2/4 Tuesday Linky Party! Four Ideas for the New School Year

I know, I know. .. . it's Thursday and I'm joining a party that started on Tuesday.  I was assured by Steph, over at "Stay Tuned" that I wouldn't be crashing the party! :)

So, here are 4 things that we (my student teacher and I) are doing this fall.

1.  Rhythm reading!  I see my kids on a 4 day rotation so I start tika-tika prep by singing songs and games that have tika-tika in the end of 2nd grade but we don't start analyzing, describing, decoding and talking about the critical attributes of it until 3rd grade.

 So, we've been singing and playing "Dinah," "In and Out the Dusty Bluebells," Tideo" and . .. .  "Chicken on a Fencepost."  Using a beat chart (made out of die cut hearts at the top and paperclips inserted into the posterboard, students are putting the words up in order of the song.  Then, from here, they added known rhythm cards: ta & ti-ti.  Then they derived that there were 4 sounds on the first beats of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd lines.  Then they sang the song on known rhythms and text for the beats with 4 sounds.

2.  Again, 4 day rotation, so I never got to presenting so-mi in 1st grade.  I can't tell you how embarrassed I am to admit that!  Here's a preparation writing activity that we do.  The high and low boxes help them get the idea that the notes can not be stacked on top of each other.    This is part of my so-mi bundle, which you can read about more here.

3.  Having a student teacher, and in looking at the classroom management trends in our building, I developed some new behavior poster for my room

There is a bathroom sign (they use the clips from the behavior chart):

The behavior chart:

I had these signs last year but I revamped them (these are last years) to match the behavior charts, which come in:

1. Peace Themed
2. Polka Dot
3. Chevron

And I had this from last year, but rarely used it.  So, the goal is to use it more:

 4.  Aileen Miracle blogged about the Chimes of Dunkirk in her Linky Post.  We've been prepping syn-co-pa in 4th grade.  These are the two groups they divided themselves into.  One was all girls and one boy, the other was all boys and one girl:

Thanks, Steph, for letting me crash the party! :)