Picture Day!

First, a little math:

2 - the number of times my school picture was taken this year.
3 - the number of photographers present for picture day this year.
7 - the number of schools where I have had school pictures taken.
14 - the number of school IDs I have that show my school picture.
5 - how old I was when I had my first school picture taken in kindergarten.
37 - how old I was for this year's school picture.
32 - the number of years in a row I've had school pictures taken.

You could say I'm a perpetual student.  I mean, I've been in school continuously since kindergarten.   Public school for 12 years.  College for 6.5 years (don't ask.  That's a whole different post.) And now, 14 years on the other side of the desk in the classroom.  That's a LOT of pictures.

I actually was thinking about this the other day, as this year's school picture was taken this week.  I think it would be really kind of neat if I had copies of every year's school picture.  Lining up all 32 pictures and watching the progression?  Well.... maybe it's not such a great idea!

Pictures capture moments in time.  They provide triggers for memories long forgotten.  They provide smiles, laughter, sadness, and tears.  They make for special mementos of experiences long past.  I'm someone who has spent a lot of time behind the camera.  I got my first camera when I was quite young, maybe 7 or 8 years old.  It was the blue Fisher Price camera that used 110m film and a flash stick.  The pictures never turned out clear, they always had that foggy feature (the one people seem to love on Instagram!)  But seeing the world through a camera lens was always something that I loved.  It gives you a whole different perspective on things.

I spend a LOT of time at school taking pictures.  I always have.  As I figured out more and more strategies to create more community in my classroom, I even had student photographers taking pictures, too.  The kids used these pictures for different projects, from scrapbooks to portfolios.  Every once in a while, I'll find myself revisiting old pictures in moments of nostalgia.

Pictures taken at Hillel capture a whole different perspective of learning, that's for sure!

Camera, Meet Skitch!

I love fun words.  Snurky was what my supervising teacher used to call words that didn't fit the typical spelling rule.  I  named one of my pony's Widget.  And the word gnarly has always held a spot in my brain, even if it's not used much outside of Bill and Ted's world.

Skitch is one of those words.

Even more, though, Skitch is an AWESOME and FREE app!

I've played with Skitch before, and it's come in very handy when sending my order to my brother on family dinner night.  I just take a screen grab of the menu, open it in Skitch, circle the item I want, crossing out the toppings I don't.  Then I save and send!  (Sounds like way more work than just sending a regular text, but with my food allergies, trust me, this is much easier!)

Back to school.  (To prove to Daddy that I'm not a fool.  Sorry, can't pass up Billy Madison.)

We are currently knee deep in a measurement unit.  In the past, I've given my students a record sheet and clipboard and sent them on their way in search of items that are exactly one foot long, or between 20 - 24 inches long.  They then record the items they find on the record sheet and we have a jolly good comparison.

This year, I invited Skitch to the experience.

Each team was given a scratch sheet of paper and clipboard.  They were also given an iPad.

They they were sent around the school, as usual, but instead of writing down what they found and the measurements, they snapped a picture of the item, and jotted down the measurements on the scratch paper.  Once they found five items (all with specific requirements) they returned to the classroom and "Skitched" the pictures!

What do I mean?

Take a look!

They opened the images in Skitch and annotated right on top of them to show the measurements.  Slide show assembled and we were left with a colorful and engaging look at perimeter and area measures!

I Like to Move It!

This week I've found my kids to be rather antsy. The weather is changing, we are between. Halloween and Thanksgiving, whatever excuse fits- they need to move.

I love Go Noodle. Love, love, love it!  It's perfect for when it's too cold to go outside for a four stop obstacle course or a quick recess. The songs are fun, the track and field events are energizing, and on the whole Go Noodle gets kids moving and gives me a bit more focus time afterwards.   And while Go Noodle can't conquer curriculum as much as I would like, it's a great jump start into creative thinking!

Part of our math experience for the week was exploring arrays. Students built array posters, they drew arrays, they created arrays with counters, and, most actively, became arrays.

Using their dry erase boards, we headed to the open area in the Fine Arts Wing to spread out in arrays. With 18 Thinkers in math class, we were easily able to build arrays for 18, 16, 15, 14, 12, 10, 9, 8, 6, and 4.  Yes, we threw in a few prime numbers as well.

Giving the kids the go ahead to actually be crawling around on the floor? Let's just say they have quite the solid understanding of arrays.

This week also brought out the food chain. Literally. We started by playing a food chain game using pre-determined and created food chains. It was a nice introduction. Then we kicked it up a notch. Each Thinker was given a mini poster with the name of an living thing on the top.  Their job was to use the resources we had in the room to create a poster about that living thing.  Basic needs, habitat, and adaptations were required (and even though we hadn't studied adaptations yet, well, they figured it out and gave themselves the front loading for next week!)

Them we got to move. The living things, while the kids thought they were random, we're carefully plotted parts of four food chains. Their job? Figure our how to create those chains. This got them moving and talking and problem solving and reasoning, and most importantly, learning!

There are so many ways to make movement an everyday part of learning, the more ways we use, the better!

Gridding the Classroom - Part 2: Geography

My student photographer actually
got a decent shot of me!

The start of our map.

As a part of our mathematical morning that fated day after Halloween, we extended our math play into geography, which was a natural connection to our PYP unit - Where We Are in Place and Time.

We compared the grid lines on our floor to the longitude and latitude lines on a globe an map.  From there, we used coordinate pairs to determine where to add features on our map - including natural and human characteristics.

Students used chalk to add features - buildings, rivers, etc.

As we drew, and our map grew, we transferred that information to a grid map on the Promethean board which made it simpler to print out maps for those that were absent. (the rest of the Thinkers drew it on graph paper.)

The last thing we did that day was travel from location to location on the map.  Simple, right?  Nope. Not when you're using directions (N-S-W-E) and distance (1 block, 2 blocks, etc)  Definitely not simple, but definitely, DEFINITELY fun!

One of the best tools we have!

A student map in progress - our dry erase
boards double as writing surfaces!

Adding roads was a team effort!

A completed map!

Moving from place to place.

Gridding the Classroom Part 1

They walked in and this is what they saw.
The looks on their faces were priceless!

The day after Halloween in an Elementary school is never a fun one.  The kids are too fidgety, too tired, too "hungover" from all the sugar and the likely late night trick-or-treating.  This year, instead of "fighting" it, I went with it. 

We turned the classroom into a giant grid, and spent the entire morning "playing" math.  And geography.  And reading.  And even a little writing.  It was, as some of the kids said, "the best math day ever!"

Let's see…. we covered columns and rows, coordinate pairs, reading a grid map, creating a map (post for another day!) arrays, median, mode, range, directions, and distances.  I try to make movement a regular part of the day, though it doesn't always happen.  This time, though, the physical movement helped make a lot more sense of the data concepts that seem so arbitrary on paper!

Of course we had to start the day playing…. 

Then the kids walked around a bit, before
we moved into columns and rows - and moved
in each!

Moving like rows…..

Setting up for graphing - favorite Halloween Candy!

Flipping the boards to find the median.

We also used the grid to sort geometric figures
 by number of sides.

Then, of course, we had to calculate how
big the grid was in the first place!

Students came up with a variety of ways
to show how they solved it.

This was a great way to practice the "over up" of
coordinate pairs.

Geometry Fun

The first math unit of the year is a geometry unit.  This unit tends to be a bit challenging for the kids, and I do my best to make it as engaging and relatable as possible.

For example.....

To learn about circles, we took chalk outside with the challenge to draw a "perfect circle" before breaking out the compasses and creating all sorts of concentric circles and designs!

To review and learn about geometric terms, we created posters and turned them into an e-book.  One of our math workshop rotations was to read the e-book on Kindle, and write quiz questions that others can answer by reading our e-book.

Check out our e-book: Geometry on Scribble Press

To add a creative twist to the whole polygon practice, we designed maps of whatever our imagination wanted - candy stores, dream bedrooms, dream houses, tree houses, amusement parks - anything!  The catch?  We had to use at least five different polygons!  To wrap up that project, the kids labeled each element on their map with the correct geometric term.

Still to come?  Geoboards and riddles for sure.  Play dough is a maybe. And who knows what else the 2am brainstorms will bring!?!

Math Workshop!

Last week was all about getting to know each other and well, I didn't really hit much curriculum.

This week, though, kicks off with my favorite - Math Workshop!

I based my math workshop model off of the one that Beth Newingham uses - if you haven't seen her site, you've GOT to check it out here!

It's a simple model that has worked really well for me, with, of course, a few tweaks each year to best suit the needs of my current students.

The general system is this:
Three groups.
Mini-lesson, whole class, starts the instruction
Meet with the teacher
Practice (math journal pages or something of the like, sometimes project activities)
Project/Play (fact games, or the like)
Wrap-up, whole class, ends the instruction

I have previews (also known as a pre-test, in parental language) for each unit.  (Everyday Math, third and fourth grade previews and reviews available HERE on my TPT $tore.)
The kids take this a day or two before the unit starts, with the reminder:
"You haven't been taught any of this yet!  Remember that!  I want to see what you might already know - but I don't expect you to know this stuff yet!"

From the preview, kids are split into three groups.  The groups are generally determined by preview scores.  It's usually pretty clear, too.  You've got the handful of kids that really get it (for example, on the unit one preview that my class just took, about 4 kids got about65%+ correct.)  Then there's the handful of kids that have never seen it (same preview, about 8 kids got about 6% correct)  Finally, there's the group that kinda get it, but kinda don't (they got about 40% correct.)

Learning targets are posted for each subject area.

Group one usually consists of the kids that got the lowest score on the preview.  In my mind they are my "support group" but on paper, they're the green group, the yellow group, or the blue group.  They start with me for the lesson, then head directly to the journal page or "practice" activity (often started with me) before they scamper off to play the assigned games.  When group one is with me, I take the learning target and drill it in however I need to, to ensure they are getting the basic concepts needed to be successful.

Group two starts with the games.  From there, they work with me for the lesson.  Finally, they head to their seats to work on the journal pages.  This group is called my "target" group, as they are pretty much right on grade level.  (Though, again, they're either green, yellow, or blue!)  When group two is with me, we're usually following along the general lesson as if it were being taught whole class, keeping the learning target in mind as our guide.

Group three starts with the practice/journal pages.  They are my "enrichment" group.  (Though they are referred to as either blue, green, or yellow, too!)  The goal is that they problem solve to figure out the lesson together.  The learning target helps guide their practice.  Then they head to the games before coming to me.  When they're with me, we clear up any confusion about the practice activity, and I add the next layer - either a more challenging task utilizing the same skills, or extending the activity.  Sometimes, it's pre-teaching for what's coming ahead, too!

The length of each rotation is determined by the group in which I am working with at the moment.  It usually ends up that rotation one is about 20-25 minutes, when I'm directly teaching the support group  Rotation two, when I'm teaching the target group, is usually 15-20 minutes.  The final rotation when I'm working with the enrichment group, is usually 10 minutes.  Yes, this means that the support group only gets 10 minutes for games, but that's about all they can handle by then.  If any group finishes their practice pages early, they then go directly into games.

Ignore project, it should say play!

So where do these tasks come from?  Whatever math curriculum you use!  Of course, I supplement the practice activities and the games from all over the place - Marilyn Burns, MEBA, Exemplars, web resources, you name it.

Review:
Mini-lesson - whole class - 5 minutes (math message, review learning target, whatev!)
Rotation 1 - 25 minutes
Rotation 2 - 20 minutes
Rotation 3 - 10 minutes
Wrap up - whole class - 5-10 minutes (correct practice page, review learning target, etc)
Total time on math instruction: 70-75 minutes a day

DISCLAIMER: Sometimes math lessons do NOT lend themselves to math workshop!  In cases like this where whole class instruction is better, go for it!  For example, we have a few lessons where kids are doing surveys of the whole class, or completing probability activities, or geometry building tasks.  I teach whole class as needed.

DISCLAIMER 2:  Once you get to know your kids, groupings may be modified slightly.  For example, especially when I get to a lesson that isn't necessarily clear-cut for the three groups, I will often divide the class into two groups - the group that picks things up rather quickly, and the group that needs a little more time to figure things out.

DISCLAIMER 3:  Practice/Play rotations often include fact practice (using a variety of resources, including xtramath) differentiated to the individual students' needs.

DISCLAIMER 4:  Flexibility is key!  Previews are given before each unit, and therefore groups are mixed up each unit.  While one unit the blue group may have been my enrichment group, to keep the kids on their toes (and clueless to my grouping methods!) the next time around, blue might be my support group!  The process begins over each unit, so that I can best differentiate for the content at hand.

More pictures coming soon!