Growth Mindset

Hello readers! It's a new school year and for me, that means a new school and a new classroom! I'm really excited about this new adventure and ready to expand my horizons with a slight different job. Something kind of cool about being a special education teacher is that there are so many different kinds of job opportunities- resource specialist, special day class teacher, inclusion specialist, etc. I'm excited to get a taste of something new by going from a special day class teacher to a resource specialist who is also doing some inclusion.

It's a growth mindset year for me, being in a new position, and I want to bring that growth mindset to my students! I'm excited about my new growth mindset bulletin board:

The inspiration and print-outs for this bulletin board came from Math Equals Love . Super easy to do, but I love how clean it is AND the important message that it represents! Of course, a teacher shouldn't just put up a growth mindset bulletin board, but needs to talk with the students about what that actually means! I found a great, kid-friendly, but not babyish, video explaining growth mindset here- Brain Jump with Ned the Neuron. On the first day of school, I had my students set goals for the year, using this cute coloring sheet from Classroom Doodles. I told them to write three academic goals and three other goals, which could be about behavior, accomplishing something at home, etc.. We used the web coloring sheet and they look great posted on my wall! 

As long as I'm showing you my new classroom, here are some other parts of it! We had to clean out a ton of old furniture and old curriculum to get a nice, open, clean space. I feel like I can breathe now and I love how colorful the room is. There wasn't much tying it together, so I purchased a pack of colorful stars and put them throughout the room to provide more of a theme. 

Sorry that some of it cut off, but I love having these positive words on my window to be the first things students see when they come in for the day! You can get this lovely product from Ms. Cooper on Teachers Pay Teachers and it is currently free! 

What does your classroom look like this year? Did you experience a job change? Tell me about it in the comments! :)

End of the Year Project for any subject

End of the Year Project for any subject

A huge thank you to Upper Elementary Snapshots for this amazing and FREE project idea! Check it out for yourself here: Upper Elementary Snapshots Blog . I love that you could use this with any subject. I looked back over all the topics we had covered in social studies and made a huge list of about 40 of them. Then, I had the students select 9 of them to research. I encouraged them to choose from different sections in the list so they were reviewing a variety of topics. I loved bringing subjects we studied 8-9 months ago back into their consciousnesses. I made a graphic organizer of two columns- one for them to list their topics and one to write 1-2 sentences about the topic. I should have made it 3-4 sentences in retrospect, but I was worried about the students running out of room. I let the students research the topics either using the internet or textbook (most chose the internet. Surprise, surprise). Then, I used the templates from Upper Elementary Snapshots and made one of the coolest projects ever! I could have used it for my English or math class, as well, I just didn't have enough days left in those classes to make it happen. 

Biography Head-shot Assignment

Biography Head-shot Assignment

One thing I love about the end of the year is that if I time things right, I have lots and lots of time for fun end of the year projects! This year, I actually had enough time to do a new project, one that I will highlight in a different blog post. Today, though, I wanted to share how I spiced up my biography assignment to make it a little more fun and decorative.

You can find my biography assignment here at Teacher's Pay Teachers. I had so many wonderful artists in my classroom this year. We did lots of projects that included art and I wanted to make this assignment no exception. When the students finished their writing assignment, I had them glue it inside a large piece of folded paper and draw a picture of their person's face on the front. 

This is my own hilarious example, but I can promise my students' were better.

See? Open it and read the person's story. When I put these on the wall, I added a paper clip at the top middle to keep the face together.

I hope you enjoy this twist on an old favorite! I'll be adding these extra directions and example to the project soon!

My Favorite Teaching Podcasts

(graphic created using the essential oils drop shots app)

Hello everyone! Happy spring! I hope everybody had a wonderful spring break. I sure did. It was a relaxing and much-needed break. It's crazy that we're in the fourth quarter of school already. Open House is coming up and this week in English, we will be starting our Number the Stars book unit, one of the very last things we do before the school year ends. Plus we still  have state testing to look forward to. :P

This year, I became OBSESSED with podcasts! I love information, but reading information isn't always convenient. It's hard to have the time to sit down and read a book or an article. The wonderful thing about podcasts is I can get amazing information while cleaning the house, driving to and from work, doing laundry, cooking, etc. I listen to podcasts on a variety of topics- Disneyland, lifestyle, true crime- but the podcasts I listen to the most are teaching podcasts. Once I started looking for them, I couldn't believe how many I found. What follows is a list of my top favorite teaching podcasts.

1. Angela Watson's Truth for Teachers : Angela Watson is founder of the website The Cornerstone for Teachers and author of the book Unshakeable: 20 Ways to Enjoy Teaching Everyday. Angela's podcast is full of encouragement and acknowledgement for how difficult our jobs really are. Every episode has helpful advice and is like a little pep talk from a good teacher friend. Some of the episodes are about changing your mindset and some are about improving your teaching practices. I recommend this podcasts for teachers who are feeling a little discouraged.

2. The Cult of Pedagogy : Jennifer Gonzalez runs the Cult of Pedagogy Website where she says, "Teacher nerds, unite!" She has tons of articles and some videos on ways to improve your teaching. She covers some really fascinating topics on her podcasts, like "The Montessori Method," "Genius Hour (or 20% time)," "Dog-fooding," and "Teaching Without Grades," just to name a few. I especially like her interview episodes. She interviewed Peter Brown, the author of Make It Stick and Jessica Lahey, the author of The Gift of Failure and now I really want to read both books. She also interviews people with interesting points of view, like an ESL instructor, a mother of a child with autism, a teacher who left the profession, and the teacher of a self-paced classroom. If you're looking to try some new strategies in your classroom and want to stay up-to-date on teaching trends, this is the podcast for you!

3. Teach 4 the Heart : This is a podcast from Linda Kardamis, founder of Teach 4 the Heart. Linda speaks to all teachers, but has special information and advice for Christian teachers. Regardless of beliefs, though, Linda has great advice. Her first season recently wrapped up and it covered a variety of behavior management topics. I would recommend this podcast especially to new teachers, as behavior management is often a huge struggle for first-year teachers.

4. Sheila Jane Teaching : Sheila Jane Teaching runs Sheila Jane Teaching and Teach Happy Membership. She is passionate about preventing teacher burnout, and teacher entrepreneurship. Her podcasts cover teacher well-being, interviews with other teachers, and teaching ideas and tips. Some of the most unique topics she has covered are classroom decor, meditation for teachers, keeping your room allergy-free, and writing a letter of recommendation for a colleague.

5. Talks with Teachers : Talks with Teachers also has a website companion to its podcast. This podcast is just how it sounds- it's chock-full of interviews with all types of cool teachers with awesome ideas. In fact, Sheila Jane and Jennifer Gonzalez (mentioned above) have both had interviews on this show. If you love collaborating with other teachers, I highly recommend this podcast.

I hope you check out some of these podcasts for yourself! You can conveniently listen to all of them in one place using a podcasting app like iTunes, or some of them allow you to listen on their websites. There are many more teaching podcasts available, but these are just five of my favorites!

Classroom Decor

I am a believer in your classroom decor not only being fun for the students, but also reflecting your own personality! I have loved mysteries ever since I discovered Nancy Drew and I think they're a great place for some reluctant readers to find their niche. Isn't learning in school somewhat like uncovering a mystery, too? With this in mind, I decided to make my classroom detective/mystery themed. I had emailed some local libraries asking for detective-themed book posters, but never got a response. I'm still hoping to uncover more treasures as the year ends, but here are some mystery themed highlights so far:

I also added random magnifying glasses around the classroom to try to carry the theme, even with the unrelated academic posters:

My bulletin boards also have mystery-related titles on them, like, "The mystery of history," "case notes," and "hot on the trail of learning." 

What does your classroom decor look like this school year? :)

Teaching the Constitution and Bill of Rights

Hello teachers! We are just finishing up one of my favorite units to teach out of all of my classes! I love teaching students about how our government works here in America. I believe it is so important to society that our future voters are well-informed and know what the Constitution says. Last year, I discovered a really great product on Teacher's Pay Teachers for teaching students the branches of government. In this project, students make a really cool flip-flap book about the branches of government! It even comes with a little booklet that has information about the branches in very simple language and that aligns perfectly with the questions asked in the flip-flap book. The bonus to it is that it looks amazing up on a bulletin board! Check mine out!

The yellow stickies and weird black line are covering the student's names. I just put them on for this picture. :)

I purchased this project from Simply Skilled in Second on Teacher's Pay Teachers. You can get it here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Branches-of-Government-1189930 . It is well worth the price, even if printing it is a little bit complicated (some pages need to be printed on legal pages). One example of checks and balances from this booklet is how a bill becomes a law, so of course, I had to show the classic Schoolhouse Rock video, "I'm Just a Bill." (Aren't those the best videos??)

After completing the flip-flap book, we played a game entitled, "Branches of Power" to test our knowledge at www.icivics.org. I love this website!!!! I use lessons and games from it numerous times throughout the year to teach U.S. history. I only wish there were a website like it for world history activities.

Next, we study the Bill of Rights. I use a Bill of Rights lesson from www.icivics.org. In the picture above, high and in the center, is one of the activities we do from that lesson. Students have to match a simplified version of each amendment with its number. There are a few other fun activities in the lesson and I modify them for my class as needed (we do parts in groups, parts individually, and parts as a whole class). We then play another game at www.icivics.org. This one is called, "Do I have a Right?" It's similar to Diner Dash, except you are running a law firm and matching clients and their problems to a lawyer who specializes in a corresponding amendment. This game truly allows students to put their knowledge into action! The last activity we did with the Bill of Rights was a discussion activity that I created after reading about "chat stations" from Cult of Pedagogy. You can read more about them at http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/chat-stations/. The discussion questions I created for this activity are totally free on Teacher's Pay Teachers!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Bill-of-Rights-Discussion-Activity-2338448

I was incredibly impressed by the answers I got to these questions. Most were well-thought-out with good evidence for their answers. I really felt like the students were able to apply the principles in the Bill of Rights to their own lives through this activity. 

I hope some of these activities give you inspiration for teaching about our amazing Constitution and Bill of Rights! Please comment if you have any questions. :)

Preparation for Multi-digit Multiplication

Sometimes it’s difficult for students to go from multiplication facts to multi-digit multiplication that requires regrouping. I like to have the students practice multiplying and then adding so they have some experience with the process they will do after regrouping. This is especially helpful for students in special education. Then, I have the students practice multiplying without regrouping so they practice doing steps in the right order. Any time we can have the students practice any of the steps of in a multi-step process beforehand, it helps increase their confidence because it actually looks somewhat familiar. 

I have a new Teachers Pay Teachers product up to help with this! I have included five pages of "multiply, then add" worksheets with 30 problems each. I have also included five pages of multiplication of one digit by two digit numbers without regrouping. Each page has 15 problems. It all comes with an answer key as well. I hope these activities help your students ease into multiplication with regrouping! Check it out here: Preparation for Multi-digit Multiplication