Organization Tips Kids Will Actually Use

The following information is provided by Susan Goodkin, Executive Director of the California Learning Strategies Center, http://www.learningstrategiescenter.com/. The Center helps parents meet the needs of gifted and advanced students from kindergarten through college planning.

Organization Tips that Work for Kids

When it comes to organizing young students, many parents and teachers try to fit all students into one box.

For example, students generally come home from their first day of middle school with new planner in hand and strict instructions to record all their assignments in it every day.

As many frustrated parents have learned, however, making every child use a planner as their primary organizational tool simply doesn't work in practice.

For many students - particularly young boys - writing down their assignments in tiny boxes, for up to six different classes, is torturous.

Additionally, for the planner to be effective, not only do students have to accurately record the assignments in the brief time between classes, but then they have to remember to review their scribbles. As one of my young clients earnestly informed me, "Oh, the planner works for me - I just forget to look at it."

If we want to improve our children's organization skills, we need to consider tools many kids are more comfortable with - and more likely to actually use - than planners.

Take cell phones, for example. When teachers write assignments on the board, a click of the cell phone camera will record the homework accurately and instantaneously.

Students can also text message the assignment to their mom or dad. (I know, to many adults it seems just as easy to write down the assignment as to text it, but texting seems easier to kids.)

If homework is assigned verbally, students can use their cell phones, and some Ipods, to record their teachers' instruction. You can also can channel your child's inner James Bond and get cool spyware gadgets such as a recording pen.

For an example, check out http://www.spy-tronix.com/mp3playerpenrecorder.html.

Of course, students need to get the teacher's permission before recording.

Parents must also understand that teachers already have their hands full policing the use of cell phones and Ipods. Students who don't limit their in-class use of these devices to recording assignments should lose the privilege of doing so - back to the planner.

However students initially record assignments, they still need to review them.

Rather than trying to get kids to haul out their planners to check their assignments every day, why not make use of a tool the vast majority of kids unfailingly look at without reminders: their computer. You can turn the computer into an organizational aid through the many free programs available on-line.

Using programs such as Airset (http://www.airset.com/) or zohoplanner (http://planner.zoho.com/) students can calendar homework assignments, record appointments, create to-do lists, and more.

Students can also program reminders to pop up before assignments are due, as well as e-mailing their entries to parents - thereby creating another source of reminders!

Finally, for those kids who are reluctant writers of to-do lists and the like, parents can check out voice recognition systems such as Dragon Naturally Speaking, http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/.

This software will magically transform your child's spoken words into a written document. This is helpful for all kinds of tasks, as well as reducing the frustration of those kids who think faster than they can write.

Getting our children organized will be a lot easier if we adapt to their world. What are the odds that today's students will rely on low-tech devices such as planners when they're adults?

Let's help our kids by letting them use 21st century tools to organize their 21st century lives.

The Futures Channel

As part of our district's professional development this year, we are reading and discussing Intellectual Character by Ron Ritchhart. We have also been watching videos that in some way exemplify the culture of thinking that Mr. Ritchhart advocates.

A couple of months ago, our principal showed us Good Morning, Miss Toliver. It was a reminder for me about how teaching and learning are supposed to be. I wondered if there were any more videos out there of her, and I found some of her work on The Futures Channel.

The Futures Channel is a wonderful resource. There are several more video lessons by Kay Toliver, including the one on area, where students design their own apartment.

In addition to the lessons, this site also has engaging movies that demonstrate how STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) skills are being used in the real-world.

Whether you are trying out one of Kay Toliver's thinking lessons, or if your students need a break from BrainPOP videos, The Futures Channel is a great site to bookmark.

No Pulling Hair!

Last week I received this email from a teacher:

"I am really struggling with writing. I want to pull out my hair!!!! We have been practicing writing prompts and they are really needing work on word choice. Do you have any lesson suggestions? I am so burnt out trying to find ideas I could cry."

Boy, do I feel her pain. As a classroom teacher, I, too, wanted to provide meaningful and engaging activites for my students, but there never seemed to be enough time to search for them!

Now as an instructional coach, it is my job to help teachers find books, websites, and other resources that create positive learning experiences for students, and I must say, I love the challenge!

I know Halloween is long gone, but really, do kids ever get tired of monsters? The Monster Exchange Project encourages the development of reading and writing skills while integrating technology. Here's how it works: Classrooms are paired together. The students in each class draw then write a description of a monster. The students then exchange their descriptions via e-mail. Using only the written description of the monster, the students must use their comprehension skills to try to redraw it as close to the original picture as possible. Both the new and original drawings are posted online to compare.

A couple of years ago, when I was looking for a lesson for Camp Write-A-Way I discovered Writing Fix. There is a wealth of information and lesson ideas on this site. I ended up doing Sausage Sentences,

which the students loved!

Story Starters from Scholastic is another great resource. What could be more fun that using a slot machine to help create a story? It is very similar to a RAFT. A teacher's guide to this resource can be found here.

ilearntechnolgy (winner of the 2009 Best Educational Tech and Support Blog...Yay!) has many ideas for integrating technology and writing. StoryBird is a recommended site that offers "collaborative storytelling for families and friends." I also like Telescopic Text. We always say to students, "Show, don't tell." When you click on the highlighted portions and the sentence expands with descriptive words, students will finally understand what we're talking about!

I also want to mention one of my all-time favorites, ReadWriteThink. There are hundreds of lesson plans, and the online student tools are fantastic. It's impossible to leave ReadWriteThink without a great idea.

I'm still on the hunt for more great ideas, but I hope these will keep the teacher from pulling out any hair (at least for a little while.)

Art

As any of my former teaching partners and/or students will tell you, art is not my forte! I distinctly remember Mary, my first 4th grade teaching partner, coming into my room after one sketching lesson. She took one look at my work and burst out laughing. I really couldn't blame her. It was worse than awful!

I wish I would have known about these sites when I was in the classroom, but I'm excited to share them with teachers. I can imagine doing a whole Picasso unit using the site Mr. Picassohead.

Here are some other sites that lI've also had fun experimenting with lately:

Kerpoof

Jackson Pollock

Bomomo

Art Pad

Maybe if I would have had these online resources, I wouldn't have dreaded Art Fridays.

Let's Say Thanks!

XEROX IS DOING SOMETHING COOL

If you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving overseas. You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to a member of the armed services.

How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!! It is FREE and it only takes a second.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these? Whether you are for or against the war, our soldiers over there need to know we are behind them.

This takes just 10 seconds and it's a wonderful way to say thank you. Please take the time and please take the time to pass it on for others to do. We can never say enough thank you's.

Thanks for taking to time to support our military!

I found gold!

Sometimes surfing the internet can seem like panning for gold. You spend hours and hours looking for something worthwhile, but more often than not, you come up empty.

However, if you keep at it long enough, you eventually find some little piece worth keeping. If you are very lucky, you discover a huge nugget!

That's what happened to me about a month ago. I was searching for some differentiation sites to share with teachers, and I found ilearntechnology.

ilearntechnology 's creator, Kelly Tenkely, teaches 3-5 technology and is a technology integration specialist and instructional coach for elementary teachers. Kelly finds and shares wonderful online resources and expertly explains how they might be used in the classroom. Whenever I visit, I always find something that I can use the next day.

I was excited to hear that Kelly had nominated for a 2009 edublog award . I encourage everyone to visit ilearntechnology then vote for this gold nugget here.

Thanksgiving Sites

Here are a couple of sites I found for Thanksgiving .

www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving


http://www.plimoth.org/education/olc/index_js2.html#