Multiple Meaning Words Tagxedo

One of the standards my students must meet when working toward their Alabama Extended Standards is using and identifying multiple meaning words. We have been working hard to understand multiple meaning words and the many definitions that some words can have and how we use them or read them. I thought a fun activity would be to show what we know and make a Tagxedo (mentioned in previous post) to display all the multiple meaning words we have learned. Here is the Tagxedo that I made as an examples. My students will be making their own on Monday when we return to school from spring break.

I hope that this will help you see the many ways that you can use this great website and tool in your own classroom.
Enjoy!!

Multiplication (old school)

Oh multiplication tables. I thought that I hated them when I had to learn them but they are so much worse when you are trying to encourage students to memorize them. It is so hard to help students to understand the importance of knowing your multiplication tables. I have been getting pretty discouraged lately because I really felt like we were getting no where with multiplication tables. So I decide to pull out the old school School House Rock videos to help students in their efforts to memorize the terrifying multiplication tables. Thankfully YouTube makes them all readily available. The catchy tunes have been helping students to remember their tables. For your watching pleasure today I have added "3 is a Magic Number,"  I hope that this video brings back memories and helps spark an interest in memorizing multiplication.

Potty Training Special Needs students

I mentioned in my introduction that I am a Special Education teacher. While I love my job, I sometimes face different situations than general education teachers. One of the most difficult situations I have been faced with is potty training students. Since I am not a mom yet I can say that I don't know how difficult it is to potty train a child but I do know how difficult it is to work with an older student that struggles with bathroom situations. While trying to find a solution to this problem I came across a blog that introduced me to this wonderful creation.

The Potty watch. This watch is originally made for those little ones that are learning to potty by themselves but on the blog where I found this wonderful creation it suggested to use these watches for students with special needs. This watch will play a little tune every 30, 60, or 90 minutes to remind the child they need to go to the restroom. It is also only $12. I decided to give it a try. I talked up my students new watch for about a week hoping to excite them about their new device they would get to wear. We have had the Potty Watch at school for about three weeks now and it has been wonderful!  We are going on two weeks of no accidents!!  It is wonderful. You can find the potty watch online or at Target. I hope that this will help you with any potty troubles you may be having at home or school.

Class Dojo (classroom management tool)

Classroom management, the most important thing I learned about when I became a teacher. I feel like classroom management is not something that you can learn while sitting as a student in your college classes. It is something that has to be learned first hand, in the classroom, every year.  Your classes change, your students change, therefore your classroom management will sometime need to change. The most important thing I learned about classroom management is that positive reinforcement is a teacher's best friend. I came across this website my first year of teaching and it became one of my favorite classroom management tools. It is called Class Dojo and it is user friendly and wonderful. It is a website and/or iPad app that allows teachers to give students their very own virtual monster. The student's monsters can lose or earn daily based on their behavior. The kids love it! They love to have their own personal monster but they also love that they can earn points for being good and doing the right thing. The program offers tons of teacher resources from introduction videos for students to letter and presentations about the program for parents. It keeps up with all the data throughout the year and can be used for end of the year meetings with parents. Check out this great, free resource here Class Dojo.
Enjoy!!!

Using Tagxedo in the Classroom

Happy Tuesday!!
My last post was about a wonderful new unique way to display quotes, thoughts, words, and even more, called Tagxedo. Tagxedo is a fun way to have students display their work in the classroom as well. If you are reading a book and you would like your students to write a summary or describe a character, Tagxedo would be an innovative way to do that. Your students can type in their words for the assignment and then make the Tagxedo in any shape. If your students are writing poems for English, Tagxedo is a creative way for them to show their finished product. All those vocabulary words that you hope your students learn can be put into a Tagxedo and displayed around your classroom. The possibilities are endless. Whether you use Tagxedo in your classroom or in your personal life, it is a creative and fun way to display words. Check it out and make your own: Tagxedo.

Dr. Seuss Tagxedo

Learning about Tagxedo

I created a Tagxedo using words in my blog. I love the way it turned out. Teachers could use Tagxedos for vocabulary or spelling in their classroom. They could also be used to describe characters from novels they are reading. This is a fun way to use words.

The Leader in Me

My school is a Leader in Me school and I am fortunate enough to get to be at this year's symposium. Yesterday I was able to visit two schools that were also Leader       In Me schools. I was blown away! The students I encountered were amazing. They were the most confident little ones. They were so very proud of their school and their accomplishments. The 7 habits were clearly implemented and shown through all their work. If you ever get a chance to visit a Leader in Me please do it. 

Kid President"s "20 Things We Should Say More Often"

I was introduced to the Kid President this year by a fellow teacher and I am so very thankful that I was. The Kid President shares so many great videos that inspire kids and adults to be better people. This video is a list of his 20 things that we should say more often. A fellow teacher at my school linked this video to our 7 Habits that we practice at my school. She walked through each item on his list with her students and asked them which Habit they thought it fell under. (Such a great idea!!!) If you aren't familiar with the 7 Habits of Happy Kids you can find a link to the website here. I like to show this video to my students every now and them to remind them of how we should be kind to each other and how they can choose to add these things to their daily life. I hope you enjoy the Kid President as much as my students and I have. You can find a link to his website here. Enjoy!

Happy Friday and Hairy Money

Counting coins was one of the hardest things to get my special education students to understand. Switching between counting by 5s, 10s, 25s, and 1s was just to much for them to handle sometimes. Thankfully I was taught a fabulous way to teach counting coins, Hairy Money.

My Anchor Chart

Let me start by showing you the anchor chart that accompanies this lesson. Above you will find my Money chart. Each hair that a coin receives is worth 5 cents. A quarter is worth 25 cents so it has five hairs, a dime is worth 10 cents so it has two hairs, a nickel is 5 cents so it just gets one hair, but poor penny is doesn't get any. While my students are memorizing the value and names of each coin they are also learning how many hairs they each get. We practice drawing hairs on sets of coins many times before we begin counting the hairs. This is also a great way to practice the kids' counting by 5's skills. I also like to practice with quarters, dimes, and nickels for a while before we throw in pennies. This method of counting money really works well with my students because they only have to focus on counting by 5's to find their answer.

I found this GREAT chart on Pinterest today!! I think I will be revamping my chart this weekend!  One of my students is obsessed with who is on each coin, so he will love to be able to see their names. They also give their penny a dot.

Much better anchor chart!!

Hope you can find this helpful the next time you are teaching counting coins!
Happy Friday!!

Thanks for visiting!!
~Lyndsey

The Beginning of my Blogging Experience

           Learning is quite a fabulous thing, isn't it. I try daily to help my students to understand how great it is that they can learn and also how much fun it really can be. That's why I chose the title I did. I love to learn new things and I love to see kids learning new things. So, I decided to create a blog all about learning and teaching. I find myself reading educational and personal blogs daily. I use them to find new, fun ideas for teaching my kiddos and also to admire the fact that people find the time to create such amazing blogs. After 4 years of teaching elementary special education I hope that I can now use a blog to share things I have learned with others out there. This is my first blog and I am still learning how to use a blog to its full potential. 
          My name is Lyndsey Key and I am a Special Education teacher. I hope to use this blog to share my experiences of teaching, share lessons I have taught (successful and unsuccessful), and show how fabulous learning and teaching can be.



Thanks for Stopping By!
Lyndsey Key