It Only Took Half a Month...

But it's done!! The bulletin board is finished!! Yay! I think it came out adorably cute..what do you think?

I have to thank Lori over at Teaching With Love and Laughter, again, for her fabulous idea! Also, I have to thank my aide, Christina, for seeing my crazy vision through to the end and helping to make the board beautiful. And our wonderful interpreter, Michelle, for helping my kiddos make their pumpkins and write their sentences. Thanks, ladies!

Grammar Rules!

So my goal for my three third graders is to learn some basic grammar rules and apply them in their writing. Thus far they've been able to get away with a lot because we've been so busy trying to increase vocabulary and reading ability that writing has kind of gone to the wayside. Well, no more. Eventually these girls are going to be out in the real world and so we need to catch up on their writing skills. Over the years they've been introduced to many grammar rules and concepts (nouns, verbs, long vowel and short vowel sounds, etc.), most recently being adjectives.

Over the weekend I decided to start them with an easy rule: a or an. Theoretically, this should be simple. So I decided to introduce this rule with a little bit of deduction and critical thinking. Basically I wrote a bunch of sentences on a small white board and underlined a or an respectively. Then I asked the girls to look at the sentences and tell my why I wrote a or an. They thought. And thought. And thought some more. Finally they started to give me reasons- "it's a noun", "it's an animal", etc. When I realized that this may be slightly too hard (basically because they were over-thinking and that's not a concept easily defined to deaf kids), I took a step back. I wrote only sentences that contained the word an and then underlined that in one color and the beginning letter of the following noun in blue. Very quickly one of the girls got this look on her face as if every light blub over her head had just turned on and interjected, "VOWELS!" YES!!! I knew they could do it without my having to explain the rule but they needed the opportunity and the prodding to get them going in the right direction. No problem. I can give them that all day long.

Once I explained the rule and showed them an anchor chart I had made last year when I planned to teach this concept (let's just say "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry"), we practiced filling in the blanks with a bunch of random sentences. They were easily able to choose the right word. So I whipped up this quick worksheet with 10 sentences and blanks for them to write in the correct word choice. The girls especially loved the fact that it was Halloween themed!

 Upon looking at their papers, I realized we needed a refresher about capitals. So we quickly did that today. Hopefully, they'll remember to incorporate that rule into their writing (this is the hardest part for them). We moved on to punctuation marks. We spent a lot of time talking about the three kinds of marks and when to use them. We covered the basic sentence types (asking, telling, yelling). I showed them another anchor chart I made last year (see above quote in reference to anchor charts) and we practiced. And practiced. And looked at words meant for questioning and exclamations. Then they each had to write three sentences- 1 for each kind of punctuation mark. Their English isn't the best but they've got the concept and I didn't have to help other than spelling. I'll take it!

Tomorrow, we practice some more. And then move on to another rule- parts of sentences. That's probably going to take some time...

The dreaded changing of the bulletin boards

Every teacher knows about them, and most of us dread them...bulletin boards. Personally, I love bulletin boards- but not the way I'm being forced to decorate them. They have to be academic and are supposed to be literacy based...ugh. Sometimes kids just need to have fun! So I was super excited to find this little gem from a good friend I used to work with at a preschool many years ago: Pumpkin Writing! I saw it, fell in love, and immediately saved the template to do with my students (with a lot of help) the next day!

And for once, I don't dread the changing of the bulletin boards!

The best part? They got to use their creative juices to make jack-o-lanterns and to practice using adjectives. Double the fun and double the win!!

So, onto the actual activity! First I gave them paper and let them make their own pumpkins. Some needed help cutting and others had no problems. Then we began the tedious process of writing the accompanying sentences...and I mean tedious. English is not their first language and it shows. ASL is not a written language so it's extra hard to get them to understand the conventions and nuances of the English language...heck, I've spoken English for 29 years and I still don't understand it all (though if you ask anyone I'm a huge Grammar Nazi).

Anyway, I decided I would make life a little easier and less scary for my little, little ones by writing the sentences for them so they could just trace the words instead of attempting to track from the board to their paper. Let's face it, if I made them track it, we'd be here until Winter Break working on 5 sentences about pumpkins. They did provide key words though, so I'm happy with them!

My bigger little ones needed less help with writing. We worked on each sentence one at a time and they filled in the blanks on their own. These guys have no problem tracking and could easily do most of this on their own. The hardest part was deciding on a name for their pumpkin as names are not something they learn easily.

Honestly, I'm super impressed with them and the end product and can't thank Lori enough for being kind enough to provide this activity and template! I can't wait to spend my afternoon changing my bulletin board (ok, yes I can wait, but at least I know it'll be a cute board when I'm done!)