Freebie: Chevron & Cloud backgrounds!

While doing teacher prep (okay, being on pinterest) I stumbled upon this:

Free digitial downloads for chevron and cloud prints!

Granted, there is no pink pattern  but I can't have everything. I'm excited to incorporate the gray & teal ones into some of my home & classroom decor with banners and centers :)

All you have to do is be a TpT member (sign up is free) and you can snag yours here!  Thanks to The Candy Class for making this cute product free!

You can download a copy for yourself too! (Just make sure to read her copyright info.)

Happy crafting!

Purposely Vague

I recently attended a math training and while it wasn't earth-shattering revelations, I did enjoy this snippet:

Be purposefully vague.

That's right, be vague in your questioning.  Let them struggle.  Let them make meaning of the problem.  Let them talk it out and try multiple strategies.  Let them persevere.  Let them come up with several answers and justify them to one another.  Let them express their thinking and critique others.  But again, most importantly:

Let them struggle.

It's productive, I promise.  They need to struggle.  It's not helpful to let them get all the answers right away. It's not helpful to spoon feed them the answers.  Not everything in life comes easily and they need to understand struggle so that when they work through the problems, they are that much more excited about their success.  Not every problem is given with the purpose of finding the one correct answer, but rather an emphasis should be placed on the problem solving strategies and critical thinking that lead to the answer(s).  Give meaningful, complex problems that are based on real world situations.  Don't provide problems where the solutions can be easily googled.  Let them struggle.  They'll be better students if they learn to persevere through problems and work on their critical thinking skills.  Provide the necessary scaffolds, yes, but not the answers right away.  Ask them questions rather than give them answers.  Challenge them. Encourage them. Inspire them.

Be vague.  Let them struggle. Let them do the thinking.

Tech Tip: Kid blog

One of my favorite websites this year is kidblog.  It's free to sign up but you can only have 50 students.  I had to use 2 different email addresses since I have large classes but it was easy enough.

I used first names & last initials for student names and their ID numbers for their passwords.  

There's a super helpful "bulk import" option where you create a word document:

student name, password

Then save as .txt instead of .doc or .docx, then upload!

Change from .docx to .txt by using the dropdown arrow

Much faster in comparision to uploading 40 students individually!

I also love that if you view kidblog without a log in, this is what you see:

Nice and safe for my students!

I gave my principal a log in as well. She logs in and leaves them inspirational comments, which makes them so excited :)

character charts

As we're finishing up our novels, we're posting our character and setting charts on the wall:

 I think I'm running out of space! I think I'll take them down, put them on a book ring:

And create a flipchart.

Plus, that'd free up valuable wall space!  Based on one of my fabulous neighbor's suggestions, I'm going to make a "shout out" board where I can post good examples of their "must do's" and work.

I had a major problem last week with a very small percentage of my classes not doing the must do correctly and on time.

Part of it was my fault for not explicitly modeling, but part of it was due to their desires to rush to do centers. 

So, as always in teaching, I'll make adjustments for next time.

I think having the positive motivator of being on the display board will definitely help! Stay tuned :)

paper slide

During the last week before winter break, we made paper slide videos for our must-do.  I set the expectations:

But didn't pass out a rubric due to time.  (We had Discovery tests to finish, a writing task and a grade level reading test so time was limited.)  Next time, I'll do a rubric so they can self-assess.

Each time they're getting better, which is awesome to see their growth. 

They worked collaboratively:

And we watched their final projects on the last day before winter break!  Since they used their names, I won't post the link here but it is available on our kidblog sites (for my student & family readers).

Candy Cane Concentration

For my intervention block, we've been working on multiplication.

On the last day before winter break, I decided we should have a little fun with some candy.  Using circular stickers and candy cane kisses, I created candy concentration.

Students had to match the factors with the product.

They had a lot of fun with it!  Hopefully yours will as well :)

Battle of the Books!

My students are going to be participating in our school district's Battle of the Books in April!  Our school has never participated before and I'm excited to have this experience with them!

My super supportive principal & assistant principal are ordering books for my students and I'll be hosting "book club" after school each week.

I'm sure they'll do great!

We'll have a school competition with the winning team headed to the semi-finals :)