back in the action and my math block

Yes, we are back! Back in school... we started on Thursday, for a half day- then had Friday off. So, tomorrow will be my first full day with my kiddos... I am expecting severe exhaustion!

Of course, I am really excited though! I have moved up to 2nd grade and I have a few of my kids from last year. I am trying out some newer strategies in my math block this year and I am very excited about it!

I borrowed a good friend's book this summer, Guided Math by Laney Sammons and started researching all over the Internet the best way to teach math.

My first step has been changing my math block from 60 to 90 minutes! It is going to shorten my science/social studies time but I think it is really necessary to meet with my students- especially my EL kids (and I can make up that science/ss time in reading).

So, after reading and researching I have landed on one schedule that seems like it will really work for me. The Clutterfree Classroom has an amazing math workshop board that allows for flexibility within your math workshop and I am totally do it!!! If you go to her site she explains it all with great detail and you can purchase parts you may need from her TPT store. I made my own, but I would suggest purchasing hers {since this was HER idea}. Here is what my board looks like:

So, here is an overview:

4 groups

4 rotations (Math Facts, At your seat, Teacher's Choice, Hands On) M.A.T.H.

Time:

5-10 minutes- Problem of Day or Review of what we are learning

15-20 minutes rotations 

Math Facts: Play math fact games

At your seat: Seatwork that may be reviewing what we are learning or working in math journals

Teacher's Choice: This will almost always be guided math portion. Each group will get a small group lesson, which will be the bulk of their individualized instruction.

Hands On: Games using manipulatives and/or pieces that give practice with skills we are working on. 

15 minutes: Closure. 

Closure is super important and should include and overview of the day, review of learning, and math talks! 

What are math talks? Our kids should be able to talk about how they solve problems and not just when we call on them. The goal is to get students to talk to each other while we are like moderators. I've seen teachers post "accountable talk" on a poster or pocket chart. I plan on this too! But while kids are working with each other I want them to have something close by to help foster good math talks. 

I made these Math Talk Bookmarks for this reason!

I am going to print front and back on cardstock and laminate. Kids can keep these in math journals or folders and pull out during this math talk time! Click any of the pics to download for FREE on tpt. 

Please leave me some feedback if you like :)

Have a great week! I can't wait to play with my second graders!

Still trying to get it together...

School started Friday and I am still not ready! We had major plumbing issues Friday and I wasn't even able to get back into my room until this afternoon. At least I got to get all my supplies put away--my reading table was completely full and stacked with tissues, hand sanitizer and glue!! It is cleared off now--thank goodness! My room is still lacking quite a few things, like a place for students to pick what kind of lunch they are having or a place that makes it visible about who is a car rider, bus rider or going to day care. So I made some tags that (after they are laminated) will have ribbon hot glued to the bottom and students names clipped on with clothesline clips. If you would like the tags, click here.

Here is a picture of what the tags look like:

As soon as I get these laminated and hung up I will update with photos... plus I think I need to add some photos of my room! Soon, promise!

Have a great week!!

UPDATE: Here are some pics of the tags I created. They turned out so cute!! Love em!

Target Project Anyone...

Much like the rest of humankind, I LOVE Target. I cannot go in that place without spending $100. The sad part is I load up from the dollar bin--my hubby thinks I am certifiable but I can't resist! So, today I loaded up on these fabulous little accordian file folders:

These are miniature and perfect for flashcards among other things. My "among other things" will include: punchcards (so students can easily keep up with them) and "Blue Jay Bills" (our school positive behavior incentive money that students can spend in a store). I am loving this idea!!

Check it out-- I put labels on each tab: Need to Practice, Sight Words (2 tabs), Math Facts, Blue Jay Bills, and Punchcards. The first tab can be used for specific sight words or math facts that need to be practiced. So if we are studying certain words they will be in this tab to practice at home. After the student has mastered their cards they will get a new set to go in that tab and the cards that have been mastered will go back under the sight words tabs. Same with Math Facts. Blue Jay Bills can be kept in their tab until spent and the Punchcards will be brought out daily for punches.

I am calling these S.T.A.R. Files. (Students Taking Academic Responsibility). I am hoping this will be a great way for students to keep up with their own stuff. The label has S.T.A.R. in yellow...sorry you can't see!

Please excuse the nails...in need of a manicure ASAP!!


I cannot wait to use these and they are perfect for going back and forth from home to school! Parents will know what should be practiced and will be able to see how many punches their child has received on their card! Plus these can be used year after year. I just wrote numbers on them to assign to students!

So, if you would like to create these it is super easy and not too time consuming. To save you time I have labels here.

Have fun creating!

Behavior Calendars!!

Last year my school made monthly calendars to keep track of behavior. They were in the students folders and were easy to mark at the end of the day for parents to see how their students behavior was daily. Each night I would send the calendar home in the student's folder and the parents would initial they read the note or saw the behavior indicated.

The school I am at this year doesn't have anything in place for this except a very hard to read weekly form that I am not fond of. So, I decided (using that form as inspiration of course) to make my own calendars. Having a calendar you put in the folder once is easier than puting a new sheet in the folder weekly.

I don't really have a theme going this year but thought an easy to read and remember calendar is the "star behavior chart". I went ahead and made the whole years worth so now all I have to do is print and copy :) They are not super, duper cute like some things you can find on teacher blogs but they are sufficient and will work for me. I will probably copy each month on different colored paper so it will be obvious it is a new month.

If you would like a copy of these fab behavior calendar/chart things then click here!

Hope these are helpful!

I LOVE Joanns!!

Needed to get out of the house today, so I took the kids and ran over to Joann's for a look at the sale items (which were plentiful!). I got a ton of cool stuff...

These are apple chalkboards that can be hung pretty much anywhere. (They can them in a crayon shape too but I only got apples). $2.50 a piece! Too cute!

How about some tongue depressers that have shapes on top?! I got some last year with animal heads and this year they had multi-packs of 16 a bag (only $1 per bag). One pack came with stars, hearts, and balls. The other pack came with butterflies and flowers. Love them! These will be perfect for my new behavior management system that I am borrowing from another blog that I lost. But as soon as I have it ready I will post and hopefully will have found the original author that gave me the idea!!

And who could pass up chalk for $1! A big thing of sidewalk chalk with a couple small pieces too! Since I am going to have a chalkboard this year I had to grab this!

Last, but not least, when I got home I finished my bookcase project and added some chalkboard contact paper to some reading bins. The perfect labeling system!!

As you can probably tell, I am super excited about getting in my new room next week and getting to work!!

Fun work!

Today (during nap time) I got to work on a project I have been putting off. A couple of weeks ago I bought some small bookcases on Craigslist and was going to paint the sides with chalkboard paint and make each side a center location. I have been debating on chalkboard and magnetic paint or just chalkboard...then I found chalkboard contact paper and that made my decision for me because it was super cheap!! I found a six foot roll on Amazon for $6.

So today I finished one of the bookcases. I decided to put some cute school bus fabric I had leftover from last year on top. Then I took some leftover yellow ribbon and hot glued it to the edges. It turned out a lot cuter than I thought.

Unfortunately I ran out of ribbon and am trying to decide it I want to do something different on the other bookcase do I didn't finish that one.

This year I am going to have a big chalkboard in my room (along with the whiteboard). I think I am going to get chalkboard markers for the chalkboard contact paper and the boards...no smearing! Has anybody out there used them before?? Just want to make sure there fabulous before I shell out the cash.

This chalkboard contact paper can be cut into any shape and size, which makes it awesome!! Some of my leftovers are making great labels for my book bins!

Anyway, my internet is down so I am posting from my phone. Hopefully more fun postings soon :)

-Laura