The 3am Teacher must be just the nicest person in the world! She is offering technology help to all us little bloggers who are winging it. She asks, what would you like to know how to do?
OK, this is the craziest little thing, but I'd like to know how to get a cute little button instead of my cute little dog's picture whenever I comment on a blog. I love my cute little dog, but really, this isn't a dog blog :)
And like the author of We are all special - I'd like to know how to use the cute background on these linky parties - like she has that looks like this:
And another perhaps semi-goofy thing: I'd like to know how to do is to add an email something so if some great day somebody actually wanted to email, well, they could!
So there you have it - now I'm going to link up with 3am teacher and see what she can teach me!
Laura at Corkboard Connections is having a Link Up on math centers/stations. I feel I'm getting better in this area, but have a ways to go still.
Last year, I did math centers with 3 rotations. One with me, one at computers doing math activities and another was basically playing a math game - they picked. That got a bit chaotic, so I started picking partners off the top of my head. Still wasn't really pleased with that, but made it to the end of the year.
Last summer, I bought and read Debbie Diller's "Math Work Stations." It is a terrific resource and I found many ideas in it.
However, I really had trouble implementing them. I plan to spend some time this summer reviewing the book and trying again next year.
One thing I did get from the book, and that I have kept going is specific math centers. With my schedule, we usually have math centers 3 days a week. I have 3 different math centers - so the kids go to each one once during the week. (If it happens that my week works out to have math centers 4 days in a week, I just have them go back to one.) Anyway, each math center has specific skills to work on. One usually has math facts, or as we've progressed, double digit addition and subtraction.
Another tub has review activities of a skill we have recently learned. For example, right now it is money.
The last tub has Drops in the Bucket - these are worksheets that review 2nd grade skills - and then a math game for the students to play when they get done.
When I'm working with my small, guided math group, I usually see a lot of messing around that I don't seem to see during literacy centers. This is something I'm going to think about over the summer to see if I can think of a solution. (Or maybe someone who reads this has an idea for me!)
Anyway, Denise at Sunny Days in Second Grade has made a lot of Bump games that my kids have enjoyed. I took her idea and made Bump Plus games. On one game, the students roll a die (10 sided die) and add it to 7. Another board, they roll the die and add it to 8 and on the last gameboard, they roll the die and add it to 9. Now that I'm thinking about this, I will have to get those back out again. :)
I'd love for you to try out my Bump Plus games - and if you do, could you leave a comment telling me how it works for you? Thanks, thanks!
Anyway, that's my contribution. For more ideas, go to Corkboard Connections.
Happy day after Easter to all! Our district
is nice enough to give us today (Monday after Easter) off also. Yeah! I'm still
in my jammies and it's almost 11 o'clock! And, I haven't even THOUGHT about
school since Friday evening!
We had an in-service on Thursday about Common
Core and Math. Do we ever get to the point where we just "get it"? I
don't mean in a quit trying way - I just mean, leave some things the same so we
can work at getting better at them. I am looking forward to the math common
core. However, our math book will be almost useless, so that means lots of
blog-hopping and TpT looking.
Speaking of math, we've moved to our money
unit. (This will be a big change for me next year - this year, we do something
and move on. I know, not the best practice. Next year, we'll review and review.
Better for the kiddos.) Anyway, I stumbled across this blog and she had mega-websites listed to practice
money. Thank You! And what a cool name for a blog - technology rocks, seriously.
(I guess I found her from Teaching Blog Addict's
Bunny Hopping.)
OK - this will have to be for next year,
because I didn't see it in time. And it's probably an oldie, but a goodie. A Cupcake for the Teacher had this idea to use plastic eggs
for a matching activity. She used it for antonyms, but you could do synonyms,
math facts, etc. Like I said, next year!
Don't have
anything else. If you get today off, enjoy your day. And if you're at school,
enjoy your kiddos :)
Sara
You know how you get that idea that you've seen something somewhere, and now you want to find it? I knew I had seen a post about Inventors. I had looked at some blogs where I thought I had seen it, but no. Last night, I decided I was going to look at each blog I have bookmarked and see if, with some serious looking, I couldn't find what I was looking for. TaDa! Cara at The First Grade Parade has one blog post about inventors, but I'm thinking that's enough to get me going. I need to find some books at our library, but Yeah!
And I purchased Deanna Jump's Dinosaur unit. I know that she is a (wonderful) kindergarten teacher, but after looking at this unit, I think there is a lot I can use with my 2nd graders. She also has a post on her blog about some of the things she has done.
These are two ideas that I'm hoping to incorporate into our last few weeks, but I'm afraid time will fly by fast. We still have to do science experiments for an assessment for our district, a presentation (also for a district assessment) a couple math assessments - and then a few fun things - a zoo field trip (for a town our size, we have a WONDERFUL zoo) and a fun day with our 2nd graders.
I'll be attending a common core math in-service tomorrow and then I have Friday and Monday off. Yeah!
First, the fun! 4th Grade Folics is having a Lunchbox Linky. OK, my lunch is quite boring, but I love it! Almost every day I have a peanut butter sandwich and an orange. If the oranges are nice and sweet, I feel like I've had dessert. Sometimes I just go crazy and have a cup of pudding, too. I have this cute lunch bag a friend gave me - it makes me feel special :)
I always finish up with one of these Brach's Nougats. You can tell they are a Christmas candy, so I have to stock up in December, but they have a nice minty flavor, so I have wonderful breath when the kiddos come back :)
As far as my lunch time, it's at 12:20. I always used to eat with one of my teammates, and sometimes one of the other 2 teammates would join us. Then my lunch buddy moved to a new position and I had sad times, 'cuz nobody else wanted to stop working and eat and chit-chat. But then I decided YES I want some adult conversation. So I go to the lounge and eat and there's always somebody in there and we usually talk about silly things. We get 40 minutes, but once a week I have recess duty and only get 20 minutes. Other days, I only take 20 minutes and spend the other 20 getting ready for my afternoon.
See what everyone is eating:
Now, my grrr. Thursday was just a horrible day. I felt like all my kiddos were loud and off task. And especially during centers, when I'm supposed to be doing Guided Reading, I was continually saying, "What is your job?" My diabetic lied about going to the nurse, my SPED kid just whined and whined that he didn't get it, and my behavior problems (uh, challenges) were challenging! And that evening, I went home and just vented. I even sent notes home with 3 children - got two back and had better behavior on Friday.
BUT - ah, here's the deal. I think I was in a better mood of Friday. OK, let's not call it a better mood. I was determined NOT to let them get me down. I made up little songs when someone was bugging me terribly. I used my "happy" voice, not my growly bear voice. And things were better. Why do you think that is? (ha, ha!)
I hate to think that Heather at Heather's Heart is right - ok, I don't really hate to think that, and I'm pretty sure she's right. MY attitude makes a HUGE difference in my classroom. I only wish I could remember that when things get just a teeny bit stressful.
I am having a NO WORK weekend - because I worked all last weekend, and (ha, ha) I totally forgot to bring home what I meant to work on, and I just made an Executive Decision not to go get it.
Have a great weekend! Sara
I guess it's a big no-no to post twice in one day. But hey, I have the afternoon off for a dentist appointment, so I'm going for it!
I have 2 foldables (I guess "foldables" isn't a real word, because it has that red squiggly line under it.) Anyway! Our comprehension strategy for this week is Sequence of Events, so next week in centers, I'll have the kids do a Sequence of Events. I'm having them write about their day with this foldable. This is one that they need help with the folding.
I tried this last year and got pretty good results.
The other foldable is one I'm using in Science this year. We have been studying States of Matter. We made this foldable together, and we have filled in information about the various forms of matter.
(I'm running out of copy paper, so we did this on notebook paper. As you can (hopefully) see, we wrote the name of the type of matter on the outside of the flip. On the inside, we describe that type of matter and draw a quick picture. My thought is it will help them remember :)
Laura Candler at Corkboard Connections is hosting this Link Up. Visit her site for lots of ideas!
A spring Linky Party! What fun!
I made this a while back - I like the Bump games and have enjoyed using them in my class, but I wanted to have the kids focus on specific addends - 7, 8 and 9. My version is called BUMP Plus. So one of my versions of Bump has them rolling a special die (10 sided die - I don't know the fancy-pants name for it) and then adding 7. The same for 8 and 9.
Anyway, here is my BUMP game. If you use it, please leave me a note :)
And here's the Linky Party.
