I posted another project to donorschoose. I requested copies of Steal Away Home, Seed Folks, and My name is Maria Isabel to use with small groups. I read portions of these novels as read alouds (mentor text) with my fifth graders last year. They loved the stories but were disappointed when they found out I only had one copy. I'm requesting eight of each novel to use with small groups. I love when more than one student is reading the same novel because they discuss their ideas with one another outside of our group meetings.
I'm also requesting eight copies of House of Hades to continue our quest with Percy and co. In the grant, I also asked for some interactive number lines, math manipulatives to stress teaching powers of ten (but in a way that's helpful to my visual and kinesthetic learners), and some classroom organizing materials.
Donations to my classroom are 100% tax deductible and for the next week are being matched through charitable organizations. Use INSPIRE at checkout to double your donation! (Up to $100).
Even if you can't donate right now, please keep my classroom and young students in your mind. Pass along this information to any interested parties and I will be extremely appreciative! Thank you.
Kindly,
Ms. Vice
(and the munchkins of room 71)
I really enjoyed Tom Angleberger's The Strange Case of Origami Yoda when I read it last year for the Battle of the Books.
I utilized Scholastic's book orders to snag myself the sequels at a very discounted rate. The books will make their way into my classroom library as soon as I'm done reading them :)
The first book I found while organizing my library was The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee so I tackled this one first.
However, a few pages in I realized I was reading the series out of chronological order, which is a huge literary faux pas. However since I can't find Darth Paper Strikes Back, I am coping with my literary betrayal (sorry Tom Angleberger!).
This was a quick read at under two hundred pages. My 24 page teacher guide and chronological order sort for this novel are available now on TpT. Once I've finished Darth Paper Strikes Back, The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppet, and Princess Labelmaker to the Rescue I will create a character sort center as well. I just don't feel I know these characters well enough to make a quality sort for my fifth graders.
Happy reading and may the Force be with you!
And...I'm back to work.
It's Saturday. That being said, I spent about six hours in my classroom and all I really feel I accomplished is making a big mess.
After my final day of math training, I went to my new school to get my keys. I stayed about two hours because I had my final day of tutoring before the family heads back to Europe. I managed to get my technology all set up and decided where I wanted my furniture. I only had to move the filing cabinets and wardrobe twice before being happy with the placement! I set up my desks in Kagan groups, unpacked the few boxes I had, then headed home.
Last night I finished The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee while packing more.
This morning I woke up around six, typed up the rest of my teacher notes on the novel, wrote a grant for books on donorschoose, then headed over a little before nine am. I worked until noon, came home to load up again, met up with the boyfriend and bestie, grabbed lunch (my treat...err bribe. Let's be real, it was a sub bribe) and headed over. We only got to work for about an hour and a half before it was too hot and we had to leave. (They shut the air off at one and it was close to three.)
Today we accomplished moving about a hundred outdated text books to a storage cabinet, putting math books in all the desks, partially hanging two bulletin boards, and beginning to unpack boxes and organize my library. We didn't finish hanging the bulletin boards because I use sheets and they had to flatten out. I staple up the top part of the board, then use anti-wrinkle spray and let them air out over night before stapling the rest.
I think there is a small pile on every desk. I've taken over about 70% (of the materials I've gone through) so I think this is progress. I'm just overwhelmed because so many other teachers' classrooms are done. I need to keep reminding myself that it's okay to not be done. I'll go in tomorrow for a few hours (when the building has AC). I'll go in for most of the day Monday and Tuesday. I have Wednesday after training, all day Thursday, and next weekend. My room has to look presentable for open house...which is in 6 days. Yikes! At least it's a short commute and I have awesome friends who can help. Plus everyone at my new school seems super friendly and helpful. It's such a positive, refreshing change. I can honestly say I'm excited to go to work again.
However, once it's all done, I will treat myself to a mani & pedi :)
After tackling my homework for math training, grocery shopping, and spending several hours leveling my library (such a daunting task), I didn't have the energy left to process what I'd learned.
However, today I was home much earlier so I could reflect on yesterday and today's math trainings.
Days 2 & 3:
We talked about multiplication. We talked about it...a lot. Perhaps it's because I teach fifth grade and have taught inclusion, but none of the strategies mentioned were new information. I grasped the concept right away and helped my neighbor make the same mathematical discoveries.
However, I did learn a few new things over the past few days. Here are my "ah ha" moments:
The minuend is the first number in a subtraction problem and represents the amount you start with. The subtrahend is the amount that is being removed or subtracted.
This discovery raised an interesting question within our group. Why is it that other math vocabulary terms (addend, sum, factor, product, quotient, etc) are well-known but minuend and subtrahend aren't? Why can teachers (and hopefully their students) use the correct vocabulary for the other operations, but stumble on subtraction terms? I know I'll be incorporating these terms into my math instruction!
"Give One, get one, move on" strategy
The page is divided into four sections. Students solve the problem in the first quadrant, which is labeled "give". After time to process the problem, students then will stand up and find three other people to "get" strategies from. The students will work in pairs to explain their strategies to one another. Not only does this allow for movement, but students can explain their thoughts to one another. During this time, the teacher is monitoring as an informal assessment to see what students are grasping the content and which ones still need a little more practice time.
The next classroom tweak deals with these manipulatives:
Found in almost every elementary classroom, I always called these "ones", "tens", "hundreds" and so on. Most teachers do.
However, in doing so, you're limiting students' understanding of the relationship (powers of ten) between the manipulatives.
These will henceforth be referred at as units (smallest), rods (long ones), flats, and cubes.
By doing so, a teacher is able to stress the relationship between a value being ten times larger or smaller than the value next to it on a place value chart.
Referring to these as units, rods, flats, and cubes also allows for the manipulation in upper elementary. If my "one" is now the cube, I can use these manipulatives to represent a tenth (flat), a hundredth (rod), and thousandth (unit). I can also regard the unit as a thousand, then have students prove the other values. (Rod would be 10,000, flat 100,000, cube 1,000,000).
Finally, we played close to 100 (from Investigations). While this game was not new to me, I did appreciate the discussion about its importance in the classroom. In playing this math game (and others), students are provided the opportunity to practice many math skills such as estimation, reasoning, critiquing the reasoning of others, operations, and place value. These games take minutes to learn, can be a good task for students if they finish early with an activity, and can be used as homework. I know my students would much rather go home and play a math game as their homework then fill out a worksheet.
Close to 100 also reminded me of another quick math activity:
What an easy way to get their brains working during the first few moments of the day!
Stay tuned for a recap of days 4 and 5!
First, it was difficult to get up at 5:30 this morning. Second, I didn't factor in nearby construction, so I just barely made it to my 7 am training. I wasn't late, I just wasn't my normal five to ten minutes early. Because I was late by my own standards, I had one of the last choices in seating which meant I was stuck in a set facing the back of the room. I've got a bit of a neck cramp from turning my head around all day. All those minor factors aside, I shook off my frustration and settled in for six hours of learning.
That's when I learned this training is five days, not four. I had planned to go into my new school Friday to start setting up my classroom. There's also a school tour and it sounds like that's the day my administration is going over all of the details about our school. Good thing I have two close friends also starting at my school so I can get the info :)
I like the ladies I'm sitting with and the instructors are friendly and knowledgeable. Two of the other ladies at my training are at my former coach's school so I shared how lucky they are to have her guidance.
Then the math activities started. Now, I've been to a lot of trainings over the past five years. I like learning and new strategies. 90% of what was covered today I've heard before. Now I could be grumpy about this, or I could be fortunate that I've had some great mentor teachers and coaches who've already shared this information. I'm choosing the second option and going to focus on the new information I learned today.
One of the videos we watched was a middle school Number Talk. Most of the time the videos are focused on elementary, so it was nice to see a change. The teacher set the norms for the problem: (123-76)
1. Don't solve traditional algorithm
2. You may write down numbers, but you need to try this in your head
3. Thumbs up when you've got the answer (standard Number Talks procedure)
The teacher then allowed for think time. Instead of asking for the answer, he asked what is know about the answer. I'd never heard this question phrased and I will definitely be using it in my classroom.
The students responded that the answer was positive and less than 100. Another student estimated the answer to be close to fifty based on his rounding (125-75).
From there, the teacher asked for strategies for solving and answers.
I loved how this simply question gives students a daily opportunity to practice estimating and reasonableness. I like that this wording helps them think critically about the problem but I'm not the one telling them what to think.
I'm embracing the mindset of being their math coach, not their math teacher.
I want them to make mistakes. I want them to make their own discoveries.
Now, it's time for homework before day 2 tomorrow!
I didn't sell very many products during TpT's back to school sale (Aug 3-5). Part of me is really bummed because I spend a lot of my free time reading novels and prepping activities for students.
But then I realized that maybe I didn't do well because of the dates. See, in Las Vegas, we don't start until the third week of August. I don't see those munchkins' shiny faces until the 25th. So perhaps TpT's date was far too early for many of my fellow educators because they're (we're) still in summer mode.
So I'm having my own back to school sale to coincide with my district's start date.
From Aug 22-25, everything in my store will be 10% off. Happy back to school shopping!
While this activity does take a large amount of post-its, I do think it's useful for going over types of topic sentences:
I know my fifth graders struggle with openings and having this in their notebooks helped them with peer revising.
Students would write the definition of each type of topic sentence, put my example, then generate their own examples with their table teams or partners.
Declarative Statement:
Introduces the topic, usually with facts or a rhetorical question.
Situation/Stance:
Gives the author's perspective and sets the tone.
Number Statement:
Uses numbers
List:
Creates a list with related topics to generate interest
FANBOYS
Conjunctions: For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So
Good luck!
