Friday, August 9, 2013

What I did this Summer and Plans for Next Year

Hey everyone!

I really wish I could have posted more this summer but I actually got MARRIED in July!  It was such an amazing day.  They threatened rain, but it turned out to be beautiful and sunny all day long!  My friends and family are still talking about the wonderful day we had!  I wish that weddings could happen every year! (maybe not the money part though hahaha).



Such a great party!

Now on to my plans for this school year.  I am going to be teaching 5th grade this year, but not just math- I will be teaching all subjects.  Our 5th grade group this year has a lot of students with special needs, and they struggle with transitions, so to make it easier we are going to keep them in the same room all day.  I am excited for this because I actually taught them in 2nd grade and 3rd grade.  I can not wait to see them on the first day of school and pick up right where we left off.

This year I have decided to have a "minion" theme classroom.  I was SO excited for this theme because I thought since the 2nd movie came out there would be SO many different resources I could just buy (I am the kind of person that thinks spending money to have it done is better than spending HOURS trying to make a LARGE Minion lol).  I was wrong.  There are so many cute make your own ideas so it looks like I will be making millions of minions at home every night (good luck to my husband lol).

In order to be ready for this year, I wanted to share a power point I will show my students.  At the start of the year we love to show them all about our college experience because it shows them a different, fun side of college.



Also, I wanted to share my letter that I send home to parents on the first day of school.  The letter is lengthy and I wish it didn't have to be, but it sets the tone for me to show my parents ALL about my classroom.  I try to lay everything out there so that it becomes a reference sheet- parents can look at it all year long if they have a question about my class.



As I create more minion things I will be sure to show you everything I do!


Thursday, July 18, 2013

Anchor Chart Time

Hey everyone!  I wanted to share some of the anchor charts I made last year that really helped my children.  A lot of these were either taken from pinterest, or I used what Go Math taught and made it into logical steps for my students.

This first one is something my kids referenced daily about place value.  They learned in 4th grade about how to expand a number by just stretching the number out(i.e. 432 is the same as 400 + 30 + 2...but with bigger numbers obv).  They never learned though that 400 is the same as 4 x 100, which they needed especially when we got to decimals ( knowing that .4 is the same as 4 x 1/10).  I wanted it all laid out there for them so they could see it at any time.




This one is to help my students start to understand adding and subtracting mixed numbers without regrouping.  Since they had already learned how to add and subtract decimals, I tried to continue to reference the fraction as the part like a decimal, so you have to do that first.  My students felt like if it looked different than you must do something different. lol.


This was an example of how I wanted their notebooks set up.  I spent a lot of time this year building in that skills so that they could look back at other days.  This made the journal much more useful and relevant to our learning (something I didn't always do in the past.  Sorry you can't see the first 15 points (gotta love Mr. Sketch- they smell so good but never last).


This chart was for helping my students remember the difference between division of decimals with 1 digit or 2.  We always tried to talk about the decimal in the dividend being a rocket ship, it needed to rocket ship up to the quotient!

Simplifying fractions! Ohhh the bane of my existence!  My children really struggled with when enough is enough.  They would simplify one time and say well I am done!  So I really tried to show them that if they simplified right, they did only need to to it once!  It was tedious but they eventually liked it better than guess and check.

These two posters are posters that I glued from a Teachers Pay Teachers (they can be found on the Teaching to Inspire in 5th blog.  Click the name to be taken to the link).  These were used with all of my students when we talked about a new practice that we would be focusing on, but we used them in a center to help us independently work together.  Students would be given a difficult multi-step word problem, and would need to use the practice we were working on during that time.  So if they were working on attending to precision and detail, they would need to ensure that their steps were very detailed oriented, and they would need to present to another group at the end of the week.  The other group would ensure that they were precise with their math and that they were able to present together with ease.  They loved this because they could be the teacher!



This was a problem solving chart that we made in the begining of the year to help them understand that they could no longer just hunt and peck for some and hope that would give them the answer.  THIS took a LONG time to get them to see, they were so smart- but so lazy this year!  They never wanted to fill this out, but eventually realized as the work got harder that they needed to think about this if they wanted to solve the problem correctly! :)


These last two pictures are of our big goal.  Every year we set a big goal for ourselves.  I try to keep it something we can practice all the time, and also something that is not directly testing related ( like I don't want it to say- By the end of the year I will get an 90% or above on X test).  This makes 5th grade seem a little less scary but just big enough that it will take us all year to master!  



These are all the posters from last year that I plan to make this year right away!  Share some of your posters with me!  I would love to see how you support your teaching!

Friday, June 21, 2013

Chapter Overview for Go Math

Hello!  This summer I am really trying to organize my student's data so that I can speak seamlessly at parent teacher conferences about their growth.

For math I created these documents that will help me keep track of every day that I teach the skill and how they did.  My plan is to make a place on the board that let's them see what they should be filling in that day based on their exit slips.  Since their exit slips are usually just 3-4 small questions, I can grade them on the spot.  These pages align with Go Math!  The Houghton Mifflin Math program we are using at my school.

I hope that this will help parents see what their children are doing well in and what they need help with.  At our school we don't have standards based report cards, so our parents usually see just a letter and some comments form the teacher without knowing how their children received that grade.

On a side note, if you have any other ways you keep track of data I would love to hear about it!


Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Fraction Task Cards

I wanted to share the fraction task cards that I used this year.  They were very helpful because my children loved to play teacher.  They could use the cards to teach each other on the slates, and at the same time they were reviewing skills they needed to be ready for the DC-CAS.  Let me know your thoughts!



These are great like I said for working with kids.  You can even use the document below to help the students keep track of the cards they completed and the cards they still need to work on.  I would suggest laminating them and putting them on a book ring so that you can have them in one easy location.


Best,

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Preparing for Next Year

So I have decided to share with you all my summer reading plans as well as my goals to prepare me for next year.  I will be teaching 5th grade again, but inclusion to the same students I had in 2nd and 3rd grade (the gang's all back!).

Over the summer I plan to reflect on not only best reading and math practices, but how to push myself to be the best leader.  I have been at my school for 6 years and we have a decent turn around, making me one of the most veteran teachers in the school.  As someone who has been there, I try every day to be a great leader, but sometimes I get caught up in the moment.  Below are the books I plan to read to help me reach that goal:

1- Leverage Leadership
2- How Children Succeed
3- Word Nerds
4-Common Core Mathematics in a PLC that works
5- The CAFE


I have not decided on a theme this year, but I plan to keep it short, sweet, and to the point.  I plan to use my summer creating data binders like this one I found here.

As soon as I can I will show you my math binder that I have started to work on in preperation for next year.  Last year we started Go Math! which was a great math program, but did not help us bridge the gap for our students, most of whom were not ready for the rigor it expected in each lesson.

Well, I am sure I will be back with more great stuff later today!

Best,

Sunday, June 9, 2013

My Top 5 in 5th Grade

Hey everyone and welcome to my blog!  I wanted to start a showcase of the work my wonderful children do in 5th grade, here in Washington D.C.  I will start by sharing a little bit about me and why I came to teach in D.C. as well as my goals for next year!

I am a 5th grade teacher in Washington D.C. who came down here about 5 years ago from New Jersey.  My boyfriend (now fiancee) went to CUA Law School and I needed a job. I went to a career fair and my school strongly recruited me.  I had no idea at the time what a Charter School was and was very interested in finding out more.  I was hired in April (before any of my friends) and move down to D.C. in June.  I have been at the same school for the last 5 years, and have taught 2nd, 3rd, and 5th grade Math.  Next year I will be teaching the 5th grade inclusion classroom with my children that I had when I taught them in 2nd and 3rd grade- so it is going to be so much fun to reunite with them!

My Top 5 in 5th Grade

Top 5 Teacher Bloggers
1- Charity Preston:  The Organized Classroom
2- Angela Watson: The Cornerstone for Teachers
3- Pinterest:  My Boards
4- The Sisters:  The Daily 5
5- Laura Candler:  Teaching Resources

Top 5 Teaching Books:
1-  The End of Molassess Classes, Ron Clark
2- How Children Succeed, Paul Tough
3- Leverage Leadership, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo and Doug Lemov
4- Teach Like a Champion Field Guide, Doug Lemov

Top 5 Personal Books
1- Twilight, Stephanie Meyer
2-The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
3- The Stephanie Plum Series, Janet Evanovich
4-Something Borrowed, Emily Giffin
5-Pretty Little Liars Series, Sara Shepard


Top 5 Stores
1-The Loft
2-C Wonder
3- JCrew
4-Toms
5-Express

Top 5 Vacations
1- Disney World ( I actually got engaged there!)
2- Cruise to the Bahamas
3- Miami
4-Las Vegas
5- Punta Canta


There is just a little bit about who I am.  Next year I plan to post everything my children are working on to share with teachers.  Because of bloggers like the ones I mentioned above I have become a better teacher and want to be able to bring even more to the world of teacher bloggers.  I hope that you enjoy my blog and can share with everyone you know!

Best,