Toolbox

From Bill:
 * Category: Assessment**

Originally designed as a way to build consensus, you can also use this technique to ascertain student understanding. At a particular point in a lesson you can say, "first to five?" and students who feel they understand completely will show a five and those who show a fist show little understanding and probably confusion.
 * Fist to Five**

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From David Irwin: 2.13.11
 * Category: Toolbox Item**

This is a simple multi-sensory tool used to act as a sponge when students finish early. I would use it for vocab, but it can be applied to all subjects. Students with free time can build a cube, and put it in the basket/bin/bucket/etc used for storage. Then, if two or more students have down time (finished an activity early, say), they can roll the cubes to one another. When you receive the cube, you read whatever side is up; your partner then has to fill in any other side as a study method. For example, if I roll "characterization", my partner would say, "how an author teaches us about a character in a work of fiction or non-fiction."
 * Sponge Activity - Learning Cubes**

From Emily Category: Quick Review Using a set of Uno cards you can design a number of review activities for elementary school children or children that need extended practice learning their numbers (0-9) and colors (yellow, blue, green, red). The wild cards and directional cards are removed from the deck prior to individualizing the game. The cards can be previously sorted by the teacher/facilitator/partner to work on number sequencing, matching games, Go Fish, Memory (color and numbers), or flash cards for color or number review.
 * Uno Cards-Colors and Numbers**

From Clint: Category: Toolbox Item Silent Ball Silent ball is a game that can be used when there is a little extra time left in class. Students like it and it is a way to keep them quite as well. There are many variations of the game. You could also make a version that connects to what ever it is you're teaching in the classroom.

http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/lessons/index.pl?read=3488

From Maddy: Category: Toolbox Item Morning Game This game doesn't really have a name, but is a game that I have seen being played in the morning. It is a good game for a transition period for the beginning of the day. The students make a circle ( or any type of shape) and in the middle of their shape, they each put one shoe. They then have to one by one go into the circle choosing one shoe, and as quickly as they can, run up to that person and introduce themselves by shaking each others hands and asking them how they. This is a fun and quick game to use with students, and you can even time it to make it more challenging for the students. This not only relaxes the students some and lets them run around, but they are also practicing introductions, shaking hands and eye contact. Great, fun game!

From Emily Give each students a piece of sandpaper and a peice of felt. Ask them to describe each material, list the descriptions on the board. The teacher explains that she/he is going to read a passage twice. Following the second reading the students are to describe the way the teacher read by using the sandpaper and felt words. The teacher reads the passage word by word, skipping and repeating words, and rushing through punctuation (not fluently). The teacher then reads the same passage fluently (with expression, attention to punctuation, in long phrases). The class then compare the two ways the teacher read the passage with the peices of material and the description list on the board. The teacher then can ask the students to self refelct upon their reading and make a goal to read like "felt". You can really make this your own. Students seem to enjoy the tactile/auditory discrimination aspects of the lesson.
 * Category: Fluency Introduction Lesson**
 * Sand Paper and Felt Reading**

From David Irwin: 2.20.11 I found this website by accident some time ago, when I first started to be heavily involved in changing school climate and culture. I feel it is essential that we change student's attitudes and perceptions of the learning environment, as well as working on our own professional attitudes towards the culture of learning. Those of us in education enjoy teaching (and summers off!), but we often get caught up in the minutia and insignifica of the "process" of teaching. These characteristics of successful and dynamic schools are things to strive toward, no matter what district we work in. Even more so if we work in districts that are economically or socially depressed, so give off an aura of not valuing education.
 * Category: Toolbox Item**
 * "This We Believe - Essential Attributes and Characteristics of Successful Schools"**

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From Maddy Category: Around the world 2.21.11 We all know that learning out multiplication facts is frustrating, difficult, and all about memorization. Why not turn it into a game? Atleast some of the time. In my third grade class, my cooperating teacher plays the game around the world with the students to learn their times tables. All of the students stand by their desk while one rotates around the room. Depending on which multiplication fact they are on, they are quized and whichever student says the correct answer first, wins. Great fun game to do that really helps the students learn their multiplication facts.

From Dave Irwin 2.28.11 Knowing how to research is an important skill, for all disciplines. Knowing how to cite that research is also important. Who has a week to teach proper citations? Enter Son of Citation Machine (www.citationmachine.com). I take a day to show students in-text citations and how to properly copy down all necessary information about a source, and then another day on Son of Citation Machine, which will automatically create your citations for you! Sure, it's a bit of a cheat, but a helpful cheat. As I tell my students all the time, "Yeah, I'm an English teacher, and I can't spell. But I can read a dictionary." I encourage the use of all available resources in my classroom.
 * Category: Toolbox Item**
 * Research Writing**

From Emily Squibb Reading Instruction 3/5/11 Using Technology in the Language Arts Classroom This is a list of companies/websites that you can purchase or download for free audio books. No matter what the age, students still enjoy listening to a story. A great collection for students that struggle with grade level reading text. Check them out and pass them along. I recieved this list from N. Keane (credit where credit is due).

Audible [|www.audible.com] Purchase and download-easy and fast.

Librivox [|www.librivox.org] Cooperative project to record all the books in the public domain. You can join the project and record too!

Blackstone Audiobooks-They are a Keene, NH based company [|www.blackstoneaudio.com] Purchase cassetts, CD, MP3 formats from them. You can even rent audiobooks from them.

Marissa 3-6-11 In my second grade class we do something like the Five Finger assesment tool. Instead of showing fingers we draw smily faces. you would draw a happy face if you understand what is being taught, a frown if you do not understand, and a stright face if you are a little confused. I really like this idea because it lets the students still be creative while being privet. I think that for this age it is apropreate.

Marissa Fargo 3-6-11 I have this program on my compute that allowes me to use the promethean board. Now most people know what the promethean board is, but if not it is that big white board that you can touch. The students LOVE IT! There is an awesome website that every teacher should have in my opinion. It gives such great ideas, pictures and full on lesson plans. You do not even need to have the promethean program to use it. The website is : [|Www.prometheanplanet.com]

I've played this game many times in the beginning of class as a focus exercise. And although it is a big theatre game to play, I think it is fitting for any class to get the day started.
 * From: Leanne**
 * Category: Toolbox Item**
 * Focus Warm Up**

= Zip, Zap, Zop = = The group stands in a circle. The player who starts points across the circle to another player, makes eye contact, and says, ‘Zip’. The receiving player points to another person, makes eye contact, and says, ‘Zap’. The new receiving player points across the circle and says, ‘Zop’. The game continues with the words passed in this order. Players should try to pass the proper word smoothly. This can also be played as an elimination game (i.e., if the receiver speaks incorrectly, he or she is out of the game). = =From: Leanne= Category: Toolbox Item Brain Pop

A cool website that uses standards and is helpful to students and teachers alike. [|www.brainpop.com]

From: Maddy Category: Toolbox Item Morning Game 3/10/11 Okay, so I know I have already added a morning game, but the ones done in the 3rd grade class I am in are just great. This is another introduction game where the students get into a circle and one student gets picked to go first. This student begins and says either, first base, second base, third base or homerun. It's a baseball game! The students pretend to swing a bat and either go 1 space, 2 spaces, 3 spaces or all the way to the last person in the circle. When they get to the space they ' hit the ball to' they introduce themselves to the student who is already standing there. It sounds confusing, but its actually very simple and just a fun game to start up the day. I love it!

From: Marissa Category: Toolbox Item Morning Meeting Games 4-25-11

Every morning we have calendar, morning share and then a morning activity. Being in a second grade class the students really look forward to this special time because they get to share about their personal life. I personally think that things brings our class even closer. It lets you know your students on a different level, and the students can realized that they are not so different from one another. After we have our morning share wether it be a free share or something specific we do our morning activity. The activity is different everyday. Recently, we played a game that had the students break up into pairs and play a hand game. Some students got it right away while other struggled. This was a good thing because other students ran to help the ones who were not getting it so easily. The students ended up perfecting this hand game by the end of the activity. It was great to see such great teamwork.


 * From: David Irwin**
 * Category: Toolbox Item**
 * Password game**
 * 4.25.11**

This game is quite simple to play. Students are divided into teams; a member from each team comes to the front of the room, standing with their backs to the board. Someone writes one of the vocabulary words on the board, and the team shout out clues to the word. Whomever guess the word correctly first earns a point for their team, and then another team member comes to replace them. It's a good sponge activity, and it involves all students. It encourages solid understandings of the vocabulary words because students don't want to let their team down. All in all, a fun game!

From Emily Squibb Category: Toolbox Parking Lot

I have many students that are very eager to share information during our lesson, on topic and off topic. I ask the students if what they have to share is about the topic we are learning or about something else. If it is on topic then I give them the opportunity to share. If what the student has to share is off topic, I draw a square on the board and entitle it PARKING LOT and write the student's name in the box. I ask them to give me one word that relates to what they want to share and write the word next to their name (one word connection is a great speech strategy-it will "jump start" their brain into remembering what they wanted to talk about). After I write their name and the one word description in the Parking Lot box the students know that I will leave the last 3 minutes of class to discuss anything in the Parking Lot. This keeps the students on topic and validates them and their opinions/voice.