Book Study: Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites: Chapter 18

This week's chapter is all about visuals!!

This is something that really hits home for me! As a student growing up, I had a very hard time in school. I was the girl with the SUPER SMART brother who everyone expected to be just like him. But, I sure was the complete opposite!! Ha! Things always came so easily for him and I was the C/D student. Now, as an adult and as a teacher, I know that it wasn't because I was any less smart than him....I just learned in a VERY different way than him. 

As I got older (it took me until about 1/2 way through High School) I figured out how to cope. How to read, and reread and reread until I understood. I figured out what worked for me...it just took me a little bit longer :) What was missing??? What would have helped me learn and retain and understand more?? MORE VISUALS!!!

Now, as a teacher, I am CONSTANTLY thinking about what I can do to help my students better understand, learn and retain what I'm teaching them. It kind of comes naturally for me. I just think about what would have helped me :)

One super easy way to incorporate visuals into your classroom is:

Anchor Charts

These are examples of emerging visuals. They appear as the lesson is taught. The teacher and students are creating them together.

These are examples of Static visuals. They have been previously prepared by the teacher in preparation to teach a lesson or a certain skill.

The little visual cues below aren't exactly anchor charts, but we hang them each time a word chunk is introduced and they work WONDERS!!! Seriously!! My Kinders are AMAZING spellers thanks to these little chunk cards!!! Thanks Deanna!!!

 Differentiating

sometimes all your kinders need is that little extra visual to help them understand and be independent problem solvers!!!

Videos

Every morning, after the pledge of allegiance and our character pledges, we say this acronym for Warriors. So, every morning my Kinders would say "Warriors: We Are Respectful, Responsible, Intellegent, Open minded, Reliable Students. Those are all great words!! But, my Kinders had NO IDEA what they were saying. So, I made this little PDF file. I'm sure it has no use for you....but, I'm attaching it so that you get the idea. Each graphic has a hyperlink attached to it. When you click on the clipart, it will take you to a video that helps explain what each word means.

Science

Science and having children engage in different experiments can give them such an amazing visual!!!

Here is the infamous MLK egg experiment showing that like eggs, although we may look different on the outside, we are all the same inside :)

And, here's my little Cheeto Pollination Experiment!!! Such a great visual!

These are just SOME of the ways that I incorporate visuals into my teaching! There are so, so many more!!!

How do you utilize visuals in your classroom??? Please link up and share!!

An InLinkz Link-up