Primary Word Wall Headers

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On Friday I shared a quick peek at some word wall headers that I made for my new 1st grade classroom. I am so happy with how they turned out. I got them all cut and laminated today. Happy girl here!

I also mentioned that...and I quote..., "I'll get them on TpT sometime next week...maybe..."

It's Monday (late at night, but still Monday!!) and they're up!!

That has to be classified as a miracle. 

Head over to TpT and snag them if you'd like. 

I must get to bed...someone has wisdom teeth coming out tomorrow!

Mega Management: Transitions

Coming at ya with the 4th post in my series:

Post 1: Series Kickoff. Why Classroom Management

Post 2: Entering the Classroom

 Post 3: Turning in Homework

 

Today we're talking about transitions. I love using a bell (the kind you ding, not shake) to signal a transition is coming, but my favorite transitions tool is Word of the Day.

Here's how it works:

Each morning I introduce the Word of the Day. We discuss the meaning of the word and how it can be used in different sentences.

The students know that when it's time to transition they're not allowed to move until they hear the Word of the Day. For example, when changing from Math to Language, and if the Word of the Day were voyage, I might say something like this:

"I'm looking for whole body listeners.

(Proceed when you have everyone's attention)

When (emphasize when in the beginning)

you hear the Word of the Day

I'd like you to clean up your math practice

and have your language books open to page 125. 

The word of the day is voyage."

Later I might ask for the definition of the Word of the Day prior to saying the word. Or I might say, "Today's word of the day means a long trip or journey. The word is____." The students will fill in the word when I pause. 

Here is a FABULOUS video from Teaching Channel where Ms. Noonan shares how she uses the Word of the Day and some other cool ways to manage transitions. 

Building Mathematical Comprehension- Chapter 2

 

I'm back for a "hit the high points" review of chapter 2 in Laney Sammons' book, Building Mathematical Comprehension: Recognizing and Understanding Mathematical Vocabulary. If you missed Chapter 1 you can read about that here. 

Thanks to Thinking of Teaching, Still Teaching After All These Years, and My Second Grade Journal for hosting this week. 

I'll continue putting my personal thoughts and reflections in italics. 

Chapter 2
This chapter is all about mathematical vocabulary. This was especially exciting to read about after the last day of my Thinking Maps training because we had a whole activity based on tiered vocabulary. Chris Yeager, one of the authors of the Thinking Maps training manual, has a quick post about the CCSS shift from Tier 3 to Tier 2 words. You can check that out here. 

The big takeaway for this chapter: The teaching of tier 2 and 3 words must be explicit. (46) This teaching is critical to solid mathematical comprehension. This of course applies to other content areas as well, not just math. 

Takeaway 2: There was a lot of push towards allowing students to develop definitions in their own words rather than dictionary definitions or teacher given definitions (47).

This made me think of two things: the importance of math journals where students can reflect on their learning and it also caused me to rethink they way I currently do vocabulary instruction. I usually give definitions to students rather than letting them construct their own. Thinking maps are a great way for me to change this in class.

Takeaway 3: Let vocabulary development follow concept development (55).  In other words, it's okay to teach vocabulary AFTER the students understand the concept of what you're trying to teach. 

This was a completely different approach than I had ever thought of. It makes sense though because I recall throwing out tier 3 vocabulary with a little explanation at the beginning of a lesson and it's like deers in the headlights. I think this is a great principle to follow for vocabulary instruction. 

Takeaway 4: The textbook should not be the sole source of vocabulary words for instruction (59).

In my class I usually focus on the few vocabulary words that the textbook highlights and don't really consider what other words my students might need clarified. This is especially important when it comes to problem solving. It's where those tier 2 words really make a difference. 

Later in the chapter Laney gives a ton of ideas for ways to have students engaged in discourse using mathematical vocabulary, from graphic organizers to games to word walls and vocabulary notebooks.  

Again, coming off of this Thinking Maps training, it was neat to see how I was able to take almost every graphic organizer and translate it into a Thinking Map. 

For example:

Frayer Diagram (71)- segmented Circle Map

Venn Diagram (72)- Double Bubble Map

Venn Diagram with Rings (73)- Brace Map

These are/These are not chart (74)- Tree Map

Concept Map (76)- Circle Map (or Tree Map)

I definitely have Thinking Maps on the brain!

Now go #getyourmathon 

Spruced up Spelling

Curriculum planning- check
Organize teacher binder- check, check
Conquer the content....

Ok, so that last item sounds too daunting to tackle at once, so I'm going to go one by one. That's hard for me because that means focusing on one thing for possibly several days. Not pleasant. It's why I gave up trying to learn big, complicated quilting patterns. I don't have the patience for that. Give me a "finish in an hour" sewing project and I'm all over it. 

I do have a set curriculum that I have to use, but I'm going to give myself permission to spruce it up a little. (Since I just passed on my blog info to our vice principal I'm going to insert a big smile and  hug for Mrs. T...just in case she's reading) I started with spelling. No particular reason for starting there, other than it sounded easy.

The only reason it sounded easy is because the amazing Beth Newingham shared her amazing word study program in her Scholastic blog (check it out here). I had read the post prior to last school year, fell in love with the program, and had it up there on my list of things to implement in class. Well, with only 5 days to set up a classroom, it goes without saying that I never made that happen. 


My major setback for implementing a program like Beth's is timing. After a year in the class I realize that I may not have time to spend 20-30 minutes a day on word study, which is unfortunate because it's so important. So this year, I'm going to implement what I can. With the other tweaks I plan on making to other areas of the curriculum (smiles again Mrs. T), I may find that the following year I'll have time for a baby Newingham word study program to be flourishing in my classroom. Anyone else have a Newingham-ish program going on in their class?


Here's how I started taking baby steps.

Step One: Identify Spelling Patterns
I took our spelling curriculum (A Reason for Spelling-Level D), and mapped out the spelling patterns for each list. Sort of feels all over the place. Ok, woosah (man, I had to look that one up too) as my husband would say. I can do this!

Step Two: Incorporate High Frequency Words
I found a list of 1,200 high frequency words very nicely explained when I Googled "sitton high frequency word list". The Google result is a .doc file and I can't figure out how to get to the original source, so thank you to the faculty member from Southern Utah University who put this resource on the web for me to snatch. If you can't find it through Google, send me a quick message and I'll get you a copy. I am going to use Beth's student sheets for marking high frequency words. She has them in groups of 100 and you can get the documents through her post. See the link up towards the top. 

Step Three: Vocabulary
Our curriculum across the board is pretty weak in vocabulary instruction so I thought I'd sneak in a little with spelling. Our curriculum has weekly lists of 18 words so I chose two of those words to make into vocabulary words. I created 3rd grade friendly definitions for 2 words from each list. 

Step Four: Homework
I liked the idea of Beth's cover letter with her homework. I created something similar where I could explain the spelling pattern, list the spelling words, list the vocabulary words and definitions, and give space for students to fill in their high frequency words. I slightly modified the tic-tac-toe spelling grid that Beth shared.   

Step Five: Assessment
I followed a similar format for my testing page, but modified it to include my vocabulary words and to exclude the "new pattern words" that Beth refers to. I'll also only be giving one list per week so aside from having students test each other on high frequency words I can administer the whole test myself. I will require students to know the full definition for the vocabulary words. They don't have to use them in a sentence on the test. High frequency words will be used in sentences. Students will keep a log of missed words and after every 5th week, they'll have a list composed of those missed words. I'll have to come up with some challenge lists for my super spellers!

I'm pretty happy with my goals for spelling this year. I think this will be a manageable transition. I'm excited to see how it works in "real time."  Here's to inching out on that limb!