Incorporating music in the classroom

Do you incorporate music in your class?  What kind of music do you like or use?  When do you incorporate it?

While students are transitioning or during work sessions, I'll play a Baby Einstein album on my itouch.  During morning meeting, I incorporate  movement music and playing rhythm sticks. 


This is the current CD we are using for our movement portion of morning meeting:

Here is our rhythm stick basket and the CD we use:

I would love to hear more about how you incorporate music!

~Jessica

Coloring in the lines

We all know that this can be very difficult task for students with fine motor problems.  Here is a picture of a work sample where the student struggles with coloring in the lines. 

With this particular student, I decided to use Wikki Sticks as barriers for coloring inside the lines.  When just a raised bump on the paper won't work, these Wikki Sticks really do the trick.  The next picture is what the Wikki Sticks look like on the paper.

This picture shows the picture colored with the Wikki Sticks still attached.  You will notice in the upper left corner of the paper some stray marks.  This student was still in the process of learning with Wikki Sticks so we had some stray marks :)

This picture is the final product. 

Wikki sticks can be found here:

http://wikkistix.com/

or

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=wikki+sticks


~Jessica

Blogger app

I am having a bit of trouble with my blogger app on my android phone.  I've had several posts that I thought went through, but did not!  I will have these posts up tonight!

~Jessica

Summer unit extension books

Some of the books on the extra reading list is hard to find in our school and local library.  Luckily in our leveled book room, I was able to find some additional books that were not on the list, but may be in your leveled book room at school.  I wish I had wrote down titles and authors, but didn't.  If you can't make it out from the picture, let me know and I'll go back to my summer unit box and pull out the books!  Happy Reading!

~Jessica



Summer Unit Homework pack

This year has been a learning year for me as far as homework and the Unique Curriculum goes.  There are no homework options provided with this curriculum, so everything I send home is put together by me.  I'm still tweaking the format of homework assignments (do you even give homework?), and will need to for new students coming up to me this coming year.  Here is what I did for the summer ULS unit.

I provided a pacing calendar, an index of all items in the packet, cover for the unit, and a large ziploc bag for the contents to call home.

I created (using Boardmaker) a simple matching activity that had 2 levels.  One was a picture to picture match, and the other was a picture to word match.  I laminated the half size papers and sent home a washable marker. 

I created a Dominos game for the kids to play.  This helps them with their visual discrimination skills as well as vocabulary from the unit.

This is a cut and paste math worksheet.  This focuses on quarters and "buying" items needed for a picnic. 

Picnic Collage direction sheet.  Students were to look for pictures that realted to a picnic from magazines and the internet.  They then took the pictures and made them into a collage.  I have to admit that this was probably one of my favorite assignments.  I loved seeing their projects, and the students were so proud of them. 

This activity was a very simple writing assignment.  I gave them a sentence starter and they had to fill in one word of what they would take on a picnic. 

These were just a few of the extension activities that I created to go along with the unit.  I added in copies of their reading materials and sight words.  After surveying the parents, they all really liked this format.  Next year I will have more students that need hands on activities and communication boards to go home with their homework. 

Yes, it is a LOT of work, but you can do it!  It is worth the growth that you will see in your students come year end!  Once the new school year gets started, I will be making the intermediate grade band extension activities that I create into word documents and will post those also. 

~Jessica

Another summer unit workstation task

This task requires the child to sort the picnic food into seperate containers.  The pieces came from the unit materials.  I laminated them for durability. 


~Jessica

Summer unit workstation task

I think most grade bands of the summer unit are focused on a picnic theme.  I created a workstation task from the food pieces in the unit that required the students to pack a picnic lunch.  The student would grab a brown paper bag, open it, and then put 1 of each picnic food item into the bag.  This was great practice for them for their actual end of unit picnic.

Happy Wednesday!!!

~Jessica

Kinda quiet here for now on rm300.blogspot.com, but not for long.  We finished up testing Friday, and then I had to finish post assessments for April's unit. 
I'm not teaching the summer ULS unit this year since I taught it last summer.  I am making/creating my own 2 week unit on camping and it will start on Monday.  I'll be showing off our camping stuff over the next 2 weeks.  In between now and next Monday, I'll post pictures and ideas that we did with the summer unit last summer. 

Take care blog friends!  Thank you for the new followers and comments!  Helps keep a teacher motivated ;)

~Jessica

EOG testing

We are in the thick of end of grade testing.  Blogging will be back next week :)

~Jessica

Birthday Countdown Chart

I have some students whose behaviors start to increase around the time of their birthdays.  It is the unexpected of what the party will be like, cake, presents, people, etc.....  This is one element that I have put into place to help ease the anxiety of how many days until their birthday arrives.  Each day during our circle time, the student counts down and takes away another candle.  This is a great visual aid for them to see how much longer they have until their birthday.  Since my students do not like surprises, I talk with the parents ahead of time, and request that if they plan to do something to just bring cake/ice cream and drinks.  All of the extra stuff tends to scare the other students, including the one having the birthday.  I have a social story that I use with the kids to ease their anxieties about what is going to happen on their birthday at school. 

~Jessica

Needs vs. Wants cooking lesson

We didn't really cook per say, but our cooking lesson revolved around determining whether certain foods were needs or wants.  The students did an awesome job with placing the food in the correct spot.  This activity really seemed to click with them. 

I placed 2 paper towels in each students spot and labeled them "needs" and "wants".

I would show the students one food item at a time.  After giving each child a piece of the food, they determined which napkin "needs" or "wants" the food needed to go on.  After we went through all of the snacks, they ate!  Every single one of my students went for the gigantic marshmallows first!

~Jessica

Needs vs. Wants workstation task

Here is a workstation task that I created to go along with our Needs vs. Wants lessons which is part of the April Unit in Unique Learning System. 

This was a very simple workstation task that I created for the students.  The pictures I used came from my Boardmaker software.  Students sort the pictures onto the file folder according to whether it is a need or want.

~Jessica