Five for Friday: Parent Teacher Conferences, New Math Centers and a Freebie!

Hi, all!
Aren't short weeks the craziest?  I truly feel like I packed an entire week into three days!

1.) My kindergarten boy had half days for three days because of parent-teacher conferences.  THREE DAYS!  Luckily my guy still had some vacation days left, so he was able to take the week up and pick up our little guy at 11:45 each day.
On Tuesday, we went to my kiddo's parent-teacher conference.  I have to admit that it was pretty fun being on the parent side of the conference.  I truly love his teacher and I am so happy with the progress he's made this year.  She showed us his writing portfolio and it was adorable! She showed us a piece of writing from September with no finger spaces and one that he wrote last week and it was night and day!  Hats off to you kindergarten teachers...you really pack in the content!

The one on the bottom is my little guy.  <3

2.)  The fifth grade held a debate competition this week, hosted by our public speaking teacher.  This is the first year we've had that position in our school.  This teacher works with my group twice a week on, well, public speaking.  The class engages in really deep conversation about interesting topics.  The debate topic for the competition was "Should animals be used in medical research?"  Each class selected two students to participate in the debate, one for the pro side and one for the con side.  Our administration and coaches were the judges.  I am so proud to tell you that it was my two students who won the individual awards for best speakers on their teams!  I wish I could take all of the credit, but they did a great job collecting and synthesizing their research :-)

3.)  This is the first time in our lifetimes that Hanukkah and Thanksgiving are at the same time.  Since my husband's family is Jewish, we celebrated Hanukkah and Thanksgiving with them last night.

My daughter always insists on wearing "a hat."

4.) I took some time to myself today!  So what if it was at 7 am?  I went to my favorite exercise class in the world: Soul Cycle. 

 Every time I finish a great workout I always think of Legally Blonde: "Exercise gives you endorphins.  Endorphins make you happy.  Happy people just don't shoot their husbands. They just don't."  And so, my husband gets to live another day!

5.)  I just uploaded a set of Christmas Centers.  I also bundled them with my Winter Math Centers.  Both products will be on sale until Sunday night :-)

Grab a free printable page from the centers right here:

Hope everyone is enjoying their time off!

A Peek at My Week Linky

Hi, friends :-)

I'm linking up with Mrs.Laffins Laughings again to share what we have going on in our room this week!

Our new literacy program, ReadyGen, has still not arrived.  I have student workbooks and a set of books for unit four (which is the LAST unit of the year).  I do not have a teacher's guide, other than what I downloaded onto my iPad, or a class set of novels for the shared reading.  I'll leave my opinion about this fiasco out of it and focus on the most beautiful part: I'm reading the books *I* want to read to my class.  We are going to finish up Sarah, Plain and Tall and begin Skylark.  They are loving Sarah, Plain and Tall and we've done some great work on questioning this week!  I hope to share some of our work with you later this week :-)

On Tuesday, I'll launch guided reading.  Even if we had a program, I'd still have to plan for guided reading, which is fine by me, since I LOVE guided reading!  I created five groups based on running records data and we are reading: Tuck Everlasting (that will be two groups), The Tiger Rising, Schooled and The Witches.  I am super excited!

I saved my self some planning time this week by "shopping" in my own TpT store!  I made sticky note comprehension books for all of these titles (except The Witches ) last year....so that saved me quite a bit of prep work!

Guess I'll be spending tonight folding the booklets!

If you want to take a peek at the booklets, here are the links: The Tiger Rising, Schooled, and Tuck Everlasting.

 I forgot my school calendar, but I think Wednesday is goal setting day.  School-wide, we set aside time to confer with the students about their data and set goals.  Of course, we ask students to set SMART goals, so we will do a little sorting activity to get warmed up. I'll hand out goals such as "I want to improve my handwriting" and goals such as "I plan to read three books by Kate DiCamillo by October 31st" and have the kiddos sort them into specific/measurable and nonspecific/non measurable.

 On Thursday, we are going to extend the work we began with student created rubrics by offering our classmates feedback from the rubric for their paragraph of the week.  I use Stephanie's  (from Teaching in Room 6) amaaaaaazing Paragraph of the Week packet.  We will finish our paragraph on Monday, work on rubrics on Tuesday (take a break Wednesday for goal setting) and then offer feedback to our classmates on Thursday.  I plan to play a game of musical chairs so students read a variety of papers.  I'll give them time to read four or five paragraphs before they return to their seats to read the feedback they've received.  Then they will sort their feedback into helpful and unhelpful feedback.  {This lesson idea is not my original idea.  I read it on someone's blog, but I can't remember which someone.  If you know, please tell me!}

Friday is RTI day in math and last week I saw my class really struggle with 5.NBT.A.1: "Recognize that in a multi-digit number, a digit in one place represents 10 times as much as it represents in the place to its right and 1/10 of what it represents in the place to its left."  They understood the idea, but when I asked them to for the number that is ten times 0.4 or 1/10th of 1, I got quite a lot of blank stares.  As I was teaching the lesson, I found myself wishing I had number tiles for the kids to manipulate, similar to how you might teach  making words with letter tiles.  So I made this little place value mat and number cards to use during RTI.  You can grab the place value mat and number tiles HERE.

There are three pages of number tiles, so you can call out numbers and have students build them as well.  For my lesson, students will practice moving the digit to the left (to multiply by ten) and to the right (to divide by ten) and then they will fill in empty spaces with zeroes.

That's it for now!  Have a great day of watching football and enjoying some gorgeous fall weather!  Oh, and Dexter!

Workshop Wednesday: Grouping Students (and a completely unrelated freebie)

I'm linking up with Jivey today to share how I group my students for math workshop :-)

There are several options for grouping students when it comes to Math Workshop:

1.) Homogeneous grouping:  Keep students with similar ability levels together.  You might group students based on a pretest or beginning of year test or data from the previous school year. While you will probably change the groups throughout the year, you are still keeping students together based on their ability.  This type of grouping worked best for me when I did guided math.

2.)  Heterogeneous grouping:  This is the type of grouping I use this year.  I gave a pretest on Monday and then introduced groups on Tuesday for our first official lesson.  I took the students with the lowest six scores and created my group.  Then I took the highest four scores and assigned those students as table leaders.  Using the students who were left, I mixed them up and thought about their personalities and work habits as I created the groups.

Now in each group, except for mine, I have one student with a high score and a mix of students with different abilities.  When we move into groups, I remind the students at the other tables that they direct all of their questions to the table leader (the highest scoring student) before they ask me.  This leaves me free to focus my energy on the students who need the most assistance.

At the end of the topic, I use the data from the next test and pretest to create the new groups.  To be completely open, I've found that the students who are in my group are usually in my group for the entire year.  I'll have visitors to my group and I'll have graduates, but reflecting on the year as a whole, it's pretty much the same group all year.

I love this means of grouping my kiddos because it allows me to give the most attention to the students who need it.  Occasionally, I'll have students who need to visit my group for a few minutes of reteaching and I let them sit on the outskirts of my group until they feel confident to go off on their own.  I also love it because it helps foster leadership skills in the students who serve as table leader.

On an unrelated note, tomorrow is Talk Like a Pirate Day!  I had no idea this was a thing until I reader Hunter's Tales from Teaching's Peek at My Week Post!   I made this little pirate themed math practice for my kids that are having difficulty understanding the concept of division and the connection to multiplication.  It's probably third grade level, but upper elementary teachers might find it useful for review....so click HERE to grab it.

I really do hope this was clear. I sat in a tough of traffic tonight and I'm SO tired.  But I have to stay awake because it's Meet the Teacher Night at my son's school!  I'm so excited to meet her and see the classroom!

A Peek at My Week Linky

It's SO quiet in my house right now. My little girl is napping, my husband and son are at the grocery store.  And I'm printing off my lesson plans and getting organized for the week!

Here's what's up in our classroom this week:

 On Monday, I'm going to begin center rotations in literacy.  We will begin with expectations (of course!).  I'll work with the class to create a T-chart showing their job and my job.

I made four easy to use center activities to help the kids build their independence.  You can grab the editing station for free at my TpT store.  It's eight cards with a variety of errors (missing punctuation, capitalization, apostrophes; no spelling errors), a recording sheet and an answer sheet.  I paste the cover on a manilla envelope and place all of the center materials inside.  On the back, I'll clip a sign in sheet to keep track of the students' work.

 On Tuesday, we will (finally!) begin our math program.  I feel like we've already been in school for weeks, rather than just 5 days!  We begin with Topic 1: Place Value.

Our literacy program, ReadyGen, isn't quite so, um, ready.....so we will be reading Sarah, Plain and Tall.  I didn't want to launch into a long novel, with the hopes that our materials will arrive this week.   I haven't read this book to a class in years, so I really enjoyed rereading it this weekend :-)

 Not really planning related, but this Thursday is our Open House.  So I'll be spending lots of time perfecting my room this week! Hopefully I'll actually post some pictures of my classroom by next weekend!

Ah, Friday!  We are doing RTI in math every Friday, which I think is an awesome idea.  I anticipate working on task cards with small groups.  I'll be using Place Value Task Cards with my kiddos.

Have a great week, all!

Be sure to link up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings!

Workshop Wednesday: Responding to Reading

I've been a busy lady.  I'm sorry about the lack of blog updates and blog commenting (mainly the blog commenting though.  I feel bad reading a post and not commenting!).  I have a MESS of deadlines coming up...two big ones on Friday, then another big one on Thursday and then I should be in the clear for quite a while!

If you are here because of Joy In the Journey's 200 Follower Giveaway, thank you!  If you didn't know, Joy in the Journey has a big giveaway going on right now!

There are lots of great prizes for K-6, but the giveaway is has TWO categories for 3-6!  Yay, upper grades!  You'll find my Spring Themed Math Centers in the 3-6 category :-)  {This is Common Core Aligned for Grade 5}

Today I'm linking up with Ideas by Jivey for Workshop Wednesday!  I love Workshop Wednesday...so many great blog posts to read!  This week's topic is responding to reading.

Like many workshop teachers, I give my students stickies to leave "tracks" in their reading.  We use sticky notes together while we read and then I expect them to practice what I've taught in their independent reading.

I have students keep their stickies in their reading response notebook.  Most students are pretty good about keeping the stickies nicely organized with the title of the book at the top of the page.
 

In guided reading, I've started having students write their responses in a booklet with comprehension and higher order thinking questions printed out for them.  I was noticing that my kids had a difficult time holding on to their response question while reading and often my conference with a student was being interrupted by a student who forgot the question.  These little booklets are also a matter of practicality: I can just quickly glance at the booklet to assess their comprehension before we begin our discussion.

Finally, I've blogged about these bookmarks before, but I updated them a little for independent reading.  I started using these bookmarks to help my literature circles move away from using role sheets.  They transitioned to bookmarks to keep them organized and focused and now, I'm SO proud to say, they bring their own notes to the literature circle! 

The boxes will hold the student's sticky notes perfectly!  Grab the independent reading bookmarks HERE!

That's it for me! Be sure to link up with Jivey to share how you have your students respond to reading!

Workshop Wednesday: Math Manipulatives

I'm linking up with Ideas by Jivey for another addition of Workshop Wednesday, but I have no pictures to share.  :sad face:

This week's topic is: Math Manipulatives.  I just bought a big box of Popsicle sticks for our next math topic, classifying plane figures.  In this topic, we will be working with different polygons to understand that all of the properties of a category also belong to all members of the subcategories and classifying polygons.  While I was perusing my teacher's guide, I noticed the lessons assume the students already know a lot about polygons and angles, but I'm not confident that is the case.  We have spent most of the year working on decimals, fractions and volume, so it has been a long time since the students have worked with polygons.

I didn't think reviewing basic shapes would be very fun so I planned a quick activity to keep them engaged while they review.  Grab it HERE (fixed!)

I used this activity as finished early work for my fast finishers today, but we will work again tomorrow to review the basics of geometry.  I'm also planning to use Popsicles to teach the students how to classify angles!

How do you use manipulatives in your classroom? Be sure to link up with Jivey!

Tried It Tuesday: Wonder-board and What's In My Cart!

So many bloggers are sharing all of their great ideas about RJ Palacio's book Wonder!  I love reading different blog posts and seeing amazing displays for extending kids' thinking about the book!  For this "episode" of Fourth Grade Flipper's Tried It Tuesday, I'm going to share how I used Fourth Grade Studio's Wonderboard in my classroom!

   

In her blog post, Meg shared a picture of her Wonderboard and said that she encouraged her students to write "a reaction, a theory, an explanation or some other thought of significance" on the board.  I love this because although I give my students prompts so they can respond to literature, I'm worried that I give too MANY prompts and they don't have enough opportunity to listen to their readers voices.  I have about 7 readers who are below beginning fifth grade reading level and I'm not convinced they actually have readers voices in their head, so by having other students write out their ideas, they can read the stickies to find out what their peers think about!

Here is the beginning of our Wonderboard.  There are actually several more stickies on there now, but I forgot to snap another pic before leaving today.

One sticky says: "Why people have to treat him like that. He's a {regular} kid with a bad face.  I know the other kids {have} problems too. Everyone has problems. Trust me if I knew August He would be my besttttt friend." My thoughts: Way to display compassion and empathy!
Another sticky says: "Why did Jack say that {in front} of the boys? Why {is} he {bummed} about August being mad at him?  My thoughts:  great question for writing and conversation!  We actually used this question as a quick write prompt. I asked the students why they thought Jack betrayed August and which
Jack did they believe, the Jack who said he wasn't really friends with August or the Jack who asked Summer why August was mad at him?

If you are teaching Wonder, you might want to take a look at my Wonder Comprehension Questions Booklet on TPT.

I use this booklet with my fifth grade students during read aloud to monitor comprehension. The questions range in complexity from basic comprehension focused on major plot points and characters to higher order thinking questions requiring longer responses. This product can be used for independent reading, read aloud or literature circles. The questions are not specifically aligned to Common Core standards, but many questions as students to cite specific text based evidence and most questions are text dependent. It would be helpful for students to have their own copy of the text in order to answer the questions.

I'm also linking up with Fifth in the Middle to share What's In My Cart!  Truthfully, I'm not ready to check out yet...but here are the definites:

From the top left, What's My Operation Task Cards by Teaching with A Mountain View.  I love her products!  We've done her fraction packet, multiplying decimals and I have the operating decimals task cards as well.  Right now, we are working through her FREE Titanic Math Pages!

Prefix Parlor by Teaching with a Touch of Twang. I'm ALWAYS drawing a blank when it comes to word work and word study.  And with the sale, this is only $1.60!

Fluency Bootcamp by MsJordanReads.  We need this like whoa.  I know the year is winding down for most of you, but we still have several weeks left!

Build a BETTER sentence by Lovin Lit.  We've been working on stretching our sentences for a while, but I think it would be great to try it a new way!  Also, Lovin Lit is having a big giveaway that starts tomorrow:

I donated my Language Arts Activities for A Day's Work by Eve Bunting :-)
Common Core Weekly Reading Homework Review {Set 1:Informational Text} by Jennifer Findley I probably won't use this until next year, but I love getting a peek into how other teachers structure their reading homework! 
So be sure to link up with Fourth Grade Flipper for Tried It Tuesday and Fifth in the Middle for What's In Your Cart!  And don't forget code TAD13 when you check out for an additional 10% off your order!

Currently....

I'm linking up with Farley for Currently!

Listening: Right now, my kids are playing instead of eating.  Lovely, right? Some how toys always end up at the dinner table and it drives me bananas!  They both ate half a meatball and then said they were full.  I wish I could be full on half a meatball!

Loving: Hawaiian Keurig Cups!  They make the house smell so nice and they have a slight nutty flavor to them!  We just got two more big boxes of Hawaiian k-cups and two big boxes of Tree Hugger k-cups.  I love a bold coffee for the morning.

Thinking:  We are wrapping up our Mexico Study with a mini fiesta for Cinco de Mayo tomorrow and I've convinced myself that I'll be able to make guacamole with the class.  It's easy enough, right?

Brochures all colored and ready for the bulletin board!  Check out my Cinco de Mayo brochure project on TpT.

Wanting: More patience.  Or more sleep.  Or fewer responsibilities.  All three would be AWESOME!  I'm updating all FIVE of my bulletin boards and starting all of the end of year assessment and record keeping.  I could definitely use a clone right about now!

Needing: To reorganize my closet.  It seems like spring is finally here, although the mornings are still quite chilly.  Still, I'd rather wear seven layers than put a winter coat on!  I need to go through and change my closet over to warmer clothes.  And I need to purge with a heavy hand.  I may or may not still have some maternity clothes lurking in my dresser.

Summer Bucket List:
1.) Beach - Although the beaches near me were really hurt by Sandy, the news keeps saying they will be open for Memorial Day!  I can't wait!
2.) Pool - My oldest is going to do swimming lessons this year!  And I can't wait to get back to swimming laps in an outdoor pool!
3.) Marathon Training - I'm officially registered for the NYC Marathon and I will start training in mid-July.  This will be my second marathon and I'm kind of looking forward to the training and definitely looking forward to racing!

What are you up to this month!  Be sure to link up with Farley!