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April 2009
Vol 6 No 4
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Teachers.Net Gazette Vol.6 No.4 April 2009

Cover Story by Alfie Kohn
When “21st-Century Schooling” Just Isn’t Good Enough: A Modest Proposal
Are we serious about educating students for the global competitive economy of the future?


Earth Day Special Article:
GE Project Plant-A-Bulb
Give the planet the gift of flowers for Earth Day....


Harry & Rosemary Wong: Effective Teaching
The Tools for Success


Columns
»Actively Involve Every Reader—Ten Easy Ideas! Sue Gruber
»Motivating Children Leah Davies
»Multiple Working Hypotheses Todd R. Nelson
»Eliciting vs. Punishments Marvin Marshall
»The Busy Educator's Monthly Five Marjan Glavac
»Tattle Tales and Classroom Helpers Barbara Pressman
»Tips for Travel to France or Italy with Students Josette Bonafino
»Too Much Parent Involvement? Can It Be? Dorothy Rich
»Return to Sender & The Neon Necklace Rick Morris
»Be Your Own Mentor: Reflect Hal Portner

Articles
»Getting Your Students' Work Published Alan Haskvitz
»At Risk Students: Victims of Miseducation and Failure Bill Page
»Teachers – Healing Broken Lives Graysen Walles
»Get Smart! Doodle! Tim Newlin
»A Dozen Ways to Build a Caring Classroom Community Susan Fitzell
»April 2009 Writing Prompts James Wayne
»Using Photographs To Inspire Writing VI Hank Kellner
»Quality in School Systems Panamalai R. Guruprasad
»Problems With 9th Grade Euclidian Geometry Stewart E. Brekke
»Multisensory/Kinesthetic Alphabet ActivitiesJeanine Horner

Features
»Apple Seeds: Inspiring Quotes Barb Stutesman
»Today Is... Daily Commemoration Ron Victoria
»The Lighter Side of Teaching
»Teacher Blogs Showcase
»Guided Reading in Kindergarten (printable)
»Printables - Happy Earth Day, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, We’ve Got the Whole World in Our Hands, Portable Word Wall, Earth Day Every Day Award, Bringing Choices to Light, and April - May Calendar
»Photo Tour: 3rd Grade Classroom, Red Creek, NY
»Lessons, Activities, Theme ideas: Earth Day, Mother’s Day, Paul Revere, Spring, Easter, more!
»Featured Lesson: Outdoor Activities/Nature
»Meet Bill Martin Jr. and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Creative Quotes from Shakespeare, Massive Ant Colony Uncovered! AMAZING science!, Tim Hawkins - Cletus Take the Reel, Lovefield, and Dolphin Bubbles: An Amazing Behavior
»Live on Teachers.Net: April 2009
»Newsdesk: Events & Opportunities for Teachers
»Wisdom for the pain? Why Did You Do It? Why Pursue National Board Certification?


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Cover Story by Alfie Kohn

Effective Teaching by Harry & Rosemary Wong

Contributors this month: Alfie Kohn, Graysen Walles, Hal Portner, Sue Gruber, Leah Davies, Todd R. Nelson, Marvin Marshall, Marjan Glavac, Barbara Pressman, Josette Bonafino, Rick Morris, Bill Page, Tim Newlin, Susan Fitzell, Alan Haskvitz, James Wayne, Hank Kellner, Dorothy Rich, Barb Stutesman, Ron Victoria, Stewart E. Brekke, Panamalai R. Guruprasad, Jeanine Horner, Marie Smith, Carol Goodrow, Jennifer Goldstein, and YENDOR.

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Jeanine Horner

Archive | Biography | Resources | Discussion

Multisensory/Kinesthetic Alphabet Activities
A to Z ideas for helping young children learn letters and letter sounds
by Jeanine Horner
New contributor to the Gazette
April 1, 2009

A
  • Child finds A’s in Alphabits Cereal. He can use the A’s he’s found and glue them onto a pre-traced A.
  • Use Applejacks, and glue onto a pre-traced A.
  • Have the child try arranging the cereal pieces to copy an A without the tracing.
  • Of course, child can eat some when he’s done.

B

  • Write a bunch of Bb’s on the Blacktop and some letters that are not B and student must bounce a ball on each Bb and name letter while doing it.
  • Make a B with the wooden unit Blocks. Have a pattern of rectangle and curved blocks traced out onto a large piece of bulletin board paper. He finds the right blocks and fills in the B just like a puzzle.
  • Child makes own Bb out of wooden blocks without pattern.
  • Paint Black Bb’s on light blue paper.
  • Have a bunch of Boxes and put Bb on most of them and another letter on other boxes. Have student stand fairly close to the boxes and throw a ball into the boxes with a Bb on them.
  • Glue Black Beans on a pre-written Bb written on Blue or Brown paper.

C

  • Bite Cookies into C shapes, I use the ring shaped cookies (a circle with a hole in the middle like a donut), they’re easier then the solid circle shapes to make into c.
  • Make a c with Candy Corn (or other candy) and glue them onto a pre-written c.
  • Eat some Candy and Cookies.

D

  • Dig for Dd’s in the Dirt. Put only Dd’s in the dirt (I use our Ellison di-cutting machine to cut out D’s with foam.)
  • Dig for Dd’s in the dirt putting mostly Dd’s in the dirt and a variety of other letters in the dirt. Have two Dishes (paper plates), one for Dd’s and one for other than Dd’s. Student sorts the letters into the appropriate dish as they are pulled out of the dirt.
  • Put some Dirt in a Dish and student uses finger to make Dd’s. Student can freeform the Dd’s or he could follow a pre-traced Dd on the dish.

E

  • Erase chalk Ee’s with chalk Erasers.
  • Erase chalk Ee’s by using his fingers to trace over Ee’s written in chalk.
  • Erase dry-erase-marker Ee’s on white board by tracing Ee’s with their fingers by tracing the letters.
  • Erase penciled Ee’s with pencil Erasers.

F

  • Use French Fries to form into F’s.
  • Use a Flashlight to trace a huge F (written in chalk on a chalkboard or on a piece of bulletin board paper hung on the wall will work).
  • Paint F with Fingers using Finger paint.
  • Find F around school (I have 26 pointers, paint sticks, each one has a capital foam letter glued at the tip that can be used for this type of activity.).

G

  • Put Green Glitter on one cookie sheet and Gold Glitter on another. Have child make Gg in the Glitter.
  • Put Glue on prewritten Gg’s on Green paper and sprinkled Gold or Green glitter on top.
  • Child could trace Gg’s with Glue and when dry, child could use the dried glue Gg’s and make crayon rubbings.

H

  • Hunt for Hh’s that are hiding in the school using the H pointer and dressed up as a Hunter with a Hat and binoculars. (You could just use toilet paper tubes taped together and hung on a string if you don’t have toy binoculars).
  • Have student glue paper Hh’s to an origami style paper hat that you have already made.
  • Write Hh’s on the sidewalk and/or black top and have him ride a stick horse to follow the H trail.
  • Use a clear plastic container that you get at the deli department with lid. Make sure it is the thicker kind of lid; some places have a thin lid. You may have to test this out to see if you have the right kind of lid. Make an H or h on the lid using a permanent marker. Put the lid on the container tightly then the child Hammers Holes into the H.

I

  • Using water colored with food coloring that was frozen into Ice cubes have the student trace I’s that were written onto paper. You could also just freeze the water in paper cups. If you have alphabet sand molds, you could freeze water in the I mold.
  • Use the colored Ice cube to trace a big sheet of paper cut into an Ii shape.
  • Eat ice-cream.
  • Make Ii in Ice cream using softened ice-cream, sort of like finger-painting. Child just makes I’s in his plate of ice-cream.
  • Have the child dress up as one of the “Incredibles” using a red t-shirt and a black construction paper “I” glued to his shirt (or written on shirt) with a mask and investigate the school for Ii’s.

J

  • Write a bunch of J’s on the blacktop and some that are not J’s and he has to Jump his way across the blacktop jumping only on the Jj’s.
  • Glue Jellybeans onto a pre-written J, eat a few at the end, and drink Juicy Juice.
Continued on next page »



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About Jeanine Horner...

Jeanine Horner says:

I’ve been teaching for 21 years and I’m still loving it!

I graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in Early Childhood Education and have spent the last 18 years teaching kindergarten. I teach at Guilford Elementary School in Howard County, Maryland. For my first 3 years at GES, I taught a select group of children in an extended day kindergarten program and have worked in our full day kindergarten program since it began in 2005.

I am married and have 2 wonderful children. In my spare time I enjoy spending time with my family, volunteering with various programs serving childhood cancer patients, and love surfing the Internet, visiting old favorites and seeking out new treasures.


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