Tips, Titles and Tools for Teachers
I recently watched a short video on The Science of Kindness. It was a great reminder of how acts of kindness have been scientifically shown to make us calmer, happier and healthier. Be the rainbow in someone else's cloud!
125 Books That Teach Positive Character Traits
Take a minute to check out this incredible collection of book recommendations for teaching 12 character traits such as kindness, respect & inclusion, persistence, and honesty. The books included in this blogpost are incredible! Many of the books are new titles and I even noticed a few of our March Madness contenders in the collection! I would highly recommend using these books as part of your daily read aloud time.
The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation has free K-8 lesson plans that you may want to explore. They also have a free collection of 12 printable posters for teaching kindness concepts. You can use these posters connected to your daily read aloud or as part of your morning meeting.
Happy Reading!
Shelly
New Books That I Love!
Just Finished~ The Truth According to Mason Buttle
Currently Reading ~ Shouting at the Rain
Up Next ~ Over the Moon
Resources for Reading Workshop
This article from the International Literacy Association includes many important reminders about the value of our daily read aloud time, as well as time each day for students to read independently. I know that many teachers feel pressured for time and often find read aloud and independent reading as two blocks of time that are easy to cut out of a hectic day. Here are two important quotes to support preserving time to read aloud to your class each day and time for students to independently read self-selected books.
"Reading aloud is undoubtedly one of the most important instructional activities to help children develop the fundamental skills and knowledge needed to become readers." I
"As little as 15 minutes of in-school reading has a profound impact; students who read independently for that amount of time significantly increased their reading performance, with more profound gains for below-average readers."
What Are the Best Ways to Use Leveled Text?
I really enjoyed the reminders from Jennifer Seravallo in this blog post from the Cult of Pedagogy about the best ways to use leveled texts.
Resources for Math Instruction
Thank you to Valerie Glueck for sharing all of her knowledge and resources to stretch our thinking!
This is an incredible blog post about the value and process for working with numberless word problems. I definitely think this approach will help our students think more deeply about how to approach word problems! In Amanda Cotter's classroom on Friday, I was able to watch her students discuss numberless word problems based on the approach outlined by Brian Bushart in this blog post. It lead to a very valuable discussion!
20 Days of Number Sense & Rich Math Talk
Steve Wyborney recently posted a new collection of resources for grades K-12 on his blog that you will want to check out! He has included four rich math routines that are ready-to-use. Each day has multiple levels so that these resources can be used with primary students through high school. Steve has created clear pathway to presenting rich opportunities for number sense and math discourse! I can't wait to use these resources with my group of second graders at Atwood!
Developing Mathematical Mindsets: The Need to Interact With Numbers Flexibly and Conceptually
A great blog post about Jo Boaler about how to foster a mathematical mindset in our children, even from a very young age.
I hope you will continue to check out the Google Docs of resources that Valerie has shared for Number Talks and other engaging ways to encourage our students to think flexibly while sharing ideas with one another!
Resources for Writing Workshop
Finding Purpose: The Key to Making High Frequency Words Stick!
Here's a link to the chart High Frequency Words By Genre!
In this post from Melanie Meehan, she shares a few tips for writing conferences. I love the conference cards that she leaves with students!
Shelly Moody
Atwood Primary School
Williams Elementary School
Email: smoody@rsu18.org
Twitter: @shelmoody