Math and Literacy Centers

Now that everyone is back to school and getting settled in, it's time to start those literacy and math centers. This post is jam packed with ideas and resources to get you started! You can find the "Counting Apple Seeds Activity" above here. 

Students LOVE these feeding activities! It's crazy how adding in just this one little component can increase engagement through the roof! This one is versatile and can be used for matching letters and/or beginning sounds. Find it here.

Students can't get enough of these two! They love feeding bananas to the monkey and peanuts to the elephant while practicing counting and 1:1 correspondence. 

They'll also love feeding gas to the car while practicing their sight words with this one that includes all of Fry's first 100 sight words. Or you may prefer this one that focuses on just the first 25 sight words. 

Students love catching fireflies with the magnetic net while practicing reading and writing sight words. Just add a paperclip to each card to make it magnetic. :)

Got to keep them motivated and engaged and these fun letter cookies do the trick every time! You might be saying, "Oh too much prep!" That's what I always think when I see circles...EEEK! But friends, that's why these circle cookies are all designed to be easily cut with a 2" circle punch. Wahlah! Work smarter, not harder!

Practice letter or sound matching with these mats you can find here. 

These school cuties are always fun and enticing for littles. And if you really like these check out the matching alphabet posters here.

You most likely already have your alphabet posters up, but you can print these four to a page and use them as flashcards in one of your literacy centers.

If you love all the things with googly eyes like me, you might also like these shape cuties.

The only thing I think students love more than the "FEED ME" activities are these "Pop It Smash Games." Students love anything with Playdoh so these are always a crowd pleaser. You can find all of the POP IT games here.

This SHAPE SMASH is also a fun one that uses playdoh. 

If your students are working on word building and CVC words, these word building mats make an excellent literacy center and all of the letters are stored right on the mat, so no letter tiles to pull out or keep track of. Here's a peek on the inside.

Gumball Mixup and Pencil Mixup are a couple more fun ones that put a fun twist on building CVC words. 

This is a fun one to transition your students from beginning sounds to building CVC words. You can find it here.

Before and After and Number Order are also center favorites. 

Grab this counting freebie here.

Students always perk up when there's Tic Tac Toe involved and these Tic Tac Toe games include 8 different literacy centers and phonics games.

These Doubles Posters are a must have in your math centers when you begin to introduce doubles.

Now for you...the teacher! One of the reasons we do centers is to give us a chance to work with students in small groups, 1:1, or to assess students. So these are for you!

You can get a closer inside look at the assessment binder here.

These phonics drills are quick and easy to administer and review each day. Students progress from reading sounds to words to reading the sounds and words in sentences. You can find both of these fluency drills here.

And no year is complete without "The Ultimate Teacher Word Choice" binder! This will be your best friend when customizing word lists or choosing the just right words and/or phrases when working with your students. 

Data Collection Simplified!

Today I'm here to talk about how I've simplified and found the perfect academic and IEP goal data collection system for my classroom. Data collection! Such a struggle right? We're always looking for ways to simplify it and make it doable! We try this and we try that. It always seems unmanageable! 

Well last summer I perfected my academic/IEP data collection system and I can finally cross it off my to-do list for GOOD!! My year ran so smoothly with this system last year and my data was so thorough, timely, and organized. 

I started with a 2 1/2 inch binder! I kept all of my students' academic/IEP goal data in this one binder. If you're wondering, I separate behavior. My students with behavioral goals have separate behavior binders, as there is so much more data involved for behavior. This post strictly focuses on academic data collection. 

Here's a peek at the inside of the binder. 

I love these pocket dividers! They are vinyl and very durable. I labeled a pocket divider for each of my students. I label them in pencil so that I can easily reuse them year after year!

I use the pockets to store their test items and work samples for easy access! Everything else is 3-hole punched and placed behind their pocket. I use AIMS web to progress monitor my students academic goals whenever possible. They have so many progress monitoring tools available that even my lowest students working on letter recognition and basic number recognition can be progress monitored and assessed with AIMS Web. It's easy and reports and graphs are so easy to print! Fortunately, my district provides AIMS Web. It is largely used across the states by numerous school districts for progress monitoring and accountability; however it seems few special education teachers use it. If your district has it, I highly recommend using it. If your school doesn't use AIMS Web, they may use DIBELS. This program is very similar to AIMS Web. Either way, check to see what your school uses and take advantage of it.

Here's a peek behind a student's pocket. Each student's may look differently depending on what skills they are working on.   

This is the first page for every student. I always include a blank sheet of paper as the first page. This is where I put notes of things I see they need to work on, or where I can quickly jot down those ah-ha moments that hit me about that student!

This is the second sheet in the binder for students being monitored using AIMS Web. This student has a goal of reading CVC words, so I am progress monitoring her on NWF (Nonsense Word Fluency) and ORF (Oral Reading Fluency). 

AIMS Web also offers basic math computation assessments. This is a 5th grader that I was assessing using first grade probes. She mastered 1st grade and then moved on to 2nd grade.

I love that it provides a running record that is easy to view progress. My students also have open access to this binder so that they can see their scores. They look at their scores before each assessment and try to beat their score!!! Each time they do we make a big deal of it! We shout it out in the class and everyone applause's. I give my student a little something for increasing, like a hershey kiss or a starburst. 

I print the reports I need each quarter or prior to an IEP meeting or conference, 3-hole punch them and stick them in the binder. 

My students that can read also have this assessment behind their tab. This is the San Diego Quick Reading Assessment. I love this reading assessment. It can be administered in less than 5 minutes and is SOOOO accurate in assessing a student's reading level. You can access it here.

For readers, the third page is always this. This is my phonics quick screener. It clearly identifies what level students are at in their phonics skills, where they need remediation at, and where lessons should start. You can get the phonics screener here.  

It also includes their Fry's Word List Recording Sheet, as we practice these daily. You can see our Fry's Word Lists and get access to this sheet here. 

Some students will have different sheets, such as this student that is working on play skills.

Here are the sheets I use to track IEP goals in my classroom that I can't use AIMS Web for. I like to track goals using trials when the goal allows for it, as it is much easier to track. Some goals require a percentage criteria. You can still use this sheet to track those goals. So for example, if a student got 6 out of 10, that would be a 60% achievement. For students that have a mastery criteria of 5 trials, I use a sheet with only 5 trials listed. The goal tracking sheets allow for 6 goals so you can keep each student's goals on one page for simple organization. I rarely have a student with more than 6 goals. I typically stick with one goal for each area. This keeps it manageable.

So when do I fit all of this in!? Simple! I collect academic/IEP goal data every Friday, but each student is every other week. So for example, I'll do half of my students this Friday, then the other half the next Friday.

I decided to stop wasting my time trying to collect IEP goal data daily or every few days. Let's face it, most of our students do not make progress at that rapid of a pace. So in order to see growth for my students and simplify my data collection system, I assess (progress monitor) my students every two weeks. One of our classroom centers is "Teacher Table" where I do direct, explicit teaching Monday through Thursday. On Fridays, "Teacher Table" is cancelled and I call students back one at a time to do my assessing. Rather than my students coming to their "Teacher Table" center on Friday, they go on iPads or computers during this center while I assess.

My school is on a quarter system, so there are approximately 9 weeks in a quarter. So if I assess my students every two weeks, for example, on week 2, week 4, week 6, and week 8, this allows me to have a good amount of data by the end of each quarter. 

Lastly, I can't forget the front of the binder. In the front of my binder I keep my benchmark targets, norm charts, standards, etc. in sheet protectors so I can easily refer to them when I need them. 

And that's it! My data system simplified! One binder, some pocket tabs, a few simple recording sheets, and you too can simplify and organize your data to make it manageable. I'm at school to work with kids, not take data all day! Stop letting your data consume you and take the fun out of teaching! Remember you don't have to take data every.single.day and on every.single.thing!!

Grab the student progress monitoring and goal tracking sheets here for free and start simplifying your system!

If you're in need of more support on simplifying and managing behavioral data, check out this post.

Stop back tomorrow for some SPEDtacular Freebies!

Sight Word System Conquered!!

Today marked my second week back to school and my room is still incomplete! Crazy! I got such a late start this year and was so not ready! We weren't even allowed to get our keys this year until the Wednesday before Monday start....and Wednesday was an all day faculty meeting and PD.....and Open House was Friday!!! Really? Set up a room in 1 1/2 days....well let's just say it didn't happen! 

So needless to say, I haven't been able to share any classroom pics, because well...it still isn't done! But there is one thing that did get done...that I put into action the second day of school and I am absolutely in love with it!! My new sight word system!!! It's working just as I had planned and already saving me lots of time! :)

My Sight Word...practice, assessment, recording wall....All-in-One!!! Ahh yes! It always nice when you can make your job so much easier! 

Practice, assessment, and recording????? Here's how it works! First off, the majority of my students are all working on the Fry's first 100 word list! So that is what I used. Each word has ten squares below it, one for each student (I only have 7) and each student is assigned a color. 

Here is my color chart that is posted beside the sight word wall.

Students practice 3-4 words each day they do not know until they've mastered them. One of my assistants pulls them for this practice during certain times of the day. After assessing them, she places a sticker of their assigned color on the words that they knew and read fluently.  

Now I can easily look or show parents when they visit, the sight words that their child knows. At a glance I know that Deven has mastered all of the words with a "pink" sticker. I also love that the words are always right there in front of them now allowing them to see and use them all throughout the day! 

Better yet, the kids are loving learning sight words! They're already trying to see who can get the most stickers on the board!! :)

Could you use this in your classroom?

OKAPI Reading Probes

Have you ever heard of OKAPI?? It's awesome for creating reading probes for your students. I originally discovered this fabulous application a few years ago through Intervention Central, but when I attempted to use it last weekend, I couldn't find it! After doing a little searching, I was able to relocate it thank goodness, {here}. 

OKAPI is super easy to use too! Type in your title, author, and text. Click on "Create CBA Reading Probes" and you're done!

You can also choose additional options such as having difficult words highlighted. I uncheck all of these boxes, but you may find them useful for your probes. 

Your probe will open in a new window. I then, copy and paste it into Word or PPT, you don't have to, but this way you can save it and edit it if you need to! 

And wala! Here's my probe. It also provides me a space to record words read and errors. 

If this has got you thinking about typing up probes for your class, check out the ones I have already done in my store {here}.