Cute and Encouraging Spring Bulletin Board Idea!
I just happened across this bulletin board the other day in the hallway at another school. I wish I could have taken credit for it, but I didn’t make it. It appears the maker of the board used a silhouette or circuit die cutting machine to get the figures, but it wouldn’t be necessary to have a die cutter to make this. One could even take a picture of a couple of children in the class and make the children at the bottom for a more personal touch. Also, one of my friends always said that a great bulletin board has a 3D component AND this board has it with the butterflies coming off the board with their wings. How would you make this board your own?
Will Schools Continue to Push Screen Time?
I have taught a little over 15 years now. I have seen the educational craze for technology–making sure all students have technology in the building such as Chrome Books or iPads. Could this trend be going in reverse?
I have also noticed the following results in students as I teach gifted children now. There has been a decline in creativity scores when students are tested for the gifted program. Students are less excited about getting to draw and color when given opportunity.Even fifth grade gifted students aren’t sure which side of the paper to write on when they are given a writing assignment. They put the notebook paper holes on the right instead of on the left of the page. Because of the focus of online testing, there is less perfection of pencil and paper work and more screen time practice.
Just this week our governor signed a law to give children extra recess time. Children now get 40 minutes of recess! Being outside looking at green spaces in unstructured play adds to students’ creativity–a way better use of time than screens.
There are several articles about the effects of screen time on student creativity including comments by Steve Jobs and Bill Gates themselves. Here is one such article. I challenge you to find other articles like this one and make the best decision for your own students and children.
How Can You Manage Peer Help?
I am currently having my students make videos. This is the third year I have done so. I don’t mind students helping one another if one wants to be in the video while another holds the camera for the rest of the students. However, what I do mind is when the students seem to be spending too much time helping someone and then forget about themselves. Kind and caring kids seem to have this happen often. To help avoid anyone being taken advantage of, I made these time sheets. These would work for any task–not just video work. In the past I have also had that problem with students helping others with math problems
I have developed a solution to this problem, and you can have it here for free to help you manage your students, too! 🙂 At the top you tell students how many minutes they are allotted to help others and they keep track of the time they have helped others on the sheet. Have them keep this page in an easy to reach place, so they can easily pull it out when they are helping other students.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Thanks to Glitter and Glue Designs for the beautiful shamrocks.
A Cute Funny & Giveaway Time!
So this week I had students write some “I Wonder” poetry. I did this for an enrichment class (totally unrelated to math here). I showed students two examples of I wonder poetry. Then I presented them with a paper to write their I wonder statements. To my surprise I had one very “clever” second grader write an amusing line to his poem. See the story below for your own giggle moment.
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
Prize: $100 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card
Giveaway Organized by: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)
Co-hosts: An Apple for the Teacher, Chocolate 4 Teachers, Mrs Wenning’s Classroom, Teacher Gone Digital, Kamp Kindergarten, TheBeezyTeacher, Simone, A Plus Kids, The Literacy Garden, Jackie Crews, Resource Room Relevance, It’s a Teacher Thing, The Fun Factory, Star Kids by Naomi, The Chocolate Teacher, Samsons Shoppe, Ms. K,The Froggy Factory, and The Cozy Crafty Classroom.
Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter. Giveaway ends 3/13/19 and is open worldwide.
Are you a Teacher Blogger or Teachers pay Teachers seller who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your store and social media? Click here to find out how you can join our totally awesome group of bloggers!
Share Your Life with Your Kids
This is a very random post, but I must share this because I am rather excited about it. The other evening my dog who is an AH-dorable fuzzy 12 pounds would not come inside when I called her. This is not normally a problem, however this night it was! I finally went outside to see what she was distracted with and took my flashlight. I heard something squeak as she was pouncing in the leaves. I looked closer and saw something gray. I was like…WHAT IN THE WORLD!? I thought she had found a mole or something. Then I got closer and picked up the small gray animal. As I looked I realized she had found a tiny, baby rabbit. The eyes were still closed and the umbilical cord was visible. I picked it up so she wouldn’t damage its warm body. My dog fussed at me for taking her potential chew toy. My dog continued sniffing the leaves. It was then I realized that there were two more babies. I picked the others up, snapped some pictures and panicked about what to do with them. I called my veterinary technician friend. She said the mother was probably nearby watching us and may not want anything to do with her babies since we had touched them. I put the bunnies back down and went back inside. The next morning they were gone without a sign of harm.
I ended up sharing this story and the picture with my students who were equally excited about them…especially the younger students. I even was able to use a little deductive reasoning about what type of animal I found since I didn’t initially tell the students that they were bunnies. I say all this to say when something fun and exciting like this happens in your life, take the time to share it with your students. Chances are they will remember it more than other things you teach them…and sometimes these are the most important moments! (Hello?! life science!)
Cute Winter Bulletin Board
I wish I could say I created this bulletin board, but I did not! I saw this bulletin board a colleague of mine made. She said she actually saw the idea on Pinterest. They are little snow globes that the students made with themselves inside of them. They decorated the scene inside the snow globe. The “globe” part of the snow globe is actually a clear plastic plate with a rounded edge. The teacher was able to have the children make these to go with a writing piece the children had done. Aren’t they cute?!
Happy Valentine’s Day and a Giveaway to Show the Love!
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
Prize: Things We LOVE prize pack including: Mr. Sketch Markers, Flair Markers, Personal Laminator, Dry Erase Pockets, Dry Erase Markers, Astrobrights Paper, Ticonderoga Pencils, and a $50 Teachers pay Teachers gift card.
Giveaway Organized by: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)
Co-hosts: An Apple for the Teacher, A Plus Kids, The Cozy Crafty Classroom, Sliding into 1st, The Fun Factory, Kelly McCown, The Craft of Teaching, Carla Hoff, Star Kids, TheBeezyTeacher, Learning Inspired, The Chocolate Teacher, Ms. K, Samson’s Shoppe, Busy Little Bees, The Froggy Factory, Leah Popinski, Jackie Crews, Peas In ,A Pod, MM Bilingual, 180 Days of Reading, Sarah Griffin, and Mr L’s Classroom.
Rules: Use the Rafflecopter to enter. Giveaway ends 2/21/19 and is open worldwide.
Are you a Teacher Blogger or Teachers pay Teachers seller who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your store and social media? Click here to find out how you can join our totally awesome group of bloggers!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
What Do You Do in Your Math Intervention Group?
So, I have a math intervention group. I have done intervention lots of ways…and the thing is, there are always core things that kids struggle with. Those things without a double are always addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts. Next, they struggle with the standard regrouping algorithm. And, why do they struggle? BECAUSE, of course, no one sits with them at home to help them learn these things if the concepts don’t sink in during school time.
Enter me. I have been working with some students the past few weeks on subtraction regrouping…with success! Here is what I have done, and what I have discovered. First of all, several of the intervention students were able to regroup UNTIL they had to regroup across zeros. They weren’t sure what to do when they had to borrow two places over. How did I figure this out you ask? Well, with my group of four students, I gave them a worksheet. (gasp! a worksheet??!!) Yes, I gave them a worksheet and had them work a few and checked to see which ones they were getting correct and which ones they were missing. I would have them work one problem and hand me the sheet to check. This way they were getting immediate feedback. During this time, I realized that they weren’t getting the answers right unless they borrowed across zeros or had to borrow two places over. I used and am so thankful for Super Teacher Worksheets subtraction worksheet generator! This conveniently allowed me to print a new worksheet (complete with answer key) when I felt they needed practice.
Now when I realized they needed help with regrouping across zeros, I realized there was a regrouping misunderstanding. So, I used the Singapore math number discs method to show them what was happening when they were regrouping. After showing them and having them do one with me, the next day they performed a lot better on their subtraction regrouping problems. I have a SMART board lesson and worksheets if you would like some for students to practice with. The grid is already made for the students…these however do not have seven digits like the worksheet above.
A few other things I did to help the students think about the regrouping process were.
- Say this little rhyme…”More on the floor, go next door, and get 10 more”. This way they would always know they were bringing ten over…not 9, not 8.
- Sometimes when students want to skip over a place value column, I would describe it as driving in traffic. Your car doesn’t just fly over the other column, it has to change lanes one at a time…it can’t be a helicopter.
- Another idea I mention is place value columns in relation to the drawers in a cash register. If you cash in your $100 bill for others, you trade it in for 10 $10, then you trade in the $10 for 10 $1 bills.
Try these things and soon you will be on your way to having expert subtraction regroupers!
This Tool Will Accelerate Your Students’ Understanding of Fractions
Just because students recognize a fraction model doesn’t mean they can reason about the size of the fractions in comparison to other fractions. This number line helps alleviate some of that difficulty for students. You can proudly display this in your classroom on the wall as a year-long reference tool. The number line stretches to about 10 feet long and is spaced by increments of twenty-fourths.
If you don’t want to introduce your students to twenty fourths yet, you can use the included blank fraction cards to cover up these increments.
Fractions to show equivalence are also included. Students can see how the blue portion of the square is the same size as the equivalent fraction above it. You could play a whole class matching game in which you have students place their equivalent fraction underneath the fraction on the number line.
In case students have a hard time visualizing the space being the same size a variety of fraction cards are provided in which the rectangles are in different directions. For example, see below.
Because this number line prints on 8.5 x 11 card stock there is some assembly required. I assembled this one in less than 30 minutes. Cutting out the additional cards can be done as needed and is not necessary at first.
