Let the Countdown Begin!!!

Tomorrow marks 20 days of school left.  So, upon my searching on Pinterest I found some great ideas to make each day a little more special and a lot more fun! Here is the list we will be working from for the next 20 days!

Day 20- Game Day, the kids can bring in a game to play
Day 19- May Day, I'll make some little May baskets for them
Day 18- Gum Day, sure to be a favorite
Day 17- Wacky Give Away- for some reason kids love when you are cleaning up for the year and purging
               your stuff.
Day 16- Cinco de Mayo- I'm thinking maybe some sombrero time and some mexican food...
Day 15- Wacky Wednesday- dress as wacky as you want
Day 14- Chalk day- we'll be taking out math to the sidewalk
Day 13- Beach Boys- during language workshop they can relax to some beachy music as they read around
              the room on some beach blankets
Day 12- Sit with your friends
Day 11- PJ day
Day 10- Special snack day- this is a day I let them bring in whatever snack they'd like
Day 9- Extra recess
Day 8- Mystery Guest Reader
Day 7- Hat Day
Day 6- Cookie & milk party
Day 5- Movie & popcorn
Day 4- Egg Drop
Day 3- Field day
Day 2- Lunch at the park
Day 1- Kickball tourney

I'm excited!!! I hope the kids will be too. It's my last year at this building and I have had some of these kids for 3 years in a row- so I will deeply miss them!!

New Literature Discussion Groups

Today we began our new literature discussion groups.  Each group meets twice a week and I confer with them in between meetings to check on their understanding and look over their log responses.  We spent the first six weeks of school establishing the routine of a group as well as how to create a good response.  I took a lot of what I do from the Reader's Notebook and from Inside the Reading and Writing Classroom.  Both are excellent resources if you are wanting to launch a true Reader's & Writer's Workshop.
    The next series of  books the children chose for groups are Among the Hidden , Just Ella, Juliet Dove, Queen of Love, Blue Eyed Daisy, and Ida B. 

I am really excited about all of these books- they have chosen every thing from science fiction, to fairy tales! Over the next few posts I'll be sharing some of their work from literature dicussion, they are all truly gifted at sharing their thoughts about the author's craft .

Science Fair!

Today we begin our Science Fair projects.  This is my first year attempting to do a science fair in the classroom.  So far they are loving it.  Now whether it is because they get to use computers or the true joy of discovery in science I'm not too sure- I'm hoping it's the latter! I have found the most valuable resource to guide me and my students in this adventure- www.sciencebuddies.org.  A great resource for projects, it gives tips for teachers and allows the students to take a quick survey to guide them in their project choices.
    One thing we are working on in this project is to make sure we are not doing a demonstration (ie building a volcano) and focusing more on the process of an fair test in which only one variable is changed.  I can't wait to show you all what they are doing.  I can tell you that some will involve worms, catapults, and boats (not necessarily together :))

New Math

     I recently read an article my principal sent out regarding Common Core and new math.  The author, who writes for Educational Leadership voiced his concern that this new approach focuses more on the why and less on just getting it done the traditional way.  I know that several parents have also expressed concern about why a child who used to be so good at math was not struggling?
     We need to think as parents and educators about the math we grew up learning.  Did we really learn and understand why we do certain operations, or why we manipulate numbers the way we do?  The answer if we are truly honest is no.  We have an operation or "trick" we can use to get the answer, but we don't conceptually understand the math involved.  Case in point recently we've been working with decimals. I have student who came from another district who knows to pull the decimal out when multiplying then just put it back in. But when I asked why we do that, he had no answer.  We have got to develop critical thinkers in math just as much as we do in reading or science. They have GOT to understand why, or they will never be truly good at math or problem solving!
    We use Investigations in our district.  It focuses on the child finding and using efficient strategies to solve a problem.  The eventual goal is then to move toward a traditional algorithm when the child fully understands the process involved in solving a problem.  We have daily Number Talks where the kids are required to use mental math to solve and explain their thinking.  We then record their thoughts and name strategies.  Here is an example of a multiplication anchor chart and some questioning we do with students.

   As you can see the kids have amazing ways of thinking and working with numbers, often times ways I would never have come up with, but it works for them.  As the year progresses we really push our students towards efficiency. Hopefully in years to come you will see your students catch the "Math Curse" and become excited once again about math.  We can no longer be a country that is satisfied with mediocre math scores, we have got to push our kids to really grasp mathmatical understanding! 

Perspective

    I have been away from the blog for too long now. I realize that keeping up with our classroom on Facebook, my own side business blog, plus my own personal stuff is more daunting than I first thought.  I would love to find time to get on here each day and share with you all the happenings and daily discoveries in our room, but let's be realistic-that isn't going to happen...  So I will set forth a new goal of at least twice a week.  Manageable right?! Let's hope so.  I have so many ideas to share and thoughts about my experiences as a teacher.
    This past week's tragedy has really given me pause in how I would handle a situation like that.  In all honesty upon hearing the news the first thing I wanted to do was go home and grab my own children and hug them tight.  But, my job is to provide security and peace to the 25 children I have in my own room. And truly I do think of them as my children, for at least the small amount of time I get them for each day.  And just like with my own children I get frustrated, excited, sad, and amazed by them everyday.  I took time to gain some perspective with my own children at home and those here at school. I try to think about how I want them to feel when they walk in the door and then return home. I want them to know, like those children in Conneticut knew that they were cared for and worried about and the reason why we push them so much is because we want them to grow up and be happy and successful.  Notice I did not say wealthy, because we must first focus on raising happy and successfully independent children.  The whole child.
   Today as many of my students expressed their concerns when we had our own lockdown, we talked about how we take every measure to keep them safe.  That their job right now is to do the best they can so they can grow up and be the change they want to see in the world. I want them to work toward being positive people in our society.

Erin

"Falling" into a Groove

     Get it...ha so "punny'!  Anyway we are over two months into the year and finally I feel like I have gotten established a rhythm in my classroom.  Albeit I did create a new schedule last week, sooooo it was a slight change.  But I have found through research and experience that students are more ready to learn math in the morning.  So, even though the master schedule handed down had it reversed with literacy in the afternoon, I don't have any kids being pulled out of my room that I would need to worry about messing up their schedule.  I have to tell you that behaviors have improved since doing this switch.  I mean lets be honest who wants to come in first thing and start reading and writing?  No way I would fall asleep!

      We've spent the past month in whole group literature discussion learning how to flag and respond to the text.  I used two GREAT mentor texts for this, Wringer by Jerry Spinelli and Goblins in the Castle by Bruce Coville.  Two totally different genres, but wow what great literature.  I pulled a lot of lesson ideas on launching the reader's notebook form Aimee Bruckner's Notebook Know How. Such a great resource and ties in perfectly with Notebook Connections which discusses using the writer's notebook. 
These have been invaluable resources in effectively launching and using the notebooks.  I have seen a dramatic increase in the quality of responses I have gotten from my students through the launch of literature discussion groups.  

     As I've said before I am in a multi-age classroom which has a whole other lot of challenges that I hadn't really thought of.  Just little things like making sure each grade level gets appropriate level of interaction with their grade level.  They do great in my room and honestly you could not tell who is 4th and who is 5th.  But, I do worry that they are missing out from social interaction such as lunch and recess being left with just 4th grade.  How do you provide this with such a restricted and full schedule?  Any other multi-age teachers please let me know!!

     I have decided to focus soley on the 5th grade curriculum in math and science.  Science is a no brainer since it is a spiral curriculum and my specialty favorite. As for math I have several 4th grade TAG students so it makes sense to keep their level of engagement high and then pull out small groups for my other 4th graders who need extra help with 4th grade skills.  Honestly I was not able to efficiently teach each curriculum in an hours time each day, and that was not fair to either.  At least now I can go deep and really pull out those that need it instead of just covering the necessities and hoping they got it before pulling the other grade level. 

Whew well I will have to be posting more, the classroom has gone through a complete transformation over the past weeks.  My walls are covered in anchor charts!!!

Expectations

The beginning the year has begun with great excitement and anticipation of what is yet to come.  I always dread the first few days of school, it is so much of getting back into the routine of things for the children and myself.  We spend A LOT of time practicing our classroom expectations and procedures and just getting to know each other for the first time, or again.  I long for the days of the well oiled machine where the children just came in and got started, and were reading and writing and loving it! But, like everyone always says you have to take it slow to go fast.  So we are going SLLOOWWW....

We started the year with just some getting to know you activities and community building exercises.  We watched the John Lennon performance of Imagine on YouTube and the children reflected on how we would build and maintain a peaceful community.  
   This year we are implementing a behavior piece to our data wall.  I will send home the components of this piece and the expectations in each area so you can see how we will monitor student behavior.