand up to a bully as a group— strength in numbers.
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Bullying is never the answer, and students need to know that. These books do a great job of teaching that and showing that bullying can take on many forms. Bullying is a problem that many kids will face, either directly or indirectly, and it’s important that students be equipped with the tools they need to stand up to bullies and speak up when they see it happening. We may not be able to completely eradicate bullying from our schools, but we can certainly make a difference by teaching our students to respect and watch out for one another.
Last week, while getting my kids ready for school, I checked my weather app to see what the day was going to look like. I was shocked to see that it was a mere 30 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and that it wasn’t going to get warmer than the high 40s during the day. I wasn’t prepared for such low temperatures quite yet, so I sent my husband down to dig out our winter bin. In a frenzy, we began digging through the bin, searching for the appropriate sizes of coats and gloves we would need to keep our kids warm. We were soon met with a pile of gloves of varying sizes and colors. The tags on each glove were ominously labeled with the ever so (not so) precise “one size fits most” sizing. All the gloves were youth sized, yet they were all different sizes, but all labeled that they would fit most kids. The problem with that sizing? My ten year old’s hands are much larger than my four and five year old’s hands. So no, one size didn’t fit most, and it left some of my kids with floppy-fingered or stretched to the max gloves.
At least they had something on their hands, though, right? I guess.
We frequently see a similar problem in education. So often, we deliver instruction and curriculum that is sized as “one size fits all”, when really, it doesn’t fit all in the same way. Our instruction may fit “most” and might serve the middle ground of our classroom, but there will always be students who don’t fit into that middle ground. Teachers will encounter students who are accelerated learners, needing more of a challenge than their peers. On the other end of the spectrum, teachers will have students who find the material too challenging and sometimes inaccessible entirely. It creates a tricky situation.
As teachers, we have the responsibility to see that all of our students are making progress, regardless of their intellectual abilities. And if a student is not making the progress that would be expected, the best practice would be to get that student placed in the most appropriate learning environment with the kind of help they might need.
With upwards of 40 students in a classroom for some teachers, what do you do for those students who don’t fit into the “most” category of your curriculum sizing? Making 40 different assignments wouldn’t be realistic, and you certainly can’t just leave them behind— the repercussions of such an action would be frustrating and discouraging for the students who get left behind.
When we are faced with situations like this, we have to think back to our college days when we were learning all about differentiation and accommodation. We’ve got to pull that mental file out of the back of our minds, dust it off, and figure out ways to best serve our students.
How we do that looks different for each student that needs different instruction. One student might need a reduced number of questions on a test. Another might need questions worded differently and more simply. One might need more rigorous work, requiring a higher level of thinking. Some students may need an assignment that is completely different than the rest of the class, but still assesses the same learning goals.
I recall a time during my first year of teaching when I had a student who had just moved to the United States. Her knowledge and understanding of the English language was very limited. She most certainly did not fit into the “most” category. When it came time to do a class novel study, rather than expecting her to be able to read and understand the novel in English, I was able to find the novel in her native language, and give her assignment that had been translated into her language. This way, she was able to still participate and learn the concepts we were focusing on, but it was accessible to her and what she needed.
Another time comes to mind later in my teaching career when I had a student who was very much academically ahead of her peers. Unfortunately, her schedule didn’t work out to have her placed in my accelerated class. Rather than have her get bored with what I was teaching her class period, I assigned her what I was teaching to the accelerated class. Again, she still was able to participate and learn what I needed her to, but it was at her level and gave her the appropriate amount of challenge.
If a student was on an IEP and had specific goals about test accommodations or differentiation, I would often reduce the number of questions they had to answer so that the test didn’t feel so overwhelming. Sometimes I would eliminate questions on assignments or rewrite them in a simpler way to help my struggling students to be able to access the information more easily.
These things didn’t take a lot of extra time for me to do, but they made a world of difference to the students who needed the help. Some of my other students would see these accommodations being made and would complain to me that “it wasn’t fair” to the rest of the class. At that point, I would remind them of the quote I had hanging in the back of my room that said, “Fair isn’t everyone getting the same thing. Fair is everyone getting what they need to succeed.” They would usually stop complaining at that point and would move on, realizing that their complaining wasn’t going to get them anywhere.
Providing all students with a chance to succeed is our job as teachers. We aren’t there to make students feel like failures. We’re not there to make their lives frustrating and miserable. Our goal is to create a learning environment that is welcoming, safe, and one that leads to success. As you plan your next lesson, unit, assignment, or test, take a minute to think about who in your class doesn’t fit into the “most” category, and see what you can do to help them feel more successful in your classroom. I promise it will be worth your time, energy, and thought.
November is here, and that means Thanksgiving is coming! I’ve always loved this month for several reasons— the cooler weather, the yummy Thanksgiving meal, and time with friends and family. While all of those things are awesome in and of themselves, I think my favorite thing about November is the extra focus on gratitude. Sure, I am thankful all year round, but I love the extra emphasis on it during the days leading up to Thanksgiving.
I know not all families celebrate Thanksgiving, and that’s okay! But regardless of how or if you celebrate Turkey Day, I think we all can agree that it is good to be grateful. As teachers, we can help students understand what it means to be grateful and how to show our gratitude for someone or something. When we teach young children to acknowledge the things they are thankful for, they begin to more easily see the good things in their lives, which leads to better attitudes and more optimistic outlooks.
So as we begin this month of giving thanks, I encourage you to find ways to work mini gratitude lessons into your curriculum. It’s helpful for students to write down the things they are grateful for and to post them in the room for all to see. This helps create a sense of community as students begin to see that others in the room are grateful for similar things as they are, and also to help others find gratitude in things they may not have previously thought of. One way to do this is to create a “gratitude space” in your classroom. You can do this by devoting a wall or bulletin board to thankful thoughts, creating a large tree trunk that students can add leaves to, or by making a line of gratitude thoughts that follows the perimeter of your room. I’ve included a free resource you can print out and use in your classroom. Print the page on different “fall” colors and cut out the leaves. Each day leading up to Thanksgiving break, have students write something they are thankful for that day and hang it up in the designated spot in your classroom.
Everyone will love watching the gratitude space fill up with positive things, and students will begin to recognize things in their lives that they are thankful for. Happy November!
**This free printable resource is intended for personal or classroom use only. It is not to be sold, reposted, or claimed as your own.**
Let’s say you’re in seventh grade, and your English teacher tells the class that you’ll be reading a book called The Wednesday Wars, which takes place in 1968. Before your teacher says anything more, he passes out books to everyone, and you dive right into chapter 1. As you continue to read further into the book, you start reading about Robert Kennedy, the Vietnam War, and Jesse Owens— none of which you are familiar with. It seems as though your teacher just expects you to know about these people and events. But you’re only a seventh grader, born in 2012, and you’ve never heard any of these names before. You feel lost as your teacher continues to read, unsure of why these people and events even matter in the book. Soon, you’ve tuned out the book entirely, disinterested and confused.
One simple thing could have changed the outcome here: background knowledge. Had the teacher planned ahead and set aside one day to teach the class about the people and events in the book, there would have been a whole lot less confusion, and likely more interest in the book.
It’s like trying to teach a unit on genetics without first explaining what cells, chromosomes, and DNA are. Or trying to explain how to properly develop a photo in the dark room without first explaining how to effectively use aperture and shutter speed or how to expose your photo onto your photo paper. Imagine your PE teacher telling you to get into groups and to go play a game of lacrosse without first teaching you what equipment you need, how to use that equipment, and how to play the game. The result in any of these scenarios would be chaos and confusion.
Background knowledge can make a world of a difference for students. Having some kind of foundational knowledge does a few things: it piques student interest in the topic, helps them learn correct terminology and vocabulary about the topic, and gives them a sound foundation to learn from. All of these aspects are important for creating a positive learning experience. When students can connect what they already know to what they are learning, the information is more likely to be retained. These connections can also help students to establish a deeper understanding of the topic.
Sure, taking time to teach background information can seem “boring”, but making time for it will always be worth the time and effort. You actually end up putting yourself ahead a little bit because you won’t have to pause instruction in the middle of a unit to teach all the vocabulary and other background information. You set yourself and your students up for success when you take the time to set up a topic before diving into it.
Sometimes as adults, we forget that our students aren’t always equipped with the knowledge necessary for further learning in a topic, or we assume that they should already know more than they do. We need to remember, though, that we have more experience and have had more time learning than our young students. Remember this can help us to slow down and take the time to provide scaffolding for our students as we begin new units and topics of study.
Teaching background knowledge doesn’t have to be a huge, fancy lesson. Sometimes all it takes is an anticipation guide, KWL chart, or vocabulary review to set up new material and gear students up for new learning.
However you choose to do it, just make sure you do it. Your future self will thank you, and your students will be much more engaged in their learning if they aren’t spending their time being confused and frustrated that they don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve got to spend time going backwards so you can make more progress forward!
