Five for FRIDAY !

It's Friday, Friday  Everybody loves Friday!

So, my week has been interesting to say the least. This week the entire district was benchmark testing and it really altered my schedule. However, some good things have come out of this week.

Well, I finally received my copy of Christopher Lehman's Close Reading book. YAy! I have not started reading it yet but excited to be able to read it.

I spent part of my week doing this. Holy Moly Gucamole! This is necessary but not fun at all. At two of my school's this week. I helped out with the benchmark scantrons. Students in grades 1 and 2 fill answers directly in test booklet. This information needs to be transferred to a scantron so it can be scored.

So, I am watching the Story of Math because that is the kinda gal I am. I want to know why and how the place value system came to be. Not necessarily to teach my 2nd and 3rd grade students but to understand it better and provide more conceptual info about place value.  Right now as I type I am listening to how Pythagorus' Theory was born. 

This week I received the news that one of the grants proposals I wrote was accepted. Goodie Gumdrops. We have been granted! We now will start our cohort and begin work on learning about CGI math. One of the best parts is that we will be able to collaborate with a cohort at another school studying CGI as well. 

The best of all. My kindergarten math teacher and I were able to develop a Math Routine worksheet aligned to the Mountain Math subscription( which is not Common Core Aligned) and the other existing math routines. 

That's it Five for Friday almost Fraturday! And a 3 day weekend is coming so I need to post this so I can start enjoying my weekend. 

Happy Teaching!

LOOK WHO'S TAlKING!!! NUMBER TALKS!

Happy Friday, I have so much to blog about much more than I can actually keep up with but I decided that I would blog something I saw on Thursday this week. Thursday aka Halloween  morning was overloaded enough to cause me to drive to work with no purse. YIKES! So, I drove back home got my driver's license and other necessary goods. I began to think maybe this is not going to be a good day. I went about my regular schedule and I was Creepily Surprised by the first grade classroom I was walking by.  The first graders were working on a Number Talk they were on the Number 31. There were so many great things about this that I need to start showing some pictures of it. First of all the Number Talk was on the Smart Board. Check it out!

Pomona USD Teachers Check out and sign up for the STARBUCKS raffle below!!!!

This little guy is adding his chart where he drew a 10 more 10 less 1 more 1 less chart,on top of the 31 on the number line.
Here are some samples of the work the students were doing on their white boards. The reason why I am putting these on here is because I have never done a number talk where the students write their work on the white board before sharing. I see this as a way to give them more think time and the boards were a visual tool to help students really articulate their metacognition. However, at the seem time I wonder if writing on the boards takes away some of the mental work?  I have not decided because I was so happy that I could show you these and you can see their metacognition.

This is one of my favorites. The thought that went into these equations is great. Especially since the day before a different student came up with it Wednesday and on Thursday other students are modifying and using it.

CHECK OUT THE NUMBER TALK CHEAT SHEET ON MY TPT STORE! and Sherry Parrish Book Number Talks.

This student used a number bond. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway





Pomona USD Raffle. Sign up above to win a STARBUCKS CARDS!

As I walked around the room I did not see two whiteboards with the same way to show 31. This proves to me that we all learn differently and teaching one algorithm to 32 students is efficient but maybe not effective. Keep on Talking, Number Talks. Thank you Mrs. Jones First Graders.

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!