Mary's Blog

I will always remember my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Moynihan, for inspiring me to write stories and poetry. I even had a poem published in the San Francisco newspaper that year. Mrs. Moynihan inspired us to be creative and allowed us to personalize our writing with our own voice and interests. My most memorable writing assignment was when we wrote stories about a magazine picture of our choosing.  I found a picture of a naughty boy with a sling shot, and I named him Joey Brown. Thus began my series of Joey Brown adventure stories. I grew up with three brothers, and I knew all about the antics of boys.  Photo prompt writing is a very effective way to jump start writing ideas for stories and poetry. You can find good writing prompt pictures in magazines and on the internet.  Students can even take their own digital photos to use for more personalized writing.

Click here to download some of my favorite writing prompt pictures.

Believe me, I know how time consuming assigning, collecting, grading and organizing homework is for the teacher. Sometimes you want to just bag it! However, experts have found that homework is necessary for students to excel academically, but it has to be the right amount of appropriate homework. This makes it very challenging for teachers, since the right amount of appropriate homework might be different for each student. Here are some tips to help teachers differentiate and organize their homework system to make it easier for the teacher and most beneficial for the students. Click here to download a homework checklist.

• Homework Station - Instead of giving each student the same homework every night, have a variety of differentiated activities for students to choose from at a homework station.  Allowing students this choice serves as a motivating way of providing enrichment activities as well as remedial practice. Some students may need help choosing the right amount of appropriate homework, but most students will handle this choice very well.
• Homework Checklists – Have students keep track of their homework on a check list which is turned in every Monday. The teacher notes missing assignments and sends it home for a parent signature. This is an effective way to help students organize and monitor their homework, and it also keeps parents informed. Click here to download a Homework Checklist.
• Daily Check-Off Sheets – Gathering and recording homework assignments each day can be very time consuming.  Here is an easy and effective method to do this: 1. Assign each student a class number. 2.Collect the homework in numerical order. 3. Have student helpers check-off the numbers on a daily check-off sheet. This way the teacher can quickly see which students did not turn in their homework and find out the reasons and/or give consequences.

When homework is motivating and appropriate, students will reinforce learned skills, increase long-term retention of skills and apply skills independently and successfully.

Creative thinking skills are essential for success in learning and in life. Children who are engaged creatively have higher motivation and greater self esteem. Creativity thrives where there is time to explore, experiment, evaluate and play with ideas. Creative thinking involves many skills that can be promoted across the curriculum. Here are some ideas to help creative thinking flourish in your classroom.

• What If ? What if _____ was never invented? What if you found a ______ in your room?
• Make a List  How many kinds of _____ can you think of?  How many ways can you __________?
• Combination  Combine the attributes of two different objects to create something new.
• A-Z  Make a list of words from A-Z that are relevant to the topic.
• Prediction  What will happen next? What will _____ be like in 100 years?
• What’s the Question?  Give students an answer and have them write several questions for the answer.
• Invention  Create a device that will help people.
• Different Uses  How many different ways can you use ________ ?
• Disadvantages  List the disadvantages of _________ and describe how you would improve it.
• Explanation  Explain why _______ happens, happened or is happening.
• Compare and contrast  How are ________ and ________ similar and different?
• Problem Solving  How would you use a _____, ______ and ______ to solve this problem?

Click here to download a template for Creative Thinking Boxes which can be used to promote creative thinking for any topic your class is studying.

The importance of vocabulary knowledge to school success has been widely documented. Back in the “old days” my teachers gave me a list of words, and I was told to look them up in the dictionary and write the definition and a sentence. Well needless to say, not many of those words stayed in my brain. Here are some of the best ways to successfully help students learn and retain vocabulary:

1. Wide reading – Of course the best way to build vocabulary is lots of reading; shared reading, guided reading, independent reading, buddy reading and read aloud.  It stands to reason that the more exposure to words the students have, the more words they learn. Students who read just an extra 10 minutes a day outside of school can significantly increase their vocabulary growth.

2. Direct Instruction - Teachers need to choose the important words students need to know then directly teach those words with specific explanations, modeling, pictures, application, etc.  Having students identify synonyms and antonyms for new words will better help them understand the word meaning.

3. Make Connections - Have students make connections with the words by classifying the word with other words or looking for known word parts. Students can also make personal connections to the words by relating the word to their own experiences through discussion and writing.

4. Active Engagement – Allow students to actively interact with words by play games, creating projects and writing and performing vocabulary chants where they put the word and definition to rhythm.

5.  Multiple Exposure - Students need to interact with a word several times before they own it. Provide multiple exposure by storing words in a word book or on the classroom wall to use for games, writing activities and everyday classroom talk.

If you want to increase vocabulary knowledge don’t let the word “FUN”  scare you! Vocabulary activities can be fun and also rigorous.  After all, what we learn with enjoyment we tend to remember longer! So….don’t let your students feel lugubrious about vocabulary lessons!

You may download the blank form used for the lugubrious child by clicking here.

Successful parent involvement improves not only student behavior and attendance but also positively affects student achievement. However, there are many parents who never step foot in the classroom. In my classroom these are the parents I need to see the most.  Here are some ideas for encouraging parents to come to school.

1. Positive Communication –  Send home positive notes and make positive phone calls.  Often parents don’t want to come into the classroom, because they don’t want to hear everything their child is doing wrong. Parents are more willing to come to the classroom if they have a positive connection with the teacher.

2. Fun Contests - There are many different kinds of contests, but one my students and parents enjoy is estimation jars. I fill several jars with different items and then at a parent night or parent conferences I have the parents  guess how many of each item are in each jar. They place  their guess in a can by the jar. The next day in school the students count  the items and announce  the winning parents. This is a popular contest!

3.  Student Led Activities -  Have students  teach the parents a classroom game, share  a school project or perform a song, play or poetry recital.  Students will often put pressure on their parents to attend such an event. We had a parent night with eight different stations of math activities. Two to three students were at each station. The parents rotated around the stations and the students showed them how to do each activity.  When a parent night is fun and interactive, parents are more likely to attend.

4.  Culture Fair -  During a two week period I have several different options during the day and one evening for the parents to come to the classroom to share items, food and pictures about their families and  cultures.  My hope is that every child be represented by a parent, grandparent or relative during the week. This turns out to be a wonderful way to learn about the families and cultures of my students.

5. Parent Readers - Every Friday I invite a parent to come to the classroom to read aloud a favorite picture book.  Many parents really enjoy doing this and the students get very excited to have their parents at school!

Teaching students in small groups at their instructional levels in math and reading is crucial to student achievement. The challenge for educators is how to keep the rest of the class independent, productive and engaged while the teacher works with small groups. Learning centers or stations consist of activities for students to work on independently or with other students while the teacher is spending valuable time teaching small groups. It is important to create activities that are not mere busy work, but purposeful and beneficial to the needs and interests of the students. Here are five guidelines to make learning centers most effective for all students:

1. Effective learning centers have activities that allow students to practice skills. Practice is important to achievement. Activities should give students review and practice of skills or concepts taught in whole class or small group lessons.
2. Effective learning centers have differentiated activities that regularly change. Teachers should conduct regular formal and informal student assessments then match the activities to the many different student interests, learning styles and ability levels.
3. Effective learning centers have regular procedures and routines. Label the learning centers with clear instructions, written and visual, on how to complete the task. It takes training, practice and monitoring for students to learn and follow the routines and the behavior expected at learning stations.
4. Effective learning centers focus on the process and not the product. It is not necessary for students to complete a product at every learning station. Students engaged reading, writing or playing an educational game are making beneficial use of their time. Personally I prefer learning activities that I don’t have to correct!
5. Effective learning centers allow for choice. Choice is one of the biggest motivators, and students learn best when they have the opportunity to make choices about their own education. It is a good idea to allow some choice of activities at each learning center or station. I prefer the free flow approach where students are allowed to choose an activity, work on it as long as they want and move to other choices freely.

While it does take some teacher time and preparation, effective learning centers help students develop independence, learn through self-discovery and practice and apply academic skills. Effective learning centers allow the flexibility for teachers to differentiate instruction for each student in the classroom.

Check out my Teacher Treasures Store for Instant Learning Stations.

A strategic and engaging read aloud experience is an effective way to model fluent reading and develop language, vocabulary and comprehension for ELL students. Here are some steps to making read aloud beneficial for students who are learning English.

1. Choose interesting books that have some words and content new to the students. The choice of book depends on the English level of the student. I would suggest teaching five to ten new words during a read aloud.

2. Activate prior knowledge by finding out what students already know about the topic. In a narrative text have students make predictions about what might happen in the story by looking at the pictures.

3. Preteach new vocabulary by bringing in actual objects or photos of objects from the text. During the reading explain and discuss vocabulary  in context. Encourage students to let you know if they do not understand a word.  

4. During the reading make comments and explain ideas in the text. Encourage discussion by asking questions and allowing students to ask questions. Share the strategies good readers use to make meaning of text. 

 5. Provide a closing activity that provides practice and review of  vocabulary and content. Creating a graphic organizer,  writing and/or drawing  about the story and oral retelling with a partner are some good closing activities.

There are many, many wonderful read aloud books to choose from. Because of the great visuals and cultural content, I like to read aloud to my English language learners from multicultural picture books.

Click here for a list of some of my favorite multicultural picture books.

My brother was Miss White’s favorite student. As a recent college graduate Miss White was hired to teach third grade in a small country school that had only one class of each grade. My brother’s class was a very large  class, and most of the teachers dreaded the year they had to teach this unruly group of students. After several weeks of school my brother announced to the family that he was Miss White’s favorite student. This came as a shock to all of us including my wild and talkative brother who usually annoyed the teachers. My brother had a wonderful and memorable third grade year.  Miss White  married and moved on, but my brother never forgot her. Some 30 years later he ran into Miss White. He was so excited to see her that he organized a reunion with his third grade class, and since I was very curious about Miss White, he invited me to come.  To my brother’s chagrin he found out that all of his classmates also thought they were Miss White’s favorite. They excitedly told Miss White all their memories of third grade and how the encouragement she gave them changed their lives. Miss White was very emotional about this response from her past students. She told me privately that she didn’t even remember saying and doing all the things that her students remembered. She was a first year teacher and was just trying to make it through each day. I told her that she obviously knew what is most important as a teacher and that is to build relationships with the students. She might not have had her teaching skills perfectly honed as a first year teacher, but she truly cared about her students and they never forgot her.

All of you on our email list know that Pam and I send out a free idea in our BOOST for educators to use or not. Last week we had a very interesting experience. I shared a list of candy bar rewards to pass out to students the last day of school. The list included things like: Snickers for the student who loves to laugh, Good and Plenty for the student who is good plenty of times, Almond Joy for the happy student and so on. We immediately received some irate emails about how inappropriate it was for us to encourage candy in the classroom. We take all comments seriously, so we quickly changed the freebie and sent out an apology. Then we received even more emails from educators who loved the candy bar idea and did not think that one candy bar to celebrate the last day of school is such a terrible thing. I was surprised at all the passionate responses we received for and against candy in the classroom. However, in our very much by accident poll, the votes for occasional candy in the classroom far outweighed the votes for no candy in the classroom.

So here is my opinion on candy in the classroom. I think children should be taught to make good food choices everyday and to eat sweets in moderation.  I don’t believe it is wise to ban candy from children.  After all, sometimes a little piece of candy just makes life and school a little bit sweeter.

If you are interested in the Candy Bar Awards click here.

 Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of      caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.  — Leo Buscaglia

I believe the most important thing teachers can do to help students achieve is to let them know you care about them. Showing students   you care about them helps create a positive, supportive relationship and helps build an environment where learning can flourish.  As teachers we all have to admit that some children are easier to love than others.  I found if I take the time to build a trusting and caring connection with all my students and especially my toughest students, the better they behave and the more they achieve.  It is not always easy, but the rewards are great.  The more I know about  my students’ interests, talents and needs, the easier it is to prepare meaningful lessons and helps students feel the partnership of the learning experience.

Ways to Show You Care

1. Allow time for students to talk to you or write to you about problems that arise, things they are excited about, questions they have, etc.  When I am not readily available to talk with a student, I have them write a note and place it in a special box.  

2. Help students share what they want others to know about themselves through art and writing activities.

3. Spend one on one time with each student. I like to eat lunch in the classroom with each student 3-4  times each year. This is a great time to listen to your students and find out about their families, cultures, ideas, interests, feelings about school, etc.

4. Work with parents to show interest and concern for their children by inviting them to class, making phone calls and sending positive notes home. Keeping an open dialogue with parents helps us better understand and know the students.

5. Know your students academic levels through authentic assessment practices.  Students are most successful when they have appropriately challenging lessons. One of the most important ways we show students we care is through differentiated teaching practices.