Learning Literacy and Math Skills through GAMES!At QAE we love games as teaching tools and opportunities for students to practice skills. With a student-directed choice model, students are allowed to choose from a teacher-selected variety of games and activities. Giving students a little bit of choice in their day makes a world of difference when it comes to them taking charge of their learning. It also brings up great conversations like, "do you think doing the same choice every day is helping your brain grow as much as it can?" Doing the same choice can help your brain, but taking a risk and trying something that might be unfamiliar or challenging for you also helps your brain grow! Games can range from independent, partner, and small group. Practicing playing games with others brings up a whole bunch of social skills that we need to work on. Its not just sharing and taking turns. Its learning how to loose, how not to be the one who gets the first turn, how to tell someone that they are playing incorrectly, how to congratulate someone for winning, or how to congratulate yourself for trying your best! There are endless opportunities for social growth, especially when we play with all different partners! Here are some photos of us making learning choices together! Math Choices Literacy Choices | Keep your voice down!.... but what does that really mean?Often times we expect students to "just know" that when someone is talking their voice should be off or what a quiet voice means. What we have found out over the last few years is that we need to create our own set of guidelines for noise in our classroom and make them transparent for different parts of the day. This is where our classroom Noise-O-Meter comes into play! This week, we had several class meetings over what noise would sound like on a 0-4 scale. Here is what we came up with! The Noise-O-Meter also helps me be aware of how often our noise-o-meter is set to a level zero or a level 1. The first year we used the noise-o-meter, we noticed that we had it set to "whisper voices" for a lot of the day and that's not fair! We weren't setting kids up to be successful if we were asking them to be quiet all day. Now, we are very aware of when weI are expecting students to be quiet and for how long. Together, we all know what those times of day are and we trust that there are going to be many opportunities for various levels of noise throughout our day! The Noise-O-Meter will be controlled by a student as one of our classroom jobs. They will set the noise-o-meter to the right number at different learning times and if they notice that we are getting a little louder than the number we set, they ring the wind chime to signal our brains and bodies that we need to quiet down. |
Learning to solve small problems with Kelso's Choice
We were introduced to a new friend named Kelso this week. Kelso is a frog puppet that helps teach us how to solve problems. This SEL program, Kelso's Choice, teaches students to identify which problems are big (fire, running in the street, ect) and which problems are small (pushing, not sharing, ect). When a big problem occurs, students know to go tell an adult they trust right away. When a small problem occurs, students are encouraged to try two of Kelso's choices before they go to an adult for help. The Kelso wheel of choice helps them choose appropriate ways to act when they are dealing with conflict. Students are empowered when they feel strong enough to solve problems on their own. Right now, teachers are meant to be the facilitators when it comes to problem solving. We need to model how all of these choices are done before we can expect students to do them on their even. We will be taking the next several weeks to teach and model all of these choices. So far, we have learned how to say "please stop" and how to "apologize" to someone. We know that when we say, "please stop" to someone we need to do it in a way that is calm and in control. We also know that it's okay if this choice doesn't work! This is just one of the many choices we can use when we find ourself in conflict. If it doesn't work, we move on to the next choice. Whenever conflict occurs, there is a sense of needing to feel heard by both parties. It is important to teach students that the appropriate time to apologize to someone is when the conflict has been de-escalated and both students are in a state where they can actually listen. When we apologize to someone we SAY something ad we DO something. We might say something like, "I'm sorry for......" and ask them what they need from me next time. The DO part comes from the other student's response to what they need. That student may need a hug, that student may need for you to say you won't react that way next time, or they may need nothing. Our go to question when conflict occurs is "What do you need from _______?" | Kelso books will be coming home when we are done teacher all the 9 ways to solve small problems. Please review these at home with your student, so they know all the choices they have when it comes to problem solving. |