Recommendation wanted

Hello, I  hope you had a great day. Mine was very tiring, but I believe tomorrow will be better!!
I taught my son adjectives, nouns and verbs individually, which he has already grasped the meaning. However, he is struggling to differentiate these concepts when put together in a sentence. He is able to recognize the difference between a noun and adjective, but struggles between noun and verb. Today, I gave him an exercise with the three concepts together to visualize the difference and highlight them in different colors. In addition, I designed posters with the meaning of each concept and examples. This morning, we revised them and hung them on our wall.

I know there are many of you that have (or had) children that struggle(d) with these concepts. Hence I would like to ask if any of you can help me, help my son. Any suggestion, opinion, or tips are welcome. I downloaded a few activities on TPT, but if you would recommend any additional activities I may use and are effective, I would appreciate your help.

I believe that we are all here to help each other grow as teachers, but mainly to be educators that care about their student's development, and help them understanding these difficult subjects. 

I thank you in advance for your help. Looking forward to hearing from you. Thanks :)).

Fabiana

Parts of Speech Poster

Hello everyone :))!!!! Hope you had a wonderful holidays. I certainly enjoyed mine :))!!!

I created part of speech posters to help my son describe the meaning, and identify the difference between adjectives, verbs, nouns and pronouns. Each poster has meaningful pictures.

The posters are available for free on TPT, follow the link please to download your copy.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Parts-of-Speech-Posters-Verbs-Adjective-Noun-and-Pronoun

 

 

Hope this will be helpful for you. Thanks!!

 
Fabiana

Happy Thanksgiving

Hello everyone, Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!!

I am quite excited to celebrate my first Thanksgiving today. With this being the time to say thanks, I would like to thank God for all the blessings he has poured into my family every day. My husband and my son are the most precious things in my life and I most thankful for having them. They are the reason for me to wake up each morning. We also have been blessed with another baby to complement and bring even more joy and happiness to our family. We are very excited to meet our new baby in June 2013. God definitely loves me so much to beget a gift to me of these wonderful people!!!!

I am also thankful for my blog and all the people that take the time to read it and follow my work. When I started my blog in the middle of the year, I thought of it as writing a journal and sharing the things I was teaching my son. In addition to keeping a catalog of what people were doing, as a source of collective inspiration. There are so many amazing teachers that I follow, and every day I receive updates of the projects they are doing which are simply fantastic.  I learnt so much and I am still learning, and I love the idea to share all these great things with you!!! My blog is still a baby, but it is growing bit by bit every day into something great.

I enjoy writing on my blog and teaching very much. THANK YOU for your comments, opinions, time and support. You are all helping me to become a better teacher!!!!

Hope you have a wonderful time with your family today :))) !!!!!
Fabiana

TPT

Hello everyone :))!!!! Hope you had a terrific weekend.

Have you looked at my store on TPT? I have many free activities available as well as a few to be purchased for a very good price. If you are interested, you may also follow me and always receive messages informing you about my new products. I would very much appreciate it :), thanks!!!!!

The link below is to access my TPT store:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Fabiana-Carter


Below are a few examples of materials available at my store:

Opposites Flashcards: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Animals-opposite-flashcards

Telling the Time: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Telling-the-time-half-hour

Weather Assessment: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Weather-Assessment

 

Grammar Assessment:http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Grammar-Assessment-proper-and-common-noun-adjectives-and-plural-nouns

 

Types of Measurement Instruments: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Types-of-Measurement-Instruments

Types of Government: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Types-of-Government

Thanks for your time :))!!!

Fabiana

 

Thanksgiving

This is my first year in USA, and my first Thanksgiving celebration. I am quite excited about the festivities and all the delicious traditional food is going to be prepared for the Thanksgiving feast. I am also trying to learn everything I can to be able to understand the meaning of this celebration, which is very much enjoyed by the Americans.

As I am teaching my son about Thanksgiving, I am also learning. My son loves reading and throughout this week, we read three books about Thanksgiving: Celebrate Thanksgiving with Turkey, Family and Counting Blessings by National Geographic; Thanksgiving Day - A Time to Be Thankful by Elaine Landau; Thanksgiving Is by Gail Gibbons. These books are excellent resources to learn the history of Thanksgiving, they are very informative, attractive illustrations, and easy reading.

Furthermore we made a Pilgrims hat, which I took the model and instructions from Fun Family Crafts -http://funfamilycrafts.com/pilgrims-hat/

My son also worked with syllables, patterns, sight words coloring pages, and ABC order. All these great materials were available for free on TPT. The links below are the ones that direct you to each activity my son did today.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Thanksgiving-Clap-the-Syllables

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Thanksgiving-Patterns-Cut-Paste

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Thanksgiving-Turkey-Sight-Word-Coloring-Page

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Thanksgiving-Color-by-Word

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Thanksgiving-ABC-Order-Fun


In addition to the exercises, we played a fantastic game with sight words. My son loved it, and had a lot of fun reading the words. The following link is the direct access to the game.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/3-Leveled-Thanksgiving-Dolch-Sight-Word-Games


Moreover, we made an Indian, Turkey and Pilgrim craft from toilet paper. The idea was taken from the DLTK Growing Together website - http://www.dltk-holidays.com/thanksgiving/crafts.html

We made the feathers of the turkey from construction paper. I asked my son to name six things he is grateful for, and then write each one of it on each feather.
Things that he said he is grateful for:
-His studies;
-Pilgrims and Indians;
-Food;
-Our house;
-His dad's work;
-For us, our Family, and the dog and cat.

I was very proud of my son for his list, and wonderful heart :)))!!! Such an amazing boy!!!!!

Hope you have a great weekend. Thanks :)).

Fabiana

Word Recognition

Word recognition is part of our daily routine, as I asked my son to read our word wall everyday.  The reason behind, it is to help him recognizing the words, as well as facilitating his reading and writing.

As I wanted to work more on word recognition, I also downloaded a set of three games from TPT.  The games are called 3 leveled thanksgiving dolch sight word games. The set included 3 sight word games: Hats Off to Sight Words - Pre-Primer Level Words;  Pumpkin Sight Word Game - Primer Level Words; Gobble, Gobble, Sight Word Game - 1st Grade Level Words. Each sight word game includes blank templates so you can add additional words that your students are working on.

My son loved the games, we had a blast playing with it today. Brilliant games and very well designed; resulting the kids to learn and having fun at the same time. I highly recommend you to download these games. The link below is for you to access the download page.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/3-Leveled-Thanksgiving-Dolch-Sight-Word-Games

Hope this post was helpful for you :). Thanks.

Fabiana

Singapore Math

Firstly, as it is Veteran's Day, I would like to thank all the Veterans for their hard work, love for their nation and people, and loyalty.

Secondly, I would like to make a recommendation for those who are homeschooling and are looking for a mathematics book/curriculum. I have been working with Singapore Math for a while and it is being GREAT!!!! I ordered the textbook and workbook, as well as the teacher's guide and an assessment book. The workbook correlates directly to the textbook so that student consolidates new mathematical concepts with focused practice. The teacher's guide is very helpful as it provides step-by-step lesson plans to facilitate and guide teachers and parents in the use of their Concrete> Pictorial>Abstract and modeling approaches. In this approach the students are provided with the necessary learning experiences beginning with the concrete and pictorial stages, followed by the abstract stage to enable them to learn mathematics meaningfully. This approach encourages active thinking process, communication of mathematical ideas and problem solving. The books emphasize mental math and the model drawing approach.

The books are challenging, and has a lot of exercises that promote "thinking" and makes the children to learn maths in a meaningful way. Children may not be able to do all the exercises by themselves though, parents may need to assist and guide them throughout the lessons.

My son has improved a lot since we started using the Singapore Math books. He is learning problem solving,  understanding how mathematics work, and developing his thinking process skills. As well as creating imaginary scenarios to solve a problems, coupled with opening his mind to develop new possibilities.

Hope this was helpful. Thanks :).

Fabiana

Water-Wheel

This morning my son had his weather assessment, which I designed and posted on October 29th. This assessment is also available on TPT:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Weather-Assessment

Below are examples of some of the pages contained in the assessment.

In the afternoon my son asked to do a science project. We have a book called Physics - Hands-on Science Projects, and he decided do a water vane.

Materials:

-large plastic bottle
-scissors
-wire or cut out the bottom of a hunger
-cork
-string
small weight
-water

Instructions:

1st step: Cut the top third off the plastic bottle. Cut a small role in the bottom piece near the base (this is to let the water out). Cut a V-shape on each side of the rim (I suggest an adult to do the cutting).

2nd step: Push the wire through the center of the cork to make an axle (again I suggest an adult to do this part).

3rd step: From the top third of the plastic bottle, cut six small curved vanes (blades) (I suggest an adult to do this).

4th step: Cut six slots in the cork with a craft knife (I suggest an adult to do this). Push the plastic vanes into the slots to make the water wheel.

5th step: Rest the wheel's axle in the V-shape slots. Tie a piece of the string toward one end of the axle, and tie a small weight to the end of the string. The first time we tried, we used a eraser, but it was to heavy and it didn't work. Hence, I recommend you use a pencil.

 6th step: Put the water wheel under a plate or towel, and pour water onto the wheel, so that it hits the upward-curving vanes. As the wheel turns, the weight lifts. The video below shows how the water-wheel works.

After we tried this experiment a few times I asked him questions about the functioning of the water-wheel: - Why do you think pouring the water on the vane made the pencil lift? What do you think causes the wheel to move? Furthermore, I asked him to pour water from different heights to see if it would make a difference to the wheel's speed.

Moreover, I explained to him that this experiment shows us how to make a water wheel capture the energy in the falling water to lift a small weight. The energy generated from the water wheel can be enough to meet all the power needs of a small community.

This experience was super cool :), my son did it approximately 20 times :))), he loved it very much!!!!

Hope you enjoyed our post today. Have a nice weekend :). Thanks.

Fabiana

Magnet Racing

Our day started very well today. In the morning my son had his grammar assessment, which I posted on November 7th, and he was excellent :)). It was a delightful result!!!! In the afternoon we did a science project with magnets. It was a fun experience that my son enjoyed very much. He was pretty surprised with the way the magnets work. He was very pleased we made a racing car so he could enjoy playing with it afterwards :).


Materials:

-glue
-two small magnets (in case you want to have more than one player)
-two 12 inches ruler (again, in case you want to have more than one player)
-pieces of construction paper
-stickers
-large sheet of stiff cardboard
-newspaper
-paint
-paint brush


Instructions:

1st step:  Draw the shapes of the racing cars on construction paper. You can make the wheels a different color, and make the look you like :). Cut the racing cars with scissors. Decorate the cars with stickers, or glitter to make up your own racing car.

2nd step: Glue a steel paper clip to the underside of each racing car. Glue a magnet to the end of the ruler (or use a scotch tape like me). Let the glue dry while you draw the racing car track.

3rd step: Cover the table with newspaper. Sketch the racing car track.

4th step: Paint the racing track yellow with a red line in the middle, and paint green the landscape. Let it dry.

5th step: Decorate the racing track and landscape with the things you desire.

6th step: You can put the track on two books, so it is raised all around the edges. Place the racing cars on the start line. Push the ruler underneath, so the magnet faces upward and attracts the paper clip on the base of your car. Move the ruler slowly, so the magnet drags the paper clip and car along.

 My husband was very happy to play the game with my son too :). The video below is them playing with racing car together :)).

 

This experiment was easy and fun to design. My son liked it very much and enjoyed playing with it, as well as learning how the magnets work. It is a brilliant educational idea to make with your kids, which they will appreciate very much :).

Thanks :)).

Fabiana

 

Grammar Assessment

I designed a grammar assessment to evaluate my son's knowledge of differentiate between proper and common noun, adjective and noun, as well as his understanding of using the nouns in the plural form.

This assessment is composed of six exercises:
-The first exercise the child has to give examples of proper and common noun for: people, place, thing and animal.
-The second exercise is a set of questions and the child has to circle the proper noun.
-The third exercise is a set of questions where the student has to circle the noun and underline the adjective.
-The fourth exercise is a list of words where the learner has to write the plural form of the given nouns.
-The fifth exercise is a multiple choice drill to choose between common and proper noun.
-The sixth exercise the child has to draw a picture of his family and then write a description about them.

These exercises are aligned with the Illinois Common Core Standard.

This material is available on TPT. To purchase your copy just click on the following link please:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Grammar-Assessment-proper-and-common-noun-adjectives-and-plural-nouns





I would love to receive a rating or opinion about this material.

Thanks:)
 Fabiana

The pics below are sample of the material.

Chicago History/Pedway Tour

Today was an exceptional day :))!!! My family and a couple friends, who are amazing people, went to the "Chicago History/Pedway (Pedestrian Tour) Tour". We spent 2  and half hours on this tour, which was a 40-block tour of indoor tunnels, ground-level concourses and overhead bridges connecting skyscrapers, retail stores, hotels and train stations throughout Chicago's central business district. 

Our tour guide was a charming gentleman, very enthusiastic, who told us fascinating stories of the city's history and amazing architecture. We visited the Cultural Cultural Center ( The People's Palace) with it's Tiffany art glass dome, Macy's Department Store, City Hall, the Hyatt, Swissotel, Aqua Building, Fairmont, Thompson Center, and many more. Our guide also taught us about "Chicago trivia" and interesting facts to learn about this beautiful city. He offered prizes for the winner of our Chicago trivia contest and also gave gift cards away for the right answers. The tour was mainly inside which is definitely a plus during windy freezing cold or rainy weather. 

My 5 year old son behaved like a real gentleman and mannered boy. He paid attention to the guide's information, admired the architecture of the buildings, and he was even the guide's helper for the day. I am very proud of him :))!!! 

I love days likes this where we learn history through seeing life. It was a life experience for my son and he will always remember this occasion.  I highly recommend this tour :)!

 Thanks!!
Fabiana

Possessive Noun

Today was a very productive day. We went to the library to borrow a few books, which is always fun. We also worked really hard on dictation.

Furthermore, I taught possessive noun to my son. I downloaded a pack from TPT, which was brilliant, it had a game that my son really enjoyed. He begged me to play the game twice :)). This pack is free and worth downloading, I highly recommend -
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Possessive-Nouns-pack

In addition to the possessive nouns, I also taught plural nouns. I downloaded posters on TPT, which I found very useful and easy for my son to understand.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Plural-Nouns-s-or-es-poster

 

To practice plural nouns, my son wrote on his notebook the singular and plural form of a few words I dictated.

Hope you have a great day tomorrow. Thanks :))).

Fabiana