Thumbnail Thursday - E is for Explore!

I came across this blog just yesterday and I am so in awe, I just have to share it with you!  Have you visited

Oh my Oh my!  Blogger Erin Bittman has created a site that is exploding (and I wish I had a better word) with amazing ideas and lessons.  She has collected ideas from bloggers, from books, from any source possible.  Some posts she created lessons based on ideas of others and some she has created her own.

How about a little Fruit Roll Up math for area and perimeter?

There's the Standard Form Name Game.

 

Wanna Play Food Chain Freeze Tag? 

How about a little math and language arts integrated together? 

 

I love this one to get kids thinking about vocabulary....wouldn't it make an awesome bulletin board?

She has categories for all subjects and special days.  Here is a great science and social studies idea.  Timelines using the idea of tree rings.

E is for Explore credits all owners of the original ideas and provides links.  Seriously, you had better set aside some time to wade through all the ideas here.  I really think my brain is going to explode from all the ideas I have floating around now.

I know this was supposed to be thumbnails, but I got a little excited about this resource.  It is so creative and edgy. When we grow up we want to be a blog just like E!

Technology Tuesday - Guided Access

Let me start this post out by saying I am amazed how kids take to the iPad like a duck takes to water. My 24 month old granddaughter can turn the thing on, open up a folder and select the app she wants.  She even uses Siri in the YouTube app to find the video she wants.  By the time she gets to kindergarten, she is going to be flying through the technology that the schools have to offer.  We may have been in a technological revolution for a while, but it is this coming generation that is going to challenge us to stay one step ahead.

With the good comes the bad and that wonderful pioneering spirit also is a pain when little fingers decide to switch apps mid stream or play around with settings.  For me, it often happens when I am working with some of my kiddos on their communication apps.  One little guy is continually switching screens, moving things and generally playing around.  We were constantly moving the iPad out of his reach which doesn't exactly lend itself to spontaneous communication.  Now when we are directly working on an app or specific communication topic, we put the iPad into Guided Access.

Guided Access locks the iPad into one app.  It also allows you to disable certain buttons or features within that app.

Here is how you use Guided Access.  First click on your settings and click on General on the left hand side.  Scroll down until you see Accessibility. Click on Accessibility and scroll down to Guided Access.

Click on Guided Access and on the next screen turn it to on.

Click on Set PassCode and select a pass code to turn guided access on and off.

Now you are ready to use Guided Access.  Open up the app you want to use and triple click the home button.  This bring up the Guided Access controls.

Use your finger to draw a circle around any buttons or features you want disabled.

When you are done, click on start and the app will be back in functioning mode.  You can see which controls are inactive.

To take it out off Guided Access, triple click on the home button and the PassCode screen will appear.

Type in your PassCode and the Guided Access control screen will appear.

Click on End in the upper left hand corner and your iPad is fully functional again.  Guided Access is a great feature for those students who tend roam all over the iPad and not stay on task.  You can put it in Guided Access before working one to one with a student, before placing an iPad in a center or really anytime the desire to explore is greater than the desire to stay on task.

Monday Musings - Student Engagement

I've mentioned before that our school district has done a ton of training in the principles of Quality Learning which are tools and philosophy developed by David Langford.  He uses brain research and the idea of total student engagement to challenge teachers to think about how they deliver instruction.  I first attended the training four years ago and it really got me thinking.

Over the years, I had gotten very casual about data collection.  Speech services tend to be heavy on direct reinforcement by the SLP.  After my training, I started changing things up.  I started using centers and began to challenge my students to self practice and to work with each other.  I started using run charts for data and my students started keeping track of their goals and their own data.  You know you assume that your kiddos know the whys and what fors of everything we do in education...unfortunately students can quickly become passive learners.

Last year I saw a first grade teacher use a tool called The Five Whys to have a discussion with her students about why they come to school.

I thought it would be something great start off the year in speech as well.

 I asked each of my groups to answer the question, "Why do you come to speech?" I then took their answer and turned it into another question.  For example, if they say "To say our words better,"  I ask, "Why do you need to say your words better?"  I did this five times.

This one was done by a group of third graders.  It is hard, but you can't comment or change their wording.  You just keep turning it back to them helping them dig deeper.

This one was done by a group of second graders.  Isn't it interesting that they brought up getting a job?

This one was done by a group of first graders.  It broke my heart when they talked of being made fun of.  It was so hard not to stop it and discuss bullying.  When it was all done we did discuss it

When we were done, we posted all the sheets around the room to refer to for the rest of the year.  All my groups (I did this with about 30 groups) either went the direction of getting a job or so people could understand you.  I only had one little hearing impaired student with autism who really didn't know why he came to speech.  What I loved about this was it started us all off with a common purpose.  We went from this activity right into looking at their goals and their data run charts.

It definitely is going into my bag of "must use" tools.

Friday Fun - Adventures in Decorating

So all you younger teachers out there are decorating mavens pinteresting (yes it is now a verb), laminating, cutting and hot gluing your way to virtual wonderlands of learning fun.  Now I pride myself on my creativity so I decided last year to do an actual theme in my classroom.  It is trickier with me as I have students in my room from age three to 12.  I decided to go with a Dr. Seuss theme because not only is the man a complete genius, everybody loves Dr. Seuss...right?

So I created cute bulletin boards, basket labels, center areas and labels all with a Dr. Seuss touch.  The first warning should have come when a third grade diva looked around one day and said. "What's with all the Dr. Seuss stuff."  They never told me in college that I would need to be prepared to defend my decorating choices to a bunch of third graders.

The next shot came from our quarterly student feedback.  Our district requires us to get student input quarterly as to how much they are learning and how fun it is.  As a part of my second quarter feedback, I used an Imagineering sheet for what would be the perfect speech program.  Their responses were put on post its and then I grouped them together.

And there it was.  Some of the kiddos wanted to help choose how the classroom looked.  With all the emphasis on student led, student engagement, student motivation that has been preached at every meeting and seminar I have attended in the last five years, no one ever suggested letting them help decorate your room.  Lady A and I said it would be like turning the decorating of your living room over to your husband!  However, one of the promises we made to our kids was that we would do our best to at least discuss each item on the Imagineering sheet.

So we decided to start small and let them decide how to decorate our hall bulletin board.  (I know what you are thinking...we cheated.  Every teacher would love to have someone decorate their bulletin board...but give us a break, giving up control is hard!) 

Check out some of their ideas.  Talk about a wide variety of ideas. I think my fifth graders tried to see how far I would go in letting them pick the theme.

I love how the claws and zombies were written right next to the puppies and Care Bears.  Obviously a Zombie Care Bear bulletin board was not going to reflect well on my teacher evaluation.  I tried to to group their ideas and let them vote.

We ended up doing an Angry Birds Cause and Effect board.  I created all different Angry bird body shapes, beaks, eyes etc and let them create their own Angry Bird.  They had to fill out a tag that gave the bird a name and say what made the bird angry.  Our favorite was "He is angry because he had to take ISTEP" (our statewide test.)  Sorry I forgot to take a picture of the board!

I am changing my room theme to Wild About Words next year.  We will probably do the bulletin board exercise again....and maybe, just maybe, they can weigh in on room decorations...in the future.

Thumbnail Thursday

Yesterday, Princess commented that she needed to go into school and start working on things.  It always seems that after the fourth of July, teachers start drifting back into school (after checking for the umpteenth time to see if Target has put out their teacher items in the $1 aisle items...no luck here in Indiana yet.)  Our first teacher day is August 8 with students starting on the 13th.  Yikes!

In honor of the coming year, today's thumbnails are two of my favorite spots to check out for ideas.  The first is the motherlode of classroom themes.

Schoolgirl Style is a site by Melanie Ralbusky.  As a teacher she started designing classroom decor to create wonderful classroom environments.  Her site took off big time.  She has partnered with Creative Press and been voted best blog by Really Good Stuff and is a guest columnist on many educational sites.  At Schoolgirl Style you will find pages and pages of real classrooms for inspiration.  Schoolgirl Style also offers many classroom decor items for purchase (in case you are honest with you are not a craft goddess on the side.)  Click on the picture above to go to a wonderland of eye candy.  Be prepared to get lost for a few hours.

Clutter Free Classroom is also written by a teacher.  She also has lots of classroom theme ideas and products to buy to guarantee a room your kiddos will ooh and ahh over.  This site has an emphasis on making sure you have what you need for each area in your classroom and subject area you teach.  There are also articles that help you think through the process of creating a wonderful classroom environment.  In addition, you can find some fun activities and lesson. Click on the icon above to dreaming about your room.

This idea of a classroom theme is relatively new in the education world.  When I began teaching, probably the most creative thing people did was their bulletin board.  Labels, book bins and reading areas were only for the most creative soul in the building.  Things are different now.  Princess began dreaming about how her classroom would look long before she graduated from college.  Her travel theme classroom is such a fun place to be. (In case you missed the big reveal last summer, click on the picture below.)

I have enjoyed this trend toward a classroom theme.  However, my students felt the need to chime in on my decorating decisions.  Tune in tomorrow for that story.

Word Wednesday - Reading Vocabulary

Sorry for the absence.  My mother and Princess' grandmother had a cataract removed and wouldn't you know it, she is the 1 in 1000th person who developed complications.  We are now helping her with eye drops every 30 minutes...around the clock! 

Today;'s post is about vocabulary.  As an SLP, one of the things I have tweaked and retweaked and retweaked and retweaked year after year is vocabulary work.  I have no problem with the activities, but I  question myself, have internal debates, research and debate some more when it comes to what words to teach.  I have looked at academic word lists, Marzano's Vocabulary Project  (which is incredibly overwhelming) and used commercial products.  What I want is vocabulary that makes a difference to my students in the classroom.   One of my fellow teachers suggested I check out Jan Richardson's book The Next Step in Guided Reading. She has a list of words commonly found in texts for reading levels A through H.  Lady A and I looked over the list and liked it.  There is always this assumption that if a student can read or decode the word, they comprehend it.  Surprisingly not always the case.

Lady A and I created vocabulary cards for these words using Boardmaker.  It was quite laborious.

We made sets with pictures and text, sets with pictures only and sets with text only.  I thought we would never finish,

 

They aren't perfect because by the time we finished, our eyes were permanently crossed and we were convinced we teach kids to read using vocabulary that could not be pictured.  However, if you would like to use them, here they are:

Reading Level B & C Vowel A

Reading Level B & C Vowel E

Reading Level B & C Vowel I

Reading Level B & C Vowel O

Reading Level B & C Vowel U

Reading Level D Diagraphs

Reading Level E Initial

Reading Level E Blends

Reading Level F Final Blends

Reading Level G & H Initial Blends

Reading Level G & H Final Blends

Reading Level G & H Silent e Rule

By the way, Jan Richardson has a website with a ton of guided reading resources.  You can explore it here.

 

Dictation - Part Two (Dictation in the Speech Room)

If you do not know how to use the dictation feature on the iPad, check out part one of this post.  If I could I would shout it from the rooftops.  Every special ed teacher should know and use constantly all the accessibility features, our technological age offers us.

When we got the iPads through the special education grant, I made sure Lady A and I both had an iPad for the speech room (after all what good is writing a grant if you don't get to enjoy the fruits of your labor!)  Like most teachers we first turned to apps specifically designed for speech.  However, we "evolved" as the Princess would say.  Princess believes true technology integration comes when you start using apps and devices in ways that are not part of their original intent.  Since most of my teachers were overwhelmed at the sight of an iPad, I often was the one who taught my speech kiddos how to use the dictation feature.  What Lady A and I learned is that speech errors and dictation result in unusual text.  The dictation feature when faced with an incorrect phoneme tries to process it intelligently.  Therefore it doesn't just write the incorrect phoneme, but often attempts to guess at what the word was supposed to be.  The dictation feature especially has a lot of trouble with r.

The sentences above are supposed to say:  I pulled my red wagon. My alarm rings every morning. Babies suck their thumbs. I like lions.  I dictated with typical speech errors.

Lady A and I have realized that our students at best think we are crazy when we tell them they did not say their sound correctly..at worst they think we are big old nags.  What I have found is the speech game tends to make passive learners out of students.  My constant immediate feedback is a given so they don't even think about their speech until I remind them.  We have started handing them the iPad and tell them to dictate so the iPad gets it right.  They love it. (who doesn't love playing with a piece of technology.)  Now they will try all sorts of things to get the sound right.  Their willingness to say a word over and over again increases tenfold.  Suddenly we are coaches instead of teachers.

We also use dictation with our language kiddos.  We have them dictate and then compare their responses to the correct ones.  We have also had our students videotape themselves and score their productions using a rubric. 

Self monitoring meets the technological age.  I love it!

Technology Tuesday: Dictation on an iPad

Today's technology is not particularly sexy.  However it is a technology I see teachers overlook constantly.  I was sitting in a conference for a student with autism at a school that had gone 1:1 and every student had a 3rd generation iPad.  They were talking about how he cries and melts down when he has to write. (which probably should be a part of the diagnostic criteria for autism because it is a rare ASD student who doesn't)  I asked if they had tried dictation.  They said "Oh you mean use Dragon Dictate?"  In my mind I shouted, "Are you kidding me?  You gave this child an iPad seven months ago and haven't touched any of the accessibility features."  What I said, "Let me show something."  I have learned a little tact over the years.

The Apple folks started including dictation with the 3rd generation of iPads.  It is simple to use.  Start out in the settings to make sure you have it turned on. 

1. Tap Settings on your Home screen.
2. Tap General, then scroll down and tap Keyboard.
3. Tap the Dictation switch to turn it on.

Also, make sure you are connected to the internet.  Open up any app that allows you to write (Evernote, Notability, Notes, Pages)  We use Pages because we are not a Mac school and Pages allows documents to be exported and emailed as Word Documents.   When the keyboard appears, you will see a microphone next to the space bar.

Tap the microphone and start talking.  Tap the microphone again or the space bar to stop recording.  The iPad will start working and you will see purple and pink circles while it processes.  It will then type out what it heard.  You can dictate spaces and punctuation as well, but we find our elementary students are not that good with punctuation with a pencil in had let along telling a machine where it goes.  They go back in and add the punctuation.  Many times they export as a Word document and finish it in the computer lab along side their peers.

Dictation takes work and students are not often successful the first time.  They have to learn to use a slightly slower rate (but not too slow.)  They have to talk clearly, but not exaggerated.  It generally takes a couple of times before they figure it out.  Speech errors also tend to confuse the iPad especially r errors (see Part 2 of this topic to see how Lady A and I used that to our advantage.)

This is why dictation is a must for students with writing deficits. (Bear with me here...it is a length story.) This year I had a fifth grader with autism who has never wanted to write.  In his wonderful tactless way, he would let you know exactly how he felt about writing. Throughout preschool and elementary many a brave soul tried to get over this hurdle with him. (Princess had him when she student taught...but alas she was unsuccessful as well.)  This year he had a wonderful fifth grade teacher.  Princess and I and another teacher wrote an innovation grant and got iPads for our special ed folks.  This fifth grade teacher let no grass grow under her little feet.  She had those iPads smokin' in her classroom.  She taught this student how to dictate which he loved. (although he complained loudly about how he sounded.)  Once she hooked him, she gently let him know that he couldn't always dictate.  He had to write sometimes too.  One day he came to get the iPad and she reminded him he had to do some writing first.  He looked at her and said in a very exasperated voice (which tends to be how he always talks)  "Well I already did that...jeez."  Being the experienced teacher she is, she asked him to show her.  He said, "I did it at home last night."  Then he pulled out ten pages he had written.  She about fell over.  It was a turning point for him.  He started writing and didn't stop.  Sometimes he used the iPad and sometimes he didn't.  He even wrote  puppet shows and performed them for the class.  His classmates were floored they could not believe he had that much inside him.  Lady A and I were on they floor laughing because the theme of the puppet shows was being rude.   We spent the last two years working with him on tone of voice and what you can and can't say to people and he argued with us at every turn.  Then he has an owl saying to a badger "You can't talk that way, it is rude."

We live in a wonderful age when it comes to serving students with special needs.  Technology has given us so many ways to overcome their hurdles.  For some reason are students with special needs are not accessing that technology. (the iPad also has built in text to speech)  It drives me bonkers....I just try to stay calm and say, "Let me show you something!"

Monday Musings: The Big Fresh Newletter

About three years ago, a literacy coach recommended this site Choice Literacy for resources.

It is a wonderful site.  It has a ton of free resources and even more for members.  I never joined the site, but I did subscribe to their weekly newsletter.  Its arrival is the one the highlight of my week.

It starts of with a great editorial and a quote.  I am constantly sending the quote home to my husband who loves them.  Each week has a general theme and they provide a ton of links to some great sites, blogs and resources.  They do book lists, digital resources, and a ton of other great ideas.  I also love how they take on the issues that crop up in the world of literacy education.  They always do a great job of presenting both sides of an issue, by finding real people who are passionate about each side.

I love the newsletter so much that I have a folder in my email account for my Big Fresh newsletters.  You know those weeks when the only email that gets opened are the ones marked urgent (or from your principal.)  The Big Fresh newsletter is one that I don't want to miss.

Check it out, I am sure you will agree.