Collecting and Organizing

We started our second and final Math In The City unit this past week. In my school this unit is typically held for the first graders but our math coach encouraged us to modify it and give it a whirl. I was really excited to try this new unit. I like the Math In The City units. I like that the kids learn through exploration and that it isn't a teacher direct lesson. 

Anyway after reading over the plans I had to find a way to organize 12 bags of stuff in such a way that the items wouldn't get mixed up. Did you ever have one of those DUH type moments where something so simple hits you right in the head and you wonder why you never thought of it before? Well for the past few years now we have been using Math Investigations one of the centers that's comes up frequently is inventory bags. This center drives me nuts! We use brown paper bags and put items in the bags and without fail by the time the first group is done with the center all the bags are mixed up and the centers is a complete mess! I can safely says I hated doing inventory bags. Well the other day I had my AHA/DUH moments and I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of the idea sooner. I went into my supply closet and pulled out gallon sized baggies and a permanent marker. I then thought of 12 different items, one item for each bag. Here are the items I chose:

1. Index cards
2. Pencils (not sharpened)
3. Black pens
4. Blue pens
5. Binder clips (large ones)
6. Binder rings
7. Large paper clips
8. Snap cubes
9. Popsicle sticks
10. Small glue sticks
11. Pencil top erasers
12. Gh

On each bag I wrote the name of the item that was in the bag. Then I made an organization sheet for them to use. It had two columns. The first column listed the name of the item and the second column said Amount. This was the simplest fix to inventory bags and yet it took me years to think if it. The kids did and amazing job with the bags - we only lost two Popsicle sticks over the course of two days!

On the first day the kids were divided into partnerships and each group got one bag. They had to work together to count the items in their bag and record it on their sheet. The best part - my students who struggle with reading could match the word on the Baggie with the word in their paper and fill in the sheet without any support! I let the kids get up and swap bags with one another on their own, which between you and me I thought was going to be a complete mess and what have you, but yet again my kiddies surprised me. They shared and took turns without any problems. They did a really great job with this activity. I did find that they needed extra time for this so we ended up doing it over two days but they had fun and were enjoying it so it worked out perfect. I had my fast finishers help the groups that were workings slower by organizing and getting the bags they needed. So the slower groups didn't waste time walking around to get the supplies they needed. Oh I should add in that when I made the baggies I picked specific numbers for each item. With 12 bags of items I focused in the teen numbers and then threw in three bags that were whole numbers, 20, 30, 40. I printed an extra copy of the student recording sheet I made and I wrote down exactly how many of each item was supposed to be in each bag. This was very helpful because as I circulated I could quickly see if any group counted incorrectly and work with them.

The next lesson was a bit different. I again made a sheet but this one had four columns: item (which I had filled in), total amount, how many bundles if ten, how many singles. This part of the lesson worked on getting the students to think about making groups of ten to organize their inventory and count it. I have to say almost all of my kiddies did a great job with this activity. I had a few kids struggle with it but most of them got it. They enjoyed counting the objects and then I showed them that since we can't physically bundle some of the objects we could make piles of ten.

I'm really enjoying this unit. I think it's working on their counting skills and organizing skills. I think I would consider trying this unit in the fall. Not necessarily the counting out and making piles of ten but the simple idea of counting the objects and recording them! I know I will be using baggies and an organization sheet for inventory bags in the fall! Such a quick and simple fix I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner!!!!!!


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Close Reading

The big push in my school right now is close reading. My principal has been encouraging the early childhood teachers to introduce the idea of close reading to our kids, as young as Kinders, to better prepare them for the state exams.

I for one thought this was a bit of a challenge and wasn't sure my kiddies would understand or get much out of a close reading. Boy was I pleasantly surprised by what happened last week!

Each week we study to pieces of music. We have been focusing on The Beatles and last week we were listening to and reading "Good Day Sunshine" and "Octopus's Garden." I was trying to find parts of one of the songs that would engage the kids in a good conversation. I decided that I would hold a discussion and close reading of "Good Day Sunshine" and talk about leisure time.

First things first is I printed just these lyrics and made them nice and big on the overhead (man a smart board would have been awesome to have for this lesson!) Here are the lyrics I put up.

We take a walk, the sun is shining down,

Burns my feet as they touch the ground.

Good day sunshine,

Good day sunshine,

Good day sunshine.

And then we lie, beneath a shady tree,

I love her and she's loving me.

She feels good, she knows she's looking fine.

I'm so proud to know that she is mine.

Once the lyrics were up I introduced my kids to the idea of leisure time. I explained that leisure time is a period of time that you are not working or at school or doing homework. It's a time when you are free to have fun and play or do the things you like. The kids really seemed to grasp this new term. After a lively discussion of what leisure time is and some things they might do and what they think leisure time is I turned on the overhead and I read through the lyrics once. Then I said to the kiddies that i was going to read the lyrics one more time and they had to listen for text evidence of something the character in the song did for leisure. They were so excited about this activity they were practically jumping out of their carpet squares to answer my question! They did a great job and were able to find the lines "we lie, beneath a shady tree" and "We take a walk." 

Not only were my kiddies able to find text evidence of leisure time but then they could back up their text evidence by explaining what leisure time was. I was super-dee-dooper proud of my kiddies!!

Bunk Beds - Early Number Sense

What a great day back at work. We lost most of our February break due to Hurricane Sandy - amazing how 4 months later we are still feeling the effects of that super storm. (Not to mention how my family and friends are still without homes and other necessities.... but that's a story for another time!)

Anyway, we had a lovely 4 day weekend and I SO needed it. I really needed to recharge my batteries and reset myself and the 4 days off did the trick. I loved spending my free time with my little peanut, I cannot believe how big she is getting. We went on play-dates, dinner dates and even on a ride on a 100 year old carousel that I used to ride as a kid. It was an amazing long weekend and I am very grateful for the extra two days off.

Since it was only 2 extra days off my kiddies did a pretty good job transitioning back into the swing of things and we really had a great day. One of my current favorite parts of my day is our math period. We are approaching the 100th day of school and my kids are so excited about it. We have spent the whole year building our hundreds chart and showing the number of days in school in various ways. The anticipation of what the 100th day will bring is exciting to them, I just hope I can live up to their expectations.

Aside from looking forward to the 100th day of school we started a new math unit last week. On average we are using Investigations in Number, Data, and Space ©2012 published by Pearson. I find it to be a very intriguing program. It's a center based hands on approach to math that I find both challenging and rewarding all in one. To help keep the kids engaged we spend two weeks in the middle of the year doing a Math in the City unit called Bunk Beds and Apple Boxes. Why do I love this unit so much? Because it's all about exploration. I am a firm believer that young children do the best learning when they are left to explore, experiment, and figure things out on their own - of course all of this is happening with a watchful eye from a teacher who is there to guide and nurture them.

So let me tell you what we have done so far:

Day 1 - I read the provided book which sets the stage for the first few Bunk Beds lessons. Through this story and an arithmetic rack the children are introduced to the idea of equivalent facts. Children get to go to their seats and explore this idea with manipulatives. Now the program suggests that the kids use math racks with partners but I have found it much more useful for the kids to use counting bears.

Day 2 - The children continue to explore the idea of how to make equivalent number sentences all equaling a special number. After this lesson we had a math congress to discuss our thinking. The kids explained and shared what they learned and we charted all the ways to make equivalent number sentences for our special number.

Day 3 (today) - I introduced the idea of a number story. Since we had an extended weekend I reviewed what we did last week and then introduced the idea of number stories. The kids had a blast using counting bears and trying to write their own stories. Typically we don't script for our kids and encourage them to write the best they could but I was curious what they could do and knew that many of my kids could verbalize their stories better than writing them so I did script a few of them.

I remembered to take some pictures today (YAY!) so here is what my kids did today:

 This student has a great understanding of making a number sentence and picture to match but the idea of a number story was very difficult to her. Even when I scripted for her she struggled to understand that she had to write a story to match her picture.

Here you can see how this student is using the counting bears to help her understand the concept.

This student was also able to use the counting bears correctly to make a number sentence.

This is one of my more advanced students. When I saw that she too struggled with the idea of writing a number story I realized I did not do a good job explaining how to write a number story. I think I was so excited to get the kids working and to see what they could come up with that I didn't spend enough to explaining and giving directions with examples. 

So I took a step back and explained a number story in more simpler terms:

How many bears on the top? How many bears on the bottom? How many all together?

This is what my students came up with after a better explanation:

I have to say I was super proud of my kids (and myself for realizing my "failure" and going back and fixing it ASAP!). ALL of my kids were able to write a number sentence correctly and used only 8 bears. They really did a great job with that. The majority of my kids were also able to write a word problem (once I explained it better). 

I really have to say this unit is one of my favorite units to teach and I'm so excited to see how my kids do with the next few lessons. Have you ever used this math unit? What do you think about it?

*Please note - all of the opinions in this post are my own. I was not asked to write about this program by anyone, I just HAD to share how much I LOVE this program! !

Kindness Counts

We have a wonderful parent support system in place in our school. They recently approached me about this wonderful idea about starting a kindness initiative in our school. I thought it was a marvelous idea and couldn't wait to get on board. It's slow going and we haven't gotten the program going like we planned but slowly we are trying.

Last month we sold spirit t-shirts and at the end of the month there was an assembly where students from each grade received kindness certificates. It's hard to pick just two students each month who deserve to be awarded. Some teachers feel that it is not the teachers job to pick the students but rather their classmates should vote.

I've been playing around with different ideas and ways of showing what kindness means in the classroom and how we can honor each child in the room for being kind. I recently saw this post from Jodi at Fun in First Grade all about black history month and it got me thinking.... our initiative has a tree as a symbol and I just so happen to have tree in my classroom (what are the odds!) So I was thinking... if I make foldable leaves similar to Jodi's hearts and put a students name on the outside of each leaf. Then the kids can write one kind thing that a friend did and we can put it inside their leaves.

What do you guys do for kindness in your school? What about in your classroom? Any thoughts or suggestions on how I can incorporate kindness into a bulletin board? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Valentine's Day

Happy President's Day everyone! I hope you are enjoying your long weekend... I know I am! I wanted to share with you all the fun we had on Valentine's Day this year.

First up - our morning read aloud. I read the book The Valentine Bear by Eve Bunting. What a cute tale about Mrs. Bear who wants to celebrate Valentine's Day so she sets her alarm clock to wake her up before winter is over. My kiddies had a great time making predictions and trying to guess what Mrs. Bear was going to do next.

Later in the afternoon during Math my kids had a blast sorting and graphing candy hearts. A shout out has to be made to ABC Schoolhouse. A few years ago I downloaded their February packet which included a great candy sorting activity. Unfortunately I was having way too much fun sorting, counting and graphing with my kiddies to take any pictures. We used the sorting mats but updated the graph to include questions:

• How many pink hearts?
• How many green hearts?
• How many yellow and green hearts?
• How many hearts all together?

I was so pleasantly surprised by this activity. We have not done any graphing and yet all of my students were able to sort and graph accurately. Only a handful of children struggled to answer the questions correctly... and the smiles on their faces while they were doing this activity was priceless!

We finished the day with a writing mini-lesson on making cards. Because we were doing this at the end of the day I pre-made a lot of the supplies. I'm a big advocate of student made work and feel that children should cut, color, glue and draw to the best of their ability. However, like I said, we were doing this at the end of the day which meant time was limited. I pre-folded construction paper and glued in lined writing paper. I also pre-cut various hearts in different sizes and colors. My kids had a blast coloring, writing and glueing to make Valentine's for the people they loved. The cutest/sweetest was a few of my kids offered to make me a card. While I was touched I encouraged them to make their cards for someone at home.

I think the best part of the day was when I gave my kids my Valentine's gift. Now I cannot take credit for this, I MUST give credit where credit is due because I LOVE this idea. Kathleen over at Growing Kinders posted a super-dee-dooper cute idea on her blog back on February 12th Valentines for the Kiddos. Not only did she post this super-dee-dooper cute idea but she also offered the tag as a freebie! I SOOO appreciate that. So I downloaded her freebie, went on a target shopping spree and made my very own gifts.

Aren't these just the cutest? Well my kids thought they were too... I WISH I had taken a video of their reaction because it was sooo cute and sweet. They cheered and laughed and smiled and fell in love. And the best part? On Friday half my kids came in wearing the socks! I never expected that.

So that was how my Valentine's day went at school. Because of the structure of our day we weren't able to spend all day having Valentine's day fun but I think I did a pretty good job combining Valentine's fun and education!

I'd love to know what you gave your kids (or your kids teachers) for Valentine's day... the wheels are already turning trying to think of more creative gifts for me kids!

Back to the Basics

This year I've been trying to be more involved in my school... I sit on a newly formed learning leaders team and I'm on the ground floor of an iPad initiative in our school. But with all this change and the introduction of technology I've realized how important it is to get back to the basics.

We are almost 90 days into the school year and I still have a few children who know little to no letter sounds. I've been struggling to find ways to meet these students needs and help them learn the letter names and the corresponding sounds... I had tunnel vision... how can technology help these children... and then we had a PD with a literacy coach and it hit me, these kids don't need technology, they need good old fashioned, back to the basics, teaching... and I mean back to the basics, back to when schools had no technology, back to before the demands of the common core, back to when schools first started and children started to learn the ABCs, basic, simple learning.

I'm excited to say that the literacy coach that came to meet with us really light a fire under my behind and the wheels of inspiration have been spinning. So after our meeting here is what my new game plan is...

First I'm going to be working with these children at least twice a week in a small group. My ultimate goal is to work with them in small groups almost every day, but for now I'm going to focus on meeting with these kids twice a week.

• Warm up: drill up to 5 letters/sounds (3-4 of these will be letters the group as a whole knows and a 1-2 letters they are unfamiliar with)
• Reading Words: I will create flashcards with C-V-C words on them. These words will be three letter words using only the 5 letters we are working on. I will print these C-V-C words on white card stock. I will also have two or three word wall words printed on colored card stock. There will be no more than 10 flashcards in all. The idea behind the two different colored card stock is to help the students realize which words they should know and which words they can sound out. We will practice reading and tapping these words.
• Writing Practice: We will end the group session in one of two ways. Option 1: practice identifying beginning sounds (one of the 5 we worked on) and write the corresponding letter on white boards. Option 2: practice writing some of the words or a simple sentence using the flashcards we practiced.

This is my rough outline of what I'm hoping to do with this small group... I'm meeting tomorrow with our curriculum coordinator to help hash out all of the details and make a formal plan for these lessons.

Another inspiration hit when I was working with my daughter on her letter homework. In her nursery school they do one letter for about two weeks. I've noticed that the letters we relate to people and things she loves she is having an easier time remembering. What a great idea! So simple and yet I was so stuck in the idea of incorporating technology into everything that I forgot to think about the basics. I'm going to have these kids bring in pictures of loved ones and things they love for each letter of the alphabet and make an alphabet book for with them. These personal alphabet books, I hope, will help them remember the names of the letters and the sounds of each letter. I'm still working on how I want to format this activity but the wheels are turning.

I have to say this return to the basics is kind of exciting. I'm all for technology in the classroom and I know there are great ways to incorporate technology in our day to day, but this whole back to the basics idea has me very excited... I'm intrigued to see how this all works out and I really hope that I can get my little kiddies to master the alphabet over the next few months! Do you have any tips and tricks for teaching little ones the alphabet when they are struggling?

Making Smart Choices - Our Class Resolution

So inspiration hit this morning as I was gathering my kids from the cafeteria... Well let me back up.

After having a wonderful break and spending so much precious time with my little peanut I had a terribly difficult time falling asleep last night, literally! I was up till 2am and I had to get up at 5:30am in order to get to school on time! I think part of me was in denial that my vacation was really over, but alas it was. So off I went to school (rather sleepy I might add). I spent an hour setting up my room... rearranging the furniture and hooking all the electrical equipment back up. I don't know about you guys but we have to clean off every desk and moveable shelf and lock up any valuables and remove all the electrical equipment so that the floors can be cleaned over the break. After an hour of cleaning and organizing I didn't have much time to prep for the day BUT on the bright side I have 2 preps today so I knew I just had to be prepared for first period and then on my prep second period I could get the rest of my day ready.

Off I went at 8:45 to get my kiddies knowing I had a lot of work to do second period but I was excited to see them and hear all about their adventures over the vacation. As we walked up to our door I decided that the start of the New Year should me a fresh start in our classroom as well. I had the kids go right to the carpet (with all of their stuff) and right then and there I decided I would let them pick their own seats. I have never done this..well except for the first day or two of school, but other than that I always pick there seats for them. Do you let your kinders pick their own seats ever? We had a very nice discussion about "Making Smart Choices" which is one of our class rules. We talked about how it's a New Year and I want to give them more responsibility and that I think they can "Make Smart Choices" and pick good tables to sit at. To my surprise MOST of the kids did a really good job, not all of them of course, but the majority of them did. I told them that if they "Make Smart Choices" they can keep their new seats, but if they start to fool around then I can change their seats.

I have to say I was pretty impressed and amazed at how receptive they were to this idea. Our new class motto for the remainder of the year is "Make Smart Choices"... Now I just have to make some sort of banner or something to keep reminding them of this every day. I am liking this resolution! It's been a good one for me too because it's helped remind me to "Make Smart Choices" throughout the day too!

Did your class make any resolutions this year? What are they?

I hope everyone had a good first day back!

PS - Some of you have been wondering what ever happened after the hurricane... let's just say it's not a pretty picture out here. Yes the schools are re-opened (for the most part) but so many people (my parents included) no longer have a house to call home. Some people lost their houses to fires, but the majority of the people (like my parents) had so much salt water in their houses that they houses have to be gutted and/or knocked down and rebuilt. It's going to be a long slow process to get everyone back on their feet again and unfortunately so many people have already started to think that things are 100% back to normal, but the reality is that it will take many months if not years for people to get back to normal!