Sunday Scoop 10/25/15

Hello!

I'm excited to link up with Teaching Trio for their Sunday Scoop Linky Party!

Here's my Scoop!

I just finished my lesson plans, which is a relief. It's Pumpkin Week, so the week will be filled with all things pumpkin!

As for getting to bed early, I just don't know. It seems that I get revved up about 8 PM. I find all sorts of little distractions to keep me from getting to bed by my goal of 9 PM. I'm laughing, because I only go to bed at 9 PM if I'm sick. 

Making my lunch is another thing I hate to do. I have everything I need to make a spinach salad. I WILL do this one! Otherwise, I'll only have Leftover Halloween Candy Bark that I made for my teammate's birthday. It's yummy. (Yes, I taste-tested it.) However, it won't be the healthiest or most energizing lunch. 

I hope to get to school early. I always hope to get there earlier than I do. I am simply not a morning person. I cherish my mornings to wake up, reflect, pray and get psyched up for a busy day. Laundry? Eh, ain't gonna happen tonight. My clothes are ready for tomorrow, so I'm covered on that one.

I am happy to find a great movie to watch. I've been on an old movie kick lately. I watched High Society, last night, and it was so cute! Have you ever noticed how clearly actors enunciated in old movies? I love that! No mumbling! 

I'm off to find tonight's movie. 

Have a GREAT week!

Linky Party - Daisy Dollar Days

Happy Sunday!

**NEWSFLASH** -- Follow me on Instagram -- @grade2hullabaloo

I'm linking up with Daisy Designs for a brand new, every-other-Sunday linky party that features a STEAL of a DEAL from my TPT store. After you grab this great freebie, head over to Daisy Designs to grab other $1 deals. Hurry! It will only last 24 hours!

You'll love this October goody. It's a Pumpkin Glyph with three ELA interactive notebook writing activities. This glyph is perfect for your pumpkin week activities. It gets students reading, problem solving, and interacting with reading directions.

It's on SALE for just $1!

The scarecrow writing flippable is adorable, and it involves students in thinking about characters' points of view.

What does a scarecrow think? 

Your students will tell you with this activity! Use your scarecrow books as mentor texts for inspiration. My students just finished this craftivity, and their thinking was precious and original!

Scarecrow Point of View Reader Response
and Root, Comparative, Superlative Pockets

Happy Halloween Week... or Pumpkin Week... I hope it's exciting and filled with smiles, peace and learning fun!

Five for Friday - 10-23-15

This has been a tough week. I was off on Monday for fall break. Monday night, my ear started hurting. You know, the kind of hurting that tells you a doctor's visit is going to happen. I taught all day Tuesday, because it was too late to get a sub. I missed Wednesday and yesterday, but I went in at 3:30 on Wednesday afternoon to finish the last half of parent conferences. Dedication, right? Maybe, but I didn't want to reschedule eight conferences and disrupt all those parents' schedules... and mine. TGIF is in order! I am wiped out!

Today was filled with assessments: Mad Minute and DSA. My kiddos are doing well with their math facts! I think it's because I have two parents who come to work with the children on their facts each week. DSA (Developmental Spelling Assessment) results showed that my kiddos are growing as spellers! Having spelling groups AND reading groups is tough to manage, but it's paying off in the results department.

We're celebrating a teammate's birthday on Monday. Each of us takes a turn bringing a treat for the team to have at lunch. It's my turn! I'm going to make Leftover Halloween Candy Bark, even though Halloween isn't over.I hope I can make mine look half this neat. 

It never fails. When I'm getting into a work or writing groove, this guy always decides that he needs my attention. When he wants attention, there's nothing to do but love on him until he gets bored with me. His name is SkippyJack. He's very much like Skippy Jon Jones. That's how he got his name.

Do you have big plans for the weekend? Me? No. I'm going to finish my lesson plans, work on a TPT product, and binge on Netflix. Gotta save my strength for PUMPKIN Week! And a field trip. 

Happy, restful weekend...

Five for Friday - October 16

I am officially on fall break! It couldn't have come at a more perfect time. The weather is going to be pleasant, and I have a to-do list a mile long. Number 1 on the list is resting! Here are five random things on my mind right now.

My announced observation was on Wednesday. Our GO Math chapter focus was on addition and subtraction relationships. It wrapped up with a few lessons on arrays. I chose one of these lessons for my observation. The day before the observation, the children found real life examples of arrays in the classroom. They worked as partners to take pictures of them with our two iPads. I also gave them an optional homework assignment of emailing me a picture of any arrays they found in their homes. I printed the pictures to use as a review in my observation lesson. The main activity, after the required GO Math! lesson (it's a district mandate that we use the new GO Math! series with fidelity), was having the children partner-up and make their own array with dot painters. Below is our hallway display of all of the arrays. They did a great job, and the arrays they found at home were so clever! In this day and age of high technology, it's great to be able to connect home and school so easily! If you'd like a copy of the Hooray for Arrays set, here you go!

Note: If you use GO Math!, this complements lesson 3.11 very well!

We had fall parties this afternoon. My room mom and I decided that it would be great to have it outside if the weather cooperated. The weather was perfect! My super room mom had the egg and spoon relay, tug-of-war, pumpkin hockey (with broom hockey sticks and real, small pumpkins), wrap a mummy (with toilet tissue) and a game of Duck, Duck, Goose! This woman thought of everything! She brought blankets for the kids to sit on as they ate their monster donuts and other goodies. I think there was at least one parent there for every one of my students. We even had a grandmother! It was an awesome party! 

There was one bittersweet part of the party; one of our classmates is moving, so we had a little going away present for him. It was a kickball with our signatures. His classmates made cards for him. I think he was a little overwhelmed with everything. We'll sure miss his sweet demeanor, but we'll keep him in our hearts. 

Have you heard of Shipt? It's a grocery shopping and delivery service. I hate to go grocery shopping! Hate it with a passion! So, when I saw a piece on the local news about this service, I decided to give it a try. There is a Shipt app that has about 40,000 grocery items listed. Usually, I'm happy with peanut butter, cheese, bread, apples, bananas, cat food, kitty litter and Diet Dr. Pepper. In just a few minutes, I downloaded the app, signed up, selected my groceries, and BAM! Groceries delivered at the one-hour timeframe I designated. The young man who was doing the shopping even texted me a couple of times to verify information or to ask me about substitutes. The monthly fee is $14, or I can subscribe for a year for $99. That's for unlimited deliveries! I think I'm in love!

I had the post conference for my announced observation yesterday morning, and it went very well! My principal is a stickler for going by the state TEAM rubric (as she should be!), and she was very impressed with the level of higher order thinking my sweet kiddos are doing. I guess all those How? and Why? questions are beginning to pay off! 

By the way, there are twelve instructional indicators of the instruction rubric, and three for the planning rubric. Talk about intimidating! My 30-minute observation was evaluated on all fifteen indicators. Writing the lesson plan took about three hours. There is also a rubric for professionalism and environment. If you'd like to take a look at the instruction, environment and planning rubrics, you can view them here. Does your state use the same rubric or something different? I would love to hear about it!

Don't you just love these memes? They crack me up!

Did I mention that I am officially on fall break? Let the marathon Netflix-watchin', sleeping late, TPT product-finishing-begin! 

Happy weekend!

Pumpkin Related Facts FREEBIE!

I'm excited to share this freebie with you! I created it to complement a GO Math lesson on how addition and subtraction are related. My students were engaged and excited to create their Pumpkin Related Facts Flip Books. Grab a copy here!

Happy Monday!

5 for Friday - October 9

I realized, as we were dismissing today, that I hadn't posted pictures of our animal research projects. They're on display in the hallway, and they are coming down tomorrow to make room for scarecrow glyphs and writing next week. I had the children position themselves as their selected animal, and I took pictures of them. Some of the children were so creative in their poses, and their final products turned out so cute! The animal info wheels came from a unit I bought on TPT. It's from Having Fun in First's Desert Unit. The children used my Animal Research and Writing Organizers to organize their notes before creating their poster and animal info wheel. 

Doesn't this child look like he is floating in the ocean?

Look at that pose!

We have chicks! Sadly, only two chicks hatched, and none of our duck eggs hatched. However, the two chicks that we have are entertaining us with their squeaks and hops! We'll be working quietly, and then we'll hear some chirping and squeaking from Salt and Pepper. Yes, that's what the kiddos named them! Below is a picture of them when they were still in the incubator. Salt, the buff colored one, still has a little piece of eggshell on his bottom in this picture! How cute are they?!

How do you assign homework? Do you find that it feels like a chore instead of meaningful review for your students? My teammates and I decided to go the route of open-ended homework this year. There are a couple of non-negotiables -- read for 20 minutes each night and practice math facts --  but for the most part, it is open-ended. I don't require a reading log, because I feel the children see it as something they HAVE to do, not as a way to celebrate what they have read. I encourage them to read, and I explained this to parents at open house. 

My students have an organizational POP (Perfectly Organized Panthers) binder in which they have the typical info -- calendar, class roster, schedule, etc. However, this year, I included a homework journal. It's a spiral notebook in which the students and I have an ongoing conversation with one another. Two to three weeks a month, I'll ask a question, such as, "What do you like to do on the weekend?" Recently, I asked how I am doing as their teacher. I asked what they thought I was doing well, and what they thought I should work on. They were very sweet in their responses. Below is one of the replies I received. I answer each one, and it takes time, but I feel that I am building a stronger relationship with them. Usually, there are about ten students out of my nineteen who respond to my question. I think that's a pretty good response rate for an optional homework assignment!

We have four days of school, next week, and then we're off for fall break. I have my announced observation on Wednesday, so I'll be working on my lesson plan this weekend. We also have the first report cards to send home on Wednesday, and fall parties are Thursday, so next week is going to be busy!

I'm looking forward to having Friday and Monday off to work on a few projects at home and to be a bum! I usually go to the beach, but this year I decided to skip that trip to save for a bigger trip to... CUBA! I'm still researching it, but it looks like there are several good options. One includes volunteering on a sea turtle adventure! I don't know if I'll do that, but it does sound appealing. Do you have a fall break? Are you counting the days until you have a little break to recharge your batteries? I am!

Finally, I want to wish you a happy and restful weekend! You've earned it. Take time to reflect on the positives and let the negatives go. 

Modeling Constructed Responses

Hello!

We have been working on solving story problems. Solving story problems involves a two-pronged set of skills for second graders. First, they must be able to comprehend the message of the story while using strategies in their toolbox to solve it. The second, more difficult, prong is that of explaining how and why they solved it the way they did. 

Dissecting their thinking process is challenging, because children have to stop and think about what they've just thought about! If I were a complete teacher nerd, I would throw out the term meta cognition. BTW, I am a complete teacher nerd, as one of my friends calls herself. It's a compliment! Back to the point...

So many of the steps in solving a problem take place rapid-fire in children's minds. The question asks how many in all. I know I have to add. These two thoughts may only take a split second, and a child might not be aware that they just thought through those steps. I use think alouds to help my students analyze their thinking to explain how and why they solved a problem. This process takes some patience and many examples of modeling, but I believe the time invested is worth it. Below is how I do it.

First, we read the problem. I start explaining what I know, and what I think the 'boss' is. The boss is question. I explain to my students that I often talk through math problems, because hearing it helps me to understand it. I'll have them whisper into the palm of their cupped hand what they did. We do this in every subject! I'm convinced that this helps them organize their thoughts before sharing them with the class or before writing them on a practice page.

As we are finding the boss, we also highlight the keywords. We also highlight the boss. I'll ask them to give me a "Woo" or some other silly sound when they hear an important word as I read the problem aloud. This keeps everyone engaged. Once the keywords have been identified, I'll think aloud about the boss. What is it asking me to do? Are there some words there that give me a hint about which operation I should use? I pause here to review which operations we use in second grade. They really need this review of proper math terms! I make a big deal of explaining how I know to add or subtract. "I know that I should add here, because the boss is asking me to find how many there are in all." 

Once I'm sure of my operation, I'll think aloud about how I could show this in the workspace. "I could draw a picture," I might say. "Or, I could use tally marks." Once I decide how I'm going to illustrate solving the problem, again, through thinking aloud, I'll illustrate, and then begin writing my explanation. 

I'll start from the beginning and write what I said in my think aloud. I'll ask for help from the audience. I'll ask them to whisper into their hand what they think I should write next. Again, engagement!  Below is a photo of one of the problems I recently modeled. In this particular example, I use BOLO (be on the lookout) as a fun way to engage the children in finding keywords and the boss. I told a wacky story about a police dispatcher giving a BOLO for the boss of a story problem. It was corny, but my sweet kiddos laughed!

Once I've modeled the problem and how I explain my thinking, I wash the whole thing down the virtual drain and have the children try it on their own. I don't mind if they mimic some of what I did and said, because it provides a safety net to help them structure their response. We do the same thing the next time I have a story problem for them. And the next... and the next... until I see that most of them understand the process. If there are some who need small group intervention, I'll pull them aside to walk them through the process.

On this particular day, I was lucky to have a substitute SPED TA in my room helping me. She is a veteran third grade teacher who gave me a great compliment on this process. I was very gratified that someone with third grade expertise gave me the thumbs up! 

I hope this gives you some ideas for helping your students draft constructed responses for story problems! Your third grade teachers will thank you!

The story problem in the photo is from my October Story Problems resource, found here. 

Happy Wednesday!