Welcome To A Teacher In Your Corner

Before I began teaching,I spent my evenings tutoring my son who had a learning disability. I had no teaching material and so learned to use things out of my kitchen to teach the concept. When I began teaching,I continued to use household items to illustrate the lesson. This site will give you ideas on how to use everyday items to help your child master a difficult concept.

Whether you are home-schooling or just helping your child complete homework, this site will be helpful.

Teaching Prepositions

View detailsRabbit coming out of a magicians top hatPrepositions are difficult to teach because you can't show them.  A student can't see them. The definition of the word Preposition doesn't fit all the prepositions.  Prepositions are the smallest words in the English language, yet they are very important.  Here are a few hints to help you teach them.
 
The word itself is a help.  Let's look at it.  Preposition.  Pre-position.  A preposition tells the position of one object to another. 

Teaching prepositions through activity:  Place a box, chair or stool in the middle of the room.  Then instruct the student to go: under, over, through, around, in, and out of the box, chair, or stool.

Visual model: Draw a simple house on the board.  Then write the positions in appropriate places of the house.  (Use arrows for words like in and through.)
Spider in the middle of its webAhhh--teaching in January.  The holidays are over.  Everyone has had a break from school and it is time to get back to the work of teaching and learning.  But what do you teach in January??  There just doesn't seem to be much to celebrate in January.  A question came to me the other day.  A teacher needed an idea on teaching  black history.  It reminded me of teaching units. 
 
I loved teaching units.  A unit is where you use a particular topic as the 'jumping off' point for teaching all of the subjects in class.  There have been many units developed.  Some use a topic like Black History Month or Spring.  Others use a book and write lessons based on that book.  Oh, writing lessons is hard.  That will take a long time.  Nonsense.  Let me show you how to do it.  Let's use a nursery rhyme as our focus.  Obviously this is going to be very short and aimed at small children, but the process is the same for novels or anything else you want to teach.
 
 
Little Miss Muffet
 
Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider and sat down beside her.
And frightened Miss Muffet away.
 
Now let's design a lesson for each subject.
 
Reading/LA--Read nursery rhyme.  Discuss the rhyming words.  Define each one so that the students are more able to connect with them.  Hand each child an index card with one half of a rhyming set on it.  Instruct students to pair up with the child who has the rhyming word.  Once each child has found his partner, review the words emphasizing the rhyming syllable. 
 
Math--Use a paper spider for counting and grouping, i.e. Students should cut the legs off a paper spider.  Lay groups of 2 and then 4 on your table.  How many groups do you have for each?
 
Social Studies--Learn the story behind Little Miss Muffet. 
Little Miss Muffet was a small girl whose name was Patience Muffet. Her stepfather, Dr. Muffet (1553-1604) was an entimologist who wrote the first scientific catalogue of British insects. One morning while she was eating her breakfast of curds and whey, a spider sat down beside her and she ran away. This nursery rhyme dates back to the 16th century. The date associated with rhyme is Dr. Muffet's birthday. Unlikely story.
A goggle search brought me this information. However each nursery rhyme had its birth in real-life events. 
 
Science--Watch  http://urbanext.illinois.edu/insects/01.html an ebook discussing what is or isn't an insect.
 
If you like teaching units, be sure to check out edhelper.com for units to download and duplicate.

 

 
Social Studies--Learn the story behind Little Miss Muffet.  Little Miss Muffet was a small girl whose name was Patience Muffet.  Her stepfather, Dr. Muffet (1553-1604) was an entimologist who wrote the first scientific catalogue of British insects.  One morning while she was eating her breakfast of curds and whey, a spider sat down beside her and she ran away.  This nursery rhyme dates back to the 16th century.  The date associated with rhyme is Dr. Muffet's birthday.  Unlikely story. 
 
A goggle search brought me this information.  However each nursery rhyme had its birth in real-life events.