Author: Admin

Cootie Catcher Math

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Playing with the Cootie Catcher

I am so over our math program! It’s soooooo boring! And if I’m bored, the kids are too. So today we did ‘Cootie Catcher Math’ aka ‘Fortune Teller Math’. This was not completely my idea. The original paper came from Scholastic. I liked it, copied it, and added to it. So simple, so fun, so NOT boring!

I copied the Cootie Catcher from a book by Scholastic. This was interesting because my students aren’t really into them at the moment so neither of us knew how to fold them properly. After a brief refresher, we were on our way! This was a very simplistic one. We needed to practice subtracting fractions. This one had like denominators so it was perfect for the first go-around.

The students worked in pairs. They had 2 tasks to complete for each round. Round one had them answering a subtraction problem while round two had them answering a more difficult word problem. But, because I know how 5th-graders work, there had to be some accountability attached otherwise it would be a free for all.

Students were tasked with solving all problems on their whiteboards. Then they were to take a photo and insert it into a slideshow that I shared with them via Google Classroom. Essentially, the students had a 2 slides presentation to complete. Problem 1 and challenge went on one slide show while problem 2 and the attached challenge went on slide two.

It was a success! All students completed the task successfully. I plan to do it again! I’m feeling better and better about math as I stretch what can be done outside a textbook. Last week we did an Iron Chef, Math Style.

Classroom Podcast

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I have decided that we should start a classroom podcast. I’m always looking for new and exciting ways to bring the real world to my classroom. Each year, my students become more and more consumed by their devices and apps. Most of what they do is consume, text, or snap; very little creation occurs. I want to help change this and show my students that you can produce more than just YouTube videos. They all want to be YouTubers…

gold condenser microphone near laptop computer
Photo by Seej Nguyen on Pexels.com

So why Podcasting? Well, it’s not something most, or any, of my students are familiar with. They all know about YouTube, but there is so much more to the creative world than becoming a YouTuber. I began by having my students listen to a podcast: The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel. Warning, this is addictive! This is a well-done podcast that the kids, and I, really got in to. I only had my kiddos listen to Season 1 – and bonus, we Sketchnoted each episode. However, I wanted to hear the rest and listened to it on my own. I was not disappointed!

After listening to Season 1 of Mars Patel, I proposed the idea to my class. They seemed up for it. We talked about what we could do. At first, they wanted to do one like that of Mars Patel, but I felt that might be too ambitious for our first go at it. I encouraged them to do stand-alone episodes. They came up with the idea of focusing on the history of our school and town. I was in!

As a class, we posed questions about our town and school that we could research and report out on. Now, I have a group of students who are taking one question at a time and doing the research. We have reached out to school and community leaders to interview. They will begin interviewing leaders soon. They already have questions ready for our school leaders for one episode.

I’m not sure how it’s all going to turn out. I honestly don’t know what I’m doing and am learning right along with my students. Once we publish an episode, I’ll share far and wide!

My Word – 2019

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My word for 2019Another year means another word! This year I chose ‘Do‘. It seems simple enough but packed with so much meaning.

For me, this will help me to follow through and DO what I intend. I have a habit of becoming overwhelmed by the tasks ahead of me. This leads to anxiety, which leads to me shutting down and ignoring everything. Yeah, that’s not working so well.

As they say, I’ll need a plan. I have one. I need to list my tasks (I hate writing things down) and prioritize. It will also include me DOing things that scare me and take me out of my comfort zone. The loss of control on that coupled with all the negative ‘what if’s’ generally keep me from taking drastic actions. I need to learn to trust that everything will work out -it always does.

So this year, I will DO more!

Hands-On Science

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Let me begin by saying that it has been several years since I have taught Science in my classroom; this is because I have ‘team taught’ in this time period. I took care of Social Studies/History while my teaching partner taught Science. This year, due to scheduling conflicts we weren’t able to continue. However, when I did teach Science all those years ago, it was rarely hands-on. And this was a HUGE disservice to students.

This year my school site is trying to focus on NGSS and really having kids EXPERIENCE Science. I love this focus. However, I have found that this shift is proving difficult for both my students and myself. Why? They have rarely done continuous (almost weekly) hands-on work. This is not a slight against my colleagues, I’m right there with them.

The push for all things testing (looking at you standardized tests and those that love them) has left us choosing to teach the testing subjects (mainly Math and ELA) or teach it all. Yes, CCSS has us shifting to more inclusive lessons, but as many districts purchasing curriculums for all subjects it’s not as easy as one would think. However, I digress.

Chemicals Reacting to White SubstancesChaos. That is the only word that accurately describes my classroom during Science. The kids lose their minds when given the opportunity to explore. For example, last week we were exploring different ‘white substances’ (insert El Chapo joke here) and their reactions to chemicals (water, iodine, and vinegar). Before we began we reviewed classroom norms: safety goggles on, observe, take notes, etc. I should have included ‘NO eating anything!’ Yeah, one of the substances was sugar and a few students decided it would be a good idea to taste test the ‘white substances’. Don’t get me wrong, they had a great time! They loved dropping the chemicals on the substances to observe the reactions. They were excited and engaged. That’s what we want, but they weren’t being very scientific. They were so ‘excited’ they observed all the reactions without taking a single note! #FrustratedTeacher Then, they started to ‘play’ with some of the mixtures. In their defense, they were observing what happened when the chemical and substance was thoroughly mixed. They did make some good observations, but still NO notes.

In the end, the lessons was a moderate (that’s being generous) success. And last week at our staff meeting we were talking NGSS. I brought up what I’d noticed. Another 5th-grade teacher noted that some of her students also ate the sugar. A 2nd-grade teacher noticed that her students lose their minds, too. It felt good not to be alone in this. After having a few giggles about our experience, it was nice to hear that everyone is still on board with the hands-on explorations. We know that this year might be tough, but the more we do it the easier it will become. The bottom line is that our students deserve the BEST education we can give them. Experiencing Science is part of that.

Math Video Practice

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I hate monotony. I hate doing boring work. I hate workbooks. However, sometimes the simple fact is that kids need to do some of that boring work to get the process down. We have been working on multiplying decimals for a week now. They are getting it, but need more practice. If I suggested doing more work from their math books, I might have had a mutiny on my hands.  So I tricked them!

I made copies of some of their math book pages. They were given partners and one problem to solve. In the end, they were to record their process. This was a great exercise for everyone. A few groups used physical manipulatives to show their thoughts while others chose to use the algorithm. I think my favorite was this group who tried to subtract before multiplying. During their group work, I was able to sit with them and help guide them after listening to their reasoning

Manipulate This!

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img_2277I don’t use manipulatives enough in math. Over the past few years, I have used fewer manipulatives than ever before. I take partial responsibility for this. I should have incorporated more into my lessons. However, other factors contributed to this: my district not providing any manipulatives, adopting a half curriculum (half because the state doesn’t recognize it) that makes no mention of using any, and the pressure to keep moving along the curriculum/pacing guide. Well, this year I am making a conscious effort to do better.

No more excuses. Last week my class explored decimals and multiples of ten. I didn’t think they were really understanding that they moved the numbers a column (base-10 number chart) because we have a base-10 number system. They could do it, but were they understanding the why? The answer was, no. So, I broke out the base-10 manipulatives (rods, flats, etc.) to illustrate this. THEY worked as a group  (table groups) to prove that 0.26 x 10 = 2.6. Yeah, that lesson was a total failure! Each group created 10 groups of 0.26, but when they combined them they grabbed everything; including the unused manipulatives.

I did not want to give up the opportunity for them to make a connection. I regrouped after the failed lesson and reflected on what went wrong – management on my part. The next day we tried it again with greater success. Once they had their 10 groups of 0.14 I had them clean up the extra pieces (duh). They still weren’t completely making the connection, therefore, several conversations were had. Several finally saw the connection.

I’m not saying that this lesson hit it out of the park, obviously, it didn’t. I do need to make sure the students are getting more and more exposure to the manipulatives. With practice, we will all get better.

For as much as I write about my successes, I need to also write about my failures. This is a lesson that I am still thinking about nearly a week later. How can I make it better next time? Where did I go wrong? Any and all suggestions welcome.

Fail Forward

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Today ended the first week of the 2018-19 school year. For the most part, it was a great success. I had fun, the kids had fun, and it was low pressure. I did have the option to give a reading test this week, but I thought, “Who wants to take a test the first week of school?” And honestly, it won’t do any harm to wait until next week (but that’s another blog post altogether).

Along with all of this week’s successes, I did have a few failures. The biggest one was when I, ambitiously, decided that we would do two mini-reports (created by Jon Corippo). I thought two short articles on cats would be doable for a quick mini-report in one day…done as a group…Oh, how wrong I was.

I quickly realized while reading the first article with the class that it wasn’t going as planned. And for some insane reason, I powered on with the second article. What? Yeah, not sure what I was thinking (well, clearly I wasn’t thinking!). I did, however, extend the cat mini-report for a second day and scrap the dog report for next week. I also realized that I need to work up to two articles.

So…Next week we will read one article on dogs. We will take notes together. Together we will begin writing our mini-reports. I will have them do a portion of it on their own. Yeah, I’m learning. All it takes is one painful mistake for me to remember where to start. THEN, the exciting part is watching how far they will grow!

Get Them Hooked Early

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Today was my first day back with students for the school year. I purposefully planned a fun day. I am a ‘different’ kind of teacher. I am definitely NOT your run of the mill, follow the textbook teacher. I want the kiddos to really get that message. We did art, a Breakout, and created TERRIBLE (on purpose) presentations and presented them.

At some point in the afternoon, one of the boys stated that he wanted to write a book. I thought this was great. I told him that I started playing with an app over the summer that created books. He thought that was interesting. Then, I showed him a short book I created on Book Creator.

Book Creator example by me

The book isn’t particularly good. I was exploring the tool and thinking of ways to use it in our classroom. However, when I showed the boy that some of the possibilities: voice overs, inserting your own image and text his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He looked at me, mouth wide open, and said, “I want to do that!”

I got him hooked! I can’t wait to use this in the classroom. The students will have so much fun creating their own books. THIS is going to be an EPIC year!

Class Culture

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Last year I failed, miserably, at creating a positive class culture. I could go into all the ‘reasons’ why I failed, but in all honesty, they just sound like excuses when I say them out loud. I mean, this is how bad it got: at the end of the school year I ask students to list positive qualities about their classmates. This led to the majority of my class saying, “she gives good burns,” about one girl. And they meant it in an honoring way. They looked up to her because she could cut others down. Yeah, I don’t want THAT again!

So as a part of my reflection, I asked myself, “How can I do better this year?” I decided that ‘Motivation Monday’ might be in order. I’m sure I read or saw this somewhere. The idea is that each Monday (or Tuesday when we have Monday’s off) I will show a short inspirational video to the class; some ‘feel good’ video. I have begun curating a collection of these videos on YouTube. I will continue to add to them as the year progresses. There are so many wonderfully inspiring people, and in some cases animals, out there. I would much rather my students value the uplifting actions and words of others than the cutting ‘burns’ one spews upon others.

 

Classroom Theme

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Each year teachers show off their cute rooms on various social media platforms. I am NOT one of those teachers. I don’t do color schemes or themes. It’s just not me.

I hate that teachers spend their hard earned money on their classrooms. And so many companies and sites exploit this trend. One site that pays other teachers (not mentioning the actual name as I’m not a fan) has sales! What? We are all in this together. Yes, you took the time to make a cute worksheet, but many teachers also create lessons, curriculums, and experiences and share it all for FREE. Yeah, I’m in this camp. Last winter I spend over two weeks designing a Hyperdoc for a novel study (Tuck Everlasting), which I shared for FREE. Then there are all the glossy magazines we get that entice us to buy items for our classrooms. I’m over it!

However, it appears that this year I have a theme. It’s my Bitmoji. I started off by creating a few images for signs in the classroom. I figured it gave the room a bit more of a whimsical feel. And well, I just sort of ran with it. The best part is, with the help of Google Slides and Draw I didn’t have to buy anything, which makes me happy!

Not into Bitmoji? No problem. Google can help you find free to use images to fit all your needs. Simply customize your Slide or Draw to 8.5 x 11 in and you’re ready to go!

Name Plate for desk
Cite Evidence Poster
Schedule