Token Behavior
From Gayla Morstorf (morstorf@sbcglobal.net), a first grade teacher at Geronimo Road School in Lawton, Oklahoma:
"I reward good classroom behavior by giving my students ten small tokens on Mondays. They keep the tokens in baggies until Friday when they can trade them in for prizes. They can earn more tokens for good behavior, but they can also lose tokens for unfavorable behavior throughout the week. My rule is they need to have the same amount I gave them on Monday in order to trade. Students work hard to practice the desired behaviors and learn about consequences when they make bad choices. If someone takes another student's tokens, they give up all of their tokens and give them to that person!"
CVC Story
From Betty Klein (bjklein6957@yahoo.com), a first grade teacher at Cleveland School in Lawton, Oklahoma:
"This may seem like a silly tip, but it sure helped my talkative first graders understand the reading skill CVCe. When my students could not grasp it in adult terms, I told my students the following story. CVC and the vowel talked quietly making the short vowel sound. Then along came the vowel’s friend silent e and stood at the end. Although he didn't talk, he made a funny face that caused the vowel in the middle to talk loudly (the long vowel sound), which got him in trouble. The children all started laughing because they could identify with getting in trouble for talking or making someone get in trouble for talking. The skill CVC and CVCe are no longer a problem for them. This story helped my students sound out new words with these vowel patterns."
Question of the Week: Extended Leave
From the Works4Me Worker Bees:
"Sometimes teachers are forced to take extended leave for medical or personal reasons. How do you plan for this extended leave? You must plan for weeks at a time while you are still teaching and holding down a regular schedule. How do you fit time in for planning ahead and make these plans meaningful?"
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Social Networking
Heard Last Week in the Works4Me Lounge:
"Forget MySpace and Facebook -- lots of teachers are now networking with each other on educator-specific social networking sites like Classroom 2.0 or
NextGen Teachers. Have you joined any social networks specifically set up for teachers? What are the benefits?"
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