(Part 2) Best products from r/teaching

Not sure how useful this would be. This dictionary might be useful. This is a Japanese site for learning English. But I'm surprised she doesn't have an electronic dictionary (denki jisho - 電気辞書) that she can use.

Labeling things is great as well as preparing phrase cards for common classroom phrases -
Excuse, can I use the bathroom.
Can you help me?
Can I borrow a ...?
I don't understand...
Where is/are the ....
Picture dictionary with classroom items.

Pair her with a reliable student and keep her nearby you. She'll probably be pretty dependent at first. Encourage a student to engage her in play and keep talking even if she doesn't respond. I noticed that often they won't respond or may give a confused look at first response, but just keep trying.

Japanese children are incredibly group oriented and being left out can be traumatizing. Just by being part of the class it's often assumed they are part of the group. She may not be used to asking people to play and may need someone to take the lead.

There are some cultural differences that will be hard to overcome. They take their shoes off inside and for PE. Kids help clean the school. They eat lunch in the classroom and help serve food. They stand when answering a question. They often have mandatory club activities after class. She might be further along academically...though they learn math in a very different way. Give her chances to share things from her culture or read Japanese tales in English.

Momotaro- Peach boy Taro
Urashimataro- Urashima and the kingdom beneath the sea

This site has online bilingual books depending on her ability level.
Also consider easy children's audiobooks.

If she's older she might actually be able to read English better than she speaks. Often Japanese learn English from early elementary school. The focus is on reading and writing, not speaking, so they're often too shy to speak even if they understand. Many English words are used in Japanese but may have vowel sounds added to them. For example taxi is takushi in Japanese. She may know British versions of words depending on who she had English lessons with, like eraser is rubber so be careful there.

I am still taking classes for teacher certification, but I have just learned how useful picture dictionaries can be.

http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Picture-Dictionary-English-Chinese/dp/0194740129

Apparently this one is geared more towards teens and adults, but there are almost definitely resources out there for younger students if you look hard enough. (I found this one with just a quick google search) These types of books are especially helpful since it gives a visual along with translations. There is also more of a focus on conversational language which will help your students learn verb conjugation naturally.

Have you contacted anyone within your school district? Most schools are required to have resources available for this type of situation.

I hope these ideas help! Good luck!

Daily 5 is interesting, but it's a lot to take on as a 1st year elementary school teacher. My suggestion would be to start with two of those (Read to Self and Word work) and then add the others in if they're being successful. Read to self is easy to get going and word work is going to just happen.

As a male teacher, you're possibly the first male teacher some of these kids have had. There will be a "cool" factor. Be sure to be yourself but also be firm. That said, at 3rd grade, there's a lot of "babyish emotions" that he may see and he may have to get in touch with his emotional side.

I think that male teachers have it a bit easier to make connections with kids in elementary school because there just aren't very many of them. I play out at recess and at times sit with them at lunch and it's "cool". When the female teachers do it, it doesn't seem to have the same effect. Though, I'm a tad younger than most of them.

I wouldn't worry too much about handwriting. Just slow down (he'll ahve to do that anyway since he's teaching 3rd grade).

My best advice, Go Slow to Go Fast. I used this book religiously my first few years (http://www.amazon.com/First-Weeks-School-Strategies-Teachers/dp/1892989042). Other books to check out would be http://www.amazon.com/First-Days-School-Effective-Teacher/dp/0976423316/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377217374&sr=1-1&keywords=first+weeks+of+school+harry+wong and http://www.amazon.com/First-Day-Jitters-Julie-Danneberg/dp/158089061X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377217409&sr=1-1&keywords=first+day+jitters

In line with princess2293's idea, I'd like to suggest spending a bit of money to buy some science gadgets to use to fill spaces or for motivation. Two reasons why a bag full of science gadgets are great. Most teachers in elementary are happy for the kids to do fun science activities and if they are sick they are happy to not have to plan part of the day. To motivate the kids, I tell them I have fun science activities planned if they finish their work. It's a great carrot.

Here are a few ideas:

Energy Sticks Takes no space and you can turn the kids into an electric circuit (safely)

Touchable Bubbles

Books on optical illusions.

A hoberman sphere

A class set of magnets or magnifying glasses ($$$)

Rocket balloons

Ordinary balloons for experiments with static

I even have a laser thermometer I use for brewing beer and bring that to school. The kids can use it to guess and check their own temperature and to compare their hand's temp. with their forehead. Plus it is a laser.

An awesome green laser

Hmm. I really like the quadlock bike mount, and I feel more confident having the GPS. I hate things on my head so I had to try on a lot of helmets and spend a fair amount of cash for one I could tolerate, but some people are more flexible. When it's really cold the lobster style gloves are great. Your commute would be just long enough for the bottoms of my feet and toes to get cold, and I haven't really found a great solution for that yet. Ooh, thought of one. A nice pannier that's comfortable as a large purse. This is the one I used before I switched to my folding Brompton: [Basil . Bloom Pannier](Basil Bloom Kids Carry All & Bicycle Pannier - Gardenia White Floral - 11 Litre https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HPWVI02/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_NuQiDbSR9043X). I found it cheaper on eBay. Love it. Holds lots of folders and my computer.

I'm back to explain what I did for my homework. I designed a series of addition equations and wrote them on the board one at a time. The kids were allowed to use their whiteboards to solve, but they didn't have to show any work. I surveyed the group after each equation to find out in what order they solved. Here are the equations I used:

• 5 + 7 + 8 = ___
  
• 7 + 8 + 5 = ___
  
• 6 + 19 + 11 = ___
  
• 4 + 37 + 13 = ___
  
• 7 + 45 + 25 = ___
  
• 6 + 71 + 29 = ___
  
• 39 + 25 + 75 = ___
  
  So after they solved the first one I said, "raise your hand if you added 5 and 7 first" and counted hands, then "raise your hand if you added 7 and 8 first." Then I asked specific kids to explain why they chose to solve in each of those ways (one kid for each way of solving).
  
  The idea is that hopefully at least some of the kids have started mentally combining numbers strategically in ways that make "friendly" numbers, or numbers that are easy to add. Those kids explain their thinking and it plants the seeds of possibility into the minds of (at least some of) the other kids.
  
  The equations are specifically designed to force them to start thinking relationally, which is exactly what we've been studying this semester in the math endorsement. It's the class on the Operations and Algebraic Thinking strand of the Common Core standards (don't know where you teach). The idea comes from a book called Thinking Mathematically: Integrating Arithmetic & Algebra in Elementary School. Oh, and I teach fourth grade.

OH! I can't believe I forgot about this before, but when you said "weather" it triggered it for me. This book is awesome. I don't know if you want to shell out money for a book while you're student teaching (since you probably can't charge it to the class budget, and you might not be teaching this topic next year). Maybe you could convince your lead teacher or your college (if you're attending one?) that it'd be a valuable addition to their collection, though. It's not a book of lessons, directly, but it does involve a lot of activities and nice clear language, with lots of metaphors to explain concepts well. I saw this guy speak at the NSTA conference a few years ago and he was very cool.

*edit: You might also cross-post this to the ScienceTeachers subreddit. I don't know what the overlap is between that one and this one, but it's possible that there might be folks there who would weigh in that didn't see it over here.

Donald Killgallon has an amazing collection of workbooks that build sentence structure and variety using sentences from literary sources. Take a look at his collection on Amazon.

Another great book that uses patterns to teach sentence structure is The Art of Styling Sentences: 20 Patterns for Success. I made cleaner worksheet versions of each pattern from the book's chapters that I used in class. I can share it privately if anyone's interested.

Nancy Dean's workbooks are great for teaching voice and style in advanced HS writers.

Michael Degen's excellent book Crafting Expository Argument discusses essay composition and more importantly, peer editing, for high-quality essays of any type.

For really basic, old-school grammar and sentence structure instruction (diagramming even), but not really in a self-leading style, I'd recommend Charlene Tess's Simple Steps to Sentence Sense for High School. It's supposed to be reproducible, but I could only find this Kindle version on Amazon.

Good luck

Crash Course has a fun set of videos for each of the topics typically covered in a gen chem class. They're not super in-depth, but they'll serve as quick refreshers for the basics.

In addition to /r/chemicalreactiongifs I would recommend Periodic Videos.They also have lots of fun demos, but with more discussion and fun anecdotes.

If you're looking to hone your chemical instincts, I would actually recommend an older book called "Voyages in Conceptual Chemistry" by Dan Barouch. It's a source book of chemistry problems, but with a greater focus on concepts and critical thinking. Few (if any) of them require explicit calculations, which makes them great for class discussion. The problems still involve relevant equations, but with a focus on the relationships between and proportionality of variables in equations. Each problem even has 3 associated hints to help guide discussion and students' thought process.

To give you a sense of the kinds of questions in the book, here's an example of a fun but tough stoichiometry problem without calculations:
"Your project is to determine the molecular formula of an unknown hydrocarbon (a compound consisting only of hydrogen and carbon). It is burned completely under tightly controlled laboratory conditions and the only source of oxygen is a balloon inflated with pure oxygen gas, attached through an inlet valve to the combustion chamber. A friend pulls you aside and whispers in your ear that the number of molecules in the hydrocarbon sample is the same as the number of oxygen molecules in the balloon. Keeping this tip in mind, you perform the combustion reaction and watch the balloon shrink. When the balloon is completely deflated, the combustion reaction stops, and you notice that four-fifths of the hydrocarbon remain.
What are the two possibilities for the molecular formula of the hydrocarbon? Assume that the reaction went to completion and there were no side reactions or by-products.

Hint 1: What is the general reaction for the combustion of a hydrocarbon?
Hint 2: What is the limiting reagent? What's the stoichiometry of the reagents in the reaction?
Hint 3: From this information, what must be the stoichiometry of the products?"

This is possibly too difficult for an introductory chemistry class, since they won't realize that C3H8 is a reasonable molecular formula for a hydrocarbon, but CH16 is not. However, this should give you an idea of the caliber of the questions in the book.

For more traditional, calculation based questions, there are tons of source books out there. Schaum's has a pretty extensive one called 3000 Solved Problems in Chemistry

Finally, (but perhaps most importantly) check with the lead instructor for the course. Find out which topics will be covered and the relative difficulty of the problems that students will be expected to solve. Then choose problems based on those criteria. That way, you'll be certain that students are getting the practice they need.

One last tip, when you're working through problems in class, be sure to actually give students time to work on the problems themselves and encourage group discussion. There's a tendency to try to cram as many example problems as possible into a discussion session, but I find that this overloads students and pushes them towards rote learning. They just scramble to copy down the answers and figure they'll reread and understand them later. Fewer and more focused problems are more productive and lead to more transferrable knowledge/understanding.

Good luck next semester! Have fun!

I teach newspaper, and I have taught yearbook in the past. It's a lot of fun. Here is a page of contest prompts for things like feature writing, cutline writing and design. There are rubrics at the bottom of the page. It's from the Kansas Scholastic Press Association website.I like to use them as training worksheets. I also really like "Inside Reporting" by Tim Harrower. It's probably the best textbook I've found for journalism, or anything else.

My biggest piece of advice is to make sure you empower your students to make editorial decisions and do all the work to get the publication to press. It's their newspaper and yearbook, and while that gives them a lot of freedom, it's also a huge responsibility. If they take pride and ownership in their publications they will work a lot harder.

Let me know if you have any specific questions. It can be a daunting task.

Hard to pick favorites, so I'll give out some of the standard issue ones from my times.

Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" is one that students tend to love, especially if you're doing a good bit about Gothicism. Any Poe short story or poem. On the longer side, "Winter Dreams" by Fitzgerald, that's a very American story though, at least as I've always taught it. For straight poetry, most of Langston Hughes work has great imagery and does well explaining the mechanics of poetry. A book I picked up in college, which this seems to be the current version of has served me very well. Pretty much every poem in there can be given a one day or full week treatment. And, if it isn't in there, Ozymandius by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Rambly list complete!

I'm currently getting my masters in English Education. One of the required classes focused on how to teach reading. This was the most useful book in the class. Before the class, I used to think reading instruction went something like this:

1. Find out the general reading level of the class by assigning them a book and using some kind of assessment tool, like a content quiz to test their comprehension.
   
   
2. If they don't do well, give them an easier book and repeat step one until they become better readers.
   
   In this model of reading instruction, the work involved in getting better at reading is a completely solo endeavor for the student: they get better simply by reading level-appropriate books on their own. But this isn't the case. There are lots of things teachers need to do to scaffold better reading skills.
   
   Yellow Brick Roads sounds like it might rely on cliches or be overly childish if you judge it by its cover (like I did). But it's not. It has a narrative style that held my attention and didn't read like a textbook. It's also fairly short. I recommend it.
   

I took a class on teaching ESL, taught by our college's ESL specialist. This is the book we used: https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Grammar-English-Language-Learners/dp/0472032208

It's pretty good. It covers the most common issues/sources of confusion that you'll encounter with ESL students, as well as how to explain them. When a student asks you why what he/she wrote is wrong, and why it should be the way you say is right, it lets you say "Because XYZ" instead of "That's just the way it is".

One example covered in the book is prepositions. To an extent, they make sense. Especially with directional prepositions. But a lot of situations require certain prepositions for no logical reason. Like, you wouldn't say "I believe of you". But why is "I believe in you" better? But at the same time you say "I'm thinking of you" and not "I'm thinking in you". This can be incredibly frustrating for students. But letting them know that there isn't really a reason and sometimes they just have to remember can make them feel better, as opposed to trying to figure out the logic of rules that don't really exist and that no one can seem to explain.

Reading helps a lot. Keeping simple books around would be great. And/or books that are written in two languages. Like books where the left page is English and right page is Spanish. If these are hard to find for some of the languages, you could make your own by printing out short stories in both languages. Or even using google translate to get a copy in the student's primary language.

Encourage them to consume their media in English. English movies, music, shows, etc. Also, all Netflix original shows (or at least most, I think it's all) will have dubs in Spanish, and will have captions in multiple languages. Watching a show in English, with captions in your language to help you figure out what you don't understand, can go a long way. The opposite is true too (watching in Spanish with English captions).

Students are taught how to model draw as a key component. We do teach that, though we use the whole curriculum. We supplement with other pieces as needed.

The model drawing piece is probably the most interesting. You really need to learn how to use it well and instruct students in it, but in the end, I think students can tackle a lot more things than teachers think because of what they know how to do in terms of model drawing. A good place to start with that is the new model drawing books that are available created to help teachers teach model drawing. You can find them at Amazon at all levels.

I think there idea of teaching students and teachers to think in terms of tens and ones. That is the most important piece because when you think like that multi-digit addition, subtraction, multiplication and division become a lot easier. This translates even to thinking about estimating in tens because you find an answer faster.

Everyone else so far have been suggesting alternative ways to go about this, but if you want to go with your original set up you need one more piece of a equipment.

You'll need a USB Wii bar which you can from Amazon. I like dolphins one which you can find here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mayflash-W010-Dolphin-Bar-Wireless-x/dp/B00HZWEB74

You'll need some sort of PowerPoint macro to show each winner and then you'll probably need to use Autohotkey to convert the input from your remotes into a signal for your macro.

If this sounds too much that's fine. If you'd like to know more let me know and I'll see if I can help.

Going to give you three: Embedded Formative Assessment by Dylan Wiliam. I have never gone from reading a book to using it in the classroom as fast as with this one. It's slender and jammed full of great ways to assess your own teaching by quickly assessing their learning and comprehension. It goes at it from multiple angles (with great scaffolding) so you'll find something no matter what you teach at any level (K-12).

Best Practice is another all-around great resource that can be used the minute you open it up. Like Wiliams' book, my copy is marked up and flagged all to hell with stuff I've used. Supremely useful and covers all disciplines (Reading/writing/science/social studies/etc.). Probably more 5-12 but I'm sure can be applied all the way down to 2nd grade.

The third is English Focused: In the Middle by Nancie Atwell. I teach HS Language Arts and after reading this I threw out everything for my 10th grade English and pursued this model. My first attempt isn't perfect but their reading levels alone have soared; students who wouldn't touch a book at the beginning of the year are on their 5th or 6th novel. Those who started as readers have nearly a dozen. The writing component is still coming along, but those are changes I have to make, not an issue with the philosophy.

I hope these are helpful.

You are very lucky. I would just find some videos or books on computational thinking. That is what you are teaching kids. We had the author from this book (https://www.amazon.com/No-Fear-Coding-Computational-Curriculum/dp/1564843874) skype with our teacher group. I think you are already getting there, but she makes a pretty good case for block-coding like Scratch and Code.org.

I think it helps to show kids videos of "cool" people talking about coding. There is a bit of a stereotype about how coding is for nerds. It does really depend on the grade level though. At this moment, I am working with 6th graders.

I know that Scratch just released a version specifically for Makey Makeys and I have some plans for students to create interactive displays for projects. We shall see. To start you can have the kids make their own piano to do funny stuff with the Makey Makeys. I made this one with my 1st-grade son to figure it all out (https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/246522183/). Click the "see inside" to see the very minimal amount of coding I did.