school

I Believe in Cursive

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cursive handwriting

Almost every year, I develop a new learning theory that is not based on research or educational best practices of any kind. It is simply an opinion based on my experiences with students. This year’s theory relates to the deterioration of spelling skills and the de-emphasis of handwriting instruction– cursive handwriting in particular. I partially blame e-mail and texting for the spelling problem, but I think the fact that schools do not demand better penmanship is a larger contributor to the increase in poor spellers I see every year.

I suspect that students spell better when they spend time learning, practicing, and using cursive handwriting in the elementary grades. Cursive connects letters together creating a muscle memory between your hand and brain. Your brain will then remember common letter connections, patterns, and rules and subconsciously guide the hand to order letters correctly more often. Try to spell your own signature with a different letter order. It is difficult to force your hand not to put the letters of your name in the correct order. Your hand is on auto-pilot to write the name correctly. Students can achieve the same success with common words and common spelling patterns if they correctly write them in a connected way on a daily basis.

Here are a few activities I am asking my students to complete this year. They work well at school or at home to reinforce the correct spelling of the words we use most often and the patterns that repeat frequently. If you are looking for a new way to study for that weekly spelling test, have your child practice writing the words in cursive.

cursive handwriting spelling patterns

Make a list of words that a student often misspells. Have the child write the word in his/her best cursive multiple times. Provide a sample to copy, so the letter order and letter formation are correct.

Group words that have similar letter patterns and write the portion of the word that is the same in all words multiple times. For example, if the student has a handful of words in a list that end with the letters le (settle, riddle, struggle), require the student to write the letters le together 5 times or 10 times or 10+ times.

I watch my students’ papers and track the cursive letter connections that are hard to form. M and n are particularly tricky because kids want to add an extra “hump” and don’t see that the hump is actually a connector piece. O is also hard to connect to the next letter because it ends “high.” Letter pairs like os and ol are challenging. Compare the difficult connections with misspelled words and make a list of those letter groups. Practice writing the letter pairs together correctly.

cursive handwriting connections

Always provide a sample with the correctly formed letters. Sometimes, this is the hardest part because my own cursive handwriting is adequate at best. I have tried harder this year because I need my students to be able to use cursive more effortlessly, so I can prove my theory.

I will admit that I completed a mini Google search about handwriting and spelling. There are articles here and there that support my theory (ha, I knew I was right). While I also have my students complete a lot of keyboarding and typed writing assignments, I think there will always be a place for handwritten documents. If you have read any of my letter writing posts, you know how I feel about handwritten thank you notes! Does anyone else have an opinion?

To purchase cursive handwriting practice pages at my TeachersPayTeachers store, CLICK HERE.

XOXO Valentine

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tic tac toe valentine assembly

I had zero inspiration for Valentine’s cards this year. Last year, I planned the Matchbox Valentine months ahead, but no lightning bolts were happening this Valentine’s season. It is with heavy heart that I must admit that I completely lifted our Valentine’s cards idea from Pinterest. Mr. Star Wars and Miss Priss love them, so maybe it is not such a terrible thing, and they were easy to make in bulk. I would like to thank Kim at 733blog.com for posting the original Tic Tac Toe Valentine’s card idea.

I created a 2-column template in a Word document (link in the materials list below). I inserted a table in the document and removed the borders to build the tic tac toe board. The part I find clever about the card is the “XOXO” part at the bottom. It is a traditional closing on a card as well as an homage to the Tic Tac Toe game. Yes, I know that detail will be lost on the 1st and 3rd graders who will be receiving these Tic Tac Toe cards Friday.

tic tac toe valentine supplies

Materials

tic tac toe valentine template

Directions

  • Print the cards in color on white cardstock. My template prints 4 to a page. Rather than burn out my printer, I used FedEx Office for this job. The color print and cardstock paper is much better quality than what I could print on my home printer.
  • When I picked up the print job, I stayed at the store and used their paper cutter to make sure the card cuts were consistent and even. It was a lot of cutting because I needed to cut all edges, not just down the center. This was a tedious part of the process. The finished cards are 4 1/2″ tall x 3 1/2″ wide.
  • Sign the bottom of each card after the XOXO. We used bright colored Sharpie pens in reds, pinks, and purples.
  • Put one card in a clear bag.

tic tac toe valentines filling bags

  • Add 4 M&M’s of one color and 5 M&M’s of another color to the bag with the card. Make sure to insert the M&M’s on top of the front of the card. Here is an interesting little tidbit– there are hardly any white M&M’s in the Valentine’s M&M’s mix. The majority are red (isn’t that the poisonous dye color?), and the two shades of pink have about an even amount of each. We dumped out the whole bag of candies and sorted into color piles before assembling the Valentine’s treat bags. A 12-ounce bag of M&M’s made ~37 Valentine’s bags (9 M&M’s per treat bag).

tic tac toe valentines assembly line

  • Seal the bag. I used my 4″ x 6″ ziploc bead bags from Michael Crafts. Clear gift bags with a twist tie or curly ribbon would be cute too but more time consuming to close securely.

tic tac toe valentines finished

Letter Writing

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addressing envelopes

I never liked the term, “friendly letter.” When I was in elementary school, we reviewed the parts of a letter EVERY YEAR for like six years straight and then wrote pointless “friendly letters” that went nowhere. Huge snore. I disliked letter writing as a student, and I avoided letter writing activities for a long time as a teacher. Well, times change. I spend a lot of time on letter writing with my students now and here is why.

Addresses

  • Students have a hard time addressing an envelope (and I teach 4th grade where they have been doing the friendly letter drill for awhile). They are unsure about how to organize the three address lines, don’t know state abbreviations, and have trouble capitalizing correctly. When I ask students to address an envelope, they get to practice these skills. They are reminded how to write a complete name with a title (like Mrs. or Mr. or Dr.). They practice writing street abbreviations as part of the name of the street with capital letters (Center St. or Liberty Blvd.). They review state abbreviations and reinforce the comma between a city and a state.
  • If students add a return address to the envelope, they get a little extra work remembering their own address too.
  • So I am not necessarily referring to anyone I know, but for those of us who become slightly unbalanced when the address lines are all uneven on the envelope, slide a lined index card inside the envelope with the lines facing up. If the envelope is sheer enough (like a basic business envelope), you can see the guidelines when you press down to write. Your address lines will be straight and even making my the world a happy place.

Formatting

  • We usually type our letters, but I am a fan of handwritten letters too. Either way, students learn to format a letter in a logical order. There is contact information at the top, a date, and a proper salutation. Even if our students in future years are handling all communication with employers, co-workers, or clients electronically, they will still need documents formatted in an order that is easy to read. This is just a good lifeskill.  

Responses

  • If students know they will get tangible results from a project they complete, they are more likely to engage at a higher level. I have students write letters to people who reply (most of the time). In order to get a reply, my students have to communicate effectively in their letters and then address and mail it correctly. A formal letter requires full sentences, organized ideas, and a beginning, middle, and end. When we do receive a letter back, students gain experience with cause and effect– they wrote a letter asking for or providing information and received a reply responding to the content in the original  letter. 

Here are a few letter writing activity suggestions.

They are ideas that work at home as well as the classroom.

  • One of my favorite types of letters are thank you notes. The format of this letter does not have to be a full fancy business format. Casual is definitely acceptable. One benefit (among many) of the thank you note is that it requires children to reflect on something nice that has been done for them and then specifically recognize in written words why they appreciate the nice thing. I have a rating system for thank you notes on the post here.

thank you notes

  • An ongoing activity in my room is an author letter project. Students search contact information for a favorite author. The contact information could be an e-mail address, mailing address, or a publisher address. The students prepare a letter that details why they enjoyed a specific book by the author and gives reasons the book may have had an impact on the student. About half the time, we receive personal replies from the authors. You would not believe how an author reply can motivate a student to read! For more author letter tips, click here.

author letters

  • This year, students researched a state and contacted an alum from our school to ask for more information about the state and the history of our school. Again, we had about a 50% return rate. The men and women who wrote back to our students included many stories about their life at school when they were in the 4th grade. The connection to the history of the school made a much bigger impact than the rest of the state research project. I could not have replicated that by sharing something from a history textbook. The students made a personal connection with the alum. I liked that the students participated in an activity that stretched well beyond the classroom, and they created a link that was outside their everyday world. Write to a relatives or friends who live in a different town. Ask about how their life might be different from your own. It is a great way to discover old family stories or compare differences in cities, states, and regions. (Visit my teacher store to purchase the State Postcard Project).

new york reply

Mr. Star Wars Gets a Job

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rainbow loom materials

Mr. Star Wars is that kid who will knock on your door and ask to rake your leaves for a nominal fee. He likes earning money. He reminds me a little of Henry Huggins. One of my dearest friends’ parents is organizing a convention for a large organization and needs 500 Rainbow Loom bracelets. TheRoomFriend threw out a request for the bracelets probably without really expecting a response. I offered Mr. Star Wars’ services. As you may have gathered, when we dive into a project at TheRoomMom’s house there is no tolerance for low effort or half assed commitment. It’s over-the-top extreme project work or nothing at all.

Since Friday, we have “loomed” 189 bracelets. Mr. Star Wars is getting paid per bracelet. More importantly, he has used just about every 3rd grade math and time management skill he has to complete this job. Here is the list of skills we covered with this job order. I am tempted to match it to the Common Core Standards that are all the buzz right now, but I will refrain.

rainbow loom single

The Prototype

  • Pre-Planning— Before we committed to the order, Mr. Star Wars made one sample bracelet. We needed to know the time it would take to finish one bracelet and how many bands we would use in each bracelet. We created a ladies’ size (24 bands) and a men’s size (28 bands).
  • Setting Manageable Goals (Ha! As if I ever limit myself to the manageable and appropriate level)– We committed to 100 bands and agreed to try to make more.

The Materials

  • Mental Math— The order is for green and yellow bracelets. I hit every store in our area for the right colors. We bought bags of 600, 300, and 100. There were fewer yellow available and various shades of green. We had to do a little mental math at the store to calculate how many bands we would need to make at least 100 bracelets. 
  • Rounding— we rounded each bracelet to 25 bands since that divides into 100 so nicely. A bag of 600 would give us about 24 bracelets. I bought extra… just in case we felt like making more than 100 (as if there was any doubt).

rainbow loom counting

The Assembly Line

  • Patterns— We couldn’t just open every bag of bands and dump them on the table. The bracelet colors had to be consistent. We use 2-3 shades of green and 1 yellow in each bracelet.
  • Math Facts— Do you remember the math facts tips from last week? Mr. Star Wars had to calculate how many bands he needed in each color for each sized bracelet. He came up with several groupings. In the ladies’ size, we have 3 colors of 8 bands each or 4 colors of 6 bands each. In the men’s size, we have 3 colors of 9 bands each and add one extra of the starting color or 4 colors of 7 bands each.
  • Grouping— We count out the groups of bands in coordinating colors into a 12-cup cupcake pan. We produce 12 bracelets at a time and then re-fill the cupcake pan. After 4 groups of 12 in one size, we make 2 more for a total of 50. We then switch to the other sized bracelet.

rainbow loom sorting

Production

  • Collaboration— When we started, it took Mr. Star Wars about 5 minutes to make 1 single chain Rainbow Loom bracelet. Pulling the bands off the crochet hook and over the next band was slowing him down. We figured out a tandem system where one person holds the crochet hook, and the other moves the bands. We cut the production time to less than 3 minutes per bracelet.

rainbow loom color order

Money

  • Problem Solving— We negotiated a price per bracelet that did not include the materials. When we set the price, we worked out the number of bracelets we could make in an hour, and Mr. Star Wars came up with an hourly rate. We then divided the number of bracelets by the cost per hour and proposed a price.
  • Earnings— Mr. Star Wars constantly calculates how much he will earn every time we finish another group of bracelets. Our price per bracelet is less than a dollar, so he is having to convert cents to dollars.

Deadlines

  • Time Management— We need to mail the bracelets by Saturday in order for TheRoomFriend to get them in time. We set a goal (200) and divided that by the days we had. We had more time to work this past weekend than we will this week, so we adjusted for that. We set a quota for each day.
  • Rewards— TheRoomFriend offered us a bonus for any bracelets we make above 200. We should hit 200 by tonight (Mr. Star Wars and Miss Priss are looming while I type). We now have an incentive to go above the goal. I have to say, I am impressed and would hire Mr. Star Wars in a heartbeat.
rainbow loom bracelets

Almost 200 Rainbow Loom bracelets. They are like big bags of green Ramen noodles.

The Gateway Book

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MindsinBloomButton2

I contributed a guest post to an upper elementary teaching blog, Minds in Bloom. The post is about helping kids find their gateway book and then using that gateway book to generate spin off books that build a love of reading. See my survival book list or the guest post for an explanation of a gateway book.

My favorite part of the article is the Book Trails. This is a list of books that can be generated from one starter book. Check out the post to see how to build your own book trail!

candy factory book trail

Here is a sample book trail for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Create a list of related books to keep a child reading.