Spring in the Classroom

Spring is in the air here in Bermuda and we had a great last week of term! Being that this was Parent-Teacher Conference week and we are in meetings until late into the night each day, we try to incorporate some activities that require little-to-no marking. One way we've done this is to do "Spring Handwriting" booklets. We googled and printed off a series of short poems to do with spring and Easter and I made some cute writing paper. The learning objective was for students to practice their handwriting. Once this activity is planned, it's completely child-run and is a great 'fast finisher' activity. More able writers were encouraged to try writing some of their own poems, too. On the last day of term, I stapled their booklets together with a cute title page and sent them home-- no marking needed! (and a cute keepsake for parents).

An annual spring activity in my class

I came across this little beauty last year on Pinterest. It's from the Teaching in Spain blog. I keep it very simple but you could extend the activity by encouraging patterning in the coloured stripes or discussing colour theory. One painting trick that I've picked up over the years is to use one paintbrush per paint colour. So, if I gave each table a paint tray with 6 colours in it, then they would also get 6 brushes. One would be used for purple, one for pink, and so on. That brush would never need to be washed or cleaned and dipped into another colour. This is a game changer.
After the kiddies have done their painting, I do some guided drawing to create the rabbit faces. They turn out so cute and really show off my students' different personalities. I should really do these two weeks before the holidays so I can keep them on display longer!


Each spring my school does egg rolling which is a really nice tradition. However, each year I have tried different painting techniques and never quite liked how they turned out. The key is to do something simple but effective. I don't really have much interest in giving my 21 students food colouring that could ruin their uniforms or any opportunity to drop hardboiled eggs on the floor. Well, this year they turned out really cute! All I did was put some scrap paper in a tray and get the kids to put in a few drops of paint. They then rolled the eggs around until they were covered. While they were doing this, I cut up paper and made little egg stands. We left them overnight to dry and the marbleized effect was super-cute the next day. I will definitely use this technique again. It was almost mess-free and was easy to manage. This was a really cool idea, but I just was not prepared at all!

Check out all of my other "Spring in the Classroom" ideas on Pinterest, here. 

Face on Coins App and Helen Keller

We love studying all about Helen Keller in our Year 3 (Grade 2) classroom. A few years ago I created a new lesson on this amazing woman (inspired by this website). HK is on the Alabama state quarter because she is an inspirational person. I asked my students to think about someone who inspired them and to talk about it at home with their parents. We get all kinds of responses-- Benjamin Franklin, Barrack Obama, Michael Jackson, Queen Elizabeth, Katy Perry. Once they had their ideas, they would write a short paragraph about why they chose that person. The last thing they would do was draw their person into an outline of a quarter. Well, all those ideas went pear-shaped when we discovered this free app called Face on Coins. I have no idea why such an app would exist, except that it fits our lesson perfectly! It takes the lesson to a whole new level. Even better? It's free! Even more better? It's easy to use! All students need to do is find a picture of their inspirational person and load it into the app. They can choose their own coin colour and shape and add in a brief description. My kids absolutely loved it and even went home and made more! What a great way to get your students thinking about who has done amazing things and who we can all learn from.

Here's an example of one of my student's Face on Coins. 

Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation (VCOP)

Our school follows the UK curriculum so using VCOP is a big part of our Literacy program. It's broken into four parts: vocabulary, connectives, openers and punctuation. It's progressive so young children can access it and it encourages getting to 'the next level' as well. This makes differentiation super simple.

It's easy to have all 4 components available from the beginning of the school year (on display, for instance) but you can focus on one at a time in your word-level work. It can then be incorporated into your lesson's success criteria.

Lots of websites provide great resources so it is easy to incorporate VCOP into your classroom decor and make high-quality resources available at your student's fingertips. I really like the VCOP pyramids. Once put together and laminated, they can be set out on tables during independent writing time and referred to during guided writing.

The top of the pyramid is the most basic. Students move down the pyramid for a challenge. Teachers could add to the "Vocabulary" section so the words reflect what is being discussed in class. 

These are some of my favourite. Click on the images to visit the site's VCOP resources.

Non-Negotiables

How is the school year already over half way over? Well... this makes my heart skip a beat because some of my littles are still struggling with remembering to use capitals, full stops (periods) and spelling of high frequency words.
One way we tackle this issue is to use Non-Negotiables. A few years ago my school was visited by some teachers from the UK and they showed us how to continuously remind children of these basics without having to repeat ourselves over and over. It's as simple as having your year level's Non-Negotiables decided upon at the beginning of the year. Each year's NNs will differ. Introduce these to the kids in September and have them on display.

NNs for a Year 3 class (2nd Grade)

What's great about these is you can refer to them simply as "Don't forget your Non-Negotiables" and this automatically reminds children of a whole list of expectations that the they are familiar with. I also like to introduce this to parents at Meet the Teacher Night. This is double-y helpful because, 1: it gives parents an idea of your most basic expectations, and 2: when you reference Non-Negotiables on homework or report cards, they know what you mean.

Year 3s Non-Negotiables:

- Underline the date with a ruler

-Write the date on each page. The day of the week and month need capitals.

-Write the learning objective at the top of the page.

-Write your name on all of your work. Make sure it begins with a capital.

-Put capital letters at the start of every sentence.

-Put a finger space between each word. 

-Put punctuation at the end of every sentence.

-When "I" is on its own, it is a capital.

Here is an example of how my teacher feedback is quick and easy with the help of NNs.