Search results matching tags 'math' and 'classroom management'

Substitute Writing Idea and a Math Game

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 01:51:00 GMT

So, we have to turn in three days of sub plans each year and I have been working on gathering my lessons for my this because it's due Friday! I recalled a blog post I saw earlier this year about where your missing teacher has gone and I was inspired to make my own to cater to upper grades too!

I snagged the idea from Cara Carroll at "First Grade Parade." Click HERE to see her adorable post about her writing activity! I asked if she would mind if I did my own little spin on it and of course she said, yes! But, she said she saw the idea somewhere on Pinterest! If this was your original idea, please let me know and I will add you to this post!

Anyway, here is my version with both primary and upper grades writing pages! In the first one, students write a few sentences about why they think their teacher is out and draw a picture to go with it!

Then, I came up with this one all on my own! I was creating the first one and I was inspired to turn it into a newspaper article! Anytime the students can pretend to be someone else, I think it really gets them thinking and their ideas flowing!

Click HERE to download your free copy!

Here are some other great substitute resources!

Rachelle, from What the Teacher Wants has a great download called the Substitute Teacher Survival Kit, which I proudly own! Just click the picture below to go grab yourself a copy!

And I also have this awesome collection of printables from Clutter-Free Classroom! You can get it by clicking on the picture!

Oh, and here is a fun video from class today! We were playing Place Value War! I just love the excitement in the room! Be warned...It's loud!

I hope to post the games from this new unit soon! When I have time to finish them...HAHA!

Calendar Math -- Keeping them Engaged

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 14:34:00 GMT

One of the toughest parts to Calendar Math is keeping ALL of the kids engaged throughout the year. I mean, with 36 students it can be a challenge to do just about anything! So in order to keep the students focused, and really benefiting from Calendar, I have done a few things that I think have been successful and I thought I would share them with you.

1. Hand Motions. I shared this video with you earlier....but I am going to post it again for those of you who are new or might have missed it. This is the number one thing that keeps my kids interested. Because I am asking them to follow along and participate with me, they are all.....well...following along! The motions serve a second purpose in that they help the students kinesthetically remember some of the more mundane mathematical vocabulary. Each one of them can tell you how to find the median, mode, range, mean, and outlier in a data set because of the motions we use. They know about numerators and denominators without fail. It just helps them all around.

2. Think-Pair-Share and Hand Signals. I use A LOT of this during Calendar. I am constantly asking the kids to "turn to your partner and tell them what the big number says" or "tell your partner why the number is prime". It helps to keep them on top of it and awake. I also am always asking them to "put the number in the tenths place on your fingers," or "show me on your hands what 24 divided by 8 is." Again, keeps them involved. I also have them respond whole group at times ("whisper to me the big number" or something like that)

3. Student Teachers. This is the favorite amongst the students. Once Calendar is in full swing (even now, 3 weeks into school, I am starting this process), I choose a few students to come up and write on the boards. They really like being involved that way. But then, towards the end of the year, I step back and allow the kids to actually lead Calendar. They LOVE this. It is so interesting to hear them using the language and vocabulary of Calendar. The other students also enjoy responding back to them and are, in return, engaged as well.

OK...so there are some things *I* do to keep the students engaged. For those of you using some form of Calendar Math, what do you do? Let's get a big list going!

And if you are interested in learning more, here are the getting started basics. You can get the recording sheet for free here. There will also be links to all of the other Calendar Math blog posts I have written.

If you would like to purchase some editable calendar math stuff, here is 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade ....as well as the bulletin board pieces.

DIY Response Boards

Anonymous — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 20:51:00 GMT

Happy Sunday, everybody! It's becoming crunch time for those of us whose summer is coming to an end. I've started on all of those projects I've been putting off since May! Here is one I started and will finish sometime this week.....I think.

At Math Camp we used response boards quite a bit during activities to respond to questions, problems, etc. It is basically a little chalkboard. You write on it with chalk and can erase it very easily. These are the ones that were already prepared for us:

She cut chalkboard contact paper and stuck it onto poster board.

My two camp buddies and I headed to Michael's on one of the nights in search of this contact paper (among other things). We actually ended up finding this cool chalkboard scrapbook paper pad.

Come on over to see how I made my own version of the response boards!

And, in other news, my 3-5 Math Station MEGA Pack is finished!! Making this pack made me a little sad not to be teaching 4th again next year--oh, well...1st grade, here I come!

Stop by to read more about the response boards and the station pack! :)

Engaging Your Students During Math

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 14:00:00 GMT

Hi everyone! Do I have a treat for you today! Michelle from Making it as a Middle School Teacher has put together a great post for you....complete with a freebie. Be sure to leave some comments here for her to show her your love, and then hop over to her blog to read more great ideas!

Do you ever think about how you could better engage your students during math time? I've got some simple, quick, and inexpensive ideas for you to try.

Hey guys! It's Michelle from Making It As A Middle School Teacher and I am so excited to be here on Stephanie's blog today! She is an awesome teacher and I love to read her ideas on Teaching in Room 6.

What I have to share with you is not high-tech and it's not fancy. However, these ideas have worked in my classroom on many occasions, so I hope they'll work for you as well!

1. Allow students to use a highlighter {or a crayon or color pencil} to mark the important information in word problems. I don't allow my students to do the computation or record answers in anything other than a pencil, but giving them a different writing tool for part of the lesson makes it seem more fun!

2. If you can work Post-Its into the lesson, do it! Whether you use them for collecting and/or graphing data, ordering numbers, or as a ticket out the door, Post-Its are just cool to use and students enjoy the interaction.

3. Individual white boards are always a crowd-pleaser. If you have access to them at your school, pull them out as often as you can! I can't recall a single student who lacked engagement during the use of white boards. This is also a super-fast way to check student answers by having them hold their boards up on your signal. You'll find out right away who understands the concept and who doesn't.

4. During independent working time, send a few students at the time to the board to work out a problem. Other students keep working and can check their answers after you've made sure the work on the board is correct. Students always want to write on the board and this gives them an opportunity to do so in an appropriate manner. Plus, all the attention is not on them since other class members are all working at the same time.

5. Use a folder per table or group of desks to store the handouts needed for the day. It seems that students feel special when they take their work from a folder instead of it being passed out to them. Perhaps they feel like the teacher or that the handout is more important being distributed in this fashion.

6. Cut an assignment into small sections or cards. Tape these to the tables or desks and have students rotate through the problems. There is some movement and noise involved, but this has always been successful for me. I give students enough time to work without rushing them or wasting time. Every student always gets right to work so they'll be ready to move to the next problem. I typically play music as the signal to stop and go - sort of like musical chairs.

I thought I'd offer you a little freebie today as a thanks to Stephanie for allowing me to be here. I geared the questions to 5th Grade Common Core Standards on fractions. This is designed to be used like suggestion #6, but could also be used in other ways.

Click the image below to grab your copy!

Enjoy :)

Making It {and smiling},

{Highlighter, Post-It, Folder, and Scissors by The 3AM Teacher.}

Michelle Lundy has been a Middle School Teacher for 6 years, teaching all 3 grade levels, but most of her time has been spent with 7th graders. She is the author of Making It As A Middle School Teacher. She also contributes to several collaborative teaching blogs.

Michelle is married with 3 sons, ages 18, 19, and 21. She also has 4 dogs, a cat, and a classroom pet turtle.

Teacher's Beliefs

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 12:00:00 GMT

When you first interviewed for your job you get question like "Do you think all students can learn?", "What's your favorite thing about teaching?", and "How do you make students feel comfortable in your classroom?" I believe some teachers lose sight of these questions and how they answered these questions from when they joined the profession.

A substantial body of research suggests that teachers' beliefs and values about teaching and learning affect their teaching practices Influencing teachers' beliefs, therefore, may be essential to changing teachers' classroom practices. The goal is to better understand the nature of teachers' beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning and the links between their beliefs and practices. Hopefully professional development approaches will increase inquiry-based teaching of mathematics in classrooms.

The NCTM Standards stipulate that students need opportunities to communicate math ideas and solve problems with others, that they should engage in mathematical activities with confidence and enthusiasm, and that teachers should use assessment strategies that focus on understanding rather than on right answers. Teachers are encouraged to value and reward students' effort and persistence, and to give children some discretion in how they approach mathematical problems and encourage them to use a variety of approaches to mathematics tasks.

This article comes from a study done at UCLA that teacher beliefs about math affect students beliefs about math even at the elementary level. It includes that teachers should teach math enjoyment and effort than pure understanding of concepts. To read more about teacher's beliefs click on the article below:

http://www.connect.gseis.ucla.edu/pubs/files/TeachersBeliefs.pdf

Algebraic Table Points!

Anonymous — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 16:30:00 GMT

With all of the push nowadays to "get it all in", I, like many of you, have had to find creative ways to teach all of the standards necessary. One of the best ways I have found to get things in is to insert and embed standards into the most mundane areas of the classroom. And what could be more mundane than Table Points?

I found that tallies or plain numbers weren't really doing much in the way of teaching. So now, instead of using those tried and true methods, I have adopted algebra into this classroom management technique. Come on over to my blog to read all about how exactly I pull this off. Read about how to incorporate the idea into your class, and add what you do to get all of the standards in. See you over there!

Teaching in the Digital Age Blog Party!

Anonymous — Thu, 31 May 2012 19:45:33 GMT

This summer (well, starting next week) I’ll be participating in another wonderful book study blog party. This year’s book looks very interesting and thought provoking. We’ll be reading and discussing Teaching in the Digital Age by Brian Puerling. As someone who tries to integrate technology into my classroom whenever possible, my interest is definitely piqued. [...]

Personalized Feedback

Anonymous — Sat, 19 May 2012 12:00:00 GMT

When you are grading, no when you are going over tests do you run through the problems on the board for all the students to see, even the ones who got the question right?

No teacher has time to personalize feedback in math class. Or do they? If you record yourself when going through a test you can personalize each test as you go through the test. You can say, "Wow, that was great on that question." or "Oh, you just forgot a decimal place." or lastly, "You need to explain more here on number 6, I did not get your thinking." This not only personalizes each test, but your students get use to your thinking and knowing what you want to show on the test. They can hear your thinking over and over again if they need to retake or take another test it would be a great way to study what they missed.

Since my HTML does not like me right now I will just copy the address to the video and article.
https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/student-feedback-through-technology

This recording device was through an Apple computer and used for student's iPods.

Awe.

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:51:06 GMT

This afternoon, about twenty minutes before my lunch was over, I wandered up to see my third grade Reading Buddies. I did this for two reasons: first, I wanted candy and I know Mrs. F. and Mrs. G. have the best candy drawer, second I just wanted to say hello and see what they were [...]

Problem Solving Words and Strategies

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 15:07:00 GMT

So, I am sure many of you have seen these on Pinterest or The Teacher Wife's page.

And maybe you have seen this from Oh Boy, 4th Grade.

Well, I have taken these two lovely ideas and made a perfect marriage! After seeing these two wonderful ideas, I thought it would be a great thing to have glued inside my students math journals!

Let me know what you think! I hope I didn't break any rules by using these two ideas and combining them into one...

Click on the picture to download!