Easy Interactive Books

My friend Bev came up with this brilliant idea years ago.  I didn't need it for a number of years, but last year I had several students who benefitted from having more interaction during their story time.

We simply took an inexpensive paperback book and cut it apart.  Next we ran the pages through the laminator.  We then took a targeted vocabulary word from each page and created a Boardmaker document with a picture. Next we used the hole punch binding tool that we have in our teacher workroom to bind the book back together.  Finally, we used velcro dots to make each page interactive.

This has been a great way for us to create inexpensive interactive books for circle time.

Journals for Pre-K

Last year I started looking for ideas on Pinterest about journaling with preschoolers.  I came across a few pins that helped me get started:

Ten Tips for Keeping a Journal in Preschool

Pre-School Journaling

J is for Journal


After reading about how others started, organized and maintained their journals; I started making the decisions about how I would use the journals in my classroom.

I chose to use simple black and white composition books for our journals.  I used a name label sticker on the front of each child's journal and also made one for myself.

My class typically is most successful when I model expectations for them before they attempt a structured task like this.  Before the kids ever used their journal, I had all of the journals prepped and in a basket and I modeled drawing a picture in my journal.  Since most of the students in my class have language impairments, I wanted the focus of our journals based on increasing their communication skills.  After I drew my picture, I talked about it.  I labeled the picture, told the class a sentence about my picture.  We did this a few times, using the word journal and modeling how to draw, turn pages, choose the next page, etc.  The first time I passed out their journals at circle time, all we did was look at the journal and turn the blank pages.

We used our journals in a small group, structured center with adult support at first.  After all of the students started to understand the purpose and became more proficient at drawing their pictures, I would also put them out for a table activity or "morning work" first thing in the morning in a large group.

Since my goal was to help increase communication, every time the students worked in their journal, they talked to an adult (me, my assistant, a volunteer) about it and we wrote their exact words on the paper.  Through this, we also had ongoing documentation showing how their language skills improved over time.  You can see the length of utterance increases, use of age appropriate vocabulary, use of pronouns and use of action words.  This became a great way for  me to show parents what language skill I might be working on with a child and how they could help.

I also found that our science center was a great inspiration spot for lots of writing and observation.

Here are some photos of some of  our journal work:

And here are some from a different student:

Telling Time

My class is currently working on telling time to the hour, half hour, fifteen minute interval and five minute interval in math.  We always need lots of different ways to practice a skill.  Below are a few of the resources we're using in addition to the materials that came with the unit in our district's math series:

Touch Math Time  (I looked for this on google.  It used to be part of the Upper Grades set, but I can't find it anymore.  I really like it because it's visuals are clean and simple with a lot of white space.  It also integrates time before and time after within each interval.)

Clocks from two paper plates from E Is for Explore

Simple morning work worksheets from Math Fact Cafe.  This site has a worksheet generator that shuffles the problems and you can also set the parameters for what skills you want on the worksheet.  Love that!  Again, the visuals are clean and there's a lot of white space so it's not really busy and overwhelming.

I also have quite a few file folder games that I have made and collected over the years.  Those are coming out too.

Chapter Book Read Alouds 2nd and 3rd Grade

My class loves to listen to me read to them.  Since my students are 2nd and 3rd graders now, I like to try to expose them to chapter books as read alouds.  The following is a list of some of the books we read this past year with some brief comments about each.


1) Boxcar Children #1

I chose this book because it was one of the extended complex texts that was recommended to go with our first unit with our reading curriculum, Wonders.  The students liked it and enjoyed the adventure of the children living in the train boxcar.

2) Stuart Little

"Stuart Little" was our next read aloud because of a play we were scheduled to see.  My district is very fortunate to have a lot of support for education for children within the arts.  Part of that is experience at our local theater for live performances.  "Stuart Little" was actually a very difficult book to read to my students. The language and vocabulary that is used actually puts it much higher than a second or third grade level (I think it's more like 5th or 6th grade.)  However, my students loved the story.  We  went through this book pretty slowly and stopped to explain a lot of the words or phrases in the book.  By the time we got to the play, my class loved that they could "see" parts of the story they already knew and we had great discussions about the parts that were different.

3) Horrible Harry and the Drop of Doom

Horrible Harry has a great series of introductory chapter books.  I read this book to my class to introduce Harry and Song Lee to my students.  I have found that once students are familiar with some of the characters they are more likely to make the transition between picture books to chapter books.

4) Santa Clause Doesn't Mop Floors

We read this book as a purely enjoyable read at the holidays.  As we progressed through the story, we had some great conversations for our social skills lessons.

5) The One and Only Ivan

Oh! How I loved this book.  The story is told from Ivan's point of view.  Ivan is a gorilla that was once wild and is now kept in captivity in a shopping mall.  My class loved hearing about Ivan's thoughts and feelings and solutions.  They also loved learning that the story was based on a real gorilla.  This gave us the chance to talk about what they phrase "based on a true story" means (how often the main idea and the theme of the story stay true but frequently the author changes some of the details to make the plot of the story work.)  **This was my favorite read aloud this year.

6) Little Dog Lost

We all enjoyed this story too.  It is written in the style of a poem, even though it is also presented as a chapter book.  This was the first time my class had seen a free verse poem this long.  That was a great way to show them there are many different ways a writer can share their thoughts and ideas with the reader.

7) How to Eat Fried Worms

If you have read any my previous post about "How to Eat Fried Worms," you will know I love this book.  I first was introduced to it when MY second grade teacher read it out loud to my class.  I remember simultaneously loving it and being grossed out by it!

8) Charlotte's Web

My students loved this book...well except for the one who hated it and the one that it stressed out (but she still loved it!)....For more information on this read here.  Overall though, the class really did like this classic!  This was a novel that we had plenty of copies of throughout our school.  I was able to get a copy for every student in my room and the liked tracking our progress in their own book as I read it to them.   We ended our school year with an "old school" thematic until based on this novel.  My class loved that kind of structure to our day.  I wish we could do more of it.

Photo credits:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Boxcar-Children-No-Mysteries/dp/0807508527

http://www.amazon.com/Stuart-Little-E-B-White/dp/0064400565/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407204457&sr=1-1&keywords=stuart+little

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=horrible%20harry%20and%20the%20drop%20of%20doom&sprefix=horrible+harry+and+the+d%2Cstripbooks&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Ahorrible%20harry%20and%20the%20drop%20of%20doom

http://www.amazon.com/Santa-Doesnt-Floors-Bailey-School/dp/0590444778/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407205160&sr=1-1&keywords=santa+clause+doesn%27t+mop+floors

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_14?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=one%20and%20only%20ivan&sprefix=one+and+only+i%2Cstripbooks%2C167&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Aone%20and%20only%20ivan

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_22?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=how+to+eat+fried+worms&sprefix=how+to+eat+fried+worms%2Cstripbooks%2C259&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Ahow+to+eat+fried+worms

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_12?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=charlotte%27s+web&sprefix=Charlotte%27s+%2Cstripbooks%2C259&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Acharlotte%27s+web

Math Homework

Within my self-contained varying exceptionalities class, I typically have quite a few students with language impairments.  These students usually need extra support when completing math word problems and multiple step math problems.  They also most frequently need extra time to practice skills and concepts.

I like to have the students practice math skills, but the homework component that is part of the series my district has adopted just didn't work for us this year.  The homework pages were "busy" which made it difficult for the students and families to discern the most important information.  They also moved at a pace and changed skills so quickly, that my students didn't have enough time to truly master some of the computation skills or concepts, let alone apply those to word problems.

I ended up using a combination of resources to make sure each student had math homework that they could independently complete.  Here were some of my most frequently used:

KidZone Free Math Worksheets This site offers several different computation skills and at different levels of difficulty.  The printed pages are "clean" and not visually busy so they were ideal for homework.  (And it's free!)

Calculating Area and Perimeter This site offers a worksheet generator that allows the parent or teacher to pick whether the child will work on simple or complex shapes; metric or English units of measure; or various combinations.

Touch Math This is a program that includes blackline reproducibles that our principal purchased for our special education department.  It is an investment up front, but well worth it.  My school has the Upper Grades program.


Since I'm sharing resources that I use for homework, I will also share my homework philosophy.  I believe that what I send home for homework should be work that the students in my class can complete independently (or with very minimal support.)

I believe this because, I don't want the child going home and practicing a skill incorrectly 2 or 3 nights every week!  I also know that the parents of the children in my class have differing levels of the support they can provide for their children with homework.

I also believe that it is important for children to learn how to become responsible for their own actions. Completion of homework assignments is one of the criteria for the students in my class to earn their "choice time" at the end of the day.  I don't think it would be fair to assign a student to do homework that he/she cannot complete on their own and then also tie their choice time to the completion.  If I know they can independently complete the homework, then I feel comfortable setting the expectation that you must have completed homework before you go to choice time.

This criteria and philosophy has worked for the classes that I have had for the past several years.  It's always possible that I may get a group of students in the future that need a different plan; or an individual within a group that needs something different.  Since I have a full time special education classroom, I also believe it's my responsibility to be willing to change my homework expectations when the children's needs warrant a change.

Sight Word Writing

This sight word strategy is truly an example of how good ideas just keep getting passed along and how many children can benefit from one teacher's great idea.

I have two children who are in second grade and reading at an end of kindergarten level this year.  They need a lot of practice with phonemic awareness skills and sight word mastery.  At this point, they have been exposed to the district curriculum materials so many times; they really need something new.  I'm always keeping my eyes open for them.

A friend of mine who is a kindergarten teacher was telling me she uses this strategy in her classroom.  She got it from another teacher on her team, who in turn got it when she and a group of teachers were working on literacy centers.  Wow!  How many times has it been passed along?  How many kids are learning because of it?  I love that aspect of teachers sharing ideas!

It's very simple.  You take a piece of plastic window screen (can be purchased at Home Depot) and cut it approximately 10 x 13.  Then you use electrical tape to tape off the edges on both sides.  Finally, use a blank sheet of paper or a simple typed up sight word worksheet and some crayons so children can practice writing their sight words "bumpy style."

I have put this in some TEACCH task baskets for these two boys.  I'm also thinking of making some more and adding it to my Daily 5 Working with Words choices.

Tough Puzzle!

My class, my assistants and I have dubbed this the "hardest puzzle in the world."  It's not, of course.  But it IS a very challenging 750 piece puzzle.

I like to have a puzzle table with an ongoing puzzle set up in my room.  It's a nice anchor activity for my students when they finish work and it also lets me integrate some team building and cooperation conversations throughout the day.  It's also nice to hear the students start to compliment each other when they find pieces and the picture starts to come together.

This particular puzzle was intended to be finished by December.  We finished it the first of May!  There was a period of time when they students really weren't motivated or interested in going back to it because it was so hard.

I was stuck.  Do I take it down and start a new one or push through it?

Luckily, I have the most wonderful paraprofessionals in the world! One day one of them encouraged a student to go over and put one piece in "the hardest puzzle in the world."   He did and then was congratulated for helping us with the "hardest puzzle in the world."  That threw down the challenge and regained the kids' interest in the puzzle.  They started talking about finishing the "hardest puzzle in the world" and actually started to enjoy the challenge of it again.  The crazy thing had been up for so long in the classroom all kinds of pieces were now missing (which made it even harder!)

I'm glad we finished it (to the best of our ability with all those missing pieces.)  It gave them a sense of accomplishment and pride.  They even asked if I would take their picture by "the hardest puzzle in the world."  It also gave us some funny conversation and teasing....they asked me to "Please, never buy another puzzle from Goodwill."  :-)

Silent Reading Procedures

I like having my students practice sustained silent reading.  So often in special education classes we are so focused on providing direct instruction and therapies, managing interventions or collecting data; it seems like we forget that students need to be able to choose their own literature and read on their own!

My goal for my students this year was for them to be able to choose their own book and read silently (or at least quietly in a whisper) and independently for 20 minutes.  Since three of my third grade students started the school year with reading levels below beginning first grade, we obviously had to provide some structure and scaffolding to help them reach this goal.

The first thing you see labeled in this picture is the "book bucket."  It is a simple plastic box purchased at Big Lots for about $2.  Each student in my room has their own personal book bucket.  Within this book bucket we store the child's whisper phone, their sight word rings and Reading A-Z books at their individual levels.

I chose to start our sustained silent reading with book buckets because it was an organizational system that we had previously taught the students in my class.  They all had their book buckets and had spent individual reading time with my assistants and me reading the material within.  I knew that every child could independently read more than 90% of the material in their book bucket.

The first day I introduced silent reading time, I didn't give them many choices.  I asked them all to get their book buckets out on their desks.  They were allowed to read anything that was in their book bucket.  I then set a screen timer for 5 minutes on the Active Board.  We use a free download like this.  I challenged them to see if the entire class could read silently until the timer beeped and cut this grid so that it showed only 10 squares and glued it to a piece of green construction paper with the phrase "We can read silently for 5 minutes."  They were all required to read for 5 minutes out of their book buckets.  When they successfully read for 5 minutes, we put a sticker towards the class goal.  After they reached that goal of reading silently for 5 minutes on ten different opportunities, we congratulated them and told them how proud we were of them and that they were ready for a new goal.

After we met that goal, I made another simple grid and set the screen timer for 7 minutes.  When we met that goal, I bumped them progressively to 10 minutes, 12 minutes, 15 minutes and then finally 20 minutes.

As they showed they could manage the silent reading, I loosened up on the control a little bit.  I would let them choose three books from our classroom library or their library books.  (Remember while some of my students are reading chapter books, I still have a group reading first grade level books.  I needed them to have enough material that would keep them reading for the full 20 minutes.)

A little bit after that, I loosened up the control even more and allowed them to find personal space in the classroom with a laundry basket, a throw pillow or a throw blanket.

Through each little step, I wanted them to maintain their sustained reading but gradually have it become something that they enjoyed and got to choose rather than something I imposed on them.  I'm hoping that this will help them to view themselves as readers and ultimately read for leisure rather than just for work.

Individual Instruction

Do you ever have a chance for individual instruction with your students?  I've always tried to "fit" it in somewhere, but was more worried about systematically scheduling my groups and seeing every instructional group every day.

This year a block of time for individual instruction evolved during the time that our speech pathologist comes in to do "push in" language therapy groups.  I started off trying to have a group opposite her group, but for a variety of reasons that just didn't work out.  Over the first month of school, we tried a few different things during this time and finally settled into a pattern.

We have 4 adults in the room during this time: the SLP, my two assistants and me.  Here's how we organize the time now:

11:45-12:30 Speech/Language Therapy and Individual Instruction

The students come back into the room from specials, get drinks, go to the bathroom and then get their journals out. 

If the students are not working with one of the adults in the room, they are expected to be writing in their journals.  At the beginning of the month, I create a journal prompt menu.  The students tape this to the inside of their journals and "x" out the prompts as they write about them.  I use the word walls from www.ABCTeach.com and an individual word bank to help them with their writing too.  I do this so that the students who are at their desks writing have the support of materials when they don't have the support of the classroom staff.  This helps them to be more independent.  (In fact, if one the students calls my name while I am working with another student during this time, you'll probably hear a peer saying "You know she's going to ignore you because it's not your turn."  It took us a long time to get to this point, but they know what they are supposed to do and they know that they have strategies to be able to do it on their own.)

At the beginning of this time, one assistant takes a student to the clinic for meds and the other assistant takes her break.  I get the students transitioned and started on their journals and the SLP calls the students she needs for the day.  Once we get going here's how we are organized:

1) Students not with an adult write in journals at desks.

2) Students scheduled for speech/language go to group work.

3) Assistant #1: Helps students with AR tests.  I have 7 students who can read and take AR tests independently.  However, that leaves 6 who still need support.  This assistant pulls students 1:1.  They read her an AR book and then she helps them log on and complete the test.  We have a laminated folder for each student and tape a quarterly AR goal inside.  With the AR goal is a sticker chart so they can record their progress towards the goal.  I've also included guidelines for the adult helping (so that it's clear to the person not to help too much!)

4) Assistant #2: Has students read individually to her from their book buckets or chapter books.  In the "book buckets" students have a reading log with leveled readers from www.readinga-z.com.  Some of my students have started chapter books, but still need some support with them.  This is a perfect time for them to read  a chapter to my assistant.

5: Teacher: Students read their sight words to me and I record data towards mastery. (I'm fussy about the data recording so I don't like others to do this.)  This is also a time for me to read their journals and have a mini-writer's conference.  On some days I have also used this time to record Oral Reading Fluency scores.  If someone is stuck on a particular skill, I can pull that child during this time and work on it too.  (Again, just like with the reading block organization, I like to have systems set for my assistants and the students, so that I can think about how my time is best spent during this block of time.  My activities change the most, but I always fall back to sight word practice and mastery when there is not something else that needs to be addressed.)

I've enjoyed this individual time this year and I think the students have too (except for the journal writing, most of them still don't like that.)  They enjoy seeing their progress and their skills improve.  Each station has a progress monitoring piece embedded into it.  At the AR station, they see their stickers tracking progress towards their quarterly goal.  At the book buckets station, they see their reading log fill up and the level of their leveled readers go up too.  At my station the see their mastery of the sight words turning into "star words" and then speed words.  At the SLP's station she always tells them how many they got correct in their previous session and encourages them to go for more correct this time.

Not only do the students like to see their progress towards their learning, I think they really enjoy the one on one time they get with an adult.  I have lots of data to show how their academic skills have improved but not very much about how this time impacts the climate of our classroom.  However, I really do believe that it makes a positive difference in the relationships that are developed between the adults and the students too.

"Dolphin Tale" Ideas and Resources

My class is very excited about the new movie "Dolphin Tale."  In science, we've been discussing how scientists can use a model to help them investigate their questions and variables.

Here are a few resources I've either found or created that you can use to support reading, writing and science through ideas from the movie "Dolphin Tale."

Power Point that can be printed or shown on an Activeboard/SmartBoard

Science Worksheet to go with Scientific Method and Power Point

Writing Prompt to go with Power Point

Scholastic Resources

Winter's Tail



Hope you enjoy!

National Geographic Website

My school is inundated with caterpillars right now. With so many natural, incidental learning experiences available, this is a perfect time to implement our life cycles unit.

National Geographic Kids has many great resources to also support this theme. Of course, in addition to bugs and butterflies National Geographic also has many other topics addressed too. Check them out!

Creature Feature: Monarch Butterflies

What in the World: Bugging Out!

Visiting Kindergarten: Social Story

It's the time of year when, in pre-k special needs classes, we begin to think about the process of transitioning children to kindergarten.

This year, there is a little girl in my class with an interesting combination of strengths and challenges.

She has a good cognitive skills and a good ability to learn vocabulary and concepts through incidental learning. She has a solid base of kindergarten pre-academic skills (she knows all of the letters of the alphabet upper and lowercase, she can count to 15, she can identify 11 colors and 6 common shapes. She knows many beginning consonant sounds, has an awareness of rhyming words, can read all of the names of the students in class and reads approximately 10 sight words.)

She gets overwhelmed with new experiences and has difficulty transitioning to new activities (especially if it is in a different location on campus). She still needs staff support for potty training. Her fine motor skills are significantly delayed and she still needs staff support for many tasks that include visual motor planning.

We have decided to try to specifically address an area of strength with an area that is a significant challenge for her while she is still in pre-k. She is going to start going to a shared reading and phonics lesson with a kindergarten class for approximately 20 minutes a day. Since she has good cognitive skills and she does not need any staff support in our pre-k large group circle time, we are going to try to balance this with the challenge of accepting a new experience. We are hoping that she will become familiar with the kindergarten building, the kindergarten classroom and the larger group of kindergarten students. We are also hoping that our pre-k staff can go with her for a short period of time and then fade away so that we increase her independence and comfort in the kindergarten classroom.

To help her prepare for this, we have drafted a simple social story (you can download a generic copy here.) about going to the kindergarten classroom. She has a copy at home that her family has read with her for the past week and there is a copy at school that classroom staff have been reading with her too. We have also started walking past the kindergarten room and having conversations about visiting kindergarten on Monday.

We're hoping by layering in the staff support and also building on her strengths, she will begin to feel comfortable and be able to learn new skills in the kindergarten class.

Free Interactive Holiday Sites

I found this site a few years ago. It was challenging to navigate and then go back and find the activities you wanted repeatedly. They have re-organized and uploaded many free interactive boards and activities. They have many that are appropriate for December holidays. They've done a great job! It's so much easier to navigate and find activities appropriate to skill or grade level.

TES iboard player

Here's a link to a post from a few years ago too. My students still enjoy these links!

Interactive Holiday Sites

Counting Backwards and Subtraction

I'm working with a little girl who is learning how to subtract.

The touch math strategies were very successful in helping her learn to add, so we are continuing with those materials and cues. However, when she was learning to add, she
had already mastered the skill of counting up. She has not yet learned how to consistently and accurately count backwards from 20. So while she is learning the concept of subtraction with differences from 5 and manipulatives, we are also working on counting backwards from 20.

I created a simple power point that she likes to "play" when we practice. I have her manually click to forward the slides. You can download the manual click power point here. I also added an automatic slide transition for those of you who may want to use this in the classroom. You can download the automatic transition power point here.

In addition to using the power points during our tutoring session, her mom is also helping her count backwards during the many opportunities to wait during the day. They count backwards in the grocery store line, while waiting for her brothers at baseball practice, while the microwave is heating something, while a DVD is loading, etc. She has found lots of times during the day to practice with her!

Free Stories about Anger Management and Impulse Control

This site offers two free books that address social skills.

The first book teaches students a strategy to manage anger using deep breathing and "train yoga." I like how it actually teaches children the words and the actions to take when they are angry and then encourages them to think of a solution. (It's very similar to Tucker Turtle from the CSEFEL site, but it's nice to have another avenue to teach the strategy.)

Jennifer (the author) is planning to add two more books to the site in September.

Free Children's Stories

Free Decodable Books

A friend on one of my Yahoo! listserves just shared this site. I thought it was a great resource for emergent and early readers. It includes free decodable books that are written and shared by teachers.

Free Decodable Books

Enjoy exploring the site!

Easy Adaptable Books

Patrick at Teaching All Students has a great description about how to make an easy adaptable book for your students. Check it out.

Reading Activities for the Summer

The Florida Center for Reading Research has a ton of information about teaching reading skills.

As summer is approaching, many parents ask what they can do to help their child with their literacy skills over the summer.

This is one of my favorite activity packets from the website. It includes many easy and printable activities to work on letter recognition.

Letter Recognition Resources

Spring Babies PowerPoint

My classroom has the luxury of being equipped with an ActiveBoard. I am planning on using this powerpoint to teach new vocabulary about spring babies. If you don't have a projection screen, Smart Board or ActiveBoard; you can just print, laminate and bind the book for use at circle time or in your library center.

You can download the book here.

The Bamboo Story and Positive Behavior Support

I'm currently involved in an intensive Positive Behavior Support (PBS) training. Yesterday was the first day of our training and the facilitators were laying the foundation and the ideas that improving challenging behavior and creating a classroom climate for emotional literacy often takes a long time. There are no quick fixes.

This reminded me of the Bamboo Story. A collegue gave me a copy of this story quite a few years ago. It was hanging behind my desk as a gentle reminder for my assistant and me. I have no idea what happened to it. It probably fell down at some point and accidentally got thrown away. I've tried to find the same story online, but to no avail. Here is what I remember and the message I took from the story I received so long ago.

The Bamboo Story:

Once upon a time there was a farmer who planted some bamboo seeds. Each day he diligently cared for his bamboo seeds in the hope that he would see the fruits of his labor in wonderful bamboo growth.

The first year passed with daily care. And yet nothing happened. No bamboo sprouted.

The farmer was undaunted. He continued his daily watering, weeding and care of his bamboo seeds.

The second year passed and nothing happened.

At this point the farmer was beginning to feel discouraged. He had consistently worked; nurturing and caring for his bamboo seeds, and yet he saw no growth.

The third year passed and suddenly his bamboo was growing a foot each month. By the end of the year his bamboo was over 12 feet tall! Finally, the farmer had evidence of his growth.

So the question is, did the bamboo grow 12 feet in that final year when the growth was evident and measured? Or did the bamboo grow 12 feet in 3 years through the daily care?

It is said that during the first two years the bamboo IS growing. It is said that the bamboo is growing roots below the ground that are a foundation strong enough to support the future growth spurt. It is said that growth was occuring as the farmer was caring for the seeds, the farmer just couldn't see it.

My recent training in PBS strategies made me think of this story again. Often it takes a long time for children with challenging behaviors to demonstrate skills of regulating their own behavior, resolving conflict or problem solving.

So as we begin our journey with positive behavior support, we as teachers must persist as the farmer did. Continually providing the daily care and nurturing of our students' emotional literacy. Those students may leave our classrooms without us seeing evidence of their growth. But perhaps, they grow by leaps and bounds one year. Perhaps those years of daily care including work on emotional vocabulary, directly and indirectly teaching social skills and providing support was a foundation for that growth. And perhaps the child's skills grew over the course of several years, but we just saw evidence of it in one.