Mrs. Lincoln

Lincoln School recently celebrated the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. When they asked me to portray Mrs. Lincoln, I jumped at the chance. I loved dressing in costume and telling students about Mary's life. I am not sure how effective I was, though. After my presentation, a boy came up to me and whispered, "I know you're a fake!" I laughed and replied, "What gave me away? Was it my wig?" He shook his head and said, "No, if you were real, you'd be, like, 200 years old!" Well, at least I got them thinking!

Smashing the World Record!

On March 4, HAL students gathered at McKinley Education Center for World Math Day. Their challenge was to answer as many mental math questions as possible with the ultimate goal of breaking a world record.
At the end of the day, the group had answered over 20,000 questions, and together with students from around the world, had answered 452, 682, 682 questions, smashing the previous record!!


Our top point earner was Andrew! Talk about a walking calculator!

We also had treats and prize drawings. Braden and Hope won World Math Day t-shirts, and several other students won Wal-Mart gift cards.

Thank you to all of you who participated in World Math Day! You were amazing! I can't wait for next year! Another big thanks to John Lindenberger for writing about us in the North Platte Telegraph.  And, of course, we can't forget Mr. Hokanson!   What did we ever do without him!  He helped us out all day and created our World Math Day video.   You are awesome, Neil!

Palindromes

This week I introduced students to palindromes. If you aren't sure what a palindrome is, you can read more about them here. I was also very excited to learn from Tim, one of our middle school HAL students, that musical parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic (one of my favorites) created a song using palindromes. For an interesting use of palindromes, watch the video "BOB" here.

Teacher Spotlight

Mrs. Walters, fourth grade teacher at Cody is doing a wonderful job of differentiating in her classroom. What I admire most is her focus on pre-assessment. She finds out what students already know, then uses this data to plan her unit. This is the key to differentiated instruction! For example, she recently pre-tested her students on graphing skills. Amazingly, all of her students achieved proficient or advanced. Just think of all the time that would have been wasted and how bored her students would have been if she hadn't pre-assessed and continued teaching the unit in the usual way!! Now her students are being challenged in new and exciting ways. She is extending their learning by teaching them about percentages. Students are also being asked to apply what they know by doing projects with real world connections. Mrs. Walters plans to use this graphing site with her students. http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/ Be sure to bookmark it and use it with your students. Thanks, Mrs. Walters for sharing it and for being our Differentiated Teacher of the Month!

License to Learn!

HAL students have a license to learn this week! Using the link http://www.acme.com/licensemaker/licensemaker.cgi?state=Nebraska&text=LUVPUGS&plate=1993&r=290158581 students made their own personalized license plates. I asked them to create one that would tell others about them. Here is one I created:

One of the best resources I've found this year is Differentiated Assignments: Helping Students Show What They Know, by Patricia Pavelka (Husky Trail Press). The book gives specific ideas to use when giving assignments to your students. Instead of planning 3-4 different assignments for the different levels in your classroom, you are planning one assignment that can be completed by all in a variety of different ways.

Instead of using workbook pages, author Pavelka suggests using magazine pictures for tasks. Magazine pictures involve choice, are motivating, and requires students to use higher level thinking. For example, when working on nouns, students choose a photograph and list all the nouns they see in the picture, or nouns their picture brings to mind.

I used calendar and magazine pictures, but you could also use pictures off the internet. Here is a site that might be good.

http://www.akidsphoto.com/botanical/flowers/index.html

Silly NIllies and Dr. Dooriddles

This is a picture I use when I am introducing Silly Nillies to students. Silly Nillies are two-word definitions for phrases. The words must rhyme and have the same number of syllables. My clue is "an overweight feline." Students eagerly respond, "fat cat!" Thy just love to solve these! After practicing a few more, I ask students to create their own.

Dr. DooRiddles is a fun way to develop students' fluency and flexibility with word meaning and associations as it improves their spelling, vocabulary, reading and problem solving skills. Students carefully read through clues in each riddle, analyzing connections within and between clues to figure out what is being described. There are books appropriate for every grade level. Here is an example:

My stream is the one that
Conformers stay in
The hair on a lion that is
Not on his chin
What am I?

These activites can be done whole class, small group, or individually. They make great anchor activities as well.