With our school switching to common core this year, I think that **finally* after about 1 1/2 weeks off of work, I have caught up.
Maybe.
Maybe Not.
But, I feel ahead of the game because my math games for February are all made and ready! (and my house is clean!!!) I created a Valentine's Day Math Centers packet that is for sale on TPT for only $4! Check it out! The games review the topics of multiplication, multiplication and division fact families, rounding, and telling time. Anyway, I hope that your break was wonderful and that you did NO work, like I wish I could have! Valentine Math Centers
Hello blog world!! I feel like I have not had a single second to get online and get blogging since idkkkkk January? (January 9th to be exact:))
The main reason for this is my stress load at school. This is only my 3rd year teaching, so I only have two other groups of students to compare them too, but this group of kids is demanding a lot of my time. I have definitely had to learn a lot about differentiated instruction this year, that is for sure! Not to mention all those little 3 letter acronyms that consume most of my time at home. IEP, PEP, EOG, PLC......you get the drift. Anddd to top it all of NC is going over to the common core, which is a good thing, but is something that I am going to have to learn about.
The second reason for my leave of absence has been that my BESTIE was getting married!!! And, being the matron of honor, I had a LOT of matronly duties to attend to:)
Me (left) and Grayson back in 3rd grade!!
But, I am back now, and have really missed catching up on all of the inspirational things that you all have to say!! Blogging is definitely an outlet for me to find out what other teachers are doing and going through, and I can't wait to get caught back up!
Here are a few highlights from my few months while I was out of the loop!!
Valentine Candy Heart Graphing
Our class was donated a set of chapter books (Loser by Jerry Spinelli) from Donor's Choose!!
I've been wondering:
**How did changing to the common core make teaching different for you?
**How do you find it easiest to differentiate instruction??
On Friday, we had a yummy math lesson, plus some addition, comparing numbers, and graphing! The kids loved it, and it was a great change of pace from our usual math lesson. I definitely love using lessons that require them to think about more than one math topic! Here are a few pics of us in action!
Here is the worksheet to go along with the activity:) It is super basic, and not as cutesy as I would like, but it did the job! The M&Ms were enough of a distraction to keep the kids interested!
Here we go! We are about 3 weeks into the new school year, and I have quickly realized (again) that the learning strategies that make work really well with one class will not work at all with another. Rats! If only our job were that easy! This year, I am a really energetic, busy group of kids. Completely opposite from my quiet group last year! These little learners LOVE to talk. All the time. All day. Every day. So, it's time to change how I am teaching! They aren't going to take in the information like my kids last year, so I don't need to give them information that way.
Introducing: Whole Brain Teaching. I have used elements of whole brain teaching in my classroom management since last year, but I have not used the instructional elements to their full potential. I am most specifically focusing on the strategy of "Teach OK", where I teach the kids a concept, then they teach each other the concept. It incorporates so many levels of thinking! Here is an example of one way I have used the Teach OK strategy:
Me: Class!
Students: Yes!
Me: Gestures! (Students lift their hands to imitate my movements like a mirror image) Today we are going to learn to order numbers, putting them in order from least to greatest, or greatest to least, by stacking them. (Throughout this statement, I move my hands to show meaning of the words. Small for least, then spread my arms for greatest, and for stacking I may pretend to make a stack with my hands.)
Students: (Imitate teachers hand movements.)
Teacher: XXTeach!
Students: XX OK! (Students turn to their pre assigned partners and re-teach the concept to them, by using gestures that they just learned.)
Teacher: Classity Class!
Students: Yessity Yes!
Teacher: (Begins next lesson)
Since this is a little confusing, take a look that this 1st grade teacher using some of the whole brain teaching concepts:
All things whole brain teaching can be seen/found on Chris Biffle's website. Registration is free, so check it out!
To start our estimation unit with lucky charms, we made predictions about how many of each marshmallow we would find in the box of cereal.
After making predictions for how many of each marshmallow, the students split and sorted the marshmallows. They used tallys to keep up with how many of each shape they had. After we finished, they came up with a class total by adding among their table, then reporting to me. This was so great for working on their communication skills!!
After all of our counting and tallying, we worked as a class to make a bar graph representative of how many of each marshmallow that we had. This led into a discussion about probability, and lesson about "most likely", "least likely", and "equally likely".
This month, my students and I began a unit on geometry. What better way to teach than using food! For two dimensional shapes, we used pretzel sticks and m&m's. For three dimensional shapes we used toothpicks and marshmallows to build solid figures. At the end of each lesson, the students were able to have a tasty snack!!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Valentine-Math-Centers
