Lessons that go Wrong...then Right

Sometimes I have this great lesson in my mind and it tanks.  Sometimes I teach a lesson that I’m not fond of and my kids take it to this amazing level.  This is a tale of two lessons that taught me to remember that sometimes the small things can make a big difference.

For math we had been focusing on composing and decomposing the number ten.  I had seen a cute sticky note anchor chart on Pinterest and decided to use it during one of our discussions at the end of a lesson.  By the time I had gotten to the 3^rd row of this amazing anchor chart my students were done.  They were wiggling and off task and I was about to give up.  This was such a great way to show the pattern when you have all the combinations of 10!  Why weren’t they listening?!?!?!?  But then I had an idea.  This was a whole group lesson and I was doing all the work…duh! 

So I quickly assigned partners and gave them a large sheet of construction paper.  They had to cut it in half lengthwise, glue the two ends together, and write both their names on the back.  This gave me a couple of minutes to get the sticky notes separated.  When they showed me their paper was ready I handed them a stack of sticky notes and told them to make a row starting with the blue sticky notes and then write a corresponding equation.  Luckily I had shown them this with the beginning of the lesson so it was fairly easy.   Most of them finished around the same time, but my earlier finishers went back to math games while the others finished. 

Once they had all turned their strips in I had them clean up and we went to the hall.  We all needed a change of scenery and it provided a long area for us to sort the sticky note strips.  I had them line the hall and asked for help putting our work in order.  When we finished it was a nice visual picture of combinations of 10.  So even though my Pinterest lesson failed…the students doing the work was amazing.

I later glued the students’ work to some butcher paper and posted it in the hall.  I surrounded it with games tracking sheets that correspond to composing and decomposing the number 10.  If anyone uses the Investigations curriculum – 3 Towers of 10, Hidden Counters in a Cup (with 10), and How Many Am I Hiding? (with 10) are the games we used.  We also threw in Bowling for 10 (referenced in an earlier post) as a subtraction game to focus on 10.

My other lesson fail…then save…comes from adjectives.  I’ve admitted before that grammar is not my favorite topic of all time.  So as I’m trying to get more excited about it so I can be a better teacher of it I am learning as I go.  My kids LOVE the School House Rock video on nouns and verbs.  So I figured I’d throw the adjective one in as well.  I did not realize the video had idiot can be changed to idiotic to make it an adjective until I was showing it!  Luckily the video moves quickly and they don’t focus on that one so I’m hoping my students didn’t notice that lovely adjective. 

But one thing the video does do is while the girl walks around her dog (I think) puts signs all over the place describing various objects.  So when the video was over I asked my students to tell me adjectives from the video.  Then I asked them to look around the room and tell me an adjective about something around the room.  They were all watching (and LOVING) me write their adjectives on sticky notes and place them around the room.  I told them that this week I would put a sticky note on their desk and they had to write an adjective about something around the room.  I would then take that note and put it on the corresponding object.  Well, of course, they wanted to describe things that require me to stand on tables and climb counters to reach.  I’m not beyond acting crazy to get a concept across.  So now my room is being taken over by sticky notes, but my students understand what an adjective is so I’m okay with it.

Hopefully my tales of lessons that could have flopped big time will inspire you to take a look at your lesson fails and see how you can turn them around.  Or maybe just picturing me standing on a table trying to reach the ceiling to place a ‘white’ sticky note will make you smile.

Guess My Verb

What do normal teachers do on their in-service lunch breaks?  Have a nice lunch and relax.  What do I do on my in-service lunch break?  I blog about teaching!  I guess I am a bit addicted.

Here is a fabulous idea that I did not come up with…my co-worker Holly did.  She is a super-star teacher and I love her excitement about teaching – even grammar!  I must admit grammar is not my favorite.  But I do love this lesson.  It is too good not to share. 

We began our verb unit with School House Rock (so cheesy but the kids love it) and a brief anchor chart.  After a few days of finding verbs in our reading text and writing we played Guess My Verb.  We went outside and a student whispered in my ear the verb he wanted to act out.  Then the rest of the students had to guess his verb.  I took pictures.  The next day I printed the pictures off and instead of free writing for Writer’s Workshop we wrote sentences for our verbs.  They LOVED it!  At the top the students wrote their verb and under the picture they wrote a sentence.  It was a great way to sneak in adding –ing to a word so it makes sense in a sentence.

I started the lesson with a picture of me – I’m at best don’t you think?  Then I wrote eat at the top of my page.  My mini-lesson included writing a complete sentence and adding –ing to my verb. 

These are some of my favorite pictures and the sentences that went along with them.  As always, happy teaching ~

Valentine's Day

Wow!  I have been terrible about posting lately.  I’ve just been so lazy!  So here is a post Valentine’s Day post.  We have the students decorate their Valentine mailboxes at home.  For those of you who like to do it in class, you won’t end up with adorable boxes like this one if you do.  But to each his own…

 

For easy clean up I wrap my tables in butcher paper and throw on some heart cut outs.  The kids are so cute when they see it – “Oh, it just looks wonderful!”  I just love how excited they get about paper hearts.

Two pieces of advice: make a thank you poster for the day after and tape all your Valentine cards and drawings - they love to see that you displayed their gifts of love / buy Valentine cards and decorations the weekend after Valentine’s Day because they are super cheap (this works for any holiday).