Quick Assess

    Here's a quick way to assess, and make guided math groups.  Put a math problem on the board - a clock face, addition, subtraction, coins, multiplication, whatever - and have the students write the answer on a post-it note, along with their name.  Collect them, stick them on a piece of cardstock (I used a sheet protector with cardstock inside), and sort them by struggling students...or by certain mistakes.  These were used to determine peer tutors and pair kids up.  Quick - easy - guided math groups...done!   

Fabulous Finds Friday: Supplies Managment

In full disclaimer, I actually came across this lovely jewel of an idea over a year ago.  It's from Marisa Curtis over at First Grade Glitter and Giggles.  I was slightly doubtful at first, but figured I'd try anything to avoid repeating myself five. billion. times. again.  I made my own using photos from our classroom supplies, and also included areas of the room we gather in, like our class library carpet or the projector area.  But happily, Marisa included copies of her cute polka dot set...for free!  I'm feeling the teacher love!

Anyway, I used this last year with my 2nd graders and became pretty dependent on it.  No repeating - just point.  No transitions - they're sitting in the right place, ready to go, even if I'm held up at the doorway dealing with post-recess drama (you know you've been there!).  Love! 

A Grateful Class

So the geeky, scientific side of me wants to explain all the research that's been done on happiness, and how people that write just 5 things each day that they are grateful for feel more fulfilled in their life and more readily notice the good in their life.  I'd love to quote the statistics showing they complain less and stick to difficult tasks longer.  But I'll refrain because, frankly, I don't think anyone would necessarily care about the specifics.

The point is, all these things I want to be part of our classroom culture so I'm careful to teach, model and develop them in very specific ways.  One way is through our Thankful Books.  Every day, either when they finish their morning starter or while I'm handing out papers at the end of the day, the kids write down 5 specific things they're thankful for.  Then whenever we have a few extra minutes to kill, we like to share some of the things the kids have written down.  

I've noticed the kids that always seem to find everything wrong in life (pet peeve!) or that complain at the least struggle start to change their mindset...or at least I can send them to add more to their Thankful Book when they don't!

Easy peasy - fold some white paper in half, add a construction paper cover and let them go to town!

To Sum Up

Recognize this?
"So this book was about this one girl and she woke up one day and decided to have pancakes for breakfast and then she went back upstairs and got dressed for school then she went back downstairs to get her backpack then she left the house and went to the bus stop which was on the corner by her best friends house and she waited until the bus came and when it came she got on and went to school and got there right before the bell rang so she ran to class and..."
Five minutes later, I'm still listening to the student 'summarize' the story they just read in play-by-play, sometimes even with instant replay!  On the other hand, some students try to summarize a chapter book in two sentences or less and it's like pulling teeth to get them to include more details.
The kids do a lot better starting out with a structure when I want them to summarize.  I let them in on a super-secret teacher clue: retell = tell every detail in the story; summarize = tell the main details. There's a lot of graphic organizers out there, like this one from the fabulous Jen Runde:
  I like to keep it simple and just have the kids write one detail from the beginning, two or three from the middle and one from the end.  The kids took that information, made it into a book jacket for their book, and wrote their summary on the inside.  Of course, we read plenty of book jacket summaries before they tackled their own, just to get a really good idea of how authors summarize. And here's the final product:

The book jackets were hung from the ceiling with care...

In hopes that everyone would read them there...

And find a good book to read!

Fabulous Finds Friday: Class Stationary

I was so excited when I found this adorable class stationary on Pinterest!  I'm thinking of using it for thank you notes to volunteering parents, Specials teachers or places we visit on fieldtrips.


There wasn't a link on Pinterest, so if you know whose idea this was, I'd love to give them credit!  They're craftily creative!

New Year's Resolutions

Oh it's so hard to come back from a relaxing break!  But in the spirit of New Year's, here's a printable we'll be doing to set some New Year's resolutions.  I wasn't particularly wowed by the format, but let that go half-way through The Big Bang Theory last night.  Such has been my planning this week.

P.S. We've had to practice the fine skill of writing goals all year long, as we've done our weekly reading and math goals.  Biggest difficulty: making them specific and measurable.  They have a general idea of what they want to do (ie. read with more expression) but struggle making that into something they can actually do and act on.  So I wrote it into the graphic organizer.

It Looked Like a Cumulus Cloud...

    I'm sitting at an airport so small they board on the tarmac, when the dreaded announcement came across - 3 hour delay.  So what's a girl to do but lesson plan?   

With Utah forecasts showing cloudy skies over the next week, we'll be casually revisiting our Clouds unit.  We started it off with a great classic, It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw.  I was a little worried about how fourth graders would like this book but, with some humorous inflections thrown in the reading, they loved it!
After learning about the different types of clouds for 2 weeks, we made our own "Spilt Milk" pages.  I know the cotton ball clouds project is a classic one, and I've used it over and over as a summative assessment.  Along with the correct placement and labeling of each cloud type, the kids also wrote by each one,
"It looked like a _______________, but it was a ________ cloud." to mirror the book.  Matching each cloud type with their own visual representation helped the kids keep the types and atmosphere level straight.

 

When You Reach Me

Have you heard of this book?  I thought it was kind of like a younger version of The Time Traveler's Wife.  It's a fairly quick read, with quite a bit of action, and relatable characters.  The ending was a little expected, and yet somehow I was pulled in and couldn't put it down until I finished.
Check out the review!

What Do You Say?

I live 30 min. from my school, and all the way there this morning I kept thinking, "What am I going to say to my kids about Sandy Hook?"  I had hoped some brilliant idea, some words of wisdom or uplifting thought, would come to me.  But all that came to mind was my own experience of a school lock-down several years ago when some boys decided to target shoot on school grounds.  Because of my position, I was the one to run through the halls, checking to make sure doors were locked, kids were fully hidden and teachers were calm.  That experience made me really think hard and decide what I would do should a gunman be in that hall with me - for whom would I be willing to take a bullet?
And so I'm faced with the original dilemma.  What do you say to 9-year-olds when children their own age - even younger - have died in such a tragic way?  How do you fully convey the fact that you would do anything to protect them, give your own life for theirs if it should come to that, but that they're safe in their own school and should feel confident and not fearful?  How do you appropriately address the sadness, avoid  focusing on the details, and move forward in hope and faith?


Our thoughts from Salt Lake City, Utah are very strongly with the families of all the children at Sandy Hook Elementary.

Random Acts of Kindness

There are a lot of things floating around the blog world about Random Acts of (Christmas) Kindness, so I thought I'd share what we do to celebrate birthdays.  I've been a little unimpressed with the gifting of cute things to my students for their birthdays, knowing it would last as far as the school hallways before being opened, eaten, lost or tossed aside.  I wanted something more meaningful.  So after coming across a blog about random acts of kindness done for a lovely woman's birthday, I decided we should do the same.  Now when we have a birthday in our class, the kids get this paper in the morning:

Throughout the day, they do and record random acts of kindness in honor of the birthday person.  At the end of the day, while I'm passing out papers, they write a happy message to the person and we present the stack to the birthday student.  

I wasn't sure how this would go over with the kids, but they love it even more than the small gift the PTA gives them and often ask about it the morning of their birthday.  So much more fun and meaningful than the old birthday standbys!