Dollar Days GiveAway!

I have made my first $1.oo of profit from Teacher pay Teachers. In my excitement I am ready to giveaway some goodies. I thank everyone who purchase items from my store. I have just begun this new journey into Teachers pay Teachers and blogging for more than just my classroom. I am blogging to share information and learn about teaching as I go. Thank you again! I wanted to have a quick little giveaway to celebrate. I have two products that are 1 dollar. I will give both of them away for free to Celebrate!! Thanks a Bunch!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway If you do not win my raffle FREEBIELIOUS is turning 1 and having an amazing raffle check it out. Their raffle inspired me to raffle as well. (As always if you are a Pomona Unified School District teacher just send me and email and I will send you everything on my TPT store)

Happy Teachings!

All Things Upper Elementary: Using Backward Timing to Work on Math Fluency

Here we are and the question is short but not simple. What is Fluency with Math Facts?
This idea has been floating around and reappearing in my life for the past few weeks.

  First of all, my daughter has been feverishly working on memorizing her time tables for her weekly quiz. She writes them over and over because she is a visual learner and challenges herself each week to surpass her last week scores. I quiz her in the car and so on and so forth. Fortunately, she is really able to memorize these facts and I taught her a few tricks as well.

  Next, As I go from school to school I see a variety of different timed tests at my schools. I see students talking about the Friday tests and how they are going to do. I see cool bulletin boards and other visuals to show student progress on memorizing facts. MEMORIZING FACTS I thought we were moving away from this type of learning with CCSS. Well we can't yet move until we have something to replace it with.

After this I read, well kinda skimmed this article because I knew I already agreed with this idea,
http://joboaler.com/timed-tests-and-the-development-of-math-anxiety/ which was sent to me via my work email.  It basically says that we should not use timed tests because we are created a culture of students with math anxiety.

 Then, last night reading this blog made me think! Yes, I Think! sometimes. What an amazing idea and a great way to differentiate math fluency without the anxiety and such a simple twist on what we are already doing, Backward Timing. Here is the blogpost it is quite simple and quite amazing. It involves goals setting and really brings into play the idea of gamification. Students are trying to beat their own levels to get to the highest level they can. Not to receive a lollipop on Friday but to progress to the next level.

All Things Upper Elementary: Using Backward Timing to Work on Math Fluency

Finally, in conclusion this is a great idea that I felt was worth sharing. If I had a classroom this would truly be something I incorporated into my Math Workshop!!!

One final thought to further encourage students and make this a positive experience. I wanted to link up with  Head Over Heels for Teaching. There are some great Shout out Cards! This would be a great way to have students reflect and provide feedback to their peers progress. Check it out by clicking the image below. You will love it simple and Edusational!

SGVCUE Tech Fair!

This weekend was the SGV CUE Tech Fair. It was a fun day with a great 200 educators learning and sharing on a Saturday @ MANZANITA ELEMENTARY IN COVINA VALLEY UNIFIED. 

I wanted to share some of the resources that many felt were super valuable.

Brent Coley  Google Resources

Bill Selak   Interactive You Tube videoshttp://www.brentcoley.com/1/post/2013/10/another-use-for-google-forms-parent-contact-log.html

Batch Geo

Mini Flip your classroom

Jo Ann Fox The 4 C's

Chrom Exstensions ~ JR Ginex-O

D Grice - Making Video Without a Video Camera

Flipping the English Class - The Tech Classroom

Flip Model

Telling Stories with Google Maps , Moss Pike

INFO GRAMS

 These were the highlights from a great day SGV CUE TECH FAIR. 

Happy Learning!

Base Ten Number Talks.

Hey Hey Hey, So I tried something today it was a modification of a kindergarten concept in Second Grade!

I have been working every week with an amazing 2nd grade team of teachers. This team is awesome every Monday they plan together and then give me some ideas of what they need as well as a lesson they are willing to let me model in their classrooms on Tuesday. Well, last week went well but today not so great. I am only going to tell you about the parts that went well.( because it is my blog and I can do that)  The Number Talk opening fluency activity went well! Yay!. The focus was to build understanding of place value as a way to organize numbers in different ratios (ratios of 10). Well, I did not say all that but I did say we can organize a number value differently and we call the organization different names like groups. Like group them using one units, tens sticks or hundreds. I really wanted to make the connection between the visual model and the ways to organize it.  I began to think about Sherry Parrish Number Talks, and how they build subitizing in kindergarten with dots. Then, later that afternoon, I overheard a 3rd grade teacher talk about her struggles with the 3rd grade Common Core math because some of the students have not been exposed to the early kindergarten Common Core lessons, to build a foundation from. I began to think how can I take the kindergarten idea of using dots to build fluency in subitizing and make it more geared toward second graders. What I came up with was this a set of powerpoint slides where students used formal base ten blocks to determine and convert models into numbers and vice versa numbers into models.  I also created some different ways to group and organize the same value number to see if they made and connections to why the system was developed. For example I showed 100 as 10 ten sticks next as 1 100 block next as 100 1 units. The students truly enjoyed this part of the lesson they were engaged and really having great mathematical discourse.(also called talking about numbers)

Here is a sample of what they looked like!

I am hoping to have  a more organized and comprehensive set available next week on my TPT store.
Anyone,who leaves a comment on this blog in the month of October I will send a free copy of the complete set. They are geared for Second Grade  I can't wait to hear your comments! Maybe I will even tell your about the part of the lesson that did not go so well. But then I might have to kill you! So not!

Happy Learning!

Who is in Charge?

Who is in Charge?

More and more as I have begun to implement and learn about the Common Core, CGI Cognitively Guided Instruction, and reading and writing workshop I have asked myself; Who is in Charge?

All my teacher training lead me to believe it had to be me. I had to lead and my students had to follow in line all the same and they better keep up and not move ahead of the group. 

I still think they need to follow but they need to follow me in as I continue to learn, change and grow everyday. I still struggle with how to fit it all in and do it with limited resources and funds. Every once and awhile I need to be reminded that many before me and after have done much more with much less this is why I go back to this TED talk to inspire me to have the stamina to continue.  John Hunter got a job with not much direction, tools, curriculum, funds or resources and he created something magical powerful and authentically powerful learning. Yet he still asked himself; Who is in Charge? Check out his TED talk below. It will definitely inspire you to continue the great work you are already doing.

Happy Learning!

CLOSE READING!

Well, we heard all about it we were directed that this is one of our focus instructional tools this year but, what is it Close Reading. So, I have been doing some research and observing intently for great examples of Close Reading. I began by following a great blog a thon by Christopher Lehmann. It has been going on for several weeks now and it is a powerful tool for understanding and furthering understanding of Close Reading.

Here is the link: http://christopherlehman.wordpress.com

Three statements Christopher Lehmann thought should drive our planning and revising;

"Always returning to student work"

"Looking for Approximation"

"Lots of Professional, reflective conversation"

 I stumbled literally stumbled, I was walking by a classroom on my way to lunch and overheard music coming out the door. So, I walked in of course. As soon as I walked in I found Student work.

Here are some samples of students working on understanding the text/lyrics of "Man in the Mirror" the Micheal Jackson song. 

Here is the link to a printable of the songs lyrics:

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/michaeljackson/maninthemirror.html

These questions were formulated after their second read. Once they read it independently then the watched the video of the lyrics.
Here is a link to the video: 
http://youtu.be/P5vz6iwV38U


Upon having a conversation about their questions, the teacher was able to "Look for approximations" some of the questions were amazing and thoughtful and some were still being developed.  The students had guided the conversation and answered some of each others questions. In the end the class was close but not quite there yet, the teacher quickly collected the passages and placed them in the student folders. She knew that this was going to require another reading. 

While the video was still playing the teacher began to analyze and collect student questions.  Next she began to ask me questions about the student questions not for judgement but for another set of eyes and ears to determine where to go next with these questions. I was hooked into this lesson as an observer I started to walk the room gathering and analyzing questions as well. We were able to have a quick reflective dialogue "Lots of Professional, refelective conversation" I was able to see these three statements in action radically changing student's learning. Wow! Impressive, it was not perfect but it was a perfect example of how we are moving forward and changing the way we teach.  

How does Close Reading relate to math. I think it is essential to help students understand how to solve word problems. They need to apply this same close reading strategy to their word problems to fully comprehend the problem and the computations needed to complete the problem. 

Happy Learning!

Second Grade

Today, I tried a new lesson from the Georgia Tasks, on page 54 in Unit 1. This lesson was called;

CONSTRUCTING TASK: Building Base-Ten Numbers 

 It is actually suppose to take 2 days but we got started in one day. To build fluency we started with a Number talk.  I did not spend too much time on re framing the equations because this was my first time working with this group. I did try to annotate as much as possible there thinking. The students were thinking very linear and mostly started solving left to right ( this is a great skill to have when moving into algebra) However, the began to build ten quickly.  Happy Happy JOY JOY one boy Jackson was able to use a derived strategy he was able to look at problem B. and use it to answer problem C. because all the numbers are the same they just added a 4. Very impressive!!! I can not wait to see what happens next week!

Next we moved into the lesson which was about place value and representing numbers in different forms. 

 Here is the gist of the lesson:

Common Core Standards

MCC2.NBT.1 Understand that the three digits of a three-digit number represent amounts of hundreds, tens, and ones; e.g., 706 equals 7 hundreds, 0 tens, and 6 ones. Understand the following as special cases:

a. 100 can be thought of as a bundle of ten tens — called a “hundred.”
b. The numbers 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 refer to one, two, three,

four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine hundreds (and 0 tens and 0 ones).

MCC2.NBT.3 Read and write numbers to 1000 using base-ten numerals, number names, and expanded form.

MCC2.NBT.4 Compare two three-digit numbers based on meanings of the hundreds, tens, and ones digits, using >, =, and < symbols to record the results of comparisons.

Mathematical Practice Focus: 4. Model with mathematics. 

Lesson Formative Assessment:  Students will be able to represent a number in 3 different ways, standard form, model drawing, expanded form, explain how to change the value of the number by moving place of digit

 To prepare for this lesson the students needed dice. I had did not have enough for each team to play so here was my solution which worked out well not one die was destroyed.

Here is the website where you can print out the die,I printed them on card stock and hot glued them together. They are large but fun and it worked.

www.timvandevall.com 
http://timvandevall.com/printable-paper-dice-template/

 

As, a group we practiced this game then I sent them out on their own to play.  The students did some great work. They still need to work on several areas but it was a great start.

 This little guy drew a model with the accurate number but he made them all look the same. This is something we are going to work on for next week.   I was very impressed with the amount of intuitive thinking these students had. They had never been exposed to the term expanded form but they were able to figure out what it was and begin to apply it. Next, week we will review this and move onto 4 digits for the more advanced students.

Happy Tuesday!

Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover, TED Talk on Teaching Math

 Here is a link if you cannot see the video

http://youtu.be/BlvKWEvKSi8

After watching this video I thought about how would this apply to the work we are already doing with TIPS problem solving model. 

 

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3JISWcawKtQcWNZU2VTS3B4dkE/edit?usp=sharing

This is an example of what we are already doing to try to bring Common Core Math to our students and have them do the thinking work. 
To take Dan Meyer's idea I would begin with this on Day 1. Presenting the question and creating buy in, in some instances you may have to do more than one piece of this in one day. So the question is 

How many posters did each boy have?

I could not find a video of students counting papers or posters I did find a picture of a large stack of posters I am planning to model how some one would count and exaggerate how long it would take when I do it.  Then I created this Anchor chart template

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3JISWcawKtQQlllejlkWVpIbXM/edit?usp=sharing

I am planning to brainstorm with the students about how to fill in this form, and not fill in any solutions. Then give them the problem TIPS sheet. The first day I really want to determine if students can use the anchor chart to figure out the key words and important numbers independently. The next problem solving session I will work with this group again to guide them into understanding this idea. While the others begin to use math tools and manipulate the numbers in the problem. 
I also to have a challenge set of numbers 100 60, for students whom can answer this very quickly. 


I am hoping that this leads to students better understanding of where to begin with problem solving. I also feel that the Anchor chart could be used as a basis for developing a more authentic and powerful explanation. In the past my students were always able to locate the key words and important numbers but never explain why or the process into how they chose them.  Wish me luck. I will post some of my results from this week of experimenting with Da Meyers idea.

Happy Tuesday!