Five for Friday

Doodle Bugs Teaching

I'm finally linking up with Doodle Bugs' Five for Friday linky to share five random pictures from my week.

1. I've been enjoying a wonderful Teachers' Appreciation Week!  One of my thoughtful parents delivered this yummy lunch yesterday.  Italian food is my favorite!

2. Not school related, but Tuesday night my husband and I went to see the incredible Bruce Springsteen.  I have been in love with The Boss since my freshman year in college.  Each time I attend one of his concerts I am blown away by his energy.  His shows are amazing!

3. I totally scrapped my plans yesterday after I found this adorable poetry/visualization activity while doing my every morning blog surfing. Our Green Giants turned out so cute!  The activity was from One Extra Degree and the printed poem is from Welcome to Room 36.

 


4. We have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our first grade chicks. They started hatching on Monday and by Thursday, each classroom was able to have some feathered friends.

5. I am so excited that my new book from Laney Sammons arrived yesterday.  It was backordered on Amazon, but it's here now for me to start reading this weekend.  I hope it's sunny so I can sit by the pool!

OK, I have to add a 6th picture.  Since it was Teacher Appreciation Week, I received a lot of sweet cards and drawings from my class, but this one just cracked me up! (I am a HUGE Steelers fan and my kids know it!)

If you can't read the words it says "You stole my heart.  You get it?  Steelers "stole" my heart!"  I love this little guy!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Looking Ahead

I could start off with excuses for why I haven't blogged in more than a month, but all I'll say is that, until this school year is over and I am relaxing poolside, I will most probably be a "once-in-awhile" blogger.  It's just been one of those years, folks!
Anyway, because it's been kind of a rough year, I find myself looking ahead to next year.  I like to have a focus for the summer to guide my professional learning.  For the past couple of summers I have worked hard to get math workshop and guided math up and running in my classroom, and I have to say I am really happy with the way it is working in my room right now.
Reflecting on my teaching so far this year, I realize that for whatever reason, Daily 5 hasn't worked as well for me as it has in the past.  So this summer I want to read the revised version of the book and explore some variations of the format.  It is definitely time to spruce up some of the reading materials and supplies I use as well!  I did buy this really great caddy to organize some of my small group supplies:

I bought this at my husband's favorite store- Harbor Freight!  He was thrilled when I said I wanted to go with him on his last visit!

The other subject area I want to focus on is science.  I feel like science gets overlooked sometimes in my classroom.  Scheduling usually puts science instruction time at the end of the day, and I will confess there are many days when I use that time to catch up on language arts or math work.  We read a lot of science related books or watch videos, but I need to give my kids more time to explore and "do" science.  Science classes were never my favorites in school, and I've always said I just don't like science.  But thinking back to my childhood days, I realize that wasn't always true.  I loved going on hikes and exploring the woods near my home.  I had a rock collection.  On our annual trip to the shore (the beach to most of you!) I gathered seashells.  I pressed leaves and flowers and made scrapbooks identifying them.  It wasn't until science turned into reading chapters in textbooks and memorizing facts and formulas that I lost interest.  I just finished reading this wonderful book, A Place for Wonder by Georgia Heard, and I am super excited to start letting my kids do what they do best, wonder and discover!  (And with perfect timing, my school will be setting up a primary science lab for next year!)

Oh yeah, as I say EVERY summer, I'm going to work on being super-organized next yearl!   I probably just need to face the fact that I am never going to be one of those teachers who has everything laid out for the week in wonderfully color-coordinated folders and tubs.  But a girl can dream, can't she?

More Think Math

I am just loving our Think Math activity!  Here are some of the stories my class has created this week.

A Star Wars fan?

I love that these last two examples show partial number lines.  I just briefly demonstrated using an open-type number line yesterday and showed how they could just include the numbers they needed without showing every number.  Apparently they DO listen to me from time to time!

One of the few students who chose subtraction.  She's one of my ESL friends; notice sell instead of buy.

Their stories can also show me students who may need some reteaching.  This friend arrived at the correct answer, but showed a 10 frame that is not a 10 frame.

This story just made me smile!  Almost everyone else stuck with the leprechaun/St. Patrick's Day theme.

I discovered this weekend that there are some teachers on Twitter who are sharing a similar activity using the hashtag #1stnumbertalks.  I can't wait to get connected to some other first grade classes!

Problems with Problem Solving

After a very relaxing spring break camping trip, it's time to get back into "teacher mode."  I've been working on a few things these weekend, particularly for math.
Problem solving is one of my favorite things to teach, but some of my little ones are having difficulty with the process this year.  Although they can usually arrive at the correct answer, they aren't always able to explain what they have done or use another strategy to solve the problem. I have a few friends who still just want to write an equation and say "I'm done!"  (These are the same students who have been "tutored" to memorize facts without really understanding the operations.  A few can even recall multiplication facts, but have no real understanding of the concepts.) When asked to solve a problem in a different way, they may just show the answer in another format.  I've even had a student just write several other equations that equal the same number as the answer that had no correlation to the problem at all.
When we started doing more complex problems- ones that didn't just ask for simple joining or "take away", many of my friends seemed to have trouble visualizing what the problem was asking. Our Think Math activity (click here to read more) is helping, and we have spent some time working with CGI problem types. This week we will focus on going through the steps of problem solving BEFORE considering the numbers. I'm hoping this will help those students who are stuck on one strategy visualize and approach problems in a different way.
Here's the powerpoint I created to guide us through our lesson on Monday.  I'll be back later in the week to share how it went!

Link to Powerpoint

For more about how I've approached problem solving, check out this post, this post and this one from last year.

"Pin"spired!

I think I might be a little bit addicted to Pinterest!  I have more recipes and craft projects pinned than I will EVER have time to try and so many teaching ideas that I have forgotten what I have on my boards.
This pin is one that I had forgotten:

From Scholastic

But the other day one of my teammates was talking about Think Math-asking students to write a story problem based on an answer.  As she explained what she had done, I remembered this pin.  So I got to work and created my version of Think Math.

My kids are loving it!  They were all upset on Monday because I hadn't put up the new answer yet.  (Hopefully they are enjoying it because they like writing the problems and not just because they can use Post-It notes.  What is it about first graders and sticky notes?)  

After I put up this chart I was inspired to spruce up my whole math wall.

Now I'm headed back to Pinterest for some fresh ideas for my writing wall!

Tried It Tuesday: Kodable

Fourth Grade Flipper

A few weeks ago coding was mentioned at a technology staff development.  I wasn't 100% sure what it was, but I was pretty sure it wasn't for my first graders. But it kept popping up on blogs, twitter feeds- everywhere!- so I decided to look a little closer.  I discovered that it really is something my first graders can do!

Many of the apps and programs I've explored remind me of Logo.  Logo is an educational programming language designed by Seymour Papert and others.  It used a small cursor, called a turtle, that was given commands for drawing and movement to create line drawings.

(When I first moved to Texas in the early 80's, I worked part-time for Texas Instruments.  They had just released their first home computer. With every purchase, the buyer got 4 free lessons on how to use these crazy new machines.  I was hired to teach these lessons.  I knew next to nothing about computers, but they hired me anyway!  The major objective of the kids' lessons was to teach them Logo.)

OK, leaving the 80's behind and back to today!  Once I made the connection with Logo, I knew my firsties could do this.  I downloaded a free app onto our class iPad called Kodable.  The children  help adorable little creatures called Fuzzes explore their new world .  While doing this, they are learning to use logic as they give the computer commands.

I first demonstrated the app yesterday using the Smartboard, and then I put it out as a math station today. The 2 girls who were the first to try it independently were absolutely precious!  They were giggling and giving each other suggestions the whole time. Even when they didn't get the program right the first time, they kept trying and were still having fun. When our math time ended today, the whole class was buzzing about who would be going to that station tomorrow!

Now if I could just get my hands on more iPads!

Edited to add:

I've also linked up with Technology Tailgate for Techie Tuesday.

Transitions

I was doing some purging this week, and I came across some books that, although I hadn't seen them for awhile, still brought back fond memories of the huge impact they had on my teaching.
For the first 5 or 6 years of my teaching career, my idea of a "professional" book was a book of ditto masters purchased at the teacher supply store. (Ah, I miss the smell of a freshly run ditto!)  I read the required texts for my graduate courses and the occasional article handed out during staff development, but that was about it.
Then the whole language craze of the 80's and 90's hit.  (If you don't remember that craze, be glad- it got UGLY folks!)  During one of the many workshops I attended on the subject, I was browsing the book vendor tables and came across this book:

To this day I don't really know what led me to purchase it, but I can honestly say it changed my life as a teacher!  I eagerly read every word Regie wrote, thinking all the while- "Yes, THIS is what teaching reading is supposed to be like!"  I called my friend Elizabeth, and by the time school started we were both ready to revolutionize our teaching.  We were so excited about Regie's work that we  preordered her next book, Invitations.   And that was the beginning of my obsession with professional books!

There have been many books since then that have shaped my teaching. Books by Lucy Calkins, Fountas and Pinnell and my recent passion, math books like Laney Sammons Guided Math currently line my shelves.  Others were interesting at the time but quickly forgotten. But Transitions and Invitations will stay with me forever as they remind me that teaching is a craft, and to perfect your craft, you must constantly study and refine your practices.
What books have had a profound effect on your teaching?