Looking Ahead...A Linky Party

I'm so glad that I blog hopped my way over to Kim's pad, Finding Joy in 6th Grade.   

 

She's hosting her first linky party; a time for looking ahead to next school year (I'm glad I'm not the only one already making plans!) and taking note of those things we know we'll be doing differently. 

When I sat down for some reflection time I had a bazillion "I wish I had..." "I should have..." It would have been better if I had..." "I'll never do that again..." thoughts flooding my mind. It was seriously hard to narrow it down. Here are few of the easier ones that came to mind. 

When students turn in a big project I always make sure to assess their neatness and effort. But that is not always the case when they are turning in their daily work. So much is going on each day that sometimes I don't even realize that their work is a train wreck. My goal is to start the year off by making it clear that students will have to redo papers that are messy or hardly legible.

We've had a handful of moments where I've brought my third graders to an open spot on the carpet and have read them a picture book. They absolutely LOVE it. You are never too old to enjoy a great picture book. And it's a great way to tuck in my CAFE reading strategy mini-lessons. 
 

This year the flu hit my family with a vengeance! It took about 2 1/2 weeks for the whole thing to cycle through. I was out for the count for 4 days! I didn't have 4 days worth of sub plans. Ouch!! I had to drag myself to the computer and figure out what the sub would do with my class each day. My sweet partner teacher helped out the best she could and she would call occasionally with questions. I could hardly think clearly enough to give her a good answer. It was an unfortunate situation all around. Watch out flu...you won't catch me off guard next year; although I'd prefer that you not catch me at all!

Of course this list could be insanely long, but I'll leave you with that. Go link up with Kim while your thoughts are fresh in your mind. And as always, if you don't have a blog to link, hit me up in the comments section. 

Summer Bucket List Linky

Time to link up with Hadar (Miss Kindergarten), Teri (A Cupcake for the Teacher), and April (A Modern Teacher) for their Summer Bucket List Linky Party!

This post could have some serious length, so in the interest of saving you an entire afternoon, I'll narrow this down to my top 3 me and top 3 class bucket list items. 

Here we go.

For me:

1. Visit Hearst Castle
It might not happen this summer with husband's government furlough days, but I'd love to see this place. 

 

2. Get a massage
My husband got me a gift certificate for Mother's Day. I'm notorious for letting those types of things just sit around or expire. Not this time. Relaxation here I come!

 

3. Play with my kids!!
I can get so wrapped up in MY bucket list that I don't spend as much 1 on 1 time as I should with my kiddos. This year I'm letting them create their bucket list of things they want to do with Mom (and Dad, on the weekends) and we're going to have a blast checking them off!!

My Pinspiration:

 

   
For school:

1. Revitalize my math and reading lessons. Last year I focused on spelling, writing, science, and history. There is still work to be done in those areas, but math and reading is taking center stage this year. Here are some inspirations...

 

    

Writing about math and documenting what you've learned. 

 

 click here to purchase

Guided Math. Great book! Read it last summer and I'm ready to implement some of these great ideas.  

 click here to purchase

CAFE and Daily 5. Not sure how this will look in real life for my class, but I love the concept and will be meeting with a small group of teachers over the summer to work out the details.  

2. Come up with an easy way to manage pencils in my classroom. It will probably start with buying this:

 

and then implementing something like this:

  

 (duck tape to keep pencils from disappearing)

combined with something like this:

 

3. Read lots and lots of children's books.

  

My #1 summer goal: Don't be SO busy that I don't enjoy the things that matter most!!

Go link up with these lovely ladies and share your summer bucket list. If you don't have a blog to share, leave a comment. I'd love to know what you all have up your sleeve for the summer!  

Measurement...Twice the fun!!

I spent some time this evening looking online for some {free} fun ways to review measurement when I came across this darling FREE activity from Hooty's Homeroom on TpT.

It was exactly what I was looking for and did I mention that it's FREE! Right away I started printing things out so I could cut and laminate. I knew that I wanted to do this activity in a "scoot" sort of fashion to get kids up and moving. I was in my office getting pretty excited...oh, the things us teachers get excited over. While things were printing, I figured I would be a responsible TpT downloader and leave Hooty some feedback. 

As I scrolled down the feedback page you'd never guess what I saw!

Yep, that's right folks. I've already downloaded this activity AND left feedback. I felt like such a doofus, but in my defense it was way back in June the first time around.

Head on over to TpT and download this right away. If it's good enough for me to download twice, it's gotta be top notch stuff. Thanks {again} Hooty for your generosity!

Introducing Fractions

Today I introduced fractions with a short little lesson that took about 30 minutes. I used 4 sheets of construction paper per student. Each student will need a pair of scissors and a markers. 

Here's what you'll end up with at the end of the lesson.

My students were thrilled the minute the scissors and markers were passed out. I had their attention...first part of the battle, right.

I started with the blue piece. I passed one to each student and explained that this would represent one whole. They wrote a 1 in the middle. 

Then, I passed out the green piece. Without using the words half or halves (tricky, trust me!) I walked them through folding and cutting the green paper into two pieces. I asked a series of questions until we were all in agreement that these were called halves and that you write the fraction 1 over 2. 

I continued with this same process for the other two colors. 

Then we spent some time discussing how many one-eighth pieces are needed to cover half, and how many one-fourth pieces are needed to cover half. Without knowing it, they were reasoning through some equivalent fractions on day 1 of this unit! Yahoo!!

I had one student show me his pieces laid out like this:  

He thought it was so cool that he made a neat pattern with his fraction pieces. 

Here's how our little conversation went:

ME: So, you have one-half and how many one-eighth pieces.
HIM: Four
ME: And four one-eighth pieces is how much?
HIM: Four-eighths...?
ME: Right, and how much of your one whole is covered by your one-half and your four-eighths?
HIM: The whole thing.
ME: Wonderful. So, one-half plus four-eighths must equal what?
HIM: One whole.

Now addition concepts on day one! I could have done a cartwheel right there in class. Nothing beats hands on math. Now get to your class and start cutting those fractions squares people!!      

What?! You mean you can't read upside down and backwards?

I've been working on some fun posts to schedule for the next couple of weeks and when I popped in to check on my blog I found several pictures upside down, backwards, or scrambled up!

See what I mean...

Apparently there is a problem with Picasa Web Albums (which is what Google uses to store pics) supporting .TIFF files, which many of mine are. I don't know all the "techy" details as to why my files are formatted that way, I don't know what .TIFF means, but I do know that I'm super bummed by how crazy my blog is looking!

Picasa is {allegedly} working on a fix and hopefully it comes sooner rather than later. In the meantime, bear with me and keep in mind that I am NOT a crazy lady posting upside down, wacky photos. 

Happy spring break folks!