Teacherof20

One of the main differences occurring in education besides increased accountability is the way we implement technology in our classrooms. At a recent staff meeting we were told that test scores will need to reflect not only that all students are on grade level, but also that our GT population will have demonstrated growth. We as teachers must challenge all our learners. One way to differentiate instruction and reach all levels in one classroom is through technology. While one child is working on cvc words another is learning digraphs and yet another is implementing a comprehension strategy they learned in small group. Recently I have found some great FREE technology resources that achieve this goal: turtlediary.com: has games for different content areas and grade levels literactive.com: this website reminds me of the lexia reading program and raz-kids.com except it is free. One you create an account you can read books or if you click on "activities" there are activities r

Back to school is almost here and I've been looking at other blogs and pintrest to get ideas on how to set up my classroom. The ideas I've liked so far are labeling your classroom materials with these labels . What I like about them are they have the pictures of each item right next to the label. I'm thinking of using these to label my back to school baskets for when parents come to drop off materials. I've found that if I don't clearly label where materials go, my classroom end up with materials everywhere at the end of "Meet the teacher"night! I also like this idea for meet the teacher night. Again, this gives parents a simple guide to follow as they are visiting with each other and with me. I think this step by step guide allows me to facilitate and visit and also give them a clear expectation of what they need to do before they leave that night. This teacher puts all her meet the teacher handouts in gift bags for parents at each student desk. This

As I mentioned, I am very familiar with the book The Daily Five, and have been implementing it in my kinder classroom for several years now. This year my goal is to expand on that by using the Café Book as a guide on data collection for each student as well as to teach the metacognitive strategies in the book for readers to monitor their reading. I have already set up my binder, or Pensieve (as the book refers to it) the way it is described in the book so it is ready to go for August!  At the beginning of the binder is a class list. In it the teacher marks what date she will meet with that student again. This is a quick visual of how often I am meeting with each student. It will help me keep track of students that I need to meet with everyday, as well as those that may get forgotten about. It will give me information when the last time I met with a high reader was, and if I should meet with that student again. Instead of names, I put numbers on the forms because it helps me maintain t

Hi bloggers! I have been busy preparing for next year. I got a job in a different district, teaching kindergarten again. However, unlike my current class, who is generally homogeneously grouped, next year I will have all different ability levels in my classroom. My goal will be to differentiate instruction so that all learners are challenged. I have a few ideas of how I hope to accomplish this. For math, I plan to have a whole group lesson at the beginning of class. This may involve either a pre-assessment to determine ability grouping, or just an informal assessment with white boards at the carpet area. From there, I will have choice time. There will be 10 tubs available to students for choice time while I meet with groups. Inside the tubs are activities/games of concepts we’ve already learned, or things tied to this unit’s objective. This is determined by how much of the class needs to review concepts previously taught. The tubs are labeled 1-10. In the 1-3 tubs will be activiti