Kagan Cooperative Learning

This summer I went to a Kagan Workshop and loved it. I learned a lot that I can add to my Whole Brain Toolbox. I started Whole brain about 4 years ago and really haven't had any behavior problems since. I do a lot of praying though. :) I really do feel blessed because I have loved all my students and never have had a year I regret. So back to Kagan...my principal asked myself and another teacher to give a little PD on this during preplanning. YIKES! So we busted our butts to make sure we knew a lot about Dr. Kagan Spencer and his structures. We were given an hour to unpack the basics and show off the great structures he has created. We had 4 sessions and they all went great, I thought! I hope the teachers and staff saw the benefit of cooperative learning and the difference from just "group work". One student usually gets stuck with the work while with Kagan it is all about PIES!

P - Positive interdependence
I - Individual accountibility
E - Equal participation
S - Simultaneous interaction

I did those from memory! My partner was absolutely wonderful and she helped me so much as I did the structures with the teachers. She is a Kagan pro now! We even did some Brain Breaks during our session and I snapped a few pictures. Even some grumps were smiling as we did Mirror Mirror!

One person is "it" the other is the mirror

I think the Backstreet Boys were on as we danced!

What great sports!

So overall a great success for us presenting some very new material. I am super excited about doing Kagan with my class this year. I also am dipping into Differentiated Instruction and hopefully will be apart of a Professional Learning Community at my school to help me out.

Some housekeeping news: I found out that I will have the ESE kids this year and am really excited. I love this group because they are so diverse! Perfect for my professional goals this year. Besides that we have a great ESE team at our school. I know that I will have lots of support. :)

My classroom is just waiting on some lamination that Ms. Bunny is going to do hopefully tomorrow!

This lady does it all!

Some of you may be wondering about my die cutting adventure. I went back to that machine and made peace. I apologized for doing anything to hurt its feelings and asked it to please cut my stuff with a funky font. It accepted and now I am left with these lovely words:

Here is the machine that worked perfectly today!

For my twitter exit ticket door :)

So all worked out well! Now just to put it all together.

Another fun surprise was from my hubby for my bird themed classroom! He got these for me at Ikea!

I am not sure you can read it but it says, "Put a Bird On it!" Portlandia reference for all those people! Thanks to each one of my friends who came out and helped. You guys are awesome!

Tomorrow I am determined to do the rest of my pinterest ideas! :) So many....

Tiff

Half Way There!

So I am in the midst of decorating my classroom and I am pleased so far. My co-teacher and I are doing a fatty bird theme- kinda like that fat twitter bird? Yeah, we are having a twitter exit ticket wall. Thank you Pinterest! So after cleaning my room from all the cockroaches and cockroach poo. Yea, nasty but just a part of life. Our main bulletin boards have a huge tree with branches reaching out over the edge of the board. And that looked cool. But then we decided to make it 3-D by scrunching our butcher paper up and gluing it on top of the tree! This was a great idea! Noris (my amazing co-teacher) scrunched two humongous trees and made our bulletin boards absolutely "Twitterific!" The birds that Ashely helped me make at the Pinterest Party are up and looking adorable. Check out our board so far!

Slight change - the apples got thrown out for bark border! Yay!

Now for the bad news. Like many schools we have lots and lots of die cuts and it takes FOREVER to cut out a simple phrase. So last year our principal order a laser cutter that will cut out letters, numbers, and symbols. I used it all last year and had great success. Big time saver. So this year I padded in my fuzzy slippers (shhhhh don't tell!) to the media center with my paper in tow. Started that baby up and put the paper in flat and smooth. I type in my words and press GO. I hear it cutting and humming and happily turn around to tear some butcher paper for my boards. Then I hear it. Crunching and ripping. The tiny little laser knife thingy is ripping and tearing my paper up! I run over and frantically press stop twice. I remove the paper and think "it must not have been smooth enough and the laser thingy snagged it. So I reset and try it again. And again. And again and yes 5 more times. Failure. I was so aggravated. I did not want to die cut all those letters! I do not have time. I do not want to do it! So what is a girl to do? I want the cool fonts and not old nasty block letters!

Ok. My tantrum is over. So the question is should I use the block letters from the die cuts, hand write out my phrase and then cut, or print out the phrase and then cut?

Lemme know your thoughts on my problem!