Should You Have an Educational Rug in Your Elementary Classroom?

Submitted By: Jennifer Dobson

Teachers of elementary age children are constantly looking to find new, innovative methods to capture children's attention and get them interested in learning. Most children respond particularly well to visual aids and even better to things they can use and with which they can interact. A class of items that fits both categories is educational classroom rugs. For those of you unfamiliar with educational rugs, they are simply rugs that are decorated with various learning aids such as numbers, the alphabet, days of the week, months etc. A virtually endless number of themes exist. If you have a decorating or teaching aid budget for your classroom, purchasing these rugs can be a worthwhile investment and many school districts approve and allocate funds for teachers to purchase these types of learning aids for the classroom because they are a long-lasting and effective investment.

Rugs Help Reinforce Concepts Being Taught

Used passively, these rugs are another way to inundate the classroom environment with important information that children need to commit to memory. The more ways you find to present this information, the better your results will be. Since children are not all the same when it comes to the way they learn best, a variety of methods will help you reach all types of learners. Perhaps the child who has problems remembering the letters of the alphabet when presented in the traditional manner will quickly catch on as he sees the educational rug lying in the floor day after day. Each time he steps on it as he enters the classroom, its image becomes more and more ingrained in his visual memory.

Hands-On Learning

A more active use for educational rugs is to use them as game mats. How about a good old fashioned game of twister using a rug with letters, months etc. instead of the conventional boring colors. Kids will quickly learn to recognize the particular words on the map. Bean bag toss can also be played using educational rugs. With a rug of the alphabet, two teams compete to complete words using each letter of the alphabet. The bean bag is tossed onto the rug and the team must write a word beginning with whatever letter the bag lands on. The first team to form words using all the letters of the alphabet wins. Other rugs are available that are designed as custom games such as board games. Some of the rugs are modular, allowing you to expand the games as the children master a particular area.

DIY Educational Rugs

Educational carpets for elementary classrooms are available from a variety of sources on the Internet. Any theme imaginable is available and some merchants even offer custom designed mats to fit more esoteric needs. If your budget can't accommodate the retail versions, simple, plain mats can be purchased and decorated either by the teacher or even better - by the students. With proper supervision during the process, these mats can be just as effective as more expensive models and also will stimulate the creative process in the children, leading to even more multi faceted learning.

Published At: Isnare.com

How to Handle Puppy Love in the Classroom

Submitted By: Jennifer Dobson

As a teacher, you will see what is affectionately referred to as "puppy love" develop in your classroom - and teaching in an elementary or middle school setting does not make you immune. Kids from kindergarten up through twelfth grade can "fall in love" at the drop of a tack, although romance in the classroom usually starts a bit later. As students get older, they pay more attention to the opposite sex and romance or puppy love can often become a classroom issue. But all too often, the budding romance can cause problems for teachers and other students, as well as the two 'love birds'. Let's look at some specific tips for handling affection between students.

High School Students

If you teach high school, you likely understand up front that dating and romance is part of the teenage years and all efforts to extinguish a burning flame between two students is not only futile but inappropriate. But when the romance is happening right under your nose it can be a source of disruption and can upset your classroom management techniques. While you need to remember that "courting" is normal and natural for your students, you do not have to allow it to negatively impact your classroom or your instruction. In the high school classroom, you need to adopt and lay down specific rules about classroom romance and enforce them when needed. Mutual respect is a golden rule for any classroom and for students of any age. This means that even when students are coping with issues related to their romance, they must respect other students and the teacher by focusing on the class and participating in the class. A good way to help kids understand this principle is by having a "leave it at the door" policy. This means that all troubles and problems are left at the door when class begins so that the students can focus on the lesson. Issues that arise between dating students should be solved after school or on breaks between classes - on their own time; the classroom is a place for learning, not for socializing.

Middle School Students

Middle school may be the most tumultuous times of a teen's life because the middle school years are the years where girls and boys are raging with hormones and experiencing puberty for the first time. This sets the scene for romance and teachers at this grade level should prepare for it. And as an educator, you should be waiting as a responsible adult role model to mirror appropriate behavior for them in the classroom. Teachers can be a source of advice and support as teens begin to navigate the new feelings that they are experiencing. Invite your students to schedule time to talk with you not only about academic problems but about anything else that is troubling them at the time. This is a wonderful way for you to provide guidance and direction during this difficult time for your students.

Elementary School Students

Amazingly enough and for whatever reason, kids are beginning to wonder about romance and the opposite sex at increasingly younger ages. Recognizing this shift is important, as is directing the student towards appropriate behavior. Romance at this age is immature at best, and having a strict policy of no-romance in the classroom is usually the best policy. Use this time instead to teach children to respect one another and that there is plenty of time for romance when they are more mature.

At all levels in the educational system, teachers must be prepared to deal with romance between students in their classrooms. Sometimes parents are blissfully unaware or not mindful of the issue, which means that the teacher must ensure that students learn and respect one another in the classroom - and hopefully this will spill over beyond their interactions at school.

Published At: Isnare.com