S.M.A.R.T. Newsletter - Mar. '17

S.M.A.R.T. Spaces
Seuss-tacular activities in your S.M.A.R.T. program this month can keep things fun, exciting, and help to fight the implementation dip!

REMEMBER: Pick a few or use them all. A change is a change, not matter how small!
Do you like Green Eggs and Ham?

Can you make it across the Balance Beam while balancing an egg on a spoon? It may be a plastic egg on a plastic spoon or a larger ball on a bigger spoon depending on the age of your students as shown below.

HOP on POP can be your thematic addition to the Rebounder! Your students can be jumping and calling out rhyming words. Younger students can use pictures of rhyming words on a Learning Ladder while older students can be reading word families.

Do your students need more inputs on how to spell their name or maybe their weekly spelling words?

Use a Cat in the Hat Learning Ladder with the letters of their name or spelling words printed on!

Make a large hat using thick strips of white and red paper.
(Psst! S.M.A.R.T. teachers laminate the strips and use a dry or wet erase marker for a multiple use Learning Ladder).
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We found a dry erase board in the shape of a hat at Target!  ​

Thing 1 and Thing 2 can make for a fun addition to your Tactile Trackers. Simply print a photo of the characters, trace the outer edge for a nice thick line, add a tactile component for your younger students (we used dots of school glue) and trace these favorite characters! Don’t forget to reteach your students that they must trace with their left eye covered, then the right eye covered, and finally with both eyes open. Three times for smooth eye movement practice!

We can’t forget about our favorite One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.

How fun is this to incorporate into your Slap Track or Creep Track?! Pre-K and Kindergarten can review colors or numbers using fish while older elementary students can practice concepts of quantity, color word recognition, number word recognition, word families and more! 

Downloads for these materials can be found in our Time Saving Tips section.

Reference:
S.M.A.R.T. Pre-K CORE Program Guide page 40, 44, 50-53, 64
S.M.A.R.T. Pre-K MORE Program Guide page 108

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S.M.A.R.T. at Home
March is a month when classrooms are often filled with whimsical Dr. Seuss activities. At home try a fun one inspired by his classic Green Eggs and Ham. This fun balance activity only requires a wooden spoon, a plastic egg, and some space.

Place the egg on the spoon and encourage your child to walk while balancing the egg. If they do this easily you can challenge them by having them balance the egg while walking heel to toe. They can do this in a hallway, across the living room floor, or even in the kitchen. Siblings can challenge each other to see who can walk the furthest or the longest without dropping the egg!
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Balance and body awareness assists your child by strengthening the skills necessary for sitting still in their chair while at school or at the dinner table! Balance is required for smooth efficient movement such as when walking, running, or even riding a bike. Balance helps the visual system work efficiently so your child can read along with you as you sit together and read your favorite books.

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Time Saving Tips
We provided a lot of suggestions for concepts to review in your Slap Track and Creep Track this month during our nod to Dr. Seuss. We know how little time teachers have in prepping those materials so we have done it for you!

Downloads:
Color Words - Black (PDF)
Color Words - Color (PDF)
Dr. Seuss Fish Cards (PDF)
Dr. Seuss Hat (PDF)
Ish Words (PDF)
Number Words (PDF)

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That's One S.M.A.R.T. Teacher!
If you enjoy themes, you are going to love how Suzanne, One S.M.A.R.T. Teacher from Sheridan Hills Elementary, transformed her school's S.M.A.R.T. room. She put a Seuss-ational spin on S.M.A.R.T. activities for multiple grade levels.

The Alligator Crawl became the Fox in Socks station. Students can improve their technique when encouraged to crawl under something. This helps them remember to keep both their chest and chin down low.

Both the wooden Balance Beam and the balance buckets have Dr. Seuss hats placed alongside. Depending on the grade level, student either stooped down and removed an object or continued upright and dropped an object into the hats. At the beam, older students bent down to retrieve a domino from the hat. They then said a number that was more and less then the number the domino represented. Great academic addition to this motor activity! At the balance buckets, students stopped to pick up a word card to read.

Students were monkeys from the book If I Ran the Zoo as they went across rung by rung. Above the Overhead Ladder, you notice six books written by Dr. Suess. This served as the items for students to focus on for the Near/Far Focus activity. Students sat at a distance in a chair and pulled out smaller flashcards with images of the book covers. While covering one eye, students would look at the small image on the card at near point and then shift focus to far point and find the matching book cover. This process of shifting focus from near to far point would be repeated with the other eye covered, then both eyes open. This activity is designed to develop and strengthen our visual focusing ability.

The Green Eggs and Ham station had children sitting on a mat and looking at a chart on the wall. They took an “egg”, unifex cube, and placed it in the egg carton next to them. Students used the color charts on the wall to copy the pattern in the egg carton.

A S.M.A.R.T. way to add Cross Patterning would be to have students pick up a unifex cube with the hand that is closest to the container and cross their body’s midline to put it in the egg carton on the opposite side. What an amazing array of thematic twists to S.M.A.R.T. activities. Mrs. H truly was One S.M.A.R.T. Teacher who regularly made changes to keep S.M.A.R.T. new and novel for her students!

Reference:
S.M.A.R.T. Pre-K CORE Program Guide page 40, 47, 57, 59, 84 
S.M.A.R.T. Curriculum Guide page 51, 66, 76, 78, 166
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