Addition Properties, Adjectives, and Halloween crafts (what we've been up to)

These pictures are from September but better late than never eh?

We have been super busy in room 214 and I haven't had much time to stop and think, let alone stop and blog. 

We have also been trying to finish up our Postcards for the Great Postcard Exchange. (mailing those out this weekend:))

Here is proof we are alive and learning:

 cooperative groups to review ordering numbers least to greatest and greatest to least. This is a great activity as the students receive a large stack of numbers to 9,999 which they must work together looking at the place value to help order the numbers.  

 Addition Properties: This was our hands on exploration of the Commutative property of addition.
Students explored creating problems with their unifix cubes and then flip flopping the addends to see that the sum stayed the same. Then they recorded the problem on the grid paper and labeled the problem.

 (below: one of my students brought in this HUGE Halloween pencil. Here he's using it to ace his addition properties common assessment)

 Finding the unknown variable in a number sentence.  Here we used cubes to explore finding the unknown in expressions.  Students created their own problems and had a neighbor sit down and solve it. They would plug it back in to check and make sure it fit in the equation.

 Halloween adjectives: Due to end of quarter testing and running out of time, I didn't get to complete all the plans I had for covering adjectives with some fun Halloween activities.  We were able to do a simple exploration with Halloween stickers.  Students are given a sticker in their word study journals.   After we talked about adjectives and went through a flip chart on the Promethean board, students had to come up with adjectives that described their sticker.  We then shared them on the document camera. Super simple, but super cute and fun.

 More examples of the students coming up with their "colorful words" 

 Halloween art: As most of you know, i love doing creative and crafty things myself and especially with my students.  After some pinterest inspiration I found rock creatures and pumpkin acorns. The above picture is my rocks and pumpkins:)

 Here are some of the students creations. I love those creepy Frankenstein faces

 boooooooooooooo GHOSTS!

 Here is another math actvitiy we did once end of quarter testing days were over.  

1st portion of the game was comparing numbers.  Students could make the Jacks, Ace, King, and Queens any number 1-9 they wish to help build their number.  We used Popsicle sticks to make the greater than, less than, equal to signs.  Each student took turns comparing and were allotted a point for each correct comparison.

for the 2nd portion of the game students pulled 3 or 4 cards off the top (depending on if you wanted to do three digit or four digit numbers). They then had to arrange their cards to make the smallest or largest number possible.  The student who made the smallest or largest depending on what I called out, earned points.  

Some students began catching on how to move their cards to beat their partner using the place value concepts.  

Thursday was the last day of the 1st quarter which made yesterday a teacher workday.  

Report cards, IEP progress reports, lesson planning, and a workshop. Teacher workdays are never long and productive enough. 

We also went to the fair for Special education day which I will also be creating a post about.

Assessment Tracker

Keeping up with formal and informal assessments can often be a daunting task if not organized.  My first co-hort teacher (who is also my best friend) and I came up with a system that worked well for our students. (As EC teachers we are having to document always and collect data 24/7)

Introducing the Assessment Tracker

 a simple notebook

 the cover sheet for each student. This is where I list the date, the assignment type, if it's informal or formal, and the results/notes

 example of math common assessments that we take each week

 the work samples follow the cover sheet and are in order by date

 we also graph and track our progress on reading and math common assessments which gives the students a chance to chart their growth, reflect on their performance, and set goals for themselves. 

I keep extra copies of the cover sheet in the pocket

Simple eh?

It works wonders. Perfect to take to meetings, conferences, etc.

How do you keep your assessment results organized?

What I love Wednesdays

I will be planning a What we've been up to post soon but for now this shall do.

Ps: due to my special educator duties, as well as being on the PBIS committee, and trying to hire an additional teacher, blogging has not exactly been a top priority. 

Pinterest

1. Place Value candy corn match up. I am totally going to be doing this for review week when we do our centers. 

Source: katielately1.blogspot.com via Gina on Pinterest

2. Twitter find:

Virtual manipulatives from KBkonnected's twitter

http://www.glencoe.com/sites/common_assets/mathematics/ebook_assets/vmf/VMF-Interface.html

Manipulatives include…

• currency
• base ten blocks 
• bears in a boat
• algebra tiles
• clock
• fraction tiles
• geoboard and bands
• tangrams
• 100’s chart
• …and much more

3. Personal Choice:

My candy corn pot and H pumpkin from last Halloween

4. classroom related:

this week is Bully Awareness week and today everyone wore Orange to school to stand in unity against bullying. 

All my students rocked their orange today. I forgot to snag a picture

What I love Wednesdays

It's that time again...WEDNESDAY! (half way over the hump) 

You know what that means. Here we go.

On Pinterest:
CandyCorn vases

Sometimes when the odds seemed stacked up thick against us, we have to keep pressing forward

Source: createfindadmire.tumblr.com via Melissa on Pinterest

2. Twitter Find:

it's science week in blog land and this awesome link showed up in my twitter feed for science journals

science journal template

3. Personal Choice: My "Dorothy" emerald city flats. the kids love when I wear these. 

4. Classroom Related:

we are working on Properties of Addition. Today we covered the Zero and Commutative Properties. We explored with manipulatives to demonstrate and show how the commutative properties work (pictures coming soon) and tomorrow we tackle the Associate property. I am going to use the above example with unifix cubes to allow students hands on exploration. 

Happy half way through the week day!

What we've been up to ....

 Here's a glimpse into what we've been working on lately

Before we jumped into place value to 9,999 we reviewed place value to 999 with a fun partner game. 

Each student's desk is taped off into 3 sections with the headers: standard form, expanded form and word form at the top.  The deck of playing cards is the bright green stack in the back

Dry erase board is used to keep score. 

 The opposing partner draws a card from the deck and shows it to their partner.  The partner then correctly sorts what form the card is in.  The opposing partner affirms or corrects and gives a point or does not award a point. 

 student's game board with correctly sorted forms

 orange cards were challenge cards where the students had to write the number in a certain form.

They loved it and it was great review. 

Science: We are learning about soil and experimenting with humus, clay, and sand. 

 Here students are using the hand lens to observe the types of soil

 We record our daily findings and activities in our Soil Journals

 This was by far our messiest eperiment yet. Playing with wet humus, sand, and clay and seeing which one could be rolled into a ball. 

Clay and humus were are winners.

Clay took first place in the most messiest of them all.

Behavior Party numero uno: CupCakes

We provided the cupcakes and then students got to create their own cupcake by choosing the icing, and toppings. 

It was a HUGE success.

is your mouth watering yet?

What I love Wednesday (with a Hawk's Nest spin)

What I'm Loving Wednesday (why not?)

I decided to put a spin on my what I'm loving Wednesday with different categories.

1. On Pinterest: (because it's so many things I love about FALL)

Source: google.com via Jennie on Pinterest

2. Twitter find: Reading and Writing Strategy posters

strategies

3. Personal Choice:

This Halloween tree. I really want one. We saw this at the beach this summer and I squealed with excitement:)

4. Classroom related: 

I love doing hands and eyes with my students. This works exceptionally well when we are doing board work during Corrective Reading.

Happy Hump Day. Half way there!

any whole brain teachers out there?

Why I just now discovered and came across Whole Brain Teaching I have no clue.  But now that I've found it, I am hooked. They had me from claaassssssssssssssss- yeeeeeeeeeess.

If you aren't sure what I'm talking about check out these excellent videos of teachers modeling Whole Brain Teaching

Here's a kindergarten example of the 5 rules



and one more for 6th grade order of operations



I have started implementing some of the first steps during my Corrective Reading Direct Instructional Block.
We use the gesturing, rules (our STAR rules for Corrective) , teacher student game, and the hands and eyes.

I love, love ,looooooooove this whole model and want to dig in and learn more.
I also want to begin using the Class teach-okay during my math groups.

So tell me blogging world..how many of you are whole brain teachers? If so care to share your thoughts, feelings, techniques, etc.