IT'S ABOUT TIME, TEACHERS, for SPIRALED CURRICULA - Critical Thinking

In 1960, Jerome Bruner advanced the theory of The Spiral Curriculum. His hypothesis was that "any subject can be taught in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development*." The key tenets of his theory are:

1. "The student revisits a topic, theme, or subject several times throughout their school career;

2. The complexity of the topic or theme increases with each revisit;

3. New learning has a relationship with old learning and is put in context with the old information."*

*https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED538282

In this modern era of instant information, with or without citation, I firmly believe our learners must become critical thinkers. So, in accord with Bruner's theory, I have created bundles of products that provide ample material for spiraled learning of higher order thinking skills. Even kindergarteners can exercise these skills.

A perennial favorite with my students is HINK PINKS, et al. These word riddles help children learn to problem solve, analyze, and create while exercising vocabulary skills (definitions, synonyms, parts of speech, rimes, syllables, ...).

SQUARE PUZZLERS are wildly popular in my classes. Like Scrambled Squares(TM), these differentiated, logic puzzles must be reconstructed so the images match on every interior side. They exercise critical thinking and problem solving, build perseverance and stamina, and stimulate the brain while disguising it all as fun!

TRIADS are fun-filled vocabulary developers that engage pupils' critical thinking while exercising the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy - analysis, evaluation, and creation. At the same time, your students will be forming word relationships.

ONE DOLLAR WORDS provide a lot of bang for the buck! Learners work on vocabulary development, computation/calculator skills, traditional and/or internet research, and grammar, while exercising critical thinking. Moreover, these products provide a wonderful extension to Rob Buyea's book series about Mr. Terupt.

With STORY SLEUTHS, students will enjoy great literature, learn about artistic media, and participate in collaborative thinking. The IDIOMS bundle provides frequent and enduring practice with vocabulary, figurative language, and critical thinking. The bundle of PUN TASK CARDS will provide lots of humor as your pupils learn about these literary devices.

I've spent the time creating these products to provide frequent and enduring practice with critical thinking for my learners. Save your precious time by sharing them with your students. As always, bundles from my store save you 30%.

IT'S ABOUT TIME, TEACHERS, for SPIRALED CURRICULA in MATH

 

As I described in my previous post, I am a strong proponent of Bruner's Spiraled Curricula.  The beauty of this practice is that prior learning is activated, the complexity of the learning is increased, and new learning occurs in direct relationship to the older information.

One of the chief means I use to spiral and revisit learning is learning centers. When students can independently complete hands-on, multisensory activities, they will be well on their way to mastery.

However, creating and instituting learning centers is time consuming.  Since my focus is It's About Time, Teachers!, I've taken the time to create scores of learning centers for you. Thus, you may be interested in these bundles that can save your time:  

Computation needs practice over time. But, an endless stream of worksheets is boring. Give your learners fun practice with COMPUTATION RIDDLES TASK CARDS. Each product requires the solutions to basic computation problems in order to solve the riddles. These units can be used in the traditional task card manner, as math journal prompts, or you can post the cards around the room. This allows children to traverse the space as they complete Riddles Around the Room.

Take a peek at the bundle:

You can provide frequent and enduring practice with these 8 TANGRAM units.  Learners will practice their knowledge of geometric shapes, critical thinking, and problem solving.

Here's a preview:

Graphing and data collection require enduring practice.  Here's a bundle of products to provide that:

Each product is differentiated into 3 skill levels. 

Here's a preview of the FREE version, Sneakers Spin-Tally-Graph:

One of my favorite math centers is How Many Ways? This activity challenges students to find multiple equations that lead to a target number. (Think Boogle(TM) for numbers.)

You, the teacher, can determine which operations are appropriate to your class.  This center is excellent for enrichment and challenging fast finishers.  Better yet, it fills a bulletin board and requires almost NO effort from you once it's up. The Back to School version is FREE!  Check it out:

Another bundle that challenges flexibility, fluency, and problem solving is the Latin Square Bundle.

These brain teasing puzzles are square arrays that must be filled in the style of Sudoku.  The challenges range from 3x3 arrays to 7x7 arrays.  This video provides more insight:

All of the Latin Squares math centers are also available digitally on TPT Easel.

VOCABULARY FRACTIONS are packed with learning. The challenge is to create terminology related to the theme using fractional parts of words.  The activity gradually increases in difficulty.  Try this FREEBIE from the Forest Friends theme:

This product is part of the Forest Friends Edition bundle.

VOCABULARY FRACTIONS are so popular with my classes that I've created dozens of them.  Most are bundled; some are not.

All VOCABULARY FRACTIONS are offered in print and digital form.

As always, bundles from my store save you 30%.

Still to come, spiraled curricula for critical thinking.

IT'S ABOUT TIME, TEACHERS, for SPIRALED LANGUAGE ARTS CURRICULA!

Way back in 1960, Jerome Bruner advanced the theory of The Spiral Curriculum. His hypothesis was that "any subject can be taught in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development*." The key tenets of his theory are:

1. "The student revisits a topic, theme, or subject several times throughout their school career;

2. The complexity of the topic or theme increases with each revisit;

3. New learning has a relationship with old learning and is put in context with the old information."* 

As a proponent of his theory, I believe that a spiraled curriculum improves student performance on tests, and more importantly, in life.  Any experienced teacher or parent will readily agree that students can lose 2-3 months of academic skills over the summer. Indeed, the first 6-8 weeks of a new school term are spent reviewing (a.k.a. relearning) the skills taught in the previous grade. The same could be true of curricula introduced, practiced, and then considered "mastered" during the academic year; especially in this era of outcome driven instruction. I believe that young learners simply need frequent, repeated practice with the skills they are acquiring.

Bruner postulates that employing a spiraled curriculum creates these benefits:

1. "The information is reinforced and solidified each time the student revisits the subject matter; 

2. The spiral curriculum also allows a logical progression from simplistic ideas to complicated ideas; 

3. Students are encouraged to apply the early knowledge to later course objectives."*                                                                                                                                             *https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED538282

So how do you employ a spiraled curriculum in elementary education, especially in an era where textbooks are often eschewed in favor of authentic learning? Quite often we employ hands-on, multisensory, learning centers. These centers are a rung on the ladder toward project based learning, which, in turn is the next rung to authentic learning.

Learning centers are wildly popular in elementary schools. Planning for these centers can be labor intensive and oh, so time consuming.  Add on the intention to include a spiraling curriculum, and - phew! - IT'S ABOUT TIME, TEACHERS!  Your time and energy are precious and limited.  So, please, allow me to help.  

I have bundled learning centers that focus on the same skill. A bundle of compound words centers, for instance, will afford you the opportunity to give your students multisensory practice with a skill that is spiraled throughout the year.  Compound words can be linked to holidays, thematic units, content language, and simple skill reinforcement.

Take a peek:

Each product in this bundle is offered in print and digitally on TPT Easel.  Nine products provide a review for each month of the academic year.

Sight word practice certainly merits repeated experience. 

The resources in this bundle provide seasonal themes to captivate your learners.

Syllabication is addressed at every elementary level of the CCSS.  To that end, I invite you to try: 

Several of these products are offered digitally on TPT Easel, as well as in print.

Phonics skills are an obvious area deserving spiraled review:

All of these resources are also available on TPT Easel.

Give your learners continuing practice with antonyms, synonyms, and homophones with this grammar bundle:

Included are hands-on literacy centers and digital learning activities.

Check back soon for more spiraled curricula bundles.  Coming up are math resources and critical thinking activities.

IT'S ABOUT TIME, TEACHERS, for ANCHOR ACTIVITIES!

It's about time, teachers, for ANCHOR ACTIVITIES! Also known as warm ups or bell ringers, once you implement anchor activities in your classroom, you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

Like many educators, I use these activities to engage students upon entering the classroom, thereby settling them while I attend to other tasks. My students are also trained to turn to the anchor activities when they finish ahead of the other students or while waiting for individual help from the instructor. This is why I prefer to call them anchor activities.

Having anchor activities in place gives learners meaningful engagement during transitional or awkward interludes. They provide opportunities to practice multidisciplinary skills. My goal is to challenge my learners without adding to MY workload. Thus, I have created an entire year's worth of brain stimulating pursuits. They are all digital and thus, require no preparation. Designed for upper elementary and middle school students, the tasks are intriguing and entertaining. Learners WANT to do them!

You are invited to try them before you buy them with this FREE set:

Once you fall in love with them, as I'm certain you will, there are 2 sets available in my store:

IT'S ABOUT TIME to SNEAK INTO A NEW SCHOOL YEAR!

 

Sneak into the new school year with these resources, guaranteed to save you time!

First, a FREEBIE...

This ALL ABOUT ME poster will give you a SNEAK PEEK into your new students. By completing and sharing the posters, your learners will get to know each other and conquer some of those first day jitters. Once finished, the posters make an easy and colorful bulleting board display. You may enjoy creating a thematic first day; a SNEAKER DAY. This product will guide you through one sole-full day of sneaker activities.

After you enjoy all of this sneaker fun, extend the learning to all things pertaining to shoes, socks, and feet.

Buy the bundle and save 30%!