Diggin' Into Summer Linky: Math Workshop

Happy Monday!  Once again, I get to talk about one of my favorite things...MATH, and more specifically Math Workshop.

 ...do math workshop!  This past winter I led a professional development session on Guided Math/Math Workshop (They are not interchangeable, but I'll refer to this structure as Guided Math from here on out) for my district.  I'm going to share some of the things I shared with them.  First, a resource I use a lot to reference for tips and structures is Laney Sammons, Guided Math book.

Sammons' describes Guided Math:
Guided Math is a flexible instructional framework that enables teachers to promote the deep mathematical understanding and computational fluency of their students by determining their unique needs and prescriptively addressing those needs through a combination of whole group instruction, small group instruction, math workshop, and conferences within a classroom environment that promotes numeracy.

Okay, so I highlighted the two phrases that make Guided Math so remarkable.  First of all,  I think teachers focus a lot on the structure of their math block to make it more engaging for their students.  However, I think the biggest part comes down to students' "unique needs and prescriptively addressing those needs".  After all, the whole point in creating a rotation-type structure is to allow yourself to have small groups to teach.   So....you HAVE to differentiated and meet the specific needs of your students in each of your small groups.  If you teach the same lesson 3 or 4 times in a row to small groups, then you might as well teach it whole group and save yourself from being a broken record.  Get my drift?  The purpose is for differentiation!  So....here is the schedule I use in order to maximize the time with my small groups.  And...we're really fortunate to have 75 minutes for math built into each grade level's schedule.

I think the closing and reflection is HUGE!!  Students need an opportunity to reflect on what they have just learned and how it is applicable to a larger concept or the real world.  At the beginning of the year, this time might be spent reviewing and reflecting on procedures.  As the procedures become more routine, this time becomes more academic.  We really encourage our teachers to circle back to their learning targets or essential questions.  By setting this time aside, it allows for some meaningful time in discussion, reflection, or journaling.

Since I am no longer in the classroom, the changes I might put in place would revolve around the independent work students are doing.  This needs to be meaningful and relevant, NOT busy work. 

I have LOTS and LOTS of math related products, so I won't bore you with all of them, but here are a few of the highlights and most loved products for you to check out.

Alrighty, well I gotta run.  I can't wait to read about math from all of these great bloggers below!  Join in on the fun - and the learning with this great linky!

Math Madness Wednesday: Subtraction!

I must say that math has always been my favorite subject to both learn and teach.  In my district I am on the district Math Committee and have always taken a liking to all things math.  I'm joining Krista at Teaching Momster for her Math Madness Wednesdays Linky.  This week's topic of subtraction is especially intriguing because I think it's a challenging topic for students to grasp and truly understand.  In my post I have some tips and tricks for teaching subtraction and then some fun games I've created for subtraction!

One area that I see often when I'm observing in classrooms is that teachers go from a visual representation of something straight to the abstract.  There needs to be other pieces in between these two steps where students have opportunities to make meaning with the manipulatives and have scaffolded opportunities to move from the concrete to abstract.  In order to do this there are several steps to think about.

1. Student exploration with materials and attempting to solve the subtraction problems.  Here is a student using paperclips to explore measurement.

2. Teaching with visuals and manipulatives to solidify the student exploration, clarify misunderstandings, or directly teach a brand new concept. Also, this doesn't just mean one form of manipulatives.

3. Highlight specific content words that will be necessary for explaining the process of subtraction.  This would include difference, subtraction, etc.

3. Student talk about subtraction.  In order to understand the concept, students need to be able to display their thinking visually and talk or write about it using the specific content vocabulary from #3.  This needs to be both teacher supported and collaboratively with peers.

4.  Once these pieces are in place, then I think it's appropriate to move to the abstract or formula-based solving of subtraction.

And finally, students need to have FUN with subtraction!  Once there is a conceptional understanding, games are a blast to play, and they make subtraction a little less stressful for students.  Here are some really easy games to print and play that I've created for subtraction.

This is the easiest version with just basic subtraction facts.  Use this game as a small group review game or to practice fact fluency add a timer to the game! On TpT for $1.00!

 

 This game includes double digit problems with regrouping.  This is definitely one of my best-sellers - it's only $1.50!  Use this as a whole class review game with students using dry erase boards at their seats to solve all of the problems.  A great class game or to use when you have a substitute teacher. 

This game has 2-digit problems with and without regrouping.  Put this at a work station for students to solve and put the cards in order based on the answers they get when solving each problem.  A great way to encourage practice through a fun game! Again, just $1.50!

Happy subtraction to all!  Gotta run, err continue to walk post-baby for a while!

Mentor Monday: Memoirs and Motherhood!

Thanks to a friend of mine, Krista at Teaching Momster, I am back on the blogging bandwagon and couldn't be more excited!  For one reason, I will be home for the next few months on maternity leave and for another, I have lots of ideas I've been wanting to share and discuss!

I am joining up with the Mentor Monday Linky highlighting books that focus on the teaching of memoirs.  Krista is actually guest hosting it this week from Emily's blog, and I love the organizer she created to get started with memoirs.  I think the best way to get started with a memoir is to use mentor texts and to model it through your own writing.  Actually, I believe this is the best way to get started with any unit: mentor texts and modeling.

What picture would I use for my small moment right now?  Well, this one of course!  Our baby will be 3 weeks old tomorrow.  I can already think of many different moments to write about.  And memoirs were a perfect topic for me to brag and share about our absolutely perfect little guy!

Okay, back to the classroom application.  My go-to texts for memoirs is always Patricia Polacco - and maybe to a fault - but I just love her style of writing and the messages in her stories.  I love how she depicts a moment so vividly and can pull a reader into her life so quickly.  I think Polacco is best used for the older grade levels since the text complexity is a bit higher.  With so many picture books, she has many options to choose from, too, which is why I like to have a collection in the room that students can read independently if they choose.

Two of my favorites are My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother and The Junkyard Wonders.  I like these because one is about family and siblings which a lot of students can relate.  The Junkyard Wonders is an amazing story about a group of "special" students or misfits, who realize they are truly genius-level thinkers and creators.

One Big Teaching Tip for Successful Memoirs by your Students:

- Give them many opportunities to discover their topic.  The topic(s) they choose to write about needs to be memorable, special, important, or hit home.  They need to be passionate about it and want to write about it.  Students will spend a lot of writing time with this moment, so don't force something for the sake of time.  Give them several mini lessons with mentor texts depicting various moments to spark their own memories and find something they just can't wait to talk about, write about, revise, and share.

Gotta run, well actually walk right now, but soon enough!  The baby and I are going to head out for a walk despite the 40 degree temps here in Indy!  At least it's sunny.   

It's December 1...and time for the Cyber Monday Sale and Linky!

Can you believe that December is upon us?!  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and were able to enjoy our family and the many traditions of the holidays before going crazy with Black Friday.

Well with the shopping season in full swing, the oh-so-lovely CYBER MONDAY SALE IS HERE ON TPT!  Join some great TpT Sellers on a Linky Adventure.

My advice as you embark on this GrEaT adventure?
1. Light a great holiday smelling candle.
2. Slide on some comfy clothes.
3. Blast some Mariah Carey X-mas tunes in the background.
4. Send your hubby to the other room to watch football.
5. Login to TpT and leave feedback for all of your previously made purchases to build up your credits!
6. Then shop, shop, shop away to make your 2nd semester filled with great new products and exciting adventures for you and your students.

So here are my Top 3 on my TPT Playlist:

1. Weather Super File Folder

This is my top seller!  It allows you to use what you need or want to personalize it for your classroom. The kids always love the foldables too!

Originally $5.00       With my 20% off sale = $4.00          And with TpT cyber discount = just $3.60!!

2. And #2 on my list is a Poetry Unit with 55 pages of different types of poetry, differentiated writing pages, and helpful posters to model and show students each type!

Originally - $4.00           With my 20% off sale - $3.20        With TpT cyber sale - just $2.88!

                 

3. And finally...for a great steal with a sale price of just $1.08 with my 20% off and TpT's cyber sale is my 2 Digit Addition with Regrouping Game!  Another best seller!

And remember...it will be just $1.08.  These games are perfect for math stations, a substitute teacher, or just a fun afternoon when you want and need to do educational pieces, but your kids are not quiet as on board as you are!

Feel free to visit my store for other great deals that might be on your Top 3 Playlist! Gotta run!

Indy Blogger Meet Up and Favorite Pins Friday!

Happy happy Friday!  Unfortunately, this is my last summer Friday, but I get to see lots of friends this weekend, so I can't complain!  First up, though, is our awesome Indy Blogger meet up yesterday!  My husband thought it was craaaazy that I was meeting up with random strangers at a restaurant for lunch.  He was glad to know that I was safe and sound afterward!

Here is our whole group!  We had 15 bloggers all the way from veteran to novice, but all were fabulous!  It as so fun to meet all of these virtual friends, laugh about how our spouses think we are crazy sometimes, and share tips and tricks.

I have to give a little shout out to Hilary Lewis from Rockin' Teacher Materials.  First of all, her materials are rockin', but SHE is rockin' too!  She has been pretty extremely successful with her blog and TPT, and was very willing to share about everything.  I was lucky to sit close enough that I could hear everything!  I confessed that when I first started on TPT I wanted to be her (she fights for the #1 spot in Indiana!)!

We also did a product or school supply exchange game, and it was so fun!  Each of us brought something and then we could steal from others.

I ended up with a great Parts of Speech Game from Ciera at Adventures of Room 129!  The best part is that it was already laminated, cut out, and ready to go!!  Ciera also made these adorable little frames for everyone!  They were at each of the place settings on the table!

Do you want to hear from the other Indy Bloggers that were there?  Here is a linky with all of their posts about our great time together.  Some took more (and better) pictures than I did, so join in on our fun!

 Alrighty, now onto some of my favorite pins from this week!  I'm linking up with Cara Carroll with a few of my personal and professional pins!

1. A bookshelf of family photos from your students!  I love this idea, especially for my ENL kiddos.  Family is such a huge component for a lot of the cultures I work with, and what better way to showcase that then with a display.  I don't quite have room for a whole bookshelf, but I'm going to find a way to make this work!

  

2. I love my 2 pups, and the summer has been awesome to get some more time with them!  I was really excited, and then extremely let down by this pin, and I'll tell you why.  First of all, the picture is adorable, and I can just see my dogs jumping up and down with excitement for these treats.  Then, I went to click on the link, and it just linked to a picture sight...no recipe for the treats!  I'm posting it here in case anyone knows of or has seen the recipe!

                                                    

3. I love fall!  Don't get me wrong...I'm bummed that my summer has only 3 short days left, but I love fall clothes!  Boots.  Jeans.  Long sleeves.  Scarves.  You name it!  I love fall clothes.  This outfit just got me excited because it looks so comfy, yet stylish.  If you know me at all, you also know that I love me a puffy vest...so this outfit just caught my eye!

4.  I recently had an old neighbor from the neighborhood I grew up in come visit me at my "new" house.  They were so excited to see where I live.  However, the hubs and I have lived here for 5 years now, and we've kind of fallen behind in what we were going to do to the house when we bought it.  This picture of this plain laundry room updated to a more modern look gave me some inspiration to get my but in gear and do something.  Now...I have the inspiration...I just need to buy the supplies and do it!  Did I mention I go back to school on Monday? Ha!

5. This is a YouTube video with a rap about story elements!  It's from a guy who heads up "Flocabulary".  I might be a little late on this train, but the videos are great and have all kinds of different topics.  This one is a little less than 4 minutes, and I love the beat and the repetition.  The kids hear the 5 story elements so many times.  Check out Flocabulary on YouTube!  You won't be disappointed. 

6.  Finally, I loved these little ribbon topiary trees.  I'm hosting a bridal shower for my brother-in-law, and I thought I'd change these ribbons to burlap and yellow.  They're having their wedding in a barn, so I thought it would be so cute.  Maybe Mason Jars for the base?  The Etsy shop link didn't work through Pinterest, but it's still a good visual.

Alrighty, well I gotta run!  We've got friends coming in town and I need to do some MAJOR cleaning! I love my dogs, but boy do they add to the time commitment of cleaning!

Pinteresting Reading Ideas!

Good morning!  I have really enjoyed Just Reed's Ten Pin Linky because I've been able to Pin so many other great ideas!  This week's focus is on reading, and who can't use more resources for reading!?!?  Let's get started on my 10!

1. I really like this anchor chart for writing about reading.  It outlines expectations and ideas in an easy and simple way.  I'm thinking that modeling what this might actually look like and then posting those models around the chart would be helpful too.

2.  We use The Continuum by Fountas & Pinnell a lot in our reading instruction and to guide our mini lessons and questioning.  This chart outlines what within, beyond, and about the text questions might look like when reading any book.  I love how transferable these are to most books!

3. And...we all know that even in K and 1, we're encouraging our students to find the answers in the text.  As they get into 2nd grade and beyond our expectations head into writing about the evidence.  I love this quick and easy reference for sentence starters to help.  I'm thinking this will be especially helpful in my ENL world!

4.  This is a quick and easy game reviewing Nonfiction Conventions.  There is a primary version and an intermediate version based on your grade level.   This is a great game for review and making learning fun!

5. I just love this bulletin board where it shows active readers.  I'm imagining so many different things that can be posted in front of these sweet faces...book recommendations, book summaries, character analysis, etc.!

6.  This pin shows a huge reading bulletin board that appears to be school-wide.  As I came across this pic, I thought it would be really fun to send students home with a sheet to fill out over the summer about a book they read.  They can then bring these back at the ice cream social or first week of school.  We would post a large board with all of our summer reading and learning!  What a great way to celebrate students' continued work.

7. I love the idea of a picture frame for several reasons.  It's easy to store flat, the contents can be changed easily, and it looks clean and organized.  I especially liked this one because part of it can be changed daily for the "must do" activity, and the other activities are a bit more permanent.  Easy to use!

8. Well,  I'm putting this link up here, because it's a professional reading idea I think all should pursue.  I posted here about Teach Like a Pirate last week, but what I thought was so cool was that the author, Dave Burgess, commented on my blog!!  Now that is why he is so dynamic!  He connects with everyone, whether in his classroom or via the web!  How cool!

9.  I liked this interactive vocabulary activity.  It reminds me a lot of the game Headbands, but there is a sheet that goes with the activity to assist students figure out their word.  Not only does it help the student with the word, but it makes the other students think about the true meaning in order to answer the questions.  

10. I love how organized this library is (I think it's before school has started), but also the volume of books and the cute lanterns hanging down.  I think a big, organized library is crucial in a classroom.  I like how inviting the area is for students and how easy it will be for her students to find books!

I hope you've enjoyed my 10 this week for reading!  I gotta run to the grocery and get ready for the 4th!    Have an awesome holiday tomorrow!!