My Math Block

Hi Peeps!

Today went very well...except by the end of the day, I had four kids out, which brought me down to a very small 10 (so no guided reading groups today! I did individual check-ins instead). Tomorrow we star almost 2 weeks of testing in the morning, so I hope everyone is in, because make-ups are a pain.

I wanted to share how I do my math block, and how it is going we the transition to rotations/centers. First thing I did after I had MAP data was to split my class into three groups (high, average, lower). I have three rotations, with 15-20 minutes at each rotation.

One of their rotations is me, where I teach the lesson from the book (it's supposed to be a whole group lesson, but I was losing kids when I did that, so I thought this would be better and I could target kids easier). I modify the lesson based on the group, which means some get enrichment and more questions with less teacher direction, and some get focused instruction on what they need to pass the test (sad, I know, but this is a very language-based math program (weird I know), and I'm more concerned about their calculation skills than them being able to read all the problems), with more teacher direction.

For example, today we worked with place value and writing standard form, word form and expanded form. I walked by lowest group through it three time, and started out with a number in the hundreds before slowly raising the expectation to ten thousands (which was the expectation for the day). With my middle group, I went through it twice, and we started in the thousands. With my higher group, I went over it once, and they were able to do numbers in the hundred thousands. Yay differentiation! (Big buzzword in my district this year-and keeping kids in the classroom to teach, with them possibly going to different classrooms to get on-level instructions.)

Another rotation pages in their math book, usually practice from the previous lesson (tomorrow they will practice today's lesson). They have some 'must do' pages, and some optional pages that are in a different color.

The last rotation is a hands-on center, usually something I've bought off TPT (FYI, Dana's math centers are amazing!!)

Here is what my rotation board looks like...

Right now I am using the SMART Board as the rotation board, but I hope to make my own eventually. Once in awhile I tell a student to shake the mouse so it comes back up :)

Today it took an hour to get through all three rotations (perfect timing! and my goal :)

After we finish our regular work, I have them get their snacks and we do calendar. While they are eating, we go over the calendar, which is an AMAZING resource that I purchased here. It has a core component that we do and build on everyday, and a daily component that changes. It's common core aligned for 4th and 5th, and it takes 10-20 minutes. I've started having the kids do things, and eventually, they'll be responsible for the whole calendar.

I hope this helps you if you are thinking of switching to a Math workshop model. I recommend it, I and feel like my kids are doing better in Math (we've only been doing it for two weeks, but I feel like I've seen a small improvement). I just decided to jump in one day, and I'm glad I did!

Friday's Outfit (a day off!)

Sweater: Maurices
T-Shirt: Target
Tank & Skirt: Old Navy
Shoes: Burlington Coat Factory

Today's Outfit (a little cooler!):

Sweater & Pants: JC Penny
Tank: Old Navy
Boots: Endless


Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Leads, Theme and Symbols

Hi Bloggy Buds!

This week was a 4 day week for us, and I have tomorrow off :) Now, don't be jealous, because I am working on Monday.  Our union got us this Friday off because the NEA is having a big conference, and we are 'encouraged' to go, so they give us the time off. However, I don't know anyone that's going :).

We have learned lots this week in 4th grade, and have started prepping for the NECAP (our state assessment-they're tested on the skills from 3rd grade...I know, it's weird, but it should change soon).

We learned about Writing Leads. I read some examples from my mentor text library (hey! I should show you! Next week maybe ;), and had the kids tell me how the story was introduced. They seemed to like it, and we also came up with examples to show the lead. I color coded it to make it easier for them to find each one.

In Reading we talked about Determining Importance, and we discussed Theme as well. They seemed to do okay with this, and I know we'll be spiraling back around it as well.

We also finished up learning about our state symbols. We had made a mobile made with the different symbols, and I decided to have them do a foldable as well. They had to write the name of the symbol, and draw a picture of it as well. They seemed to like this, and it went pretty quickly...much more quicker than having them take more than a week to do the mobile!!

For today's outfit, this was the one that I had originally planned for that day we wound up not having school. I was actually pretty warm today (our upstairs, where my room is, is flipping hot!), but if I had a classroom downstairs, I think I would have been fine.

Original Outfit:                                    

Today's Outfit

     Sweater: NY & Co
White Tank: Old Navy
Grey Tank & Shoes: Target
Pants: Kohls



So, tomorrow I plan to sleep late (Woohooo!), and go and visit my parents. I'm also hoping to stop by some stores that I don't have near me to get some things. I'll keep you updated :)

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Currently!

 October Currently:

Today's Outfit:

 Sweater: JC Penny
Shirt: NY & Co
Tank: Target
Pants: Gap Outlet
Shoes: Zappos





Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Math Workshop

Well I did it! I jumped into Math Workshop today with both feet. I introduced it to the kids, and they seemed really excited about switching...and then we had a fire drill (which took a really long time to account for everyone for some reason), so things were a little confusing at first.

The way I decided to do it was to have 3 groups/centers. I will be teaching the 'whole class' lesson 3 times, and varying the skills for the groups (for example, today we were trying to figure out hotel rates for the week, and with one group I did just addition, one group did addition and multiplication and one group just did multiplication).

I had a Math Center from Dana at 3rd Grade Gridiron (I actually bought her 3rd Grade Math Center Packet, along with some others :), which was one center, and the other center was independent work in their Math Workbooks.

Sooo, because it was our first time doing this and we just jumped in (and because of the fire drill) it took us over an hour and a half to do math today. Social Studies disappeared today ; ). I'm hoping to eventually get each group lesson down to 15-20 minutes, and I'm sure we'll get better with practice.

Best of all, my principal wandered in (he does quick walk-throughs almost every day). He looked around, saw me with a group of kids, some working independently at their seats, and some working together in partners, and it looks like he smiled! :) I hope this was a good impression.

We also kind of decided as a grade not to switch (it's still kind of tabled and we are discussing it, but my impression of our PLC Meeting was that we are not switching classes), although be may be switching our schedule around. We'll talk about it more at our next PLC Meeting.

Sweater & Tank: Target
Shirt: NY & Co
Pants: Dockers...although I can't remember exactly where I got them
Shoes: Burlington Coat Factory





Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Monday Made It

It's time for an October Monday Made It!

I've made lots of things for our Reading Rotations... Bookmarks, Task Cards (which you can grab an editable version of a few posts down), Anchor Charts.

I've also made Math I Can Statements for 4th grade (which you can grab for free! It's a couple posts down).

What I wore today...

Sweater & Pants: JC Penny
Shirt: NY & Co
Tank: Target
Shoes: DSW

It's only a 4 day week for me...we have Friday off instead of Monday, and we start NECAP testing next week. Let's hope 4th grade kicks butt!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Open House, Days Off and Fun!

Well, it has been a crazy few days. Last night was Open House, and I was at school for about 12 hours. Only to come back 12 hours later to do it all again :) I only had about half of my parents show up (it wasn't presentations style...yippee!...it was more wandering in and out), so I put all the information I had out in lots of mailboxes.  Here's what I wore to impress the parents (I had wanted to wear my contacts, but my eyes were just not having it)...

Sweater: Fashion Bug
Tank: Target
Pants: JC Penny
Shoes: DSW


We wrote a letter to our parents on Thursday to leave on our desks for our parents. I had them tell at least 1 thing they have learned so far (a lot of them did measurement...can you guess what our latest math unit was? ;), and something they liked about school. I just had them write, and not correct it, so the parents (and I) got a good idea of their skills.


Wednesday was a different story. I got up, got dressed and drove to school...only to be met by the principal in the parking lot. He told me to go home, as a water pump had failed, which meant no water. No water = no bathrooms = no school. :) I asked if I could go in and grab some things so I hadn't brought any work home the night before (bad teacher! ;). He said that was fine, and I could stay as long as I wanted, but I couldn't use the bathroom or turn on the water. I spent the day in PJ's once I got home...so I'll save the outfit and show you at a later time. Almost no one saw it, so it'll be repeated soon :)

I went in, grabbed some things, chatted for about 45 minutes, and drove back home. I was a little annoyed because I didn't get one of those animated phone calls to let me know that there was no school, which a lot of people did (except the new staff members). However, I wound up taking a 3 hour nap, so it all worked out in the end :)

Guided Reading groups have gone great! Today instead of taking groups, I met with smaller groups of students to check up on their writing, and help those who were still brainstorming and not on their first draft. I liked doing it this way, because it gave me some more time to focus in on writing. I feel like writing is kind of hanging around outside, what with the new literacy program and only having 90 minutes to teach literacy.

I've also been wondering about math. I would really like to implement a math workshop type program, as I reading Guided Math this summer and a lot of it makes sense. However, my team has been talking about switching groups for Math, which kind of bums me out.

I've started Math Notebooks with the kids, and I really want to try this workshop idea. I've been talking to the awesome teacher next door (who teaches 3rd grade) and she has given me some really good ideas on where to go and what to do. I don't want to rock the boat, but I really want to do a Guided Math type thing and keep my kids with me. It's something I'll be thinking about this weekend.

For those that asked...I will be working on the 4th Grade CC ELA I Can statements...so stay tuned!

Today's Look:

Sweater & Pants: JC Penny
Shirt: Limited 
Shoes: TJ Maxx.

Any suggestions on the Math thing? I have some ideas, but always welcome more! :)

Have a great weekend!


Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Picture Day! and a Reader Request

Y'all, today was picture day (which I think about a 1/3 of my kids forgot about), so you know I didn't have a normal day. :)

First difference at this school- we had to sign up for times to get our class pictures taken. Oops. Guess who didn't know about it and all of the times left were in the afternoon during our literacy block.

(I took the last slot possible for littlest disruption)

Second difference- an all school picture that took about 30-40 minutes to set up and complete. In the middle of math. We had a test today. Since no one knew about this picture until THIS MORNING!

Third difference- an all staff picture after school (and yes, I was stuck in the front row with the vertically challenged...even though I was wearing 3 inch heels :). I've had all staff pictures done before, but always before school started (during teacher workshop days), and never after school. Our PLC meeting today was cut a little short :)

What I wore:

Top and Pants: JCPenny
Tank: Old Navy
Shoes: Payless



The kids though it was a little funny that I was getting my picture taken, but then I reminded them that all teachers got their pictures taken. Now I can finally have an ID badge like everyone else!

Now onto the Reader Request. I had a reader email me, where she told me that she loved my task cards and was wondering if I would be willing to share. Well, I couldn't share the ones I had, because of some of the fonts I used were for personal use only. I asked her to give me a little time and I would see what I came up with.

Now, I couldn't remember when I had gotten all of the frames/borders, but I had a pretty good idea, so I went scouring one of my favorite design sites to make sure that I could give proper credit.

My next problem? Making it editable for you guys while preserving all the graphics and frames I used. Thanks to Google and some helpful searching, I found a way to do it.

So let me present....

Click on the picture to download the cards!

There are 4 days worth of cards for each rotation in the packet. You can add text boxes to type in instructions, or just print them out and hand write it in.

I hope you enjoy these!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn