So, I know that I posted yesterday, but I really had an itch to post about what we did today in class. At first thought, I didn't want to post because it was a quick turnaround from the last one, but I got over that ;)
These past two days in class we have been discussing Frequency Tables. This is a topic that isn't exactly the toughest, but still important. Yesterday, we talked about what they were and we practiced making and reading some of them. The kiddos seemed to have a pretty good grasp on it. I didn't want to just spend one class period on it because I felt it deserved a little more importance. So, I came up with this idea.
If you have ever worked with kids, you know that truly care about what interests them. They get excited about things that they like, and if I ever incorporate some of their interests in class, then I've got them on the hook. I thought with teaching frequency tables, this would be a great opportunity to have the students utilize topics that were important to them. This may seem like an obvious idea, but I did it anyways :)
I started planning out a Create Your Own Frequency Table. Just off the title... boring. When you dig deeper, the kiddos' task is to come up with some sort of poll question. It can be any question that they wanted. The example that I gave all day was... Who is your favorite Avenger? (I love superhero stuff) Just fyi... mine is the Hulk!
The idea is for the kids to come up with their own question about something that interests them. I got the typical questions. What is your favorite pet? What is your favorite sport? What is your favorite subject? Some of my personal favorite questions: What is your favorite planet? Gemstone? DC hero? (superheroes rock). The kids also had to come up with five different answer choices for their classmates to choose from. This was to limit the range of answers they got.
I know frequency tables are usually meant for determining the frequency of numbers and fractions, but I felt that they could be used in this way. We were still calculating the frequency, just using non-numerical things. The students would go around and get the answer to their poll question from each of their classmates. They would take the results that they got and determine the frequency. They had to fill out a frequency table. The table had 3 parts:
1. Answer Choices
2. Tally - to tally up the amount for each answer choice.
3. Frequency - the frequency that each answer got.
So in reality, the kiddos were still calculating frequency, but they were so much more invested because it was something relevant to them. You should have seen how excited they got to go around and ask their question to everyone. Of course, I walked around and made sure they were asking the questions and filling out their tables correctly.
They were, and I decided to take this one step further. I'm always hearing how important it is to write in math class. Right WA & AB? ;) Our kids all have blogs similar to this one, so I had them write a blog post. They had to answer these 5 questions:
1. What is your poll question and answer choices?
2. What was the most common response?
3. What was the least common response?
4. What was the difference between the most and least common response?
5. Personal thoughts. Were you surprised by anything? What did you think about this?
Of course, they had to write in complete sentences. I had one kid come up and show me his blog post, and it was riddled full of run on sentences. I asked him, "Would you turn this into Mrs. Burton?" He smirked, and replied, "No..." Good try ;) But the majority really got into to writing their blog posts. They wanted to add pictures of their choices, and highlight the most popular response.
I thought the day went extremely well, and I left school feeling very positive about the day. The kiddos were excited and invested, and they just thought they were doing polls and asking their friends questions. But in reality, they were determining the frequency of the responses they just didn't know it. Math without being overwhelmed. I love it.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Monday, April 11, 2016
Teaching Conversions - Anchor Charts, Flip Charts, Stations & More
I know there are many teachers out there with blogs that talk about all the different things they do in class and the specifics of how they taught the material. Up to this point, my blog hasn't really been about that. I have been keeping this blog to have some record to look back on from my first year of teaching. Back in the fall, I did talk about my Fantasy Football that I did in class, and that was really my only taste of kind of showing off my stuff. This past week my students and I worked with conversions, and I decided to document and layout in detail what we did.
Here goes nothing...
I was planning out what to do during the week, and I was struggling with deciding what to do first. I landed on introducing the kiddos to all the different types of units before I even mention converting between them. I felt that it was important to have a good idea of what the units represented first. I found some anchor chart ideas, and I made an anchor chart representing each of the three measurements:
Length
Weight
Capacity
I had the kids organize the information in a flip chart with each flap of the flip chart representing a different type of measurement. I spent a few days and went into detail covering what each unit was. I tried to give the kids real life connections for things in hope that they'll have a better idea. One example was for miles. I looked up a place that all the kids would know that was about a mile away. Turns out our Dairy Queen is about a mile away from our school. When I told the kids about how far it was, they really had a good understanding of what a mile was. Real life connections, I feel, are so crucial to help the kiddos understand. Below are the three anchor charts that I made.
For my third stations, I decided to come up with my own assessment. If you don't know me, my classroom is full of Minions! I call my kiddos Mouton's Minions, so the Minions have been a big part of my class throughout the year. I wanted to create something along the lines of converting between Minion units and human units. My idea was that the Minions would hypothetically use smaller units than humans because they're obviously smaller than us. So... I developed Minion Town! The kiddos would scan the QR code, and up pops Minion Town. To sum up Minion Town, it tells the students that they have to help the Minions because they only have access to human units and need them converted to Minion units to understand what they're talking about. My kids loved it! When I set up my TpT store, the Minion Town will definitely be on it. So, it you're interested please stand by!
I created a table with different items. Next to the items, was the human measurement & Minion measurement. I differed the missing units between human and Minion that they the students have to be able to convert both ways. I was very happy with the success of the this station, and I really think that it was one of my kids' favorites.
My last station I decided that kiddos need practice with measuring items with their "cheat sheets". They were required to go around the room and the hallway and find six different items to measure (3 in centimeters & 3 in inches). After they finished measuring the items, they recorded each on their answer sheets. Next, they were required to write a blog post about the station. The kiddos had to meet these requirements.
- Each item measured and their lengths
- Which was the biggest? Smallest?
- "How To?" on how to measure using their STAAR charts
The kids love writing in their blogs, and what a great opportunity to have some writing in math class!
Overall, I think the kiddos really got a lot out of our conversion unit. I'll still continue to work with, and I'll throw some more practice in our daily spiraling warm up. With the flip chart and stations, I think that the kids had a really great time working with this unit. I know that I'll tweak it for next year and it's no where near perfect, but I thought it went really well.
I know this was a long blog post for my usual readers, but I really want to start having more posts like this. Thanks for reading!
Here goes nothing...
I was planning out what to do during the week, and I was struggling with deciding what to do first. I landed on introducing the kiddos to all the different types of units before I even mention converting between them. I felt that it was important to have a good idea of what the units represented first. I found some anchor chart ideas, and I made an anchor chart representing each of the three measurements:
Length
Weight
Capacity
I had the kids organize the information in a flip chart with each flap of the flip chart representing a different type of measurement. I spent a few days and went into detail covering what each unit was. I tried to give the kids real life connections for things in hope that they'll have a better idea. One example was for miles. I looked up a place that all the kids would know that was about a mile away. Turns out our Dairy Queen is about a mile away from our school. When I told the kids about how far it was, they really had a good understanding of what a mile was. Real life connections, I feel, are so crucial to help the kiddos understand. Below are the three anchor charts that I made.
The big part of measurements is the conversions. The kiddos need to be pretty efficient at converting between the different units. After each section of the flip chart, I introduced the basic conversions and we practiced a little bit with each measurement. Obviously they need more exposure than that to converting. One really big thing that I was (am) emphasizing is the use of the STAAR chart that they will have access to during the STAAR test. I'm calling it their "Cheat Sheet". Who doesn't want to use a thing called a cheat sheet?! Each kid has to have it out before I'll help them. The majority of information that they should need is on the cheat sheet, especially with conversions.
So, I had to come up with something for the kids to further their mastery with conversions, and I wanted it to be something that the kids would be excited about. I decided to do stations. I decided to come up with four stations. I used QR codes that link to the PDFs for each of the four stations.
My first two stations came from Teaching With A Mountain View. She has an awesome TpT product on conversion task cards! I bought those because they really offer up great practice questions on conversions. The picture below is one of the groups at one of these stations. They used their IPads to scan the QR codes, and of course, they all have their cheat sheets out!
I created a table with different items. Next to the items, was the human measurement & Minion measurement. I differed the missing units between human and Minion that they the students have to be able to convert both ways. I was very happy with the success of the this station, and I really think that it was one of my kids' favorites.
My last station I decided that kiddos need practice with measuring items with their "cheat sheets". They were required to go around the room and the hallway and find six different items to measure (3 in centimeters & 3 in inches). After they finished measuring the items, they recorded each on their answer sheets. Next, they were required to write a blog post about the station. The kiddos had to meet these requirements.
- Each item measured and their lengths
- Which was the biggest? Smallest?
- "How To?" on how to measure using their STAAR charts
The kids love writing in their blogs, and what a great opportunity to have some writing in math class!
Overall, I think the kiddos really got a lot out of our conversion unit. I'll still continue to work with, and I'll throw some more practice in our daily spiraling warm up. With the flip chart and stations, I think that the kids had a really great time working with this unit. I know that I'll tweak it for next year and it's no where near perfect, but I thought it went really well.
I know this was a long blog post for my usual readers, but I really want to start having more posts like this. Thanks for reading!
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Stronger
Today has been an interesting one to say the least. For those that don't know, I was nominated by my awesome team and principal for LISD First Year Teacher of the Year. Your administrator nominates you and has to fill out this long application, and they end up picking three finalists from the batch of nominations. I was honored that they chose to fill out that long application in the first place (seriously, it was ridiculously long...) Along with their nomination, I was required to write an essay answering three questions:
What made you want to be a teacher?
What has been your biggest challenge in your first year?
How has teaching differed from your expectations?
So, with the help from a fellow teammate, I wrote the essay and she edited it and made it sound pretty (there's a reason I'm the math person). Brief summary...
Adopt An Athlete in high school was where I started to notice I could work with kids, and then working ESD really confirmed it because I loved that job!
My biggest challenge was just that I was new, and didn't know what to really expect. I am also the only math person, so I have to plan by myself (so I thought)
Lastly, teaching has been different just by the sheer fact that there's so much more than just teaching the material. It's the relationships with kids and dealing with so many different aspects every day.
That was the brief version of my essay...
We submitted all this about three weeks ago, and I had been impatiently waiting to find out who the finalists were. My goal at the beginning of the was to at least be a finalist, and obviously I wouldn't mind winning. Honestly, I felt that I had a pretty decent chance of becoming a finalist. I had read some of the things in the application they wrote, and they did a great job of making me sound amazing (probably more so than I actually am). I thought I wouldn't be antsy about finding out the finalist. But... Turns out I really wanted to be a finalist, and I felt with my essay and their nomination I had a good shot.
Well today the email was sent out with the finalist, and... I wasn't one of them. I was sad, and upset. I'm sure my face went from excited to sad in a split second, and of course I had a class full of kiddos at the time too. I wanted it so bad, and I guess I got my hopes up pretty good. It was very hard on me, and continuing to teach in that moment was pretty challenging. It was a long day after that to say the least.
But later in the day, I thought to myself. I can't let this define my first year of teaching. People told me all day that it doesn't define my year of teaching, and all the progress and relationships that I have made. It basically took me all day until this point to realize that they were right. They were. I need to stop moping around and realize this does NOT define me as a teacher. I have worked my butt of this year, and I have cared for each and every one of my kids! There is nothing more important to me than doing my very best at this job. Am I sad I'm not a finalist? Yeah, but I told myself I can be sad until midnight tonight, and then it's time to get over it. Move on. I love those kids, and I know they love me. If anything, this is going to make me work harder. This is going to be my drive to finish out the year strong, and continue to grow and learn to become the best teacher I can possibly be.
I am so appreciative of all the people today, my team mostly, that I have had to deal with me when I may not have exactly been in the best of moods. They have been so supportive, and I don't know what I'd do without them. Tomorrow is a new day. It'll be a good day to have a good day. I may not know everything about teaching (obviously), but one thing people should never question about me is my love for this job and my kiddos! We'll keep working to be the best versions of ourselves we can possibly be.
What made you want to be a teacher?
What has been your biggest challenge in your first year?
How has teaching differed from your expectations?
So, with the help from a fellow teammate, I wrote the essay and she edited it and made it sound pretty (there's a reason I'm the math person). Brief summary...
Adopt An Athlete in high school was where I started to notice I could work with kids, and then working ESD really confirmed it because I loved that job!
My biggest challenge was just that I was new, and didn't know what to really expect. I am also the only math person, so I have to plan by myself (so I thought)
Lastly, teaching has been different just by the sheer fact that there's so much more than just teaching the material. It's the relationships with kids and dealing with so many different aspects every day.
That was the brief version of my essay...
We submitted all this about three weeks ago, and I had been impatiently waiting to find out who the finalists were. My goal at the beginning of the was to at least be a finalist, and obviously I wouldn't mind winning. Honestly, I felt that I had a pretty decent chance of becoming a finalist. I had read some of the things in the application they wrote, and they did a great job of making me sound amazing (probably more so than I actually am). I thought I wouldn't be antsy about finding out the finalist. But... Turns out I really wanted to be a finalist, and I felt with my essay and their nomination I had a good shot.
Well today the email was sent out with the finalist, and... I wasn't one of them. I was sad, and upset. I'm sure my face went from excited to sad in a split second, and of course I had a class full of kiddos at the time too. I wanted it so bad, and I guess I got my hopes up pretty good. It was very hard on me, and continuing to teach in that moment was pretty challenging. It was a long day after that to say the least.
But later in the day, I thought to myself. I can't let this define my first year of teaching. People told me all day that it doesn't define my year of teaching, and all the progress and relationships that I have made. It basically took me all day until this point to realize that they were right. They were. I need to stop moping around and realize this does NOT define me as a teacher. I have worked my butt of this year, and I have cared for each and every one of my kids! There is nothing more important to me than doing my very best at this job. Am I sad I'm not a finalist? Yeah, but I told myself I can be sad until midnight tonight, and then it's time to get over it. Move on. I love those kids, and I know they love me. If anything, this is going to make me work harder. This is going to be my drive to finish out the year strong, and continue to grow and learn to become the best teacher I can possibly be.
I am so appreciative of all the people today, my team mostly, that I have had to deal with me when I may not have exactly been in the best of moods. They have been so supportive, and I don't know what I'd do without them. Tomorrow is a new day. It'll be a good day to have a good day. I may not know everything about teaching (obviously), but one thing people should never question about me is my love for this job and my kiddos! We'll keep working to be the best versions of ourselves we can possibly be.
Saturday, April 2, 2016
So Little Time
Well, the first STAAR test of 2016 has come and gone. In just 5 short weeks, the second round of STAAR will be upon us. May 9th is the big day for me. That's when the kids will take their Math STAAR. You could say that I'm a little stressed about it...
All year I have tried to not think about that big test at the end of the year, but it's inevitable. It's going to happen whether I want it to or not. It's crazy to look back at all the things that have been covered. I remember like it was yesterday teaching them about place value and 2 digit multiplication. I'm looking at the rest of the stuff I have to teach this year, and the list isn't that long. Five weeks seems like a lot of time to get all that covered, but it'll be over before I know it.
We just finished working with Area & Perimeter, and I think the kiddos have a pretty good grasp on it. So, it's on to the next thing. We're about to start conversions of measurements. I can't wait to blow their minds with converting from yards to feet or liters to milliliters. I think it's going to be interesting. There are so many different types of measurement out there, so I decided to make a simple flip chart to help us organize all of it. The flip chart is just to introduce them to all different kinds of measurement they'll see. I think it'll work fairly well, and it's always amazing to see the kids creative sides when it comes to making things.
After conversions, there are not too many things that need to be covered. The big thing I'm worried about is the word problems on STAAR. Those last couple of weeks we're really going to have to buckle down and tackle as many word problems as we can. Test taking strategies will be at full force those last couple of weeks. I just want my kids to be as prepared as they possibly can be. I can say that I have worked my hardest to prepare them the best I can. Could I have done a better job? Absolutely, but there's no time to dwell on that now. My goal is to kick butt these last few weeks that test taking strategies are like second nature.
My biggest fear is that when they're taking the test they just forget everything they're taught. You spend so much time teaching them strategies and tricks to help them, and they forget them or ignore the fact that they know them. I'll be so sad if some kiddos just ignore what they know, and do their own thing. It hasn't happened yet, but I can only imagine how frustrating that would be to see. At that point, the test falls on the students. I can prepare them, but ultimately they're the ones taking the test. It's up to them to use the strategies to help them be successful. If they don't, then, well, good luck. I just HOPE that they all put forth their best effort!
STAAR is so close, but the end of the school year is also super close too. Then my first year of teaching will be over. It seems like yesterday when I was first starting out. I still kind of feel like the noobie on campus. I'm really focusing on finishing strong and trying to cherish every moment that I can. You're not going to have your first year of teaching forever. I need to take it all in. I'm going to be incredibly sad to see my kiddos move on to 5th grade. I just hope they'll miss me too, and even maybe come back and bug me a little bit more!
All year I have tried to not think about that big test at the end of the year, but it's inevitable. It's going to happen whether I want it to or not. It's crazy to look back at all the things that have been covered. I remember like it was yesterday teaching them about place value and 2 digit multiplication. I'm looking at the rest of the stuff I have to teach this year, and the list isn't that long. Five weeks seems like a lot of time to get all that covered, but it'll be over before I know it.
We just finished working with Area & Perimeter, and I think the kiddos have a pretty good grasp on it. So, it's on to the next thing. We're about to start conversions of measurements. I can't wait to blow their minds with converting from yards to feet or liters to milliliters. I think it's going to be interesting. There are so many different types of measurement out there, so I decided to make a simple flip chart to help us organize all of it. The flip chart is just to introduce them to all different kinds of measurement they'll see. I think it'll work fairly well, and it's always amazing to see the kids creative sides when it comes to making things.
After conversions, there are not too many things that need to be covered. The big thing I'm worried about is the word problems on STAAR. Those last couple of weeks we're really going to have to buckle down and tackle as many word problems as we can. Test taking strategies will be at full force those last couple of weeks. I just want my kids to be as prepared as they possibly can be. I can say that I have worked my hardest to prepare them the best I can. Could I have done a better job? Absolutely, but there's no time to dwell on that now. My goal is to kick butt these last few weeks that test taking strategies are like second nature.
My biggest fear is that when they're taking the test they just forget everything they're taught. You spend so much time teaching them strategies and tricks to help them, and they forget them or ignore the fact that they know them. I'll be so sad if some kiddos just ignore what they know, and do their own thing. It hasn't happened yet, but I can only imagine how frustrating that would be to see. At that point, the test falls on the students. I can prepare them, but ultimately they're the ones taking the test. It's up to them to use the strategies to help them be successful. If they don't, then, well, good luck. I just HOPE that they all put forth their best effort!
STAAR is so close, but the end of the school year is also super close too. Then my first year of teaching will be over. It seems like yesterday when I was first starting out. I still kind of feel like the noobie on campus. I'm really focusing on finishing strong and trying to cherish every moment that I can. You're not going to have your first year of teaching forever. I need to take it all in. I'm going to be incredibly sad to see my kiddos move on to 5th grade. I just hope they'll miss me too, and even maybe come back and bug me a little bit more!
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