Tutoring Tuesdays - May 2nd, 2017

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to my blog readers! I didn't tutor last week because the girl I tutor had a doctor appointment. So I will share some more fun things that I have used for tutoring in the past.

When I tutored her last year she was working on skip counting by 2's and 5's. A couple of the activities I worked on with her were skip counting by 2's with caps from water bottles and craft sticks. You simple put a number on each one and mix them up and the student puts them in order. We worked on numbers 2 to 20. Then 22 to 40 and so forth until she mastered counting all the way to 100. It seemed to work better by breaking it up into small parts.

I bought the foam butterfly at Dollar Tree. They come in a pack of a bunch with different colors. It was another easy skip counting activity where she had to lace the yarn which works on fine motor skills as well. She did have excellent fine motor skills and still does. I did paper plates as well that you can see in my blog post from last year by clicking HERE.

Thanks for hoppin' by Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings! Keep on smiling!

Tutoring Tuesdays - April 18th, 2017

Last week I actually didn't tutor, but went to a birthday party for the girl I tutor. The kids had so much fun bouncing in a bounce house and her dad hooked up a bubble machine that was very cool! I found out she loves Robots so I have been working hard making some robot teaching products.

Today, I will share some things I used for tutoring in the past.

To practice telling time to the 5 minutes I used this clock. The minutes are self checking as you can lift up the tabs to see how many minutes. I made clocks like these for 2nd graders many years ago.

After doing some telling time with the clock I made we played a game Apple Race Time to the 5 Minutes using these task cards. A game board is also included that I didn't take a picture of.

These 3 Digit Addition Task Cards I used with one of my sight word game boards Fish Sight Word Race to help making adding 3 numbers more fun. We did not use the sight words just the game board from it. Task cards are so perfect with game boards. I laminate the task cards so they can be written on with dry erase markers making them even more fun! They work well in the classroom, in tutoring, or home school.

Check back next week to see what I do this Thursday in tutoring with robots!

Thank you for hoppin' by Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings! Keep on smiling'!

Get Your Class Quiet!

Do you ever need your students to stay quiet for a predetermined amount of time?  I'm sure we all do at some point.  I found a neat idea on Pinterest (I've seen several versions and I'm not sure who first came up with it) to make "Quiet Critters."  This is a fun DIY to make!

Using felt, a pom pom, and googly eyes is all it takes to make a quiet critter.  Put one on each student's desk or in front of them at their table when you need them to be quiet.  Any student who stays quiet the whole time (unless they raise their hand) gets a treat of some sort or a special privilege from you.

I decided to make mine all one color so there isn't fighting over who gets what color.

I am hoping to get a job so I can give this idea a try in the classroom!  School starts Monday so it looks like it will be after the class size count again.

Do you have any tips and tricks to share on how you get your students quiet for a long period?

Thanks for hoppin' by Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings.  Keep on smiling! 

DIY Flip Book Phonics

Many years ago when I first started teaching 2nd grade, I came up with the idea to make flip books out of index cards!  They take awhile to make.  Take a ruler and measure evenly and cut line lines.  Then go back and write the letters from a to z on each flap.

All the vowels I decided to put in red to help my students who were struggling.  Each child had a flip book and we worked on reading CVC words starting with short a and moving through the rest of the vowels.  We spent about 5 minutes on this activity during each small group.  I also had them practice blending nonsense words because at the time they had to take the Dibels test, which required nonsense reading fluency.

Check out of some of the pictures of my flip book and have fun making your own!

Thanks for hoppin' by Hopkins' Hoppin' Happenings.  Keep on smiling!