Mr Hammerlund

We use Words Their Way as a way to teach spelling and word patterns. Each week, in the beginning of the week, when I hand out the word lists, I go around and make sure students know how to pronounce the words and I can answer any questions the students have about the word lists. When I am doing this I record the students repeating me on Seesaw so parents also have a copy of the pronunciation if they need it. One of my groups this year, maybe out of boredom, started using silly "Alven and the Chipmunks" voices when they repeat.  While they are working with me, there are about 15 others students working in the classroom. Loud squeals might be distracting for others, so I remind them of it. I have been reluctant to have them stop since this helps make a mundane task manageable for them.  However, after listening to an episode of Kwik Brain , I feel it is important for them to be silly while doing this because that silliness makes these words more ...

Today my class and I were discussing my small moment story. We were talking about the scenes in a story that can help you understand a character's motivations. I was using my small moment story as an example and I talked about how I needed a bottle to wash away my dog's pee on the street. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Thomas Hammerlund (@thomashammerlund) on Nov 25, 2018 at 2:53am PST Well, that set them off laughing, and since they were sitting on the carpet in front of me, rolling on the ground. And this happened every time I said the word pee. So I tried to say it more. So here I was, at the end of the day, 18 fourth graders in front of me, rolling on the floor laughing uncontrollable belly-laughs, erupting, again and again, each time I said the word pee and I tried to use it as much as I could. This was back in October, but I still think back on this afternoon as one of the highlights o...

I was asked to share this with my principal, so I think I will share it here too. Here's a link to the template if you are interested.