Reality 101: CEC's blog for new teachers

How do you engage students in social studies?

Hello again, everyone! With all the historic events this past week, I decided to shape my list around some of my favorite online sources to help you engage your students in social studies and related topics.

Flocabulary (www.flocabulary.com): This is one of my favorite Web sites! Flocabulary is the brainchild of two gifted young men who put writing to music. They create hip hop music to promote literacy -- everything from Shakespeare to hip hop history, math raps, and more. They also teach teachers and students how to do this themselves, so if you ever get a chance to learn from them, grab the opportunity!

Every Friday, they produce “This Week in Rap" (http://theweekinrap.com). Lesson plans shaped around the recent inauguration can be found at http://hiphopclassroom.com.

Web-based Resources for Special Educators

Hello everyone! This week I thought I would list some of my favorite Web sites. I invite you to add to the list. Check these out if you haven't already:

http://www.do2learn.com -- You will find all kinds of educational resources for students with special needs at this site.  There are games, songs, communication cards, feelings/emotions activities -- and much, much more.  It was primarily designed for students with autism, but it can also help many others.

http://lessonbuilder.cast.org/ -- The CAST website has a wealth of information on building lesson plans that can reach the needs of diverse learners.   Exploring the model UDL lesson plans is time well spent.

New Classroom Uses for Everyday Items

Hello Everyone! This week I've been thinking a lot about how to increase student engagement. How well do you know your learners? Most likely you now know what their interests are, what they are good at, what they need, and their learning preferences.

I think you probably have students who learn best when many of their senses are activated. Actually, I think most of us learn best when we can use the tactile/kinesthetic senses as well as the visual and auditory. With that in mind, this week I have been making lists of interventions and tips that use common objects to make lessons and activities more multisensory and engaging. This is just a small sample and you can certainly vary the ideas to fit your student needs. Remember that all your activities will link to curricular objectives, of course!

Post-It Notes
Original Design Use: To make notes to yourself to remember things.

Teacher Adaptations:

• To summarize a paragraph in a text.
• To write down unknown words when reading.
• To write down a question about something heard or read.
• Stick up post-its with letters, spelling, or vocabulary words around the room and ask students to find them when given a sound, word, or definition. (Use with numbers/correspondence, sequence counting, fractions, etc., in math.)
• Write parts of sentences on separate notes and have the student rearrange in sequence.

Your mid-year check-up

Hello everyone and Happy New Year!

I hope you have had some fun with family and friends during the holiday and have gotten some rest and relaxation.  Hopefully, we are all returning to school rejuvenated and ready to get back into its familiar rhythm and routine.  This is a good time to reflect on things that have worked and things that might need tweaking.  If you hang around me for long, you will notice I am always making lists, so I will try to share some of them with you this month.