A Little Late to the Party!

Ahhh, the story of my life! I'm always just a beat behind everyone else. I was the kid who repeated kindergarten. The high school cheerleader that was clapping when you were supposed to be stomping. The last one to finish a paper in college. The last teacher to turn in important paper work. You get the idea. And now... I'm super late on getting started with this whole Instagram thing. Better late than never, right?! 

When I first read about Instagram on other blogs, I wasn't so sure if it was for me. I finally decided to give it a try and I am in love! I really think that sometimes pictures are worth a thousand words. Instagram gives us the opportunity to view great teaching ideas easily by simply looking at a picture. It is also fun to check out the random and non-teachery things that are going on in our lives too.

We are definitely on board! We've already started following about forty-something people. Please let us know if you are on Instagram so we don't miss out on your pics!

Anyway, Teacher Talk Tuesday was started by What the Teacher Wants and Apples and ABCs! If you're not on Instagram, I encourage you to give it a try. It was super easy to sign up!

Please come find us on Instagram and become a follower!

Teaching Division Strategies

Whew! We made it! Happy Friday, everyone!


My little second grade math intervention group has been working on division strategies. I thought I would share a few ways in which I helped my kiddos grasp this concept.




Since I work with the intervention group, my students tend to have difficulty understanding math vocabulary. Before we dove into this concept, I needed to make sure that they understood the difference between equal and unequal groups. Rather than coming out and simply telling my students what an equal group is, I made a little chart and put pictures with examples of equal groups and unequal groups. I had my students look at the examples and share with an elbow partner about what they thought an equal/unequal group was. They were definitely able to explain this in their own words after seeing this chart. 

We worked a lot with manipulatives to practice division concepts. The kiddos loved when I pulled out my stuffed animal friends to help us divide. Using the stuffed animals was a great way to help explain the concept of remainders. I had the students help me pass out manipulatives to the different stuffed animals. Sometimes there wouldn't be enough for them all to have an equal amount. That's when I would explain the idea of remainders.

 Once the students got the hang of using manipulatives to help them divide, I made this simple little division mat to help students draw equal groups. Now when working out a division problem, they quickly draw little dots in the circles. Before using this, I had them draw circles and make the dots  using a small whiteboard. Big mistake! Some kids drew their circles too small and couldn't fit all the dots inside. Some kids weren't very neat with their drawing and miscounted due to sloppiness. I whipped up this little baby in five minutes and it has saved a lot of time! I slipped them into page protectors and it's ready to go!

Now that we are really getting the hang of division and what it means to divide, I have been working with my little friends on division word problems. I created this Scoot game to help them practice the concept. They took the above division mat around the room with them to help them with the word problems. This Scoot game may even be helpful to third or fourth graders who are struggling with  division. You can download the game for free! Enjoy!

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! 

Division Scoot

Motivating Writers

Happy Wednesday!!

Jivey, from the blog, Ideas By Jivey has the coolest link up. Every Wednesday she has a series called "Workshop Wednesday" where she posts a new topic. I have been wanting to link up to this for awhile, but have not found the time until today. I have read other blogger's posts from this link up in the past, and have gained some great ideas from this! I hope you will also head over to her blog to link up!


This week's topic focuses on motivating writers. This topic spoke to me, as once upon a time, I had the most UN-motivated writers in the history of teaching!! In fact, I was pretty unmotivated to teach writing myself. I actually enjoy writing for pleasure, but teaching it, well, that's another story! Part of the problem was that my past school district had a very scripted writing program which made teaching writing

BOR-ING! 

Everyday when I asked my students to take out their writing notebooks, all I would hear were sighs and groans -- a teacher's worst nightmare, right?!


I decided that I would make it my own even though I didn't care for the writing program. Since then, my students actually enjoy writing and I actually enjoy teaching it too. Here are a few ways I motivated my students:



1. Celebrate Student Writing Success

When students are writing, I walk around the classroom and look for strong examples to share with the rest of the class. Perhaps it was the use of transition words that I want to point out. Maybe it was the use of figurative language I want to highlight. Whatever the reason, if I like a students' writing, I simply stick a little post-it note on the paper. The students know that if they rreceive a post-it, then they get to share their writing to the class. And let me tell you, the LOVE sharing! 

I also have students read their writing to the class by sitting in the Author's Chair. I know this isn't really a new idea, but it definitely motivates them. 

My author's chair is pretty plain, but I found some cute decorated one's on Pinterest that would make a great summer project!

                                                                              Source: ftfeverything.blogspot.com via Amanda on Pinterest

 Source: inspiredwritingteacher.blogspot.com via Taylor on Pinterest

2. Find Fun Ways to Publish
Letting students use creative ways to publish their writing is another great motivator. Here are some pictures of our published writing. 

 Each year my students get to publish life-like books that I order from a company called, Bare Books.

Idea inspired by Lesson Plan SOS

3. Peer-to-Peer Reading & Editing 
My students love having the opportunity to share their writing with a partner. I usually give them the last few mintues of our writing period to read their writing to a partner. The students also help edit each other's work with an editing check list that I provide them. 

Couldn't find an actual picture of students reading writing/editing- but you get the idea!

4. Collaborative Writing
Sometimes I would have my students collaborate in small groups to write. In the picture below, each  group wrote a small portion of a summary for the book, Skeleton Hiccups.   Once the groups finished their portion of the summary, I put each groups' piece in a pocket chart and we read the entire summary together as a whole group. The students also helped edit the summary.

Last school year, one of my students told me that he used to hate writing until he had me for a teacher. Music to my ears after the groans I heard a few years prior! It's amazing how some simple changes can spark motivation in student writers!

Don't forget to link up with Jivey!

Currently!

OK, friends, who pressed the fast forward button on April? Where did it go?! I can't believe that it's May already. State testing starts next week and the school year is winding down. It is over 90 degrees today, so I am really starting to feel ready for summer to get here! Go link up with Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade to join in on the fun!

Listening- to absolutely nothing! I feel like I always say this for the listening portion of Currently, but I guess I always type these things when nobody is around.

Loving- The weekend is just about here and I am excited because the hubby and I have no plans! I love when this happens. It seems like we've had something going on every weekend for the past month and this weekend we can actually relax and enjoy the nice weather.


Thinking- I think this was one of the fastest school years of my teaching career. It seems like the year goes by faster and faster with every new school year. Does this mean that I'm getting old?!


Wanting- I am an overly ambitious person. I have way too many goals, both personal and classroom related. I know making goals is a good thing, but I seem to have so many that they are unable to be reached. At least not all at once as I would like! Because of this, I feel like I hardly get anything accomplished at all! I guess it's the ADD and OCD in me! :)

Needing- Hey, I love food. What else can I say???


Summer Bucket List-

1. Cupcake Challenge: so, there are a few popular cupcake places around here and I've enjoyed cupcakes at each of them, but I can't seem to decided which place has the best.  I have decided that I want to buy the same flavor of cupcakes from all three places and do a blind taste test on each cupcake to determine which place makes the best. Kind of like my own personal Cupcake Wars. Stacy, the co-author of this blog, will be joining me in this feat! Maybe we'll post about it once we finish- haha!

2. Create Units: ok, well, I'm the nerd that wants to work on school stuff over the summer.  I have too many things that I've created over the years that need to be spruced up and uploaded to TPT! I've been wanting to do this for a long time, but it is so, so time consuming! I just don't understand how so many of you get it all done!


3. Beach- enough said.



Well, I'm off to go find some new blogs to stalk. Hey, do you think that maybe by blog stalking might have something to do with my inability to get stuff done? Perhaps all this blog reading takes up some time (hehehe!). Oh well, I love reading and learning from all of you. Don't forget to link up with Farley to participate in this month's Currently!

Wiggly kids?...Show me "Whole Body Listening"!

Do you have those kids who just can't sit still, whose eyes are looking somewhere else, making you think they're not listening to you? 
I first heard of "Whole Body Listening" (WBL) from Michelle Garcia Winner.  In my class, we start the year breaking down the 7 components of WBL, and now we just give a verbal or visual prompt to remind students to show us "Whole Body Listening"...it works like MAGIC!  Thank you Michelle Garcia Winner!  Check out her website, Social Thinking, for more information on WBL and sooooooo many other really important skills!

Here are the 7 components taken directly from her site, and exactly how we teach it:

• listening with the eyes (looking at the speaker)
• listening with the mouth (closed and quiet - no talking, humming, making sounds, etc.)
• listening with the body (facing the speaker)
• listening with the hands (quietly at the side of the body or in the lap)
• listening with the feet (standing still or quietly on the floor)
• listening with the brain (thinking about what the speaker is saying)
• and listening with the heart (caring about what the speaker is saying)

You can use posters as visuals, which are great.  I prefer to use pictures of my actual students...boy do they love seeing themselves!  Here's one of my cuties!  You may be able to tell he's sitting on a "move-n-sit"/"disc-o-sit" (aka-wiggle cushion) to help him maintain adequate postural control during instruction. 

Perfect "Whole Body Listening"!!!!!!!!!

Five For Friday Part 2!

We are thrilled that we can link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for another edition of Five For Friday! Last week we found some awesome new blogs to stalk and gathered some new friends/followers of our own. Thanks for reading!


Here we go...

 I Fought the Law and the Law Won

Okay, well, I didn't exactly fight the law, but I sure had my run-ins with the law this week! On Tuesday I received a ticket, and today, I left the parking meter a little too long and came back to a parking violation! 

Getting Organized!





I started this project last week while I was on Spring Break and finally finished. I have always kept important documents in a small file box and lately it has been difficult to find necessary papers. I decided to organize my files into separate binders. Now it is easy for me to find important documents!

Getting Carried Array!

My intervention math group has started beginning multiplication strategies. As you can see, we have been making a lot of arrays. We played a game that I created called, "Roll an Array," where the students roll the die to form a multiplication sentence and draw the array in the grid. We also used Cheeze-Its to create arrays (doesn't food always make math more fun?!). My students even created arrays on this sloppy grid paper that I drew and put post-it notes in the squares to create different arrays.

 

Prayers Please

You may remember us mentioning that a good friend of ours was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. This came as quite a shock as she is only 31-years-old. Today she was supposed to start chemo, but a CAT Scan revealed some sort of spot on her liver. She had more testing today and should have the results by Monday. Please pray that it is nothing. She and her family has been through so much over the past 2 months.

Lastly, I leave you with this

 

 I saw this sign today as I was browsing in a store (right around the time I was being issued that parking ticket!). 

Happy Friday and have a great weekend! Don't forget to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching and share your week! 

A Little Frog & Toad Freebie

Happy Tuesday! For those of you that went back to school this week, I hope it is off to a great start. I was having a good day until I got pulled over by a cop on my way home from work (ugh!). One of the first things that came to my mind was, "I should take a picture of this for my next Five For Friday post!" Is there a support group or something for people like me?!

Anyway... I am reading the book, Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel with my 2nd grade reading intervention group. I thought I would share a few activities with you.

To go along with the book, I created these little journals in which the students will write from the perspective of either Frog or Toad (they get to choose).

The journals have little prompts to start the students off and they complete the writing by adding details from the story. This is a great way for me to monitor their comprehension and helps them with understanding the character's point of view. The students also get to draw a little illustration to go with the chapter. I made a different journal page to go along with each chapter in the book.

In addition to the journal, I created this double bubble map where the students will compare and contrast the personalities of Frog and Toad. This is a great way to get them thinking about character traits.

And... here are these things for you to download! Enjoy!

Frog and Toad Comparison

Frog and Toad Journal