Famous Pairs Cards

I hope you are having a fantastic start to the 2013-2014 school year!  It's so fun having time to get to know our students at the beginning of the year.  Building relationships is foundational to everything we do as educators, so I try to make sure my students spend a lot of time working together either in small groups or partnerships.

For a few years, I have used famous pairs cards in my class that I've written on index cards.  Basically, these cards have an even number of words written on them (one word written on each card) such as cookies, milk, mashed potatoes, gravy, salt, pepper, etc.  When I'm ready to get my kids working together in pairs, I mix the cards up and pass out one to each student.  (If I have an odd number of students in my class, then I keep the last card and will be a partner to one of my students.)  Then my kiddos silently walk around with their cards held up next to their heads trying to find their famous pair.  They LOVE searching for their partner, and it's a trip to watch!

So this year, I decided to make my cards a little fancier than the hand-written version and add a couple more features thanks to the inspiration of Dr. Spencer Kagan.  Sometimes, once my kiddos are in their partnerships, I want one partner to talk and the other to listen and then switch roles.  So I added an "A" and a "B" to each card so it would designate who is who.  When I say, "Partner A goes first," the partnerships will be able to start right away and no more Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who goes first.  Also, there are times when I want my partnerships to link up with other partnerships, so I made sure there are 4 cards per color.  Finally, each card has a number - 1 through 5.  If I need to, I can have all of the number 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s gather together to share what was happening in their individual partnerships.  The bottom line is I wanted some flexibility in the cards, so I tried to add some of these features.  Here, look for yourself...

Famous Pairs Cards

There are 28 cards in all (14 pairs), so hopefully that will accommodate the largest class size.  God bless you IMMENSELY if you have a class size larger than 28.  Just print, laminate, cut them out and you're good to go!

I hope you have as much fun with your famous pairs as I do!

Enjoy!

Who Goes First? 40 Ways for Kids to Decide

It's time for your kids to break out into small groups and begin working on a task.  Or they are about to start a game.  The first question I always anticipate is, "Who goes first?"  Here's something that will get your kids engaged in deciding who will start the activity or game.

There are 40 cards in all.  You can put these on a ring and just pick one randomly to call out to groups.  You can also randomly pick one to give to each group so that each group has a different way to find who goes first.  Of course, at the beginning of the year when you are setting your routines, you'll teach your students what to do if they need to have a tie breaker or if no one in the group satisfies the criteria.

I've also created 5 spinners that can be used in the same way.  Kids use a paperclip and a pencil to spin the spinner.  These spinners can be put on a ring and hung in a convenient location.  They could also have a magnet applied to the back and put in a handy dandy spot so your students can get to them.

I've also created a teacher card that has all 40 ways on one card so it's at your fingertips; you'll see it in the download.

{Who Goes First? 40 Ways for Kids to Decide}

Enjoy!

Creative Ways to Line Up Your Class {Freebie}

Let's admit it; we all do it.  We creatively ask our kiddos to line up...not because we want to know how many kids are wearing red shirts or how many have laces on their shoes.  No, we do it because it helps to get our kids quiet and listening...the perfect prerequisite for a peaceful line.

Sometimes, if you're like me, you need a fresh idea for lining up your little sweet peas.  Maybe you'll find this helpful.  Twenty-four ideas (download the {free document} to see them all) that will get your kiddos in line and ready to go.  I'd love to add your ideas, so be sure to follow me and leave a comment with how you creatively get your kiddos in line.

Print, laminate, cut out, put on a binder ring and you're all set!

Keep them in a handy location!

Add a little bit of ribbon to your binder ring for a little bit of cute!

Of course, if you're like me, you'd also like a handy-dandy list of these same ideas.  You can put this list on your white board (just slap some magnets on the back), display it near your door, or use it as a bookmark in your lesson plan book/binder.

 

Grab your free copy of {Creative Ways to Line Up Your Class} today!

Don't forget to leave a comment with your creative ideas for lining up.

Have a blessed week and enjoy!

The Scoop on Groups

Woo to the hoo!  I'm so excited to be a contributing author of Me and My Gang! 
What a great place to come together as 2nd grade teachers and share our ideas, our successes, and our funny stories.  Of course, if you don't teach 2nd grade, you'll find AMAZING ideas there that you can easily tweak for your grade level. 

So since a bunch of us 2nd grade bloggers have come together at Me and My Gang to form a group, I thought my first post there should be about grouping.  I'm sure you've heard that "organizing students in heterogeneous cooperative learning groups at least once a week has a significant effect on learning."  Marzano sure knows his stuff!  Research has also shown that "low-ability students perform worse when grouped in homogeneous ability groups." (Kulik & Kulik)

As a classroom teacher, sometimes I forget all of the wonderfully fun ways there are to break my little rocket scientists into groups.  So to solve that problem, I compiled a bunch of grouping strategies and made a set of Grouping Cards.  These cards are going to help me quickly remember ways to break my kiddos into groups.  Most of them require minimal preparation that can be done once and then used again and again.  Here's how...


Print on card stock.

Laminate and cut out.  Punch a hole in the top left corner if you want to put them on a binder ring (which I will do when I get to my classroom).

You're ready to go!

There are a couple of web sites you might want to check out which I highlighted on two cards (on page 4).  For Clock Buddies, go here.  For Collaboration Cards, go here.

You want some of these, don't ya?  OK.  Please become a follower of Me and My Gang and I Love 2 Teach if you're not already.  Like us on Facebook too...just look for our FB links on the right side.  If you're a blogger, then why don't you go ahead and grab our buttons while you're at it?
Grab the Grouping Cards for free {here}.

Back to School Success Kit

I know most of us would love to prolong our summer vacations, but let's get real.  Back to school is just a few short weeks away.  If you're like me (and I know you are), you are a planner.  So I've put together a Back to School Success Kit. I can't take credit for every idea in the kit; I scoured the web for the best of the best ideas.  Here's what's inside:

·First Day of School Checklist

·Weekly Planner

·Procedures & Routines

·Routines

·Supply Labels

·How We Are Going Home Chart

·Attention Grabbers

·Read Aloud Books

·First Day Certificates

Here’s a sneak peek of what you’ll see…

I tweaked an idea that I saw at http://whattheteacherwants.blogspot.com/2011/05/management-monday_09.html.

 

 

There are certificates for K-5th grade.

I hope you have a wonderful start of the new school year, and may God bless you with a sensational class.  Click here to download your Back to School Success Kit.

 

Too Cool for School Linky Party

I'm a native Texan which means I'm used to hot weather.  But lately it has been a little unbearable.  We've suffered through 15 consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures.  I'm sorry, but 107 is not ok.

So, it got me thinking...yes, I may be a little delusional due to the heat, but anyway... How about throw a linky party to cool off!?!?!  I want to know the coolest tip, trick, technique, or time-saver that you use in your classroom.  If you want to include more than one cool idea, then feel free to take the plunge.  But just one cool tip is enough.

Here is my cool tip:

• Use a yellow highlighter and write "Original" across any paper that you want to save in your files.  The word "Original" won't show up if you copy the paper, and it reminds you that it's your last copy.

So let the cool party begin!  And it would be really cool if you could follow my blog as you link up.  Feel free to share a link from your blog or share your tip in a comment.  Either way...stay cool!

Round 'Em Up, Move 'Em Out

Sometimes teaching is like herding cattle, and the end of the day in any classroom can be chaotic or calm.  In an effort to make mine more like the latter, I've been searching for new ideas for when I need to round 'em up and move 'em out.  Here are just a few:

• I made a list of silly ways to say Good-bye because I want my little apple pies to leave each day with a smile on their faces.  This could be made into a poster and displayed near the door/hall. (This PDF has a full-color version and a black-and-white version.)
• Play a song during your pack up time.  "So Long, Farewell" from The Sound of Music would be a nice cue.  Or you could even have a song of the week, changing songs each week.  Teach your little DJs that by the end of the song you would like for their chairs to be stacked, their backpacks to be ready, their voices to be off, and their bodies to be sitting in a designated place.
• Play a game of "21" as a class. Everyone stands and we go round the group, each person saying one, two or three numbers. For example, the first player might say "one, two, three." Then maybe the second player says, "four, five."  The third player can say "six," or "six seven," or "six seven eight."  The player who says "21" is eliminated. (They sit down.) The next player starts over with "one," "one two," or "one two three." This strategy game is sure to keep them involved until dismissal.
• The Responsive Classroom Approach suggests doing a Closing Circle at the end of the day.  There are some GREAT ideas here.
• Play Whisper - Start with the teacher whispering something to the first person (only once).  The first player then whispers what s/he heard to the next person and so on. The last person has to say it out loud.  This would be a great time to review a concept, a vocabulary word, a math fact, etc.
• Play a game of ABC- Start by choosing a category.  For example, let's say the category is animals.  The first person says an animal that begins with the letter A. The second person has to repeat the A animal then add a B one. The third person has to say the A animal, B animal, and add a C animal and so on. We see how many letters we can get to.  I played this at camp with my 6th grade girls and they loved it!
• Brent Vasicek has a video along with some great ideas here.

What's your best way to end the day before dismissal?  Leave a comment here....yee haw!

Name Calling!

Creating a Wordle is so easy and fun!

In my humble opinion, the most powerful word in any classroom is a student's name.  I'm not talking about using it to redirect misbehavior or to call on a student to answer a question (although those circumstances are necessary).  In my experience, using a child's name in a positive tone of voice reflects love and care which can lead to a deeper level of respect in that relationship.  I try to use a student's name in the middle of our conversation, and the big smile I see lets me know how warm and fuzzy she/he feels.  It just goes to show what Dale Carnegie says about names is true: "Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language." It reminds me of Proverbs 16:24: "Kind words are like honey--sweet to the soul and healthy for the body."  So, be a name caller!

Quick ideas to encourage name calling:

• Kids can draw and color a self-portrait at the bottom of this poem, "Everybody Has a Name."  
  
• The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi is a wonderful book to read to your class at the beginning of the school year!
• Check out Scholastic's Fabulous First-Day Ideas.
• Go to TeacherVision to grab some tips for learning students' names quickly.
• Have your kids create a Wordle using their names.  (I made a sample Wordle using my dog's name above.)

Give a Smelly for Good Choices

My dear friend, Hope, teaches kindergarten.  She is a saint.  She is what you envision when you think of the sweet kindergarten teacher who let you use all of the crayons in the box AND gave you glue, yarn, scissors, googly eyes, and colored paper to create whatever you wanted.  (Sorry about that...flashback!)
Anyway, Hope is an excellent teacher, and I try to steal all of her ideas as often as possible.  One of her gems is how she uses Lip Smackers.  You can pick up these fragrant lip balms rather inexpensively and yet your little muskrats will go crazy when you pull one out.  Hope rewards (and by default encourages) her students when they make good choices with a "Smelly."  She just puts a dot of the lip balm on a well-behaving student's hand as an aromatic way to say, "Great job!"  And I can tell you from experience with my 2nd graders, they LOVE to get a Smelly.  Give it a try!  Thanks, Hope! 

The Hallway Song

Need a quick way to get your little ones ready for a trip in the hall?  I have one idea and one AMAZING resource for you.

After my kiddos are in line, I start singing this song by holding out the first word, "Myyyyyy."  As soon as my lovely (HA!) voice hits their ears, my kids join me by holding out "My" with me.  Then we start the song.  It's pretty easy to figure out the rhythm.  At the very end where it says "Catch a bubble," your kids just take a deep inhale and make a bubble with their cheeks, and you don't say those words (catch a bubble).  This quick little ditty has helped my second graders get ready for the hall without me giving redundant reminders about [insert serious voice here] appropriate hallway behavior.

Would like to see what other teachers do to prepare their classes for a trip in the hall?  Hop on over to The Organized Classroom Blog to grab a free compilation of incredible ideas.  You will LOVE it!