Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Classroom Calendar

So here's my calendar in all its glory:
(You can tell I took this picture a couple of days ago!)
Calendar just might be my FAVORITE part of the day! There are so many things you can incorporate into calendar time - the usual patterns, counting to 180, etc. But do you incorporate even & odd numbers? Place value? Music? I loooove calendar time. Maybe I love it most of all b/c it's predicatble for the kiddos, it's an easy way to start the day and get into the routine, and you never really have to prepare for it!

Last year at our school there was a big push in K-1 to cut down on calendar time. Our block went from 30 minutes (which included songs, poem of the week in my class, some movement/dancing to get ready for the day, etc.) to 10 minutes. I was pretty bummed, I mean calendar was so fun! Cut it by two-thirds?

This year, when setting up my calendar, I took a much more minimal approach. I decided to start with the bare minimum and see what I had time for, and then add more stuff in if we were having extra time each day. I guess I kind of set it up backwards and upside-down, but now I know to think about this for next year. We start each day with the actual calendar grid. We talk about the month, day of the week, and date. We discuss the pattern and where I should stick the number onto the calendar. Then we put a straw in the pace value pocket chart for the number of days we have been in school. Lastly we go through that $1 Spot pocket chart and fill in the information to match the calendar and the number of days of school. I LOVE that I color-coded that thing, it makes it so much easier for my friends to understand where the numbers come from when we write the date shorthand (like 10-16-11).

I think in the 2nd quarter I want to add tally marks for the days of school. I have always done this in the past. I know they didn't fully understand the tallies last year in kinder, but I was at least giving them the foundation and exposing them to math concepts. Will firsties understand tallies if we do it every day?

What does your calendar board/block look like?

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Random Thoughts

So I went to school for a couple hours this weekend (we haven't had a work day since the first day of school, and we don't have one for a looooong time, except 1st Q conferences) and as I cleaned some stuff out I came up with a few things I wanted to share with y'all!

Last year, I went through a bazillion ziploc bags b/c everytime we played a new math game, I'd use 10 to put the partner's math materials together for the kiddos. This year I'm going green - I found these snack containers at Target 6 for $2. Two packs only cost me $4 (obvs) and they will last me at least this whole year, and hopefully a few more years. I just stick these containers and any necessary gameboards in the center basket, and the group is good to go!
Up and Up snack containers from Target

One of my K team members last year showed me these things - UH MAY ZING! So quick and easy, and with as many times as our laminator has been broken this year these have saved my life a couple times this year. Not as cheap though - usually about 5 for $2-$4 depending where you find them. (Thanks, Amanda!)
Scotch Self-Sealing Laminating Pouches
Ziploc bags are on our kiddos' supply list EVERY year in the usual sizes - snack size, sandwich, quart, gallon. We get all kinds, from name brand to some craziness, as I'm sure you already know. In the rush of putting things away this year I didn't even notice that one lil friend brought in these: 2 gallon ziploc bags! I had no idea these existed (my kids bring in so many I never have to buy them)!
This box only had 10 inside. Looking for a way to store the games for each math unit, I remembered these. 9 units and 10 bags means awesome organization! I'm so excited for this - it's so much cheaper than the boxes I bought last year at $2 a box that nothing fit in. In case you can't tell from the picture, that orange gameboard is an 8.5x11 piece of cardstock. These bags are huge!
Ziploc 2-Gallon Bags

Well that's the end of my randomness for tonight. I hope somebody got a good idea from this!

P.S.: You know you're a new(ish) teacher when you get psyched about ziploc bags. :)

Saturday, October 15, 2011

First Freebie!

Hey y'all - I just realized my poem of the week for this week is about even and odd numbers - and I haven't talked about this with my kids at ALL! I figured I should whip something up pretty quick to teach this, so here it is:

Click on the pic for your freebie!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Teachers Pay Teachers

I've just posted my FIRST two items on TpT and I couldn't be more excited!

Today I attended the first session of a Math PD I am registered for, in the pouring rain. But it was great! A lot of it was the same as the Common Core PD I attended in July, but it was good review. Then at the end of the session we were talking about problem-solving strategies for the littles.

HOW PERECT!

I just devised my own story problem-solving strategy last week! It was one of those mid-lesson, mid-sentence, "hold on guys 'cuz I think I'm gonna teach you something" moments. I'm so proud of it.

So far I've only showed it to one of the girls I work with and she thought it was great, and these math facilitators at this other school today thought it was pretty awesome. It was actually one of the facilitators of our PD that suggested I put my strategy on TpT, so here I am!

Check out my first product here:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/NOW-Answer-Problem-Solving-Strategy

Please leave me some feedback!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Poetry Packet, Part Deux

So where do I find my poems?

I LOVE to look on ProTeacher, or sometimes I just google if there is a particular theme I'm trying to match up with. I also found a couple of books on Scholastic's Teacher Express. Sometimes they do sales like $1 eBooks, or most recently, they gave $10 free. I got 10 eBooks for $0!

I like to use poems that teach something if it's not a holiday or theme week. Like this week, we are doing a poem with color words. Next week our poem is called "Ways to Remember" (I can't remember where I got this from, let me know if it's you!). It talks about how to remember which is the left and which is the right but it rhymes and it is adorable effective!

Poetry Packet

I have always done Poetry Packet with my kiddos. My Cooperating Teacher during student teaching did poetry packet, and I loved how much she was able to teach through a poem of the week. I know many other teachers do something similar, but since a coworker asked about it today, I thought I would share how I do poetry packet!

We have a new poem each week, and we read it at the end calendar time / beginning of literacy as a good transition. I project the poem onto the whiteboard with the LCD projector and point to the words as I/we/they read it. That way I can model their "must-do" before we go into centers.

Each poem has a short activity to go with it - for example, our color words poem has a box at the bottom for students to write their favorite color and draw a picture of something that is that color.

On Mondays, students' "must-do" is to complete the activity with the poem. Or if there's no activity, draw a picture to accompany the poem.
On Tuesdays, students highlight sight words with a yellow crayon.
On Wednesdays, students trace vowels with a red crayon.
On Thursdays, students trace punctuation with a green crayon.
On Fridays, students read the poem silently three times.

Since we seem to have less time in our schedule this year to spend on Poetry Packet, I have included the poems in students' take-home binders (BEACH Books). This way students carry their poems home and back everyday, and reading the poem of the week is part of their nightly homework. It gets parents involved too! As parents see what their children are working on each day in the P.P. those conversations help to reinforce all that we are learning at school - and I always love that!