Toddler Fingers Are Made for Poking

My 13 month-old daughter is now known as the "Little Mommy" at day care. As one of the oldest in her class, she spends a lot of time with tiny babies. Whenever the babies cry, she tries to comfort them by giving them toys--so sweet!

Her favorite toys at home are her dolls (or our electronic gadgets). If we pretend to make crying sounds, she'll rush over to a doll, pick it up and insert her own finger in its mouth--adorable, but...YIKES!!!!!!!! Is my thumb-sucking little "Jack-y Horner" sticking her finger in babies' mouths at day care? GERM ALERT! GERM ALERT! (Hence, her constant snot.) And oh, does this make my daughter a certified hands-on intervention specialist?--he he!

The point is that she likes babies, at least the happy ones. So Friday when she pinched her finger in the oven mitt drawer (she has declared it hers and leaves pot holders all over the house), how did I comfort her? I ran it under cold water immediately, but when she kept crying and became impatient with the whole faucet scene, I got creative. I popped open the laptop--the one she's obsessed with minus the Control Key that she stole 3 weeks ago--and found giggling baby videos on YouTube®. She LOVED them!!! Definitely try this "cheer-'em-up" trick with your kiddos.

While playing around online, I found a cute video of a kid her age who could point to the various parts of his body after being asked where are your eyes? where are your ears?, etc. So I thought, hey, this would be a great activity for me to do with my daughter! She knows many of these vocabulary words already, and the activity is tactile/kinesthetic and a great vocabulary builder.

I thought I'd start with the nose--bad idea! I asked her where it was, and she found it all right. She kept...uh...picking a winner, digging for gems, poking her brain. Yes, no matter what I asked (Where are your ears? Where are your eyes? Where's your head?), she just kept jamming her finger up her nostril and laughing hysterically. Hmm, I wonder if my little jokester is sticking her finger in babies' NOSES at day care, too?

I guess hands-on isn't always a good thing...

True Elementary Teacher Quiz

Anyone who is or has ever been a teacher has been there--had one of those weeks when you wonder if you're really cut out to be in your profession...

Monday, a parent leaves you a nasty voicemail. Tuesday, 3 kids puke all over your circle time rug. Wednesday, you witness a 15-minute shouting match between the fourth grade teachers. By Thursday, you're trying to remember what your Monster.com password is.

During downer days, try to find some humor in your life as a teacher. Whip out this quiz and have a chuckle. I've used it a lot when doing workshops with teachers, and it always puts everyone at ease!

***

Are You A TRUE Elementary School Teacher? Let's Find Out:

1. Do you ask guests if they remembered their scarves and mittens as they leave your home?

2. Do you move your dinner partner's glass away from the edge of the table?

3. Do you ask if anyone needs to go to the bathroom as you enter a theater with a group of friends?

4. Do you hand a tissue to anyone who sneezes?

5. Do you refer to happy hour as "snack time"?

6. Do you shout "no cuts!" if a shopper squeezes ahead of you at the checkout?

7. Do you say "I like the way you did that" to the mechanic who successfully repairs your car?

8. Do you ask "Are you sure you did your best?" to the mechanic who fails to repair your car to your satisfaction?

9. Do you sing the "Alphabet Song" to yourself as you look up a number in the phone book?

10. Do you say everything twice? I mean, do you repeat everything?

11. Do you fold your spouse's fingers over the coins as you hand him/her the money at a tollbooth?

12. Do you ask a quiet person at a party if he has something to share with the group?

* If you answered yes to 4 or more, it's in your soul--you are hooked on teaching.
* If you answered yes to 8 or more, well, maybe you should begin thinking about retirement.
* If you answered yes to all 12, forget it--you'll always be a teacher, retired or not!

--Anonymous

Nonpoisonous Elapsed Time Lesson

There's this math topic that most grades 3-5 teachers (at least) simply hate to teach. And, their students usually describe it much like they'd describe the Grinch: "a three-decker saurkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce"--NASTY POISON! It's yucky old elapsed time!

Elapsed time is one of those topics that is just hard to "get". It's one of the skills most likely to stump students on standardized math tests (along with number & operations fact fluency, measurement, estimation, and fractions). And while there's no way we can make elapsed time as easy as basic addition, there are steps we teachers can take to make it easier to understand.


First, we need to be proactive and attack the topic of elapsed time head on. We already know from experience that this topic will trip up kids. So, let's keep it on our teacher minds all the time. This means not only planning big lessons on it, but integrating small elapsed time learning opportunities (mini & "tiny" lessons) into our plans.

One of the strategies I've always found effective is to first relate elapsed time to a child's everyday life. Kids sometimes need to see it from the practical point of view in order to comprehend this abstract concept. This full lesson that I've used in the past incorporates literature, writing, art, and math word problems. It can be taught in its entirety or broken up into mini lessons as you see fit.

Capture the kids' attention by using literature to introduce elapsed time. I like Telling Time with Big Mama Cat by Dan Harper for this purpose. This book written for ages 5-8 has a much lower reading level than for most third through fifth graders. But, I've used it anyway because the simple text makes the content easier to swallow (gulp) for kids at many levels and makes them more comfortable with the intimidating topic of elapsed time.

The book follows a day in a cat's life hour by hour (lots of naps, no doubt). After reading the story, explain that elapsed time is the time it takes Mama Cat to do something. For example, if she eats between 9 and 10 a.m., the elapsed time is one hour. (BTW, that's a S-L-O-W kitty. My dogs never lollygag like this when it comes to eating!)

Next, students can do a personalized activity that integrates math and writing to develop higher- order thinking skills. Have each child write the story of his or her day. Ask students to include start and end times when writing about different events and illustrate the times on the clock. Each page can cover a different task such as “I ate lunch from 12 to 1 p.m. We had pizza, my favorite.” Then, the student can draw himself eating pizza in the cafeteria and include a clock in the illustration with a (hopefully) correct time drawn on it.

The next day, students can revisit their books, write the elapsed time for each section, and check their work in pairs. Later, have groups of students work on elapsed time word problems. Once they can successfully solve these problems, they can write their own, and trade with a partner to solve them.

For reinforcement, I also periodically rotated hands-on activities/materials through my math centers:

• Elapsed time board games--the Race Around the Clock™ skateboarding one is WAY cool!


• Dice--for quick calculation quizzes, students can use Time Dice to roll a start and end time and then calculate the elapsed time.


• Timelines--provide students with a horizontal visual representation that allows them to easily manipulate start and end times and count elapsed time forwards and backwards.


• Clocks (duh)--but not your plain old versions. Mix it up with more unique clock formats.
  
• Time Tracker™ Timers--some specialized timers help kids develop a good sense of what a specific length of time feels like.