Exterminating negativity (at least minimizing!)

Among a class for students with emotional irregularities and behavioral difficulties, negativity can be a poisonous gas that leaks daily into the lives of the classroom inhabitants; exhausting teachers and draining students.  This makes it difficult to have ANY learning, as a neagtive environment blocks the desire to participate and much more!!

This solution struck me the other day.

The idea is to replace negative behavior with a positive.

My students get an immediate tally by a name initial for negative words, tones, and body language.  For this tally they owe a poster board 3 positive words.  Student's add to the same board and typically must get it done before a recess or class break (or any other desired time).  The negative cloud that felt so heavy has lifted and our negativity has minimized.  YAY for tiny successes!!

Tuesday

Tuesday,

Meets & Greets
Bock 1) Math Group
Zumba Break (if we get all our math done!)
Snack/recess
Block2) Literature
Class Break

Math:

Problem 1)

Jen measured the growth of a sunflower.

• In week one, it grew $2\frac{1}{2}$ inches.
  
• In week two, it grew $2\frac{3}{4}$ inches.
  
• In week three, it grew $3\frac{1}{4}$ inches.

How much did the sunflower grow in the three weeks?

For more information and "sample problems" go to the following website:

http://www.smarterbalanced.org/sample-items-and-performance-tasks/



Literature:

Rave-O will rave on!

In reading groups, 1&2, after reading, they will look at the "cycle of the hero" and discuss if it applies to the characters in the book being read.  Teachers will lead questions,

• Where is the hero at in their journey? 
• Do we know who the hero is?  
• Are they in their ordinary world or special world?

Week 29 is stormin' in...

WEEKLY OVERARCHING TOPIC (social studies):  

What's a "hero" or "heroic act"?

WEEKLY WORDS/VOCAB:

perserverance

obstacles

endure

overwhelming

ordinary

MATH:

A continuation of multi-step real life problems (directly from the smarter balance practice test), in this we have been approaching both basic operation skills, logical inference, critical thinking, patterns, charting, and all sorts of fun math stuff.  We typically dissect the problems together, with the expectation that each student writes notes down, and attempts a part of the problem.  It's been going great!

Wow, the weather has us inside and full of energy!  Things are going well today.  We had a long presentation of the weekend from the kids.  

We than had an excellent group.  We role played various "emotional" words.  The students had to charade the words and/or describe a scenario.  It was difficult but inspiring to see the students do this.  It brought up some deeper feelings and we also had some fun laughs.  

Some of the emotion vocabulary that we acted and came up were:

scared

angry

abandoned

left-out

jealous

envious

disappointed 

overwhelmed (this was a very difficult one to guess)

devastated

ignored

unimportant

This allowed us to address emotions that students struggle with and smom that are present in the classroom.

OUR AFTERNOON WILL INCLUDE:

Silent reading

A read aloud, that focuses on biographical stories.  We will have a brainstorming poster activity focused on our weekly topic, a short educational video.

Wednesday
Block 1 Morning Math "Smarter Balance" Whole word problems...
Snack/recess
Block 2 The Writing Lab (Weekly Topic)
Class Break
Lunch Recess
Silent Reading & Sharing
Block 3 Close reading (weekly Topic)
Level Incentives

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There are 14 billion pounds of trash is dumped into the ocean every year.

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Block 1 Morning Math "Smarter Balance" Whole word problems...

Group 1) 2 students
Based on yesterdays review, 2 students will play a multiplication review card game.

Group 2) 3/4 students
Dissect a smarter balance math problem.

Independent Workers) 2 students
Practice Smarter Balance Test & Khan Academy

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Block 2 The Writing Lab (Weekly Topic)

http://visualmelt.com/Andy-Goldsworthy

A part of being an artist is having a "purpose".  We will look at Andy Goldsworthy and investigate his purpose as an artist, which is connected both to the environment and art.

Some of his purpose, Natural sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy.

"Andy Goldsworthy is an extraordinary, innovative British artist whose collaborations with nature produce uniquely personal and intense artworks. Using a seemingly endless range of natural materials—snow, ice, leaves, bark, rock, clay, stones, feathers petals, twigs—he creates outdoor sculpture that manifests, however fleeting, a sympathetic contact with the natural world. Before they disappear, or as they disappear, Goldsworthy, records his work in suburb color photographs."

LAB ASSIGNMENTS:

Option 1:  Choose one of Andy Goldsworthy's images (andy goldsworthy in google images), post the image and describe what you think of the image, what it makes you feel, whether you like it or not and/or create a "6 word poem" associated with the image. 

Option 2:

Create an artist statement.  This will include your reasons for your art.  It will have details about a new "series" you are going to create.  You will talk about what inspires you to do art and what you want your art to "say" to others.  

• Are you making art for a cause?  
• Are you making art to focus on a technique?
• What type of story do you want your images/art to tell?  
• What subject are you drawn to?

Option 3:

Create a story bird (www.storybird.com).  This storybird will talk about the environment and connect to an issue you have looked up.  You can think of it as a "children's book" explaining why some part of the earth is important to you (animals, oceans, forests, etc.).

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Block 3 Close reading (weekly Topic)

Monday
Sharing...
Block 1 Morning Math "Smarter Balance" Whole word problems...
Snack/recess
Block 2 Group
Class Break
Lunch Recess
Silent Reading & Sharing
Block 3 Introduce a weekly Topic (Video Learning)
        Vocabulary
Level Incentives

Math:

Nicky has 4 packs of pencils. Each pack contains 15 pencils. In each pack, 5 pencils are blue and the rest green.

Create a bar graph to show how many of each color pencil Nicky has.

Click the graph to show where the top of the bar should go.

https://sat2.sbacpt.tds.airast.org/Student/Pages/TestShellModern.aspx

WEEKLY TOPIC

Oceans and Waterways

http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Discover_Planet_Ocean/70208791?trkid=13752289

http://ca.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/1e3a8e34-9912-4542-b739-f40033665bcd/1e3a8e34-9912-4542-b739-f40033665bcd/

F. Funnies, Student Activity, Game, Drama, Fun Frrrriday

Happenings...

Meets & Greets (Funnies a la student)
Block 1  Student led activity 
            Game
Snack/Recess
Block 2 Drama->St. Paddy Day Style
Class Break
Lunch/Recess
Silent Reading & Sharing
Block 3 Fun Friday (Weekly Behavior Incentive!!)

Leprechauns Everywhere!!

Thee Day

Meets & Greets
Block 1 Katniss Quote Assignment and Choice Projects
Snack/Recess
Block 2 Literature Groups
Class Break
Lunch/Recess
Silent Reading
Block 3 ART/SCIENCE ->Borax Crystals! Shamrocks!
Level Rewards

Block 1 Katniss Quote Assignment and Choice Projects:

  Student's have chosen a quote from our reading that represents and reveals character traits of the protagonist.  This morning they will post them in Edmodo and write a description or opinion about what it reveals about Katniss, why they used it.

 Choices: When finished, students can do an independent project (storybird, smarter balance assessment,Edmodo, Blogs)

  

Block 2 Literature Groups:

Lit groups have been rolling right along! We are doing some awesome reading, analyzing text, or group Rave-O is building those skills!!

Block 3 ART/SCIENCE ->Borax Crystals! Shamrocks!

http://www.thediscovery.org/PDF/Borax%20Mineral%20Activity.pdf