Parent involvement

I love helpful parents and am always trying to get more community involvement.  However, as educators, we are posed with the problem of how to get parents and community members to help.  I love help with copies, bulletin boards and grading progress monitoring.  What I love even more is parents that work with their students at home and are on top of school work.  I love parents that support their children and realize that education is a journey.  Not every child learns the same way and at the same rate.  This might be one of my biggest reasons why I am an advocate of the Common Core State Standards: the goal is end of year mastery.  This helps students realize that learning isn't a "one time thing" and that they must continually practice skills.  But back to parents and families, I am asked often how they can help beyond reading with their kids and checking homework.

Then I stumbled upon these gems on pinterest, courtesy of this blog:

 

I love the simplicity and transparency of these hand outs.  They provide straight forward ideas to help with comprehension and number sense.

I plan to get them translated into Spanish for our demographic, then make them into QR codes and post outside my classroom as well as on my welcome letter.  By posting them as QR codes, families will always have access to them electronically. I will also send them home with my welcome letter and have them at  both Meet the Teacher and Open House.  I'm excited and looking forward to more family involvement this year :)

Time for a Goodwill trip, I have the urge to upcycle!

I love upcycling. I love the idea of taking something old and upcycling it into something new, useful and beautiful.  It's usually cheaper than buying new and is better for the environment. 

I just bought new twin sheets to upcycle into bulletin boards.  I just realized that table cloths will also work, especially for seasonal boards.  Just make sure to get rectangular ones, not oval! (Since I don't think anyone has oval or circular bulletin boards...but that'd be cool!)

My latest pinterest idea is to reuse a cutting block for desk supplies, like this:

Of course, I'd spray paint mine pink with white polka dots.  To do this, I'd paint the whole block white, then use these

to create a polka dot pattern.  I've learned from past upcycling projects that white dots work WAY better than colored ones.  The colorful ones tend to bleed.  However, you can skip a painting step by applying the stickers over the base color.  Or paint the stickers the desired polka dot color. Then I'd paint the entire thing pink :)  

Time to go crafting!

No Way Jose and That's a Fact, Jack!

No Way Jose and That's a Fact, Jack!

Last year, a teacher at my school introduced me to the phrase and activity "No Way Jose" and "That's a Fact, Jack".  Students are given a set of statements that they must determine to be accurate (that's a fact, Jack!) or false (no way, Jose!).  Students work collaboratively to sort the statements into two piles and discuss their reasons. 

This can be used for all academic purposes and is a great formative assessment.

I used it last year as a formative assessment for our state wide science test.  There were a lot of concepts that were covered on the test but not enough time to fully teach or review all of the science material they were supposed to get from kinder on up.  So I had students work as table teams to sort the statements while I walked around with a clip board, making note of which concepts would need quick clarification and which ones would require more extensive review.  I allotted fifteen minutes for this activity, but it ended up taking almost forty because students were having such great discussions (and I hated to cut them off).

This year, I'm starting the year off with a team building activity.  After going over the expectations (noise level, cooperation, effort, clean up, gallery walks, etc), I will have students work collaboratively to sort out the fifth grade myths from the facts.  They will do this on the third day of school when we've covered most of the procedures and norms for the grade level.  I'll give them about ten minutes to sort, then have students do a gallery walk to see each other's ideas.  The expectation during gallery walks is that it's okay to point and disagree (respectfully) with another table's findings, but it's not okay to change their work.  We will then go over the answers as a class and I'll use that time to clarify any myths surrounding fifth grade.  

Here is a sample of the sort:

I made it in word as a table.  Once completed, each sort will be three pages long. I'll print multiple copies in different colors, that way when I inevitably find that one forgotten slip, it will be easy to return it to the proper bag.  Not that students ever forget to fully pick up centers :)

I'm hoping it adds more joy into our day and helps students to work on collaborating with one another.

Preparing for the first week

We are approximately one month away from school starting again. I'll have trainings again the week before students arrive and then it's back in the school zone. I've been pinning on my teacher board and am overwhelmed by great ideas to make my fifth year in fifth grade my best yet.  By best, these are my goals:

1. Work smarter, not harder.  I want to leave work at a reasonable time at least twice a week.  Wednesdays for body combat at the gym and Friday because, well, it's Friday.  I want to take less work home and work on the whole work-life balance.  This doesn't mean I will slack as a teacher. It means I will make time for more joy in my life, thus translating to being happier in the classroom and my room being a more positive place.

2. Be more organized and return papers in a timely manner. I want to work on being better at giving specific, meaningful feedback.  To help, I made these:

 This will be attached to a plastic tub by my door or desk.  

My desk tends to get a little messy and by using this system, students can put things for me inside when they enter the classroom (and then the notes won't get lost in their desks).  

This will be attached to a plastic crate and I will use file folders to divide by students' names. 

 Naturally, the plastic crate will also be pink and was on sale at Target!

3. Being more flexible with small groups, especially with writing.  

I tried to write my first week lesson plans but was having difficulty figuring out which read alouds to do on which days and the best sequence for introducing procedures, setting norms, etc.  I don't really want to start the year off with "sit and get" talking. I want students to be involved in the norm setting (or at least feel like they're involved, since I plan to reuse the norms sheets we made last year).  I know I will revise these plans more than once between now and August, but it feels nice to be a little bit productive.  Even if it's just being on pinterest and calling it research!

Happy start of the school year!

Math Taboo!

One of my favorite board games is Taboo:

So I recreated the game into a math version for my students.  It is aligned to the Common Core and challenges teams to guess the math vocabulary word without saying the words below.  I made a fifth grade version (since that's what I teach)

 Here is a sample image:

You can download your own 24 page unit at my TpT store here.  Instructions for students are included. Beyond the cards, you just need some sort of timer to keep students on task.  

As with all my products, I'd recommend laminating them to increase durability and minimize environmental impacts (print it once!).  Students will not only work on their academic vocabulary by using math terms, but also work on explaining the concepts to one another.  This center or activity embeds speaking and listening skills as well as challenges students to use the 8 math practices.  As an added bonus, they don't even realize they're using the math practices and math feels more natural.  You can always challenge students to create their own cards as well or add words to the "do not say" columns.

Happy math time!

-Ms. Vice

Bringing back the joy

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the Discovery Educator Network Summer Institute (DENSI 2013) in the beautiful Burlington, Vermont.

My head is still spinning with all the amazing information about incorporating technology into my classroom to enhance student participation.  I'm excited to use the new apps to air stream from my iPad to my projector and turn my iPad into a document camera to capture student work while walking around the classroom. 

Perhaps even more exciting then the information was the opportunity to try new things and connect with some amazing educators from across the Untied States and from the Great White North (oh Canada).  In five short days, we did a flash mob, the Harlem Shake and the Denmazing Race.  I learned to milk a goat and geo-cache, both of which are obviously great life skills.

Perhaps the most important message I took away from the conference is joy.  Teaching is amazing. I'm blessed with the opportunity year after year to interact with precious young minds and help guide them to be thoughtful, articulate, considerate citizens.  Parents trust me with their most valuable gems and I get to watch them grow, learn and discover.  One thing I want to work on this year is putting joy back into teaching.  I want to make each day fun and have my students want to be there.  I learned about whole brain teaching from my super cool roommate and I love the idea of having my students communicate frequently with one another.  

I plan to upcycle a tissue box (once I have an empty one) into this cute student shout out box:

I can empower students to compliment one another and work on building a classroom community.  I'm excited for the upcoming school year and embracing more JOY in my life and my classroom :)

Sheets Sale!

Back to school time is quickly approaching for many educators, which means back to school sales!

I visited Goodwill for their half-off Saturday to score some pretty twin flat sheets for bulletin boards.  While I like using butcher paper, it's better for the environment for me to reuse sheets each year :)

For under ten dollars, I walked out with a light blue sheet, a mint green printed one and a solid pink one.

 I was unsuccessful in my quest for a red one, but I did just get a coupon for Bed, Bath and Beyond so I might purchase one there. I'm excited to have craft time and decorate some new boards!

I also picked up some great kids' books for the classroom for around two dollars a piece.  If you haven't investigated Goodwill's used book selection, I highly recommend it!  They almost always have copies of Harry Potter and the Series of Unfortunate Events for almost nothing.

Staples also had composition notebooks on sale for fifty cents each, so I stocked up on those.  I plan to use our school's paper cutter to slice them in half.  This will help stretch our limited supply :)

Happy back to school shopping!