edTPA humor
I have been asked time and time again about math journals… How do you use them? What is the most effective way to structure them? Can First Graders really use them as a tool? How do you not get overwhelmed when using them?? The great thing about math journals is that there is not just one way to use them… they can be modified to fit your style and organizational preferences. A few summers ago, I was lucky enough to attend the National Singapore Conference in Las Vegas. One of the sessions I attended was taught by a third grade teacher. She told us that every time she presented a new strategy, she would tell her students “it’s just another tool for your toolbox!” Well, I don’t know if you have ever had this experience, but the more times she said that, the more it resonated with me. I had an idea of how to help my students understand that strategies are tools. I decided to make my tools more literal. Instead of just having a “Math Journal”, I transformed them into “Math Toolboxes”. When I introduce them to my students, I make a big deal about how these will be something they can keep and look back on, add to, etc. I tell them that every tool they add this year makes them more powerful. I also let them know that some tools they will use more than others and that some will be easier for them than others. And that the best part is that they get to choose the tool they use when solving a problem. By the time I am done talking about it, they are DYING to get their hands on one! With each chapter we add something to their Toolbox. I went online and found clip art tools and labeled them with each strategy that we cover. To help build number sense, we make a chart that connects the numeral, word, and picture for each number. (It is a lot of writing, but we make it fun by cheering them out as we write!) Here’s an example of cheering out the number word “two”: Cheer Leader: “Give me a ‘t’” Class: “t!” Cheer Leader: “Give me a ‘w’!” Class: “w!” Cheer Leader: “Give me an ‘o’!” Class: “o!” Cheer Leader: “What does that spell?” Class: “Two!” We also mix it up by using different “voices” as we cheer… like a monster voice, a chicken voice, a football player voice, a crying voice, a sad voice, a happy voice, a British accent, a duck voice, a mouse voice, a ballerina, etc. (They will come up with some pretty fun ideas once they get going!) I start as the “Cheer Leader” but once they get the idea, I have students take on that role. (They are always welcome to use a model!) My students also do word problems, bar modeling, math journaling, and more all in their "Math Journal/Toolbox". The pictures below are just of the guided part of the process. We always come up with the definition and the example together as a class… it has allowed for some pretty powerful discussions! I hope they give you some ideas!! This can be done with any shape... just another way to remember the concept of "whole" and "part". When we start the teen numbers, we add in the ten frames. We want to reinforce the idea of TENS and ONES in every way possible!! We start with a 50 Board. Amazingly, every single year, as we are filling in the chart for numbers 20-40, someone notices that the rows on the hundred chart match the number of tens and the individual boxes match the number of ones... YAY! (Some years I start to get a little anxious, worrying that no one will say anything- but it never fails!) For numbers to 100, we pretty much have the pattern figured out, we justdo a few to make sure we really understand how it works. (Some years we roll two dice to get the number we are working with, some years we have two different students just say a random number-- it doesn't really matter how you get them, just try and have a few of each. You may also notice that on the last chart, I colored the lines vertically and on these, they are colored horizontally. First Graders should be exposed to both-- after all, they mean the same thing J If you are interested, send me an email and I can share some of the fun with you! [email protected] Just leaving a comment will not enable me to share the documents with you-- so be sure to send me an email! Teacher sharing is what makes this crazy job possible!! After you try it out, come back and leave a comment to let us know how it went! :) Have a SUPER day! Sarah
These fun drawing pages are a great way for kids to see symmetry. There are 10 different finish the picture pages that you can print and use over and over.
Edi Lesson Plan Template Fresh Lesson Plan Examples for Pe from edi lesson plan template, image source: pinterest.com
So all this talk about anchor charts really got me thinking about my to do list. Last week I started mapping out what I need to do to meet the curriculum maps for April till the end of the year in ELA. When I do this I make a list of books I need to gather, anchor charts I need to make, and any centers, writing prompts, or work pages I need to create. I decided to tackle the anchor charts first. So far I've only accomplished 1 of 4 that I need to create for April ... But I felt accomplished so I thought I would share it with you and give myself a well deserved break :) I decided that since I was going to share I would give you a quick how to based on my process for creating anchor charts. So here we go! Now, like I said before I just start whipping these bad boys out there is planning to do. The first step is to write down the topics on my first to do list. For April these topics included, finding key events in texts, predicting, writing drafts and revising, and writing summaries using temporal words. And yes folks, that's 1 topic per week - add in spring break that's already one week with 2 topics - OH MY! I decided to tackle predicting first, well, because it seemed the easiest to me. So I moved on to work with my trusty friend Pinterest! That lovely photo of my chicken scratch (not my normal handwriting!) is what my Pinterest research turned into. What I do is search my topic then I write down key words or phrases that I liked from various anchor charts posted on Pinterest by all of you lovelies. I then compile this mess into the anchor chart that you will see below. Now, this may not work for everyone, but this is the process that works for me. Next I sketch out my poster in pencil and then go over in Mr. Sketch markers (MY FAVORITE!!!). Now, here's what the finished masterpiece looks like. I choose two colors that are for key points. Here I chose purple and green. Here I used purple to highlight the topic, predictions, and I used green to highlight the steps and key vocabulary. Then I will go back through and highlight anything else important in yellow - usually sentence frames like here. I try to add as many visual pictures as possible because they help the students remember the steps quickly. If you are interested here is the link to my Pinterest page that contains many anchor charts that I have used to create some of mine. One last bit of information - I would highly suggest purchasing a good art eraser for your anchor charts. I use a Staedtler Mars Plastic one. This helps so that your marker doesn't smudge and there aren't pencil smudges left when you are all done. Hope this was helpful! Enjoy the week!
Adding creativity to the classroom can seem like a daunting task, but it's important for making learning fun, engaging, and memorable!
Teaching Weather to your primary students can be fun and easy with this fantastic collection of science activities, experiments and resources.
Differentiating your instruction can be overwhelming. I get it. When you hear the word "differentiation" do you automatica...
On-the-spot scaffolding is an essential skill for teachers. Check out these three strategies for assisting students when they struggle.
Our Landforms Interactive Notebook is a great tool to study and learn about the world around us and learning about landforms and bodies of water.
Edtpa Lesson Plan Template 2017 Elegant Edtpa Lesson Plan from edtpa lesson plan template 2017, image source: pinterest.com
This is the second lesson plan in my three-day learning segment on the downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte. In this lesson students learn about Napoleon's first exile to the island of Elba, his escape, and his military defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Students complete a primary source document analysis...
*** I have updated the resources and website for this activity. Access the resources here and the website here! *** If you would like to see how the simulation evolved, click here! I had such an amazing class today I just couldn't wait to blog about it! I've been doing decent teaching since I started at my new school but every time I chat with my Teach Like A Pirate peeps (#tlap Mondays at 9 eastern and #sstlap at Thursdays at 9 eastern) I feel really inadequate. I knew I had to try to do a lesson I could sell a ticket to and even though I almost decided to scrap it five different times I finally made myself do it and it was fabulous! I decided to create a detective agency where we were going to determine if the British soldiers at the Boston Massacre were guilt of murder or simply acted in self defense. I borrowed very heavily from this website and got a lot of inspiration from a video that I now can't find but I'll post it as soon as I find it. In the video, the kids got to interview people who had "witnessed" the Massacre. I am in a very small school and knew I wouldn't be able to get people to come in and act as colonists so I had to come up with another idea.... I would play all the roles and video my "interviews". To do that I created this.... http://bostonmassacrewilkins.weebly.com/... You must see this just so you can see colonial interviews like this. Movie on 11-17-13 at 6.48 PM from momtodex on Vimeo. I had six stations. One was for the crime scene, four were based on different accounts of the events and the last one had three different artists' renderings of the event. At the account stations they had print out of the testimony, could read it on the computer and could read along as I .... I mean the colonists..... Gave their accounts. In the crime scene, students could touch anything and had various questions to answer or consider. The kids absolutely loved it and I had a blast as well. We will be doing it tomorrow so it is about a two day activity. A the end, I'm going to have the kiddos do an argument writing paragraph about it and then we will watch the John Adams clip about the trial. Examples of handouts: If you would like to do this in your classroom, I'm attaching all the information for free. Click here if you would like access to all the printables. Enjoy!!!!! Posted with Blogsy
Edtpa Lesson Plan Template 2017 Elegant Edtpa Lesson Plan from edtpa lesson plan template 2017, image source: pinterest.com
CARTOON SOURCE: LearningWithoutBorders
I'm linking up again for Five for Friday with Doodlebugs Teaching. This week was all about the Earth. 1. We learned about landfor...
Photo Source: Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten Recently we were on the hunt for ways to make addition practice (which can be rather monotonous with worksheet after worksheet...) fun and we came across a fabulous post that Nicole featured over at Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten! Not only are the ideas sure to engage your kiddos, we LOVE that Nicole incorporated stories into her math lessons! Here are a few of her wonderful ideas: If You Were a Plus Sign Take a few minutes to read If You Were a Plus Sign together as a class and then spend some time coming up with a few addition stories, drawing them out on chart paper as you go. Once your kiddos have the hang of it, turn them loose to create their own addition stories on this FREE printable provided by Nicole! Photo Source: Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten Animals on Board Animals on Board is another great story for working into your addition practice routine! Photo Source: Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten After reading the story as a class, use animals puppets to practice simple addition problems. Your kiddos can use a white board to document their answers, or a simple worksheet if you want to collect their work when they're finished. Then for additional practice in your math centers, have your students use counters and white boards to set up extra problems! Photo Source: Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten Ladybug Addition Nicole created a super cute ladybug mat to practice addtion with her kiddos! They would roll a die to figure out how many counters to place on each side of the ladybug, and then they would write out the addition problem on their white boards to solve. Photo Source: Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten Once the class had a chance to spend some time practicing, they then used one of their equations to create a ladybug addition craft. Check out this cute little guy! Photo Source: Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten Nicole has even more ideas for practicing addition to go along with these! Be sure to check them out over at her blog Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten!
Take a closer look.
There's an arch for every wedding. These draping fabric sets will help to create great eye-catching detail in your wedding decor. NOTE: floral arrangements are not included! PACKAGE DETAILS: Wrinkle-Free Premium Material. It's a heavier-weight fabric that wasn't 100% opaque, it's more graceful, soft, and flowy than tulle, nylon, or organza ones to create romantic decor on your wedding day. Package: Chic Dusty Rose: 3 panels in dusty rose, mauve, and blush. Elegant Neutral: 3 panels in cream, nude and ivory. Dusty Blue & Cool Grey & White: 3 panels in dusty blue, cool grey, and white. Gently Blush: 3 panels in blush, dusty rose, and white. Charm Wine: 3 panels in blush, dusty rose, and burgundy. Classic Terracotta: 3 panels in peach, coral peach, and terracotta Size: Each panel is 30" wide and 6.5 yards long. Reference: 6.5 yards drape is set for the 7ft-8ft high by 5ft-6ft wide arch, and 10.5 yards drape is set for the 7ft-8ft high by 7ft-8ft wide arch, which can add an extra wrap or stack at the bottom of the arch compared to 6.5yards of fabric. It also can be used at canopy, chuppah, arbor, or altars. Just wrap it anyway around the stands, it will look beautiful. It also can be used at canopy, chuppah, arbor, or altars. Just wrap it anyway around the stands, it will look beautiful. You may also add our matching floral garland to use together with the drapes to make your arch looks more beautiful.
In this first of a three-part series, teacher and blogger Amber Graeber presents the Seven Phases of a Project Cycle, a practical breakdown of how you might guide your students through a PBL unit.
We made this neat little slider for our notebooks. We glued around the edges of the info sheet, and cut out little windows. Then the insert can be pulled out to the appropriate place when they solve the problem and the second window shows what type of triangle it is! Very cool, and available for FREE on TpT. Below are the updated pages that we used this year.
Looking for time games that will help your child in K-2 learn to tell time to the hour, half hour, and more? Download this pack of 3 free games!
Worksheets are a snoozefest...try this Super Fun Engaging Activity for ANY SUBJECT + a freebie!
Includes categories (purple), key words (orange) and suggested activities (blue/green). Found here: cstep.csumb.edu/Obj_tutorial/bloomwheel3.gif May remake this - it needs a sense of hierarchy and perhaps to be 3D...
Differentiation is adjusting and modifying what skills and concepts students learn, what materials they use, and/or how their learning is assessed based on the needs of the students. Our students a…
►Videos and Resources for M14 Breathe! Just breathe. Isn't that wonderful? Without conscious thought (except now you're probably thinking about it), we breathe and exchange carbon dioxide for fresh oxygen every moment of every day for our entire life. How many breaths do you think you could have in a lifetime? WikiAnswers says it could be 672,768,000!!! Time how many breaths you take in one minute and figure it out! We did this experiment to see how many cups of air our lungs can hold. Experiment 14.2, The Capacity of Your Lungs Abigail blowing ALL the air out, and her brother Caleb holding the jug still Each one had their own length of aquarium tubing (about 2 feet each), and we filled up one jug while another was being blown into. This helped speed things up a bit. They filled the sink halfway with water, and filled the jug all the way up and put on the lid, then removed it once the jug was upside down in the water. Keeping the opening down in the water, and the tubing just inside the jug (needed extra hands for all this, so usually another student held the jug still), they blew and blew and blew to see how much could be blown out with one long breath. There are 16 cups in a gallon, so we measured what water was left and subtracted from 16. Caleb and Abigail were able to blow all the air out of the jug, and JohnDavid was able to blow just a bit longer! Courtney and Bethany blew almost all of it out (within 1/3-1/2 a cup), but Rebekah had a cold and only blew out about 12 cups of air. Purple lungs! Experiment 14.3, A Model of Your Lungs I also made a model of lungs for them to observe. Which didn't take very long, haha. (Observe sounds better than look at, lol. And yep, I do know that isn't even correct grammar. But around here, we'd never say, "at which to look." Could you imagine?) =D It looks pitiful, but it worked okay, lol. I blew up the balloon to get it stretched, then when they pulled on the baggie (diaphragm), giving more room for the lungs, the balloon (lungs) inflated. When you relax your diaphragm, it pushes air out of the lungs. Yes, relax. When you breathe out, the diaphragm is relaxed. When you breathe in and hold it, you will feel more that you are holding a muscle in place. In our lungs are bronchial tubes that branch and end in tiny sacs called alveoli. (see image, source) These alveoli are covered with capillaries, like spider webs all along the surface. These capillaries are the ends of branched out arteries. They have branched many times, and now have such thin walls that they allow the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. They also allow nutrients to get into your system! Did you ever wonder how the nutrients from food get to the parts of the body where needed? They travel in the blood! These capillaries cover the aveoli so that when you breathe in, the red blood cells in the capillaries that cover the aveoli collect the oxygen to carry to all the other cells in the body. Oxygenated blood flows in arteries away from the heart to all parts of the body. If blood flows away from the heart, it is traveling in an artery. As blood cells distribute oxygen to all your cells, they also pick up carbon dioxide that is a waste product. The blood is now DEoxygenated, and will travel back to the heart and lungs. When blood flows toward the heart, it is traveling in a vein. As the blood cells travel past the aveoli, they drop off carbon dioxide, which is then breathed out, and pick up fresh oxygen that has just been breathed in. This is a constant process as a constant stream of red blood cells travel through the capillaries on the aveoli. The capillaries are so thin, the blood cells travel through them in single file. Blood carries gases (oxygen and carbon dioxide), nutrients, and wastes to the parts of the body where they need to go. But the oxygen and carbon dioxide must be carried by a blood cell. Kids like games, so after my preview lecture of Module 14, discussions, and lung experiments, we played this until class was over. (Links to game and instructions, as well as the printable seen in the pic can be found at the Video link at the top of this post.) Rather than using a spinner to move the playing pieces, I asked questions from the lesson. If they got it right, their team went 20 spaces. (I knew this was going to take a long time!) If they needed a tiny hint, they went 15 spaces. More of a hint, 10 spaces. Teammates weren't allowed to give hints, only me. I gave hints because (1) this was new material, and (2) I wanted them to think a little more, rather than just telling the correct answer because they didn't know it. They knew questions would be repeated so they paid pretty good attention! There were red blood cells for the oxygen and carbon dioxide to travel on, but the nutrients and waste products could jump right into the blood stream to travel to their designated spots. ►The first team to get all their oxygen and food to the cells, all the waste to the kidneys, and all the carbon dioxide to the lungs would win the game. I was keeping individual points (2, 3, or 4 per question) because I knew we wouldn't be finished in time, and it would be hard to figure who won with pieces all over the board, some in their spots, and some partway there. The team that won got candy, and the high scorer got extra. =) They had a really fun time. I allowed them to look at the notes they had made in class on the backs of their heart model printouts, and I had a few things written on the dry-erase board that I left up. The purpose of the game was to familiarize them with the direction of blood flow, and that blood cells are what carries various things, and where they go. The questions further re-enforced other things we were learning in the module. Close up: All arteries flow away from the heart. All veins flow to the heart. You can see the path of blood (starting with the deoxygenated blood, returning to the heart): Vena cava (a vein), right atrium, right ventricle, pulmonary artery (not labeled, purple), lungs (where the dots are; drop off CO2, get more oxygen), pulmonary vein (not labeled, red), left atrium, left ventricle, back to the body through the aorta (an artery). You can see that just for a moment, deoxygenated blood can travel through an artery when it is traveling away from the heart to the lungs. Then oxygenated blood travels through a vein when it is traveling from the lungs back to the heart. These are the exceptions to arteries carrying oxygenated blood, and veins carrying deoxygenated blood. Arteries and veins are not distinguished by what kind of blood they carry, but whether they are traveling to or from the heart. Fun, fun! =) sMiLeS,
We have measured EVERYTHING in our rooms (and the other 3rd grade rooms)! We did an amazing activity last Friday that I absolutely loved an...
Lucky number thirteen! I love the number 13 - it's my favorite. Hubby and I were married on Friday the 13th and 13 has always felt like a pretty lucky number to me. Let's celebrate my 13th follower!!!!! For our social studies unit on families we talked about how we and our family change over time. Click here for a cute little timeline worksheet. Click here for a different look of the same worksheet.
Celebrating Think-Pair-Share, the Little Strategy That Could, and sharing some best practices for making it work for you.
Inferring from the text – anchor chart
Are you looking for some new ideas or ways to use informal assessments in your classroom? This is a complete A to Z list of assessment ideas for you!
