Okay.... Rotate!

That was the ingenious phrase I would use each day during our math workshop in order to get the kids moving to their next station.  Um, yeah...not the best idea I have ever had.  So, around October of last year I came to conclusion that this was not the best way to signal transitions, so I Googled
Transition and found this wonderful website:

http://www.newmanagement.com/music/index.html

People! It worked like a charm! My kids moved ever so quickly and quietly to the music.  Not only has it saved my voice, but the kids think it is super fun. We use the theme to Mission Impossible and when the last note is playing everyone is sitting doing jazz hands.  Too funny!
Last year I only used the site for a clean up song and math transitions, but I decided I needed to add to it.  I decided to create a SMARTboard transition board and added a few more transition cues.

If you'd like to use the SMART Notebook file I created click here. Enjoy!

Math Workshop

I love teaching math and science!  Over the last few years I have been refining how I teach math in my classroom, and now that I have switched to a math workshop model I will never go back to teaching math the "traditional" way.  So, how do I run my workshop?

I teach to a small group while everyone else is doing all sorts of math activities throughout the classroom. I have 4 distinct stations that the kids travel to each day.

One station is me, the teacher station. 

Then I have an independent work station, which usually involves some kind of paper-pencil work.  

There is a skill/enrichment station.  At this station the kids are assigned to work with a game or activity that will either enhance skill development or push them to think more in-depth about a concept. 

My last station is fact practice. When students are in the fact practice station they are partnered up with another student, and they tutor each other on the facts they are currently assigned.  

We typically spend 15 to 20 minutes at each station and then rotate.  Prior to starting the rotations  I will do a whole group mini-lesson, much like one would in a readers or writers workshop, to introduce a concept, or to reteach something that is giving the whole class trouble.  Then we break out into our groups.  At the end of the workshop, we all come back together and discuss the learning objective for the day and we take our 1 minute fact quiz.

Math Fact Fluency

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fact-Practice-Fluency-For-the-Classroom-Addition-and-Subtraction-746516

Last school year, I set a professional goal based on improving my students' abilities to retain facts.  Year after year I have done fact practice in some form or another, but every year I still had kids that just couldn't retain their basic facts.  I knew I needed to find a new strategy.  While attending a math conference on RTI, I heard about peer tutoring and decided to research it some more.  Over the summer I developed a fluency center for the kids to use during math workshop, and I tried it out this past school year.  It really made a difference!  In the past the students never had an accountability piece during the actual fact practice portion of our day, and to be honest I don't think I gave them enough time...  This year I not only gave them more time, but I also had them work in partnerships and tutor each other.  It worked very well, and all of my students mastered their basic addition facts through 20. As a math coach in my district, I decided to put everything I used into a packet for the other teachers in my building to use.  You can find it here if you'd like to try it out.  I currently only have an addition and subtraction resource available, but I am working on the multiplication and division set and should have it up soon.  I have gone through the routines involved in detail, as well as provided facts, quizzes, a homework option and fact practice folder set-ups.  I'll be posting more about my math workshop in the next few days, so stayed tuned.

  

Technology You Must Try!

This coming school year our district is providing all of our K-2 classrooms with 5 mini iPads!   We are so ecstatic.  So,  I tried out a few apps with my students before school ended to see how they might work for my class next year.

The first app that I absolutely love is Nearpod.

I have used this FREE app with small groups for math, and on the day before school was out I used it with the entire class.  This app allows you to monitor, engage and collect data from all of your students at once.  You are in control of the lesson the entire time, and you get real-time data.  To get the true effect of the app you need to have at least two devices.  One device serves as the host and the other as the client.  My class used a pre-made lesson on the moon to test it out.  They loved it.  We explored a slide show, videos, went to an Internet site that talked about what a spacesuit is made up of, drew pictures, took polls and completed a quiz at the end.  You can also assign these presentations as "homework" and the kids can go through the presentation on their own.  Besides the pre-made lessons, Nearpod let's you create your own. I am thinking of creating some word work and math activities that they can use the homework component for while they are doing independent work.  I will certainly be busy this summer!

The second app is Kidblog.

We played around with the app for just one day.  It was very easy for the kids to use and didn't require too much teaching.  That being said, my students have had practice in the computer lab using Google Docs, email, creating Powerpoints and iMovies, so they are fairly experienced. I am intending to use this app for reader responses.  Currently I have students turn in written responses on an assigned day of the week.  With Kidblog, students will be able to type up responses and submit them by their designated due date, and I won't have to sort through stacks of notebooks looking for the required response.

Well that is all for now.  I am going to try to get back into the habit of blogging.  Wish me luck!

The Room part 2...

I am not nearly done just yet!  I still have some banners to hang from the ceiling and my door to decorate.  I can't put that up until our Open House, which happens the prior to the start of school, because we have kids and parents that sometimes roam the halls trying to figure out which teacher they have and it all has to remain a huge secret.  I'm really not sure why.  I'd love to be able to send a "Welcome to Second Grade" postcard before the school year begins...but no, it's all "Hush Hush" around here. So basically anything that has a student's name on it will remain in hiding.

I am very sorry for the poor quality of the pictures, but I just can seem to take a good one!  I think I need to invest in a better camera.  Especially if I'm planning on posting pictures of all the things we do throughout the school year...

So here is my room so far.... I'll post more as I complete projects!

I really can't wait to get back into the swing of things.  It will be here before I know it!  I wish everyone a great school year!

Label Freebies

I know I haven't posted classroom pictures just yet.  I need to go back with a real camera and take more photos. The ones I took with my phone camera were just terrible!  So to make up for it I am posting some folder labels for free.  I set them up to print on Avery 5160's.  However, I alway print my labels on the "shipping label" paper because no matter how hard I try to get things just right... I always manage to lose about a third of my labels due to them not lining up! ARRGH! Does that ever happen to you?  I know that cutting them out can be a pain, but I'd rather not let any go to waste. So anyhoo, click {HERE} to download them and have a wonderful, fantastic Saturday!

The line I have above the text on the label is where I write student names.

The Room...

I've been working away at getting things organized in my room.  I wasn't going to post about it until I had  it all ready, so all I have are the before pics for now.

I have all the furniture in place, except for the desks, and my bulletin boards have paper on them...that is about it.  I'm going in again next week, as many days as it will take, so I am hoping to have DONE pictures by Friday.  In the meantime, I have been busy getting lessons ready and making classroom decorations for friends.
I just finished up this classroom set in time for back to school.  It is so much fun to create things, and this time around I thought I do a little ode to my blog. Tell me what you think!

Well I am off to watch some more Olympics! Go U.S.A.!