The Real Teachers of Blog County

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For the
This month is teacher supply hoarding.

My favorite teacher supply item that I hoard (besides books ...we won't even go there!)

Post-its!

I use post-its a TON with my class.

We use them to take quick formative assessments,

mark our reading, write little notes, keep track of our assignments and more!

I do put them on the supply list for the kids to get.

But since they usually run out about halfway through the year, I have my own stash for them.

I also have quite the stash, placed randomly around them room.

This is on top of my desk-and yes, the ladybugs are post-its too...bad ones that don't stick very well, but cute!

This is in one of my bigger desk drawers

This is in my little desk drawer

This is by my guided reading table.

I have another desk drawer full of cute post- that don't stick well, and...

I also have a pad (or two!) by the mailboxes-which is by the phone and where I take attendance, as well as by my computer.

Clearly there are issues there :)

What teacher supply do you hoard?

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Equivalent Fractions

Although we had a snow day and TWO delays last week-which led me to only teaching math TWICE, we did get in some fun with equivalent fractions. (And we're getting awfully close to a repeat this week...)

I started off by dividing the kids into 5 groups and handing them a stack of fraction cards. I told them to order the fractions from greatest to least and just had them go at it. (For more info, see The Teacher Studio-this came from her fraction pack).

I didn't give them any more direction than that, I wanted to see what they would do.

Now, my kids do know about equivalent fractions, we've talked about it as part of our daily calendar, so they knew they were likely to come across a few.

It was so interesting to watch their process and hear their discussions! I just wandered around, taking pictures and listening in :)

This group was trying to organize by sorting out the pieces into groups of fractions...

This group worked together wonderfully! They started by pulling out the halves, wholes and then tried to find more equivalent fractions by drawing models. They didn't finish, but their math talk and collaboration was amazing!

This group just worked one card at a time from the stack, reorganizing as needed.

OK-some long and boring background before the fun stuff.

My math block was also split this day-the first Friday of the month we have a school wide assemblies, so our specials are earlier and shorter. We did a little bit of writing in the first 10 minutes, and then did the centers after special-for an hour. Some of the kids finished everything and some could have used more time.

I will say that I had intended this to be a two day activity with more centers, but with all our snow days and delays (and the need to get into the math book-MiF starts them off with adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators!), I cut it down to one.
Our math notebooks were going to be one center, and we set it up the day before. We also did a little bit of math writing in the margins-I showed them the equation for creating equivalent fractions. The math notebooks came from Mrs. C's Classroom. 

Now onto fun stuff!

The next day, we did a round of centers that all had to do with equivalent fractions.

I set up three centers. Math Notebooks (we had glued in the entries the day before so they could work in them), Fraction Bars, and Pattern Blocks.


I set up the directions on the SMART Board.

Our first center was Math Notebooks.

I had pulled three entries for the kids to work on .

Modeling with bars

Modeling with circles

This one was fun-they had to find the equivalent fractions and slip them in the pockets.

Most of the kids were able to do this fairly self-sufficiently. The one they needed help on was the sorting one. We did go over the answers at the end :)

I also had the kids working with pattern blocks to find equivalents.

And using some fraction bars as well-it was fun seeing how they organized this!

Some of them just went for it, and some of them took the time to organize them into the wholes and work from there.

I had them record all answers in their math books-which I checked during work time, and which will also be a notebook grade at the end of the trimester.

They did very nicely! Like always, some needed more direction than others, some took off with it and challenged themselves, and some just did the minimum.

The very best part (to me), is that while they were 'playing' with the materials, they were creating equivalent fractions and talking about it. Hopefully, this will help them remember better!

After all, when we finally get into the math book, we'll be adding and subtraction with unlike denominators-they'll need their equivalent fractions then! (Really, Math in Focus? Really? You couldn't just stick to the CC?)

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Monday Made It

Happy Monday! I have yet another long weekend, due to the buckets of snow currently falling on New England...

I've been making good progress on my coworker's blanket-I'm almost halfway done! 

I had to change my door decor as well-I think I jinxed us by making so many snowflakes! :P

I made this one a little more seasonal. :)

You could see the progress of this fun project on Instagram.
Plus, Penguin has something to say...

Penguin says: No more snow!! We have enough to last until next year! #teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #crochet #crochetlove #amiguruimi

A photo posted by Smiles & Sunshine (@smilesandsunshineteacher) on Feb 2, 2015 at 4:34pm PST

I've also been spending some time working on some additions to my Explorer Articles- worksheets and organizers to go with them!

It's keeping the kids a little more focused on the main points, and will hopefully make it easier for them to remember and succeed on the test!

Since we are having yet another winter storm (#4 in 2 1/2 weeks!), I decided to make a sweet treat (plus, I had to use up my eggs before they went bad :)

Made some snow storm brownies. We may be getting another foot, but at least I'll have some yummy goodness! #nomoresnow #newenglandwinter #yummy

A photo posted by Smiles & Sunshine (@smilesandsunshineteacher) on Feb 8, 2015 at 8:41am PST

Here's to no more snow!


Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Five for Friday

Happy Friday!




We had a snow day and two delays this week, so I only taught math twice!! We focused on equivalent fractions for our two lessons-a post is soon to come!

The book box came!

We had a raffle with the books I had bought for the class.

My kids have been rocking it lately at rocket math-almost everyone is on division!

We also started learning about nonfiction text features-a post soon on that too!

Since Valentine's Day is coming up, and we had some spare time this afternoon, we started making our pouch monsters to hold out valentines!

They're coming out so cute!

Have a great weekend!

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Math Is Real Life-Crochet Concerns

Happy Wednesday!

This month, I'm linking up with the Math is Real Life ladies.

Teacher Studio, Miss Math Dork, Teaching to Inspire in 5th, 4mula Fun

I'm a big crafter-especially crochet.

One of my co-workers is expecting, and I wanted to make her a blanket (I am making her a blanket!).

However, I was unsure which yarn I wanted to use/buy (I need new yarn for almost every project! ;), so I whipped up a couple of samples using different yarns and different sized hooks.

Now, I knew I was going to make a rainbow blanket, and have 24 rows (either 4 repeats of 6, or 3 repeats of 8-hey, look! Multiplication!! :), but I need to measure each so that I would have an idea of how big 24 rows would be.

First, I measure the strips across.

*Warning-the following 2 pictures are for demonstration purposes only. Real measurements were taken with a clear ruler as students were getting ready for the bus line. ;) *

Then, I measured vertically (know that I had done 10 'sets'-it would give me an approximation of how many sets I needed to do for length)

Once I had done that for each sample, I was able to write down the measurements for each sample and do a little figuring.

I figured out how many 24 rows would be for each set, as well as how many 'sets' of petals I would have to do.

The stickies (and the samples!) came with me to the yarn store-where more math happened!

Some of the yarn was on sale-and some was not :(.

Stinks to be me, but the favorite yarn I love to use on projects like this was NOT on sale. So I went with a mix of mostly on sale yarn, with two colors of not on sale yarn that I couldn't find matches for.

I managed to get a nice rainbow mix for under $25 (with teacher discount!).

So it'll be 3 repeats of 8 for this baby blanket! :)

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn

Currently

Smiles and Sunshine,
Kaitlyn