HeidiSongs Teaching Resource

Defiance, disrespectfulness, kids yelling “NO!” – this is what a teacher’s classroom management nightmares are made of!  These days, most teachers may have had one or two defiant children in their class at some point, even all the way down to primary levels like Kindergarten, first, or second grade.  So what do you do if a child yells, “NO!” right in your face?  How do you handle if a child simply ignores your instructions or disrespects you, right in front of the whole class, even on the very first day of school? Issues like this MUST be handled immediately and handled well, but I’ve never heard of a university teacher prep course addressing it.  I think that every educator knows that there is much more going on emotionally with a child that is expressing their frustration in this way.  But until you can get to the bottom of it, what should you do? Let me start by reiterating that I am NOT a child psychologist!  I am just going to explain w...

Today I would like to tell you ten different ways to help kids that simply WON’T do their work… until it’s recess time! This is such a common a problem that most elementary school teachers may have at least one or more in every class, every single year. Children with this issue often CAN do their work, but just won’t push themselves to complete their work until it’s too late. Then, once they realize that they are about to miss something fun, they RUSH through the whole thing as fast as possible so that they can go out and play! This is incredibly frustrating for both the teacher and parents, who wish the child would just settle down and work, but nothing seems to help. “Dawdlers” such as this work veeeerrrryy sloooooowwly, perhaps stopping to get drinks, chat with friends, use the restroom, sharpen a pencil, laugh with friends, break the pencil, sharpen it again, lose their paper, stop to talk, forget the instructions, ask for help, draw a little monster on their paper, and...

Have you ever had to deal with bullying in your classroom or school?  Have you ever been approached by a parent about their child being bullied while in your classroom? Here are some great tips to help teachers keep their kids safe from bullying and their classrooms running smoothly. First and Foremost:  Teach Your Class How to Recognize a Bully This book, Are You a Bully? was just $5 INCLUDING SHIPPING at the Book Fair Shop. Although children may hear the word "bully" now and then, they may not really know what a bully actually is!  So we teach everyone exactly what a bully is and does.  That way, whenever we discuss bullying, we have a common vocabulary to work with. Only then can the children recognize and accurately point out a bully when they see one.  After that, then it is more reasonable to expect that they might try to stop someone from bullying if they see it happening. Ronald Mah in his wonderful book...

It can be difficult to think of effective consequences that actually teach BETTER BEHAVIOR than simply punish a child for a discipline problem!  But after teaching 28 years, I have come up with quite a few ideas that I have tucked away in my bag of discipline tricks, and I am excited to share them with you today!  These are all (well, mostly!) positive consequences that I have used successfully in Transitional Kindergarten (TK), Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade.  And now since we are a PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports) school, it will be handy to have a fresh look at this list.  I hope that it's helpful to you, too! Consequences That Teach Better Behavior Instead of Punish 1.  Start with the Positives! Of course, we always start with the positives, right?  We offer praise and encouragement.  We recognize the children that are making good choices with statements such as, "____ is helping us by lining up...

Happy Summer, everyone!  I hope that by now you are all finished with the school year and are done for the summer!  Today I am going to tell you about a brand new resource for teaching consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words that we finished just a month or so ago- our CVC Book, Volume 2 !!!!  I have been wanting to create a second volume of this book now for quite a while, but there are so many important projects on my "to do" list that they all get piled up and then things take longer than we want them to.  But this one was finished in May, just in time for me to try it out with my kiddos for a little bit before releasing it to you here. This book follows the format of our first very popular CVC Workbook Vol. 1 , but includes new word families that were not included in the first book. • Short A (–ad), (–ag), (–ap) Family Words: bag, gag, jag, lag, mag, rag, sag, tag, wag, bad, dad, fad, had, lad, mad, pad, sad, cap, gap, lap, map, nap, sap, tap, yap, zap...