Momma with a Teaching Mission: common core

Showing posts with label common core. Show all posts

Welcome to Relfect and Refresh, a two part linky party where teacher bloggers share their reflections on the 2014-2015 school year and ways they are planning to refresh their teaching in 201-2016. What a year!

Ok so looking back on this year--wow did it fly by!! It was a fantastic year, and I truly feel like I grew as an educator! My team changed from my 1st year (previous year), two of my team members left, and we gained two brand spanking new teachers. So my role had to change. I had to go from the newbie, to the one with experience, more of a leader :)

Communication
So I feel like I had all the good intentions of having a great line of communication with my students' parents. I signed up for Remind101, but only 2 of my parents signed up for it! I was shocked! So I did a couple reminders when I started the year, but then kinda gave up since I was only reaching 2 parents! Now, I will say that because we were departmentalized, our communication as a team goes ROCKED! We were able to meet with parents as a team, we were able to discuss students and their abilities or disabilities as a team. That part of my communication this year was amazing!

Organization
My first year teaching I took over a classroom of a retiring teacher. She left me LOTS of stuff, which I was super grateful for. However, I felt like my 1st year teaching, it really wasn't my own spin on a lot of stuff. Now mind you, I also had a baby my first year teaching, so I had a lot going on :) So I was more than happy to use everything the retiring teacher left me, but this year I was able to really purge things I didn't need, and create my own space. Things that worked for her, didn't work for me, and after a year under my belt I was able to recognize and change what I needed and thought. I re-arranged the room. Which I know doesn't seem like a big deal, but when the teacher I replaced came in to sub for me for a 1/2 day at the beginning of the school year, she commented about the new set-up. The older games I got rid of, and I was able to create my own items and organize them in my pull-out drawers :) Old books that were left to me that were of no interest to my kiddos, I sent home with some of my students that wanted them, and the others I gave to the newbie teachers on my team. I really felt good about my organization this year!

Content
So all I have ever known is the common core. When I went through my student teaching, MD had started the common core that year. Last year, my first year teaching, I got a slight understanding of the standards, but this year, with creating my own assessments and lessons, I feel like I truly got an incredible grasp of what my kiddos are expected to do. I highly recommend trying to create items for your students to help you really dig deep and understand those standards.

My Big Summer Project
So, next year, my entire school is taking on our departmentalized model that I was a part of in 1st grade this year. In my school, the teachers are either assigned to primary reading or math (grades K-2), or intermediate reading or math (grades 3-5). So, I am assigned to a primary reading spot. I'm thinking I will be more with the higher level (2nd grade) students. So my summer project is going to be digging into those 2nd grade, and even 3rd grade common core standards. Why the 3rd grade standards? Well in my school, we have a huge gap from students going to 2nd to 3rd grade. So I want to make sure to push those 2nd graders to make sure they are ready for 3rd grade when they get there.

I feel like it's been an amazing year. I've learned so much. Next year, I am super excited about the change in primary and intermediate. I will also be a 'team leader', which will be a new role for me! So there will be a lot to learn, and I am so excited!! Stay tuned :)

Make sure to check out my other bloggin' friends and their reflect and refresh posts!

An InLinkz Link-up

Momma with a Teaching Mission

So for those of you who are required to teach common core, or a curriculum that is somewhat similar, how do you reach those standards that are not considered 'major' standards, but more of a minor.

Such is the case with 1.MD.4 which is the graphing standard. Unfortunately I did not get to take a full week to teach it. Instead I got about 1 1/2 days!!

With having the students at the carpet, I got them interested or engaged, with posing the question--what kind of ice cream do you like?

They got super excited, they were telling each other, "Ohhh, I like chocolate chip cookie dough" and "I LOVE cherry vanilla" They were already excited! So after having a few of them share out, I told them that today we would be talking about which flavor we would choose, if we have 4 options.

The four options I gave the kiddos were green mint chip, vanilla, chocolate, and cotton candy. I then, row-by-row, gave them a half a post-it note to place in the row of the kind of ice cream they would choose. After everyone had voted their decision and posted their post-its, I asked them, what do you notice about our data? How many people like chocolate? How many like cotton candy? I then asked some comparing questions (which they have been exposed to as warm-up word problems we do daily)-- How many more people like green mint chip than vanilla? The visual of the graph helped them to see the 'extras' and that's how they figured out how many more!

I then sent them back to their seats to complete the activity sheet--which was basically everything we already talked about, but I think it's important for them to write it out as well.

I also have this pack, which is also bundled with some graphing task cards for sale in my store, you can find it here: Graph All About it Lessons, Task Cards, and printables on TpT

Take care!!

Mental Math. WE all know what it is. To do math in your mind, without the use of any tools. But how do you get 6 or 7 year old to understand and use it? How can you help them become successful to build those foundational skill? I have a couple suggestions that may help you! Feel free to comment below, any helpful hints you have found as well!

I teach in a school with common core. The past 1 or so we have been working on standard 1.NBT.5 which states "Mentally add or subtract 10 from any 2 digit number and explain reasoning why."

So to start this off we worked with the hundreds chart. They made the connection that +10 was just the number directly below and -10 was the number directly above. We did a lot of work and practice with this.

I had the students do some mental math with +1. I posed different questions, "what's 3+1" they excitedly wanted to be the one to answer. So we went through all the +1 facts up to 10. Then I asked them, "Why was that so easy for us." They all respond, well +1 is just the next number.
I then used this chart and colors for tens and ones to help them make connections. I said a ten is just like 1 ten. Then I asked what is 3 tens plus 1 more ten. They said "oh 4 tens". I saw that magical light bulb go on for some of them!

I gave them many different opportunities to work with +10/-10 from a two digit number. We used dice, spinners, game boards, partner and individual games. I gave them entry tickets some days and exit tickets other days. I immediately used that data to see who need what! If one of them did not do well on the entry ticket, i pulled them that day for a small group to reinforce the skill. If it was an exit ticket they did not perform well on, I knew they would be the first one I would pull the next day.

This is a short video of one of my friends who struggled with making that connection. I had him building the numbers with tens frames. Then practicing taking a 10 away or adding a 10. He worked so hard and I was so proud of him!

I think it is super important to provide your students multiple opportunities to practice the skill. And even though the standard states to 'mentally' solve these problems, that will come in time. I think as first graders, it is important to build that fluency so they are able to make those connections to be able to solve it mentally. I also think it's important to revisit the skill many times throughout the course of the year, so they have that continued practice.

If you need some ideas or common core items, feel free to head over to my store, you may find something you like or would work in your classroom! Momma with a Teaching Mission on TpT

Ok so there's no trick here. No magic spell :) But if you are wondering how to get your students to do exactly what you want. I have my experience to share with you.

You have probably heard it a hundred times over--MODEL, MODEL, MODEL. Those little babies are not going to know what to expect if you don't show them how to answer the question or solve the problem. It all starts with the modeling. When I introduce a new concept or standard, I will do it and model it for them, then we will do it together, then I will send them on their own to try their hand at tackling it on their own. This also gives me time to pull small groups for those students I see just aren't getting it when we are doing the 'we do' part.

Here is a perfect example of my model. I call the tens units "tens rods" and the ones units "baby ones". I relate to this, and I feel like as 1st graders my students relate to this as well. When I modeled the writing part of this answer I didn't say "baby ones", I did however say everything else. My little student added the 'baby' to ones in her answer :)

Here is another student, I modeled for his class how to answer, and he was able to take my model and us it in his own words on his answer.

Ok, so keep in mind, this answer is one of the top 1st graders in my school. As you can see the directions didn't say explain your thinking. He went above and beyond and made those connections and put it into words. I was so proud when I checked this!

If my students aren't successful at something, I reflect on my teaching--what didn't I do?! Could I have modeled the concept more efficiently. The answer more than likely is YES! Next time your students aren't getting it, whatever the concept may be, reflect on your teaching. Did you model it thoroughly enough for them? No one ever said you can't go back and do it again--SO DO IT!!

I'm going to leave you with that quote--The difference between try and triumph is a little umph. Seriously how perfect is that quote for you and I as teachers!? If we all put that little extra umph in our teaching, OH MY our students would triumph.

Happy Teaching!