Happy birthday to me! (day 4)

Day 4

I really didn't get much done before school because people kept popping into my room to wish me happy birthday, which I thought was very sweet.  My new grade level brought me balloons and cupcakes, along with decorating my room.  Wasn't expecting that from a team I've worked with for basically a week, but it's great to feel so welcomed.

In math, we talked more about persevering through problems, did our number talk, then I introduced them to one of my favorite math games 20 wins.  Basically they are placing digits (0-9) into boxes and trying to make a square equal 20 with any operations.  For the first day, I modeled with me against them before letting them try with a partner.

 

We came back together and talked about strategies that were used:

While they played, I walked around making observations.  For the most part, my class seemed very comfortable with addition strategies.  A few groups tried multiplication to make 20.  They'll play again tomorrow and their weekend homework will be to play with a family member.  I don't think I'll have much trouble getting them to want to play math games.

What they don't realize is how much math they're doing.  Yes, they're adding for the most part. But they're also thinking strategically and looking for patterns with numbers.  They're having to predict what their partners might do and prevent that from happening.  They're using multiple operations, practicing order of operations, and often times trying several different strategies until they can make 20.  I love tricking them into learning!

After that math fun, we went over phrasing with fluency.  I had them do a sort with their table teams to pre-assess them and for the most part, they know what fluency is so I'm not starting instruction from the beginning.  Of the four components of fluency (rate, expression, accuracy, and phrasing) I decided to model one.  If I modeled all 4 in one day, they'd be bored and probably confuse the components.  I'd rather go a little slower to make sure they've all got it.

I modeled several different times (incorrectly) and had them give me feedback.  They did a really good job with picking out the errors.  We made a chart together in our notebooks before moving to the carpet for today's skill lesson.

I modeled metacognition, which is thinking while reading, using The Lightning Thief.  The first time I read, I modeled great fluency.  Afterward, I asked them how I did to which they responded great!  Then I let them in on a secret: it's not enough to just read the words.  You've got to think about what you're reading.

I modeled again, this time tapping to the book whenever I was "in the text" and tapping to my head, modeling a think-aloud, whenever I was practicing metacognition.  I had two students keep score:

We talked about how we have to think while reading.  Some of them got it, some didn't.  That's okay, it's day 4.  We've got time. 

We also went over what it means to be a good reader, which was part of their homework:

I'm trying to color code my anchor charts (reading being teal) to help my students.  We'll see how long I can keep up this goal!  I had them brainstorm independently, talk as a table team, then add their thoughts on post-its.

In writing, they're continuing to work on their letters to self.  In science, they're having a great time with the mystery bags.  I also had them draw pictures of what a scientist is:

Then we had the conversation that women can be scientists too, since many drew men.  I talked about how I am a scientist whenever I step into the kitchen.  I am a chemist, hoping my ingredients combine the way they're supposed to.  I have to be accurate in my measurements and ensure my oven is preheated to the proper temperatures.  I test my experiments by eating them :)  I also shared that of the real chemists I know, the highest ranking ones are women.  This was very surprising for them but part of my job is to destroy their gender stereotypes about scientists.

All in all, it was a great day.  My biggest concern so far is I've had to move one student's desk twice already, but I think that's just an adjustment back to school and realizing my expectations of listening to instructions the first time they're given.  

Four days down!

FCRR Shout Out

I've blogged about FCRR before and it's a wonderful free resource for literacy stations.  I love that it's broken up into grade level bands (K-1, 2-3 and 4-5) as well as into the big 5 components of literacy instruction (phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, phonics and comprehension).  They've also revised many of their student activities to align with the Common Core State Standards, which is also extremely helpful.

I've used the stations with my intervention groups and during my small groups.  I especially like the fluency stations at the beginning of the year when I'm explicitly teaching the four components of fluency (accuracy, rate, expression and phrasing).

Since it was reading week last week, I took advantage of the lax schedule (we had assemblies and Discovery Education testing as well) to play some reading games with my students (when they weren't being pulled to make up missed assignments, since the trimester ended Friday). 

One of the stations they played was "fact and opinion football":

I had a group of football fans fully entertained for a good twenty minutes.  When they ran out of cards, I had them make up their own statements for the group to guess.

The second station was "incredible inferences":

(Yes, my classroom rug is polka dotted...that's just how I roll!)

I used counters from our math kit as pieces, but you can use virtually anything. I'm pretty sure almost every teacher I've met has some sort of kit of pieces.

They had a great time with these reading games and I liked the skills that were reinforced. I know many of my students struggle with getting past the literal words in the text, so this was a fun way for them to practice "digging deep" and making meaning of the text.  They're getting there with inferences!

Happy reading :)

Reading notebooks so far

Week 4, Day 2

We have most of the kinks worked out with our notebooks.

Our reading one has our table of contents:

We've recorded a lot of our thoughts in our notebooks.

Here is a poem we analyzed and worked on recording our thinking:

We've been reading aloud Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, which my students are absolutely loving!

We practiced making predictions based on the front and back covers as well as the table of contents.  We discussed the importance of noticing illustrations and making predictions about the story.  They did a really great job with this lesson.

Here we have been keeping track of characters in our novels:

We will compare and contrast them, but it's important for students to keep track of characters as they grow over the novel.

We also have used this FCRR think sheet

to analyze Percy :)

Here we have our reference sheet for context clues (from the previously mentioned amazing CORE source book)

We used the context clues lesson when we re-read parts of the Lightning Thief to focus on unknown words.  They are working on determining meaning based on context clues:

Here we tried a new strategy called brain mapping:

We cut apart a thinking map and added our own thoughts.  It took WAY longer than anticipated and I'm not sure we'll be doing it again any time soon, but it was nice to show students a new way to record their notes.

We are working on figurative language in our intervention block as well as in whole group reading.  We are applying these terms to analyzing poems.

Here is the poem we are working on:

We read it today to look for figurative language.  Tomorrow we will re-read the passage with the intention of looking for theme.

Our poem is slightly too long for our notebooks, 

so we problem solved by folding it in half and only gluing in part :)

Here is our thinking sheet about comparing and contrasting settings that was made by my awesome colleague:

We will be using it when we analyze different settings in The Lightning Thief.

Here is our phrasing lesson and a half sheet reference for Greek gods (to help with the Lightning Thief)

We've done a lot in the first few weeks of school!

Week 2 Recap

Somehow, yesterday managed to be even longer than Thursday.

My to do list also grew, which makes today a catch up day.  When I'm not working on something for school, my procrastination (besides this) will be chores around the house and errands.

We have our groups made since we start switching for math and small groups (reading) on Monday.  To help my students, I put sticky labels on their desks with where they go for AM and PM as well as what they're supposed to take.  I'm hoping it eases down on the rushing back and forth to classes because something was left behind. 

My students are great.  Talkative, but great.  Truth be told, I'd rather have a group that talks with one another then one that sits and looks blankly at each other.

Here are my Batman birthday flowers from a student:

And a Batman Powder Puff girl drawing from another:

I am a very lucky teacher :)

We've spend the second week continuing to establish norms, build community, go over the math practices, practicing good reading strategies, working on our notebooks, reading aloud Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief and doing beginning of the year benchmark testing.

Here is one of our fluency lessons, focusing on phrasing:

Phrasing is a component of fluency where students read in meaningful phrases.  The goal is not to read words one at a time, but rather in chunks that aid in comprehension.  Students received a passage and put in lines to indicate where they as readers would want to pause when reading aloud.  We went over pausing at commas and stopping at punctuation marks.  We did the first paragraph together, then they worked on the rest as table teams.  When we were all done, we practiced chorally whisper reading.

The lesson comes from the CORE source book...

...which is amazing :)

We also have started this anchor chart on interesting words from our reading:

As well as this one on what good readers do:

This one on metacognition and reading strategies:

And this one on what mathematicians do: 

My classroom has lots of anchor charts :)

Week 2 is done, 9 days in.  I'm excited for all the exciting learning we have ahead of us on our academic journey :)

Fluency prep for next week

Next week we are working on fluency during reading time, so in preparation, I made a new center:

(These masters are from a Kagan book)

My awesome coworker shared these with me since I'll be doing reading centers during small group time.

The Kagan activity is called "Quiz-Quiz Trade" where each student has a card.  Each student finds a partner, reads the card (Q on the front, A on the back), listens to the partner's card (tries to answer their question) and then trades cards.  Students don't hold on to their original card the whole time, allowing them to hear the correct answers to a variety of questions.

This fluency center will be stressing phrasing and expression, which means they will be reading in meaningful chunks while paying attention to punctuation cues.

Time to cut out some new cards!