Essential Questions and 100 days!

Hello! It is early February and I am back from Orlando from the ATIA conference! It was such a great experience and I had the opportunity to learn so much about the PODD (Pragmatic Organization Dynamic Display) for children with significant communication challenges. All I can say is...WOW! A whole different way of thinking and definitely worth the research. I am practicing with a borrowed PODD in my classroom and we are going to see how we can effectively implement this for language in the classroom. If anyone is interested in learning more or discussing the PODD, please email me :-) I would love to chat!

I thought I would have a quick post because recently my school has been working on the common core (in my case the extended common core) and our PLC's or TBT (so many acronyms now... PLC is Professional Learning Community and TBT is Team Based Teaching) and we were asked to post "essential questions" in our classroom so any outsider would easily be able to see what the students are working on in the classroom. It is also helpful for the students, if they understand, to see what they will be able to do at the end of a lesson/unit/year etc.

My students all have IEP's so it was more difficult for me to write the essential questions because each student is so different! So, I took the extended common core standards for each IEP objective (we already wrote our IEP's based on extended standards so this made it a little easier to do this step) and made it into a simple question. I have an entire document that is of course, cute as well as informative, but I thought I would post the meat of the information here in case you are struggling to incorporate the extended common core in the classroom like I have been this year. If you would like a copy of this document, you can email me and I can send it in pages format or a word document.

Here it is! I hope this helps some teachers!


Reading
RI-L.K2.1c How do I answer “who” questions?
RI-L.K2.3c Who are the characters or people in a story?
RI-L.K2.1c How do I answer “what” questions?
RI-L.K2.2c What are the events of a story?
RI-L.K2.7c How do I show you a picture or object that relate to a story?
RL.K2.6c What does the author do?
RL.K2.6c What does the illustrator do?
RI.K2.4c How do I match a word to a picture?
RI.K2.5c Where is the front and back of a book? Where is the title?
FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS!
RF.K2.1c How do I listen to a story?
RF.PC.K.d What are letters?
RF.K2.2c What are the sounds of letters?

Writing
W.K2.1c What is something I prefer or like?
W.K2.3c What is something I did?
W.K2.6c How do I use the keyboard or computer?

Speaking and listening
SL.K2.1c How do I listen to others and respond?
SL.K2.3c How can I ask for help?
SL.K2.4c and L.K2.3c How can I tell you about familiar things in my life?
L.K2.1b How do I tell you what I see? (describing and 2+ word combos)
L.K2.4b Can I sort into categories?
L.K2.5c Can I say words I know?

Math
CC.K2.1c Can I count to 10 using objects?
How can I make sets of a #1-5?
CC.K2.5c Can I count 5 objects?
NBT.K2.2c Can I count by 10’s to 50?
NBT.K2.2b Can I count by 10’s to 100?
MD.K2.2c Can I tell you which object is longer than the other?
MD.K2.4c Can I measure something?
MD.K2.7c Can I show you what happens in the morning and at night?
MD.K2.8c Can I match coins?
MD.K2.8c Can I identify a penny?
MD.K2.11c How do I make categories?
G.K2.1c What are squares, rectangles, circles and triangles?
G.K2.3b How do I put something above, below, beside, or next to something else?

Science
ESS.K2.1c What happens in daytime and what happens in the nighttime?
ESS.K2.2c How do I tell you different short-term weather conditions?
LS.K2.2c What are parts of a plant and animal?
PS.K2.1c How do I use things for their purpose?
PS.K2.4c-5c How can I move something that is stopped, or stop something that is moving?


Social Studies
HIS.K2.1c How can I tell you what is on a schedule?
HIS.K2.4c How can I tell you something I like to do?
GEO.K2.1c How can I show you where objects go with words like “over, under, behind, next to and down”?
GEO.K2.3c/ECON.K2.6c What is happening in the community?
GVT.K2.2c How do I participate in a group activity?
GVT.K2.3c How do I show you the class rules?
ECON.K2.1c Can I show you which one is bigger/smaller, or more/less?
ECON.K2.2c How do I tell you what I want?
ECON.K2.3b How do I make a choice?
ECON.K2.5c Can I show you money?

Also, we celebrated 100 days in Room 5-we made a chain with colored paper in which each group of 10 was a different color. The students really were engaged with this and it worked on their fine motor as well. We also worked on identifying "who" gets a turn next, etc. The kids loved watching the chain get bigger, and bigger, and bigger....
I also made these 100 mats and you can see two versions below, one differentiated to include 10 dots on each group of 10. They counted out 100 objects in groups of ten, practiced counting to 100 by 10's (singing the song). I had all the students use Froot Loops that we then laced into necklaces after (actually I had to lace them because it was a bit too difficult) but I had one student who did not understand the concept of counting out food and not eating it! (I don't blame him!) So, I had him using cubes and stacking them into groups of 10 which worked out great. Sorting, color identification, counting to 10 using objects, counting by 10's ... plenty of standards in this lesson! And, it was fun!
We also decorated glasses that said 100 on them and did a 100 step writing prompt to predict where we would end up if we walked 100 steps. Let me know if you would like a copy of this writing prompt which includes pictures for students to choose from :-)