TER 2015 - Conference Do's and Don'ts

I was just thinking about something. The Educator's Room Conference is only two months away. I need to start getting ready. There are several things I want to do before the big day arrives. Just to keep my self sane, I am putting together a list of Conference Do's and Don'ts. Hopefully you can get some use out of them as well.

DO (Definitely Do)
* Make some business cards. They don't need to be too fancy, just your name and blog or email for contact information. You never know where new friendships are going to lead! Office Depot sells plenty of options and  your Word programs are usually set up to coordinate with them.
* Make sure you have all of your conference documents in hand. Print out the schedule of the day and the confirmation email to show at the Registration Booth.
* Get there early. Not only to start the day off, but also for the sessions. You don't want all the good seats taken before you make your grand entrance, do you? Being early also affords you some time to check things out. Where are the bathrooms, what kind of concession food will be on hand, will you need to go off site to get something good, are there any vendors present, and the layout of the rooms so you can find your sessions quickly. Wouldn't want to miss anything.
* Bring something to write with (two of them won't hurt either) and to write on. After previewing the sessions, I can already tell that the ideas will just be flowing and you will want to record those that you want to bring back to try out in your own classroom.
* Since I'm on the subject, preview the sessions. Check out the speakers websites and any pertinent information they are already sharing about their talks. This way you will be well informed on the day so that your brain can be thinking of how to best make use of the information instead of, "Huh? What was that? What does she mean?"
* Talk to people. This is called Networking. You will be pleasantly surprised to meet someone who flew all the way from California, or is here from your own backyard. Talking to them can open up new understanding, or even better opportunities. I hung out with some great people at another conference in February and a GA collaborative blog blossomed from there. Talk to others. They are there for the same reason you are.
* If you are attending with other friends, or colleagues, set up a meeting spot for getting back together later. A familiar spot like the entrance is an easy place to remember. This way you have someone to talk to at lunch or dinner.


DON'T (Stay Away)
*You don't want to leave with any questions. Talk to the others who attended your sessions. Ask them to help you understand difficult materials. Make a note of your questions, maybe you can email the speakers after the conference if you aren't able to catch them there.
* Try to do it all. Give your self some down time to let your brain process all the goodness you've crammed into it from your sessions.
* Neglect your Instagram account. Take tons of pictures! They are great reminders once the whirlwind of the day is done.

Are you getting excited as well?

I will be finalizing my sessions next month, so make sure you stay tuned for that!

The Educator's Room Conference is Coming to Atlanta!

Hey there, it's Gary again. The 4th grade teacher from Metro Atlanta.  From 2009 to now, I've had some major changes brought to my life through this little blog of mine. I've gone from a avid scrapbooker to a TeachersPayTeachers designer to a blog collaborator. It's never a dull moment around here. Which brings me to my reason for today's post.

Just thought I'd drop in and let you know about a little secret.

There's a really great opportunity coming to town for educators. The Educator's Room is a collaborative blog started in 2012 by Frachesca Warren to bring news about what's going on in today's classroom by the people who know, the teachers! Their blog covers topics that encompass all aspects of the teaching world, from instructional strategies, to legal matters, and opinions about current practices. You should give it a shout. I've already got my eye on the "Teacher Branding" article. I never thought that I need to live my brand as a teacher. I thought we were all doing the same thing, how am I different than the herd?

On July 17th (a Friday), they are going to bring their first ever conference of amazing speakers to the hallowed halls of the AMA Executive Center. The title for the conference is "Empowering Teachers as the Experts." Isn't that just thrilling? It is a one day event with several breakout sessions offered throughout the day. I can't believe how many different topics they will have on hand in the given time. The list of content is mind-boggling. Besides the usual Reading, Math, and Literacy, there are sessions on student behavior, classroom management, educational technology, and my newest interest branding.


And guess what? I've been invited to become part of the Blogger Brigade! Don't you just love that name???? I am very interested in seeing what is happening on the front lines of education. I am already feeling a shift in methods as our school embraces the new BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) movement this year. My students definitely jumped at the chance to bring in their devices. We had some talks about how and why to use them. Unfortunately, I've already had to remove some devices for a time to help them learn the proper use of electronics in the classroom. I am not downhearted by this, though. The outlets this brings into the classroom are endless, but still need to be handled appropriately. I know I will find some answers at the TEC2015.

Here's a little teaser from the list of scheduled events:
* Zap! Bam! Boom!  Math Strategies that Work with Felicia Young
* Building a Classroom Culture with Danquel Williams
* Gamification and Learning: Why our Education model must change with Cari Harris
* All Students are Motivated, are You? with Linda Darcy
* Guided Math: Meeting the Needs of All with Mandy Gregory
* Empowering Struggling Readers with Dr. Shakenya Harris-Jackson

WAAAY too many good ones to get them all in. I am going to have such a hard time trying to figure out which sessions to attend. But that's going to be all the more fun. This way the time between now and July will pass quickly as I juggle my decisions back and forth. Several of the sessions are repeaters, so if you can't get into it at one time, there's another chance later in the day.

This is an opportunity not to be missed! So head on over to The Educator's Room website and check out all the details coming to Atlanta this summer. Can't wait to see you there.

The Primary Peach Blog - Launch Party!! and Blog Hop

Hello to YOU!

If you found this page too early, you need to start out the Blog Hop on ThePrimaryPeach. But if you just arrived from The Fabulous Life of an Elementary Teacher's page, Welcome!

My name is Gary Fryns. I'm a fourth grade teacher currently educating young minds in Metro Atlanta. I've been teaching for a total of 24 years and have had 1, 2, 3, and now 4th grade experience. I started blogging in 2004 and turned to TeachersPayTeachers in 2013 as a way to share my ideas. This opened up a whole new universe for me.

Here I am with my favorite visiting author, Kristine Asselin.


On March 2 of this year Mandy Holland Gregory  of Mandy's Tips for Teachers sent out a call amongst the GA Bloggers group on Facebook. She wanted to know if there was any interest in creating a blog that we all contributed to on a routine basis. It wasn't long before over 25 people responded in the affirmative.

The Primary Peach was born. A blog intended to share ideas and strategies for elementary educators.

Want a chance to win one of four TpT Gift Certificates? There will be one GRAND PRIZE worth a whoppin' $50 TpT Gift Certificate, and three more lucky winners who will receive a goodly $25 TpT Gift Certificate! Head on over to the Primary Peach to enter the Rafflecopter. Good luck!

 

This collaborative effort of some amazing educators will launch this weekend. To introduce ourselves to y'all we thought it would be perfect to start with a little blog hop so you can visit with each of them along the way.

 

Just for you I created a little End of the Year poster (8.5 x 11) that you can hand out to your kiddos this year. They will fill it out with all the Insider Secrets to the teacher that a new student in your room would need to know. There's a HE and a SHE version included in the file. Click on the link beneath the picture for your goodie.

 

 

End of Year Letter to Future Students

 

Hope you find our little blog helpful and information and keep returning for new and exciting updates!!

 

Oh, btw. Watch for my blog post on the Primary Peach this coming Wednesday!




NOW, to continue with the blog hop, head on over to Amanda and Stacia's Colloboration Cuties page for your next freebie.

 

The Reading Game - A Review

A while back amidst the falling snow and freezing temperatures I told you about my Top Ten booths from the EdExpo. My #8 (no particular order) was for a company called The Reading Game run by Erika Bird and her father. Erika has such a great personality and was so easy to talk to she just drew myself and Felicia into her booth to see what she had in store.

Once she began displaying the game cards and materials and shared a quick version of the procedures my little brain was immediately thinking of those students in my class that would most benefit from this. I was telling Erika about one of my students that is reading on a First Grade level in Fourth Grade and how I thought this program would help solidify her sight word vocabulary. Erika offered to send me the game FOR FREE if I'd blog about it.

FOR REALS!!!

I did a little dance when I opened that package that arrived not too long after the Expo and had to jump right in. I called J (my student) over and started sharing the cards with her from set 1.

There is a set of color coded cards (six sets of cards in all) that introduce 5 new words at a time. Each set gets progressively harder. The cards are laid down in a Memory Game style and students flip cards over trying to make a match. They need to say the word on the card as they flip them over each time to help fast recall. J and I were playing and she was struggling a bit with some of the words from set 1. One of the boys in my class wondered over to see what we were doing. As J struggled he calmly pointed out letters and reminded her of the sounds.

I had such a huge smile on my face.

Once J could recognize the words and read them without trouble (we played several rounds) I pulled out the first book that incorporates the words introduced in set 1. After my initial read through I thought some of the sentences would prove difficult for J - there were complex sentences and such throughout the story. She did very well with it and wanted to move on. I call that a success!

I can't wait to share this with my colleague next door who just received a Non-English speaking student from Honduras. I'm very interested to see how it goes with her.

Thanks again Erika for the generous opportunity to try out this game!

Top Ten from Ed Expo 2015

I just got a surprise in the mail today. More about that in another post. But it reminded me that I haven't posted my top ten FAVS from the selling floor at this year's #edexpo2015.

In no certain order, here goes:

1. Redispace from Pathways - not only were they giving away samples of great pencil grips. They also had these European inspired composition notebooks that have pages filled with graph paper. This way students learn to write their letters in each box and properly space out their words, rather than these sloppy messes I've been seeing in my classroom lately.

2. Goldiblocks - a super cool Kickstarter project that finds a way to engage girls in engineering pursuits. You go, Girl!

3, Capstone - this leading distributor of educational literature has a brand new list of titles that perfectly meshes with my curriculum.  Almost every book I looked at elicited an "OOOH."

4, Essentials - Great writing titles to help kids understand the different genres and their nuances.  LOVE the Stella Writes series.

5. Kagan - if you aren't already familiar with this fun product line for the classroom, go check it out.

6. The Pencil Grip - they had so many different and progressive grips for kids I couldn't stop playing with them all.

7. Roylco - they had this super cool lightbox that students could play with color combinations, look at x-rays, and even a moving one that could seriously change my lessons on erosion.

8. The Reading Game - a great set of vocabulary sight words that builds into a child reading a correlated story independently.

9. Say It - a fun card game where students create stories from random
phrase cards.

10. Learn in Style - super fun multiplication wrist bands to help friends remember their facts.

I'm still trying to track down what the official top ten were from the entire expo.

Anyone know?

Leave me a comment~!

Edexpo 2015- Guest Blogger

Sometimes things just fall into place. 3PM on Saturday I just happened to catch a post from the GA Bloggers about a meet up. Not sure how I missed this in the first place, but okay. We met downtown at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta with about 50 other bloggers from around the country.

Turns out they are in town for an Educational Market Expo. They had been invited by the incredible Sherron to attend as guest bloggers at this dealer and exhibitor exclusive event. HOW do I miss these opportunities?? I wanted in!

I got up at the monkey butt of dawn and drove down to the Ga World Congress Center to see if by chance they had any open slots for people who didn't show up. My newest blogging buddy, Felicia McAtwell, already had an invitation but wasn't able to register yesterday, so I waited for to ride on her coattails if possible. The registrars were more than accommodating and I had a bonafide name badge and entrance to all the goodies within minutes.




I then spent the next eight hours walking up and down the aisles of the brightest, newest, most exciting products available in the educational market today. Oh, it was awesome.

Sherron asked us to list our ten best products witnessed during the event so they could announce the 'Best in Show' on Tuesday. Here's my list in no particular order:

1. Redispace composition notebooks from Pathways
2. Goldiblocks - engineering toys for girls
3. Capstone - their newest list of non-fiction was so spot on with my curriculum it was scary
4. Stella Writes series from Essential - perfect for different writing genres
5. Kagan - classroom management tools
6. Pencil Grip People - so many of my students have weird motor skills this year
7. Roylco Light box - just fun idea
8. Reading Game - sort of a memory match to build vocabulary then move to reading context
9. Say It - fun party game
10. Learn in Style - multiplication wristbands, better than flashcards

I will be sharing more reviews of specific items later. I just couldn't believe how awesome this weekend turned out to be and had to share!

R.A.C.E.S. booklet

Sitting in staff development classes is kind of a conundrum. The information is usually good, but if you're like me your mind is thinking of all the OTHER things you could be doing right now. As the county guy was hitting us with the scoring guide associated with the upcoming GA Milestones test, my brain was thinking, "How on Earth am I going to get my students used to this test formatting?" It's so different than the CRCT with all of its multiple choice questions. That in and of itself has its issues. But this new format asks students to write comprehensive essays in the FOURTH GRADE! I'm still struggling to get them to remember to put capitals and  punctuation, forget paragraphing.

Since my other lesson on Close Reading slowed the process down for students, I began to think how we could do that again with another article. The county guy shared (another) acronym to use with students in helping them prepare for these essays.

This sparked an idea to create a booklet for my students that broke down the process for them. We have this time during our morning schedule called DBQ (Document Based Questions) that I could use to have them conduct this lesson.

It starts with them reading an article I wrote about using electronics in school and how it helps improve your academics. There is a question after the article that asks what they think the main idea would be. So they brainstormed some ideas for what it might be for this article. We shared in class and looked for a common theme amongst them all.

Now I 'sound the gun' and they are off to the RACES! There's a page for each of the letters of the acronym as students build up their response to the question.  Citing evidence and explaining how it fits with the main idea puts meat on their essay bones.

The final day (or two) has them writing the essay with an introduction, their answer, evidence and reasoning behind it. They cap it off with their conclusive summary and we are done.

Right now, we have gotten up to the 'E' page. I'm happy with what I'm seeing them produce. Hopefully we are well on our way to preparing to knock out that essay come testing time.

Oh, you can find this booklet at my TpT store. Hopefully you can get some good practice out of it as well.

The Author is Coming! The Author is Coming!

I am so very excited! My good friend from college has managed to become an oft published author in the 20 or so years since we've graduated. I am so proud of Kristine Asselin , and yes, slightly jealous. With the upcoming release of her first YA novel, Anyway you Slice It, I thought it would be cool to have her come visit my school and talk to the kids about her process.

And she said YES!!

 

It took some finagling with my school's media specialist, emails and about 19 phone calls on Kris's part to other schools to secure two elementary sites for her to visit while she is down here. I mean why fly for three hours and only visit one school when you can grab two?

 

Right now Kris has a ton of non-fiction titles available through Amazon, Capstone, Barnes and Nobles, and even Walmart online. I love that so many of them fit perfectly with my Fourth Grade curriculum. I've managed to acquire some great titles.

 

 

The first one I bought was this:

 

 

 

 

I use it to start off every year. As it addresses how our great nation began. It's a perfect way to lead into our unit on Native Americans and how they arrived here 12,000 years ago. I can also see how their minds open up to new ideas as we take what they THOUGHT they knew about who discovered America and add new knowledge to their memory banks.

 

We also cover the Solar System each year and the students can't get enough of books that show actual photographs of stars and celestial bodies light years away. Shouts of "Look" and "Wow" always follow sharing this book. Kris also has a title just on the Sun that I want to pick up soon, so I can have her autograph them for me.

Later in the year we move into our unit on the American Revolution and what better way to start it off  than with something cool.

The boys especially think this title is way cool. It has great information about the War for Independence that we can't find in the history text. Such as the fact that arrows were much more accurate and deadly than the guns they had at that time.

Once our nation was established they needed to create a governing body. I always find this such an obscure section of history to teach to 9 year olds, but this book helps:

It adds some spice into a very dry curriculum. It has taken the information and presented it in a straightforward manner that the kids can easily understand.  This title has been reviewed for the School Library Journal, and Hornbook.

Kris is going to be conducting five sessions working with our Fourth and Fifth graders on writing informational pieces in her talk titled: Just the Facts, Ma'am. She has designed a couple of other great presentations that you can take a look at on her website. If you're interested in having her at your school let me know, I can put in a good word for ya!





Close Reading - A Beginning Lesson

 We've been doing a lot of staff development training at my school about Close Reading. Having more exposure and scenarios to draw from, it's starting to make more sense now. Getting the students to dig deeper into their understanding of a piece helps them practice picking out details and responding in much more elaborate ways.

 

I've tried the strategies of having interact with pieces for the past two years now. As they read a new piece they highlight certain information throughout. I have them draw a box around any key vocabulary, underline main ideas, put question marks next to statements that confuse them, and to draw a 'cloud' around any words they don't understand.

 

I've now learned to slow them down. Have them pick things out piece by piece and read with a purpose rather than try to make them accomplish it all in one go. We read an article from the Chicago Tribune about bullying through independently once just to get the 'flow.' It can be found on the Georgia Department of Education website in the Third Grade packet.

 

 

 



Then I had them write down what they thought the main idea of the WHOLE piece was about. We had talked about not picking out details from one section, but really thinking about what all of the information was saying together. I drew this chart and had the first student come up and read out his sticky note. Then he placed it in Quadrant One of the chart. Student two came up and read her sticky note, thought whether hers was similar Student One or did it warrant placing it in another Quadrant. We went on from there until all the stickies were on the chart. Not one of the ideas shared was wrong as to what the main idea could be. That was interesting.

 

By the end it was quite clear what the majority of the class thought the main idea of the piece was.

 

 

 

 

 

In the next lesson, a Second Read if you will, the piece was broken down into smaller sections already so we looked at each and discussed what we thought was the main idea of those. Once we had all of the section main ideas, we thought about how each were used to help out the overall main idea and wrote out explanation sentences.

 

For the Third Read, I set the purpose to be looking for the author's opinion. What words did they use to let the reader know how they felt about bullying. Students responded in the margins as to whether they agreed or disagreed with the author's opinion. Then we used this information to write a constructed response sharing our opinion as to whether we agreed or disagreed with the author.

 

Having the students go through the piece more than once with a set purpose allows them to focus on one big idea at a time rather than asking them to comprehend everything about it.  

 

Next week I'll be sharing a booklet I made with another Close Reading strategy. I'll have more to share once we've worked through that.

 

But for now I am pleased to see them thinking and paying attention to the passage in a more aggressive manner. That's sure going to be helpful come testing time.

Currently - January 2015

Starting the year off right. Joining up with Farley from Oh Boy, Fourth Grade for her awesome Currently blog linkie.

She's added in some rules, so make sure you read the fine print!

Okay, I'll just tell you:
- Once you link up your blog you go to the two blogs who linked up before you and leave MEANINGFUL comments ***Great idea for finding new blogs!***
- Visit the blog that links up AFTER you and leave some love
- You must link directly to your blog post for the January Currently, not to a store or something


So here's my first CURRENTLY board of 2015:

Listening: This is my newest addiction. I can learn right along with them.

Loving: It's only one more day, but I need it! Traveling across the country and visiting for the holidays takes it out of me.

Thinking: I finally have time to work on some new stuff and where is that extended text I need for it? Sitting on my desk at school. AAAHHH!

Wanting: My prime rib and bean soup has been cooking all day. It's time I ate me some!

Needing: Money, it always comes down to money. If you have any hanging around, would you send it my way? Please?

Yes: I've gotten so far away from the routine that helped me lose all that weight. Time to get back on it.

Maybe: I'm halfway through my supernatural thriller, Temple Hall. The outline is complete. I just gotta dig in and finish it.

I wish: My family is increasingly spread out every year. Wish I could get them all in one place. We've already set up some time throughout 2015 when we can get together. But it's usually only one or two other people at a time.

How's your January shaping up?

2015 - New Year's Resolution #1

Hi guys,
Remember me? It's been a while...again. I'm making my first New Year's resolution to be more committed to my TpT blog. You'll have to keep me honest with this one. I'm counting on ya!

I started off the year meeting up with some fellow Georgia Bloggers at a local restaurant. It was great getting to match some names with faces and picking up some great clues to try.

Just so you know, check out Plickers and Cahoots as some possible apps to share in the classroom. Thanks Deanna!

Here's a picture of my newest friends in 2015!

From left on back to right on back:

Natalie, Amanda, Jessica, April

Meghan, Felicia, Deanna

Georgia Bloggers Unite!

Sadly, I had to get back home and didn't take any cheesecake from the factory with me. So many sweets already waiting at the homestead.

Look to the Stars! Earth Science is such fun

My students always love talking about the universe. They come to me knowing tons about it already, and that's great. But as I slowly move through our curriculum guide I find that they aren't exactly clear how it all works. I have to stop every five minutes to answer the waggling hands in the air.

They have questions like, "Will a black hole suck up the Hubble Telescope?" Nope, kiddo. That telescope is in a low Earth orbit it isn't anywhere near a black hole.

"What will happen when our Sun dies out?" Our planet will more than likely wither away and become a cold barren rock.

Which leads to my next answer...

"No, you will not be around in the 10,000 years it will take for our Sun to burn itself out. Don't worry."

We usually take a look at our universe from the outside in. Starting with stars, moving to planets, and finishing with our Moon. I separate it into two sections of stars and planets and then the Moon. This way I can get more grades for the ole report card. Oh, and I've only got two weeks to cover all of this information. Don't you love it? We just took our stars and planets test today. I haven't graded those yet. I'm saving up all that fun.

I planned ahead for our Moon stuff this year. I had them start the Moon calendar as soon as we started talking about stars. This way we can at least see some of the phase changes for ourselves. Getting them to conceive how this happens on a cyclic pattern every month is difficult to say the least. But as we were filling in our Moon calendar they had tons of questions which will definitely help us later on (I hope).

Oh, and did I mention that we are doing our Moon Phase chart soon? Why am I excited? Because we use Oreo cookies to do it. YUM! It's a guilty pleasure to walk around showing them how to scoop out the cream to represent various phases while nibbling on a chunk of chocolatey goodness.

I've got some task cards up in my store that we use to quiz each other before we take an assessment. But my biggest fun is when they start bringing in their Solar System models. Who would have thought I'd get so excited over Styrofoam and poster board?

But that's just me.

Literal Conversations with Fourth Graders

I've been trying to get my Fourth Graders to have more conversations. No, not that kind. They definitely have NO trouble talking to each other.

I'm talking about more in-depth conversations where they take what another person has said and respond to it in a positive manner. Sitting in a group, taking turns, using good eye contact. All of that good stuff. This kind of skill can only help them with college work later on in life.

I started by posting some Sentence Stems around the room such as "I agree with ____ because," "I disagree with _______ because," "I see your point, but," "I can piggyback off of _________." I refer to them heavily as I model responses to what they say. When they get ready to respond to me I remind them to think about using some of these stems.

Next we created an anchor chart that brought out even more stems to use with each other. Plus I added in some reminders on good conversation behaviors. Here's what we came up with:

Then, through some staff development I learned some new techniques to help them move into writing their responses and then responding to someone else written response. I started using this 'Literal Conversation' sheet with my whole class as we read an integral part in Sign of the Beaver.

Students write down their own response then pass it to a partner. Partner has to read it and respond with either agreeing or disagreeing and adding their own take on it. Then they pass it back to the owner who reads and responds as well. They loved it!

Next I'll be trying something called a Discussion Roundtable with a group of four students where they respond to a posed question. Taking turns they each read out their response as their team members are taking notes on what they said. After all this, they take all the information they heard and write a summary of their final response.

After nine weeks of this stuff, I have witnessed them using the vocabulary and techniques on their own without any prompting. Does an old teacher's heart good!

Mentor Sentence Set 02 is up!!

I finally got off my tukis and started looking through some old projects. I couldn't believe it when I saw that I had four of the ten lesson sets done for my second Mentor Sentence pack. Why haven't I finished this already?

So I cracked down and got all the materials together. I listed several lessons I am currently trying to get my kiddos to comprehend. Then I pulled my current favorite books down off the shelf and figured out which ones fit which topics. It took me a couple of hours to seal up the final six, and it felt awesome! Too long I left it stagnant.

Here's a list of materials I used:

Week 11: Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson articles
Week 12: Miss Rhumphius by Barbara Cooney prepositions
Week 13: Sweetest Fig by Chris van Allsburg clauses
Week 14: Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown poetry – repetition
Week 15: Crazy Hair Day by Barney Saltzberg proper nouns
Week 16: My Brother Dan’s Delicious by Steven L. Layne compound subjects
Week 17: Trevor’s Wiggly Wobbly Tooth by Lester Laminack compound predicates
Week 18: Encounter by Jane Yolen figurative language
Week 19: Enemy Pie by Derek Munson Quotation Interrupters
Week 20: The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt Comparative Adj/Adv

One of my favorites that I was introduced to last year and can't wait to use again is

 

 

It's a clever little story giving those very erratic coloring utensils separate voices. And they have no qualms about using them either. I like these kind of cheeky stories that make me laugh. The kids love them and get so creative when I ask them to write their own letters as writing tools. Hilarious stuff indeed.

 

For this book I included the usual lesson plan - that you can read more about here - that is broken down into five day sessions. Here's a couple of screen shots of those plans.

 



 

I just posted Mentor Sentence Set 02 in my store which was in dire need of some fresh stuff. This made a total of 51 items in my store. There's always room for more though!


My brain is already thinking of some great stuff to work on next. If you want to see a sneak peek go check out my TDQ Reading Log homework.

I taught teachers!

Our AP (assistant principal) sent out a request for anyone willing to teach a staff development session. Choice was ours. I immediately thought of that awesome session I attended over the summer. You can read more about it here: Comprehension and Technology

It's a lot harder to plan for teaching teachers than I thought. I had to do a lot of research and testing things out to get ready for the big day. I made some mistakes and spent too much money on stuff before figuring out that there was a free way of doing the same thing. I had some thoughts on what to do, but I needed an overall theme for it to actually work.

That moment came on September 19 when Patricia Polacco announced on her Facebook page that her brother Ritchie had let go of the grass. I love her stories, and her older brother figures into many of them. I felt like I knew him and was saddened to hear of the loss.

But it got me thinking about how social media is enveloping our children on a daily basis. They need to be prepared for acceptable use. Some teachers are creating bulletin boards and using sticky notes to introduce their kids to the idea of posting and replying.

That got me thinking of how to approach such an idea and remembered using Kidblog in the past. It's a closed system that allows the teacher to control all of the postings. The teacher must release posts before they appear on the website so rude comments, or inappropriate responses can be filtered out. Through my research I found edmodo and that led me to Backchannel, a paid app to use through my account. This program will allow students to have a running commentary open for instant response to the teacher's lesson. I later learned that Todaysmeet.com does exactly the same thing, but for FREE!

So I put these things together in a prezi and was ready for the day. I was so technologically prepared, I was gonna knock their socks off!

My confidence wasn't solid though. I was a bit nervous that I wouldn't have enough material to make it through the entire hour. But that fear proved baseless once we got into it. There was a bit of a struggle getting everyone onto Backchannel so they could see the last picture of Ritchie before he died. I didn't tell them anything about it and asked them simply to respond to what they see.

Then I put up a picture of one of Patricia's illustrations of her and her brother and most of them got that right away. Finally, I posted up Patricia's Facebook status to connect it all. All the while they were typing thoughts and connections and responding to each other's posts. It was great.

I read them My Rotten Red-Headed Older Brother from Patricia so I could use it later in my piece on how to use KidBlog to increase literacy. Everything went very well and I had many smiling and nodding their heads. It is such a great feeling!

I wonder if they need any other staff development taught??

Sunday Scoop - Only it's Monday

I just found a fun new Linky Party over at the Teaching Trio. It's a short and sweet kinda way to get ready for the week ahead.

Oh Snap! Rounding Card set

At our last grade level meeting we were trying to brainstorm some great ideas to help our students with rounding. We were trying to figure out a way to have the students play a card game that might include some rounding. It wasn't working out exactly how we wanted.

I went home with Rounding on the brain and started googling some fun kid card games and found one that might work called Snap. It was pretty basic having the players turn over a card from a draw pile until a match was made. Whoever yelled, "Snap!" first won the hand. It got me thinking.

The idea for Oh Snap! Rounding version was born.

I brought the card set with four different colors and levels into the classroom the next day and let the kids play around with it. They immediately took to it and wanted to put in each of the higher, and harder, levels.

I videotaped them playing a round here if you are interested:

The card set is up for grabs at my store here.

The red card set is the first level where the numbers are written to the hundreds place. The students have to round to the nearest tens for each card. The second level is up to the thousands and rounding to the hundreds. There are two more levels that add more place values as you go.

The higher the levels go the more closer some of the numbers round to. So you really have to be paying attention in order to win the hand.

Fun times!

Place Value Stations Check Up

Hi y'all,
I told you I would be back once I had used all of the Math Place Value Stations in my room.

The kids seemed to take well to the idea of playing 'games' while learning math. I had introduced a few to them and then showed them the rest.

Each group go to pick one and play it until Math Workshop was over. A lot of them asked for the 'Go Fish' style game, Rustle Up Some Vittles. I did have to explain what Rustle and Vittles meant, but they got it. You should have seen how large their eyes got when I said that the Red Level card set had numbers in the Millions Place. You'd think they'd never seen a number that high before. I'm afraid to share what the National Debt is with them.

All of them are now in a separate bucket and many want to take stuff out when they've finished their work. Snake Bite is a huge hit for some reason.

They caught on quickly to the concepts and are enjoying them. That's what I wanted most when I set out to create this pack, so color me happy. I like that I can pull these games out further down the road, but on the higher levels once they master the concepts. Or not. We'll see.

Made it Monday - Donorschoose Project 2

I was so thrilled and honored that my Donorschoose project from last year got funded. The children loved using our new cameras and many would 'forget' to bring their regular one to class so they could have a chance to play with the really cool features.

Well, I'm at it again. This year though I want to go Tech Heavy in my classroom and get kids thinking on a much more interactive level. I went to a staff development over the summer that showcased how to incorporate tablets into your classroom. The speaker, Kristin Ziemke, spoke about having her first graders using it to conduct web cam reviews of material they were studying. It was mind-blowing. You can read my earlier post here.

When my principal announced that our school was going BYOD (Bring your Own Device) status, I was doing a jig. But when school started and not one of the 26 students brought a device, I was worried that all my ideas would fizzle out.

So back to Donorschoose I go. I put up a new project just in time because Bill Gates and his wife are doing a special offer where they will fund HALF of the project if we can get the other half funded. Wow! A free tablet for my classroom? Yes, please!

The project link went live early Sunday morning and I've already raised $250! That leaves me with only about $300 more to go. If you could find it in your heart to donate, even a little bit, to our classroom my students will have access to top notch applications and no one will have to fight for who gets to use the tablet next.

Here's a great letter that Donorschoose puts out to give you all the details:

Hi Friends,

I want to make sure my students have the materials they need to succeed, so I just created a request for my classroom at DonorsChoose.org:

iDonate for the Future

Give to my classroom by August 31, 2014 and your donation will be doubled thanks to DonorsChoose.org. Just enter the code INSPIRE on the payment page and you'll be matched dollar for dollar (up to $100).

If you chip in to help my students, you'll get awesome photos and our heartfelt thanks.

Thanks so much,
Gary

P.S. If you know anyone who may want to help my classroom, please pass this along!

Place Value Stations and a TpT Second Chance Sale

How sad were you to see the annual TpT Back to School Sale come and go? That meant that school was starting and life was about to descend again. If you're like me summer came and went way too quickly. I was mired in a home remodel that took up way too much of  my time. I really wanted to spend some idle time creating some killer stuff for my TpT store.

Yeah, that didn't happen. It was too frenetic so I didn't get much anything done. But the workers are gone and the house has been officially released back into our hands. With that pressure being released my mind could get back into the groove of things and start creating again.

It felt so great coming up with ideas for my Place Value Stations pack. One of the areas I struggled with our new Math Workshop model last year was not having fun and engaging activities to help my students extend their knowledge. I wanted this kit to be something I would really use.

I created six Math games that deal with Place Value - reading, comparing, and rounding larger numbers. This is usually our first skill of the year and I wanted to crank it out to test run them in my own room. I have a broad spectrum of abilities in my room so I definitely needed to differentiate these stations. Each of the 6 games has three different versions, so essentially there are 18 games in all.

And I have them all done! Whoo HOO.

I am thankful that I have a test group to run these games through. They found that ONE mistake that I know y'all appreciate me fixing before sending your way. They had a lot of fun running around the room to play the Round Up Them Doggies. I posted ten posters around the room that have a rounded number at the top and a question at the bottom. Students are given an answer sheet and their small group was given a card to start with. They were to solve the problem on each card, record it on their sheet and then find the card in the room that has there answer on it. Then solve the next question and so forth until they had answered all ten cards.

The next station is called Around the Corral. Students play against one other person. They roll dice and each move that number of spaces around their game board. Both compare their numbers written in standard, word, or expanded. Whoever has the larger number gets to pick up a counter. The person with the  most counters at the end wins the game.

My group is having difficulty reading numbers that are larger than thousands place. They really do have the basics for reading numbers and I know they will easily pick up larger values. These games hopefully will give them added practice in a fun engaging way.

I'll be posting how they respond to the other four games, so be on the lookout.

For now the games are already up at TpT and you can get them here:

Place Value Stations


OooOoOOh, but hey, if you wait until Wednesday, August 20th, TpT is having a Second Chance Back to School Sale for ONE MORE DAY!!

You can grab this pack for 20% less, or not and I can finally afford those extra Oreos for my class and our Moon Unit.

Leave  me some comments below to let me know how you plan on using this pack.