My Teacher's Secret Life

A few months ago I went to a conference for three days.  While I was gone, my students had a writing assignment. I told them that I was going to be gone, but I never told them why.  Their job was to create a narrative about what I did while I was gone.  There were some that told a typical story about me being sick, but a few of my kids really came through with new and interesting ideas.  Some made up stories about me working at Wal-Mart or moving.  Other kids sent me to Disneyland.  My favorite was two of my students who worked together on their stories.  They both wrote stories about me going to a beach and meeting a guy named Chad and falling madly in love.  I have to say I had a very interesting 3 days according to my kids.  I wish my life actually was that interesting.

I wanted a fresh and creative writing assignment that might spark my students' interest again, so I put together a pack on My Teacher's Secret Life.  Click on the picture to head over to my TPT store.

I thought the kids might have fun creating a strange life for me on the weekends.  My hope is that my students will come up with off-the-wall ideas.  To get them started I thought I would throw a couple ideas at them like maybe I'm an alien or I play baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals.  This packet has brainstorming, prewriting, and final draft pages in color and in blackline masters.  I can't wait to see what kind of ideas my kids come up with.

Music for the Soul (and to Prevent Pulling Out Clumps of Hair)

This post won't be amazing news to anyone, but maybe it will be helpful. Have you heard of the Electric Company? I hadn't when I started teaching first grade, but I stumbled over a video and fell madly in love. Electric Company is a PBS show that focuses on reading skills.  They have a ton of songs that are related to phonics and reading strategies.  Love! Love! Love! Many of my kids love to rap, so they love Electric Company.

I started using these songs when we started talking about the silent E.  There are two fabulous songs, one by James Englehart and one called "Silent E is a Ninja." If you don't check out any other Electric Company videos, you have to check out "Silent E is a Ninja." (Disclaimer: I am not liable for damage done by these songs getting stuck in your head.) My kids BEGGED to hear these songs. When I didn't have access to YouTube for a few weeks I thought they were going to start a riot.

I started using these as brain breaks, a chance for the kids to get up and dance. By the end of the year, I was using the songs to transition.  It's educational, so the time isn't wasted.  Plus, the students know when the song is coming to an end, and by the time the song was over they had to be cleaned up or at their seat or whatever the transition was.  I also loved it as an incentive.  Several of my kids liked to dance to the songs and if they were through with the transition they were allowed to stand in line or behind their chair and dance.  That meant they worked faster to get the transition over and get dance longer.  It meant a lot less wasted time.

Since I was doing this several times a day, I made up a Symbaloo board for my phonics songs with all our favorite songs right there with out navigating multiple searches or windows. (If you haven't checked out Symbaloo you should. It's all your bookmarks in one account on the Internet, so you can use them no matter what computer you are at.) You can find that board here.