Centers Hack

It seems silly, but starting in a new grade level is quite similar to being a new teacher all over again.  I don't necessarily know what misconceptions my students will have, I don't have a drawer full of manipulatives or centers for review/extension activities, and there's a lot of learning curves.

One of our most recent grade level meetings focused on math planning and the upcoming unit.  One of the benefits of these meetings is that I can pick the brains of the other teachers who have taught this math unit before.

Here were the take aways:

Elapsed time and telling time apparently is extremely difficult for the kiddos. 

A pre-test for this unit is highly recommended.  (The Engage NY Module covers addition and subtraction with regrouping to the thousands, elapsed time, telling time, estimation, and rounding.)

Pre-teaching is recommended because not all the second grade teachers use Engage NY curriculum.  With computers and phones, telling time on an analog (traditional) clock is a lost skill that's not necessarily reinforced at home.  Very few of my students can read the analog clock in our classroom and often interrupt my teaching to blurt out a question asking about the time.  It's a skill we're working on.

So we're going to do some hands-on practice with telling time and reading clocks before jumping into our next math unit.

We're going to physically build clocks, courtesy of this free {TpT download}.

I also prepped these {I have Who Has} center and {What Time is it} centers for each table.  Both were freebies (my favorite) from TpT.  If my students like them and they're valuable, I'll reprint on colored cardstock and laminate.

 

To stay organized, I make each table their own set and place it in a sandwich sized bag.  I then place all the smaller bags in a gallon sized bag, along with the answer keys.  It's the little tricks that make the difference.

Teacher Tip: The Roster

Apparently I shared my love of "the roster" a few  years ago with this {post} but it was worth revisiting.

This weekend, I sat down to grade their autobiographies.

I made the rubric with the kiddos:

(They self-assessed in pencil and I scored with the highlighter.  It lends itself to a good discussion and helps the students be reflective of their own work.  They get the rubric before the editing and revising process so they know exactly what I'm looking for when I grade their work.)
 
I am looking at eight different standards with this assignment. We spent a month on it and specifically practiced each different component.

However, eight grades for 25 kids is a lot to keep track of.

Enter the roster:

I simply put the standard at the top and fill in their grades for each of the scored standards.  Then when it's time to put the scores in the grade book, I simply type down the list (because it's already in alphabetical order). 

Hooray for time savers!