Everyday Math - Pretests

One of the goals I have for this year is to take more of a math workshop style approach to math so that I can differentiate more effectively.  That means that I need to pretest students at the beginning of each unit, and since I couldn't find any pretests, I decided to just make them myself.  I decided to include one question from each lesson in the unit, plus additional ‘Practice’ problems, covering items that the students should be able to do independently. I rated each question as easy (one star), medium (two stars) or hard (3 stars) so that I can see which questions they are missing and hopefully group them more appropriately.  So far I have units 1 and 2 done, but the goal is to complete the set by the end of the year!  If you are interested in using them, they are in my TpT (Ch. 1, Ch. 2) and TN stores (Ch. 1, Ch. 2).

DIY Projects

Moving to a new grade level for the second year in a row, I didn't quite know where to start again this summer.  I brought home curriculum and textbooks, downloaded all of the common core standards, started looking at what went wrong last year that needed to be improved... but most importantly, since I will have some of the same kids that I had last year, I needed a new classroom theme!  And that meant that the cute DIY projects took precedence over everything else for a while!

My room was repainted, and while the color is lighter than it was before, it's still quite yellow.  Pair that with wooden cubbies, wood trim, a wooden desk, wood doors... it was a little overwhelming and needed some contrast and color!  I am a huge fan of the white shelves and cart that I painted last year, with all of my clear and white bins, so that helped.  I decided to get rid of the lime green bulletin boards and trade it for turquoise, and then I found the cute, white, Boho Birds borders to tie it all together.

After a few trips to the craft stores, I had tulle, scrapbooking paper, a cute wooden bird cutout (on clearance for a dollar), a few small wood birds, small wood rectangles, small clothespins, glitter glue, glue dots, and probably a few other things.

The large bird is decoration for the classroom door, the medium birds will be locker tags, and the small birds and white rectangles will be the dismissal board.

Tulle and scrapbook paper turned into cute little nested birds to number the tables.

Leftover scrapbook paper turned into a pennant to hang above the white board and all the little critters my kids have given me over the years (two sided means it's even pretty in from the hallway!)

Here is the bird on the door with my homemade "curtains" (scrapbook cardstock punched into circles and sewn together on the sewing machine), and my jobs board with the glittered clothespins to hold the name cards.  The 5 jobs at the top will be revealed a few weeks into school, and students will need to apply for those 'Specialists' jobs.

Now that everything is hung up, I guess I better dig back into the planning!

Classroom Library Reorganization

Moving to a new grade level, yet again, and inheriting books from the outgoing 4th grade teacher gave me another chance at getting my classroom library organized in a more meaningful way.  I got it about half way there last year, but even with the system I was using, I found that kids kept reading the same series of books over, and over, and over... So, I wanted to organize more by genre this year.

I once again had high hopes for some of the book cataloging apps, and pulled up the Classroom Organizer app that I tried using last year, but still found it too frustrating with the lack of titles in the database.  It was also too cumbersome to label each book with level and genre after I scanned it in.  Even for the books that I put in manually, it was inconsistent when it came to checking them out to students.  So, that app has since been deleted.  If only Amazon and Scholastic would get together to create an amazing app to catalog books (already including their levels and genres) and check them out... Ahhhh, one can only dream.  Anyway, back to the classroom library.

Looking up every single title in the Scholastic Book Wizard can be quite tedious.  My mom made the silly mistake of saying "If there is anything I can do to help you with your classroom, let me know." She probably thought she was off the hook living hundreds of miles away, but you can probably guess what request came next!  I took pictures of stacks of books and sent them off in emails, and magically emails came back giving me the levels and genres of all of the books.  After that, I just had to match emails to the piles of books, then put a genre sticker on each book and write the level on the back.  This project NEVER would have gotten finished if I didn't have help! (Thanks, mom!)

I'm pleased with the way everything is set up now.  One shelf is baskets of books sorted by genre, one shelf is popular authors and series, and the last shelf is sort of the "Land of Misfit Toys."  There are also a few baskets of non-fiction picture books and informational books.  When I created the labels, I changed to rectangles instead of circles, since they didn't seem to stay on so well last year.  I also created dividers for the books that are not in baskets, in the hopes that giving everything it's designated place will encourage students to put books back where they belong.  We will see how long those dividers last, but hopefully this will encourage kids to try reading new books and authors.

Peanut Free/Nut Free Posters

As I was walking down the hallway at school yesterday, I noticed that everyone has their peanut free posters hanging up, and it's the same posters, year after year.  So, I put together some new peanut free signs, and this time added actual peanut pictures to them instead of just making them classroom themed.  I also made table labels, and a list of peanut free snacks to send home to parents.  You can get a copy through my TpT store or my Teachers Notebook store.

Phonics Cards - Vowels and Digraphs

A second-grade teacher at my school found a set of phonics cards that she thought would be great to hang on the wall behind the table where she pulls small groups, but the cards were only sold in the UK.  She scoured TpT for something similar and found nothing, so she told me about it, knowing that I'm always looking for new stuff to create. So, after days of searching for graphics that would fit each vowel and digraph, it's finally complete! And, now that TpT is allowing you to correlate your items to the Common Core standards, it's aligned with standards in K-2.  So, if you would like to check it out, you can visit my TpT store.
 

8/20/13 - Edit to add photos of the cards all laminated and hung on the wall!

I Can Posters - 4th Grade Math

Last year I put together a set of "I Can" Posters for Math and ELA for Third Grade, which hung on my wall and could help students keep track of what their goals were.  As I change grade levels, I wanted to remake them for fourth grade.  The math posters are done, and hopefully I can find the patience to muddle through the ELA standards before the new year starts!  If you would like to use them in your classroom, they are available both on my TpT store and my Teachers Notebook store.

Multiplication and Division Timed Tests

Moving up to fourth grade with the students I had last year certainly has it's advantages.  For example, I know that they still need practice with their math facts (and I'm sure having the summer off hasn't helped).  While it may not be part of the Everyday Math program, I think that some of my students may just need this type of activity to help them focus on smaller sets of facts and find motivation to learn them.  I can't sit and watch them count by 7's to 49 on their fingers anymore as they try to complete lattice method multiplication... so much wasted time!

The packet has 36 timed tests with 21 questions per sheet.  Included are the following:

• Multiplication - 1 through 12 (two versions each)
• Mixed multiplication review (two versions)
• Multiplication - doubles
• Division - mixed sheets - 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10, 11/12, and division review (two versions)
• Mixed multiplication/division

There are also a recording sheets for both teachers and students, and an answer key at the end.  Each test and answer key has a code on the bottom so they can be matched for easy checking (ex. M.1a is Multiplication, 1’s, version a).
If you are interested, it is for sale on both my TpT store and my Teacher's Notebook store.  Enjoy!