Best of 2014- All About Me Books
I get asked all the time what I do in the classroom. It’s under common assumption that I am a babysitter and I just keep kids happy. NO, they learn. They progress at their own pace and we are constantly working towards becoming independent citizens. But often times- when we get those low kiddo’s that need extra help people assume that these students are the exception. That there is NO way this kid can learn. Here is one example of what I do with these low kiddo’s to help them become independent. I find it important that each kid leave my class knowing their personal information: their name, age, birthday, looks, phone number, address and school info.
One of the biggest goals I have for my students is to know their personal information: name, birthday, age, phone number, address, school info. I struggled with this for the past year, I felt like I was not helping my students succeed. I tried all sorts of different games and strategies, but nothing was sticking. With that said, I decided to try to create my own method, INTERACTIVE BOOKS!
I bought three ring binders and set up a binder for each student. I created a template using boardmaker so that I could easily print one out for new students. Every binder is customized with their own information.
The first page has their name, age and birthday.
The second page has gender, hair color and eye color.
The third page is their phone number.
The fourth page is their address.
The fifth page is school information.
Every book is customized for each student. Only my high performing student’s have each page of the booklet, while some only have the first page at this time. I also vary on how many pieces they choose from on each page. For some students, they have only the correct choices to choose from, while the higher students have a variety. For some students who are just learning their phone number and address, I wrote the numbers with dry erase marker so that they can start by matching the pieces to their book pages. These books are so easy to adapt to every learner, and they are great to keep students engaged. I like using interactive books because these books allow students to “see” the end to their task.
My student’s have learned how to use adapted books in our classroom. They are learning to treat the pieces with care, and to keep all the pieces together. While this will always be a learning process, I can say that I am no longer getting a headache every time I pull these out! We do these as a whole class during Morning Meeting. Student’s sit in their desks and work on their book on their own. Staff members are constantly walking around and prompting/helping those in need. Once finished, they raise their hand so that a staff can check their answers. I have been using these for a few month, and I am excited to say that I have seen tremendous progress already!
You can purchase these books in my STORE.
