Did You Know Peppermint Candies Grow?
This is too cute not to try!!! I learned that peppermints grow from a very talented kindergarten teacher. Every Christmas season, she has her students plant peppermints in a cup of dirt. Students put glitter in the dirt for fertilizer and then just wait. In a few days, a small candy cane has emerged “growing in the cup”. In another few days, a candy cane of larger stature has “grown”. Children are oh so excited that their peppermint grew to such a large stature! Of course behind the scenes, their teacher is placing a small candy cane in the cup when the children have gone for the day, and then replacing the small candy cane with a larger candy cane. This all for the amazement and wonder in children’s eyes that comes from the magic of Christmas.
More Christmas Themed Doors!
In my post yesterday, I placed a picture of my neighbor’s door at school. So many teachers admired the door that they wanted their door decorated too! With some persuasion he decorated some other teachers’ doors as well (pictured below). These photos may give you some ideas if you are feeling festive this Christmas season!
Monkey Christmas Present Door
Christmas Tree Door in Progress. Students will put ornaments on the tree to decorate it.
Clever way to make snow for a Christmas Tree–just white bulletin board paper cut along the edge.
Do You Need an Idea for a Festive Christmas Door?
My colleague next door felt that I had given him a little competition with my Grapes of Math door earlier this year :), so he has festively decorated his door for each season this year. This colleague exudes artistic talent and can construct just about anything with some colored bulletin board paper and cardboard. This is his “gift” to everyone in the hall. I just love it–and all out of bulletin board paper too!
Have A Few Extra Minutes? Play SQUAT!
To practice math facts, spelling words, or any other quick answer type learning, you can play Squat. To play Squat, two students from two different teams approach the board. The teacher calls out a fact or a spelling word. The two students at the board race to answer the question correctly and then they squat when they think they have the correct answer. If they are correct they earn a point for their team.
When I have played this, I usually split my class into two teams. Different students on the teams take turns to be at the board to earn their team points. Team points can be taken away from students who aren’t waiting quietly or who blurt out an answer when it isn’t their turn. Students love this game and will beg to play it after you have played once. If you have some extra time (heh, heh, who has that?!) during a spot in your day, this is a fun way to reinforce skills or fill time.
How Can You Get Your Classroom Cleaned Up Fast?
Does this sound familiar? You are surprised when you look up to see the clock shows that you only have 9 minutes to pass out end of the day papers, close your lesson, to have children to clean their desks, to have children get their backpacks, and line up in an orderly fashion. You look at the floor and think the custodian will groan will he comes to your room. You think you don’t have any time to have the children clean the classroom floor, but that’s because you have never played “I Spy” the trash version! I learned this antic from a P.E. teacher.
The teacher says, “The person who gets the piece of trash I spy gets_______ (you fill in the blank–a treat or prize?). You have 30 (etc.) seconds. Go!”
Students then frantically look for pieces of trash and try to figure out what piece of trash you see. Don’t stop the game until the classroom floor looks as clean as you desire. Students will ask you if they found the piece of trash you spied, but don’t stop the game until you get the floor clean. Sometimes I tell students that I spied another piece of trash if I want to spur on more meticulous trash gathering. If you have a group of children that aren’t well managed this game can become rambunctious, but I have found that if you have high expectations and procedures with the rest of your day students will stay focused on trash finding. This game is fun for both the students and the teacher.
Where Can You Find Model Common Core Lesson Videos?
Today I was at a professional meeting in which we were working on building a pacing guide for the 3rd-5th common core standards. The presenter for our meeting showed us this fabulous website which has cutting edge materials pertinent to the common core standards. There are a few sample tasks for each grade level with rubrics. Not only are there tasks, but there are videos of teachers, coaches, and principals discussing student thinking before and after a video taped lesson as well as teachers teaching lessons. If you just want to view a part of the video sessions, they are broken up into parts: before the lesson, the different sections of the lesson, and the debriefing after the lesson. I really enjoyed hearing the teachers discuss why and how they were planning because I had a sense of the fact that I am not alone in the problems I am having with children’s mathematical thinking. These problems are found across our country–the one aspect about the second grade video that grabbed my attention is that this second grade teacher was discussing how her students see a word problem and want to immediately add the two numbers within the problem even though the problem may not be an addition problem. All in all this website is a fabulous find especially if you are responsible for doing any professional learning meetings at your school–or even if you just want to learn yourself. (FYI: As of the time of this post, there are a lot more upper grade videos than elementary, but the site is worth a visit no matter what grade you teach.)
Using Wiki Spaces to Further Math Instruction…
I found this wiki space that has student math movies on it. Students explain what they have learned about a math concept on a video. The wiki definitely gave me some ideas. There are many math topics listed. My favorite is the spoof of the Brady Bunch theme song and opening video, but instead “The Avery Bunch” explaining fractions. Of course, Mr. Avery is their teacher. I really like the idea of the students demonstrating their learning in video form because they have to be knowledgeable enough to explain their learning in detail. We all know that increases learning–teaching others–according to Glasser’s theory of learning!
Project Based Learning–Where Do You Start?
With the common core standards making their grand entrance this year, project based learning is quickly becoming a new buzz word. I myself understand the concept of project based learning, but have seen very few examples of students real-world projects. Seeing few examples makes project based learning seem vague, and so I was very excited to stumble upon this fascinating website http://pbl-online.org/ about project based learning. When you visit the site, you will find information about what project based learning is, a collaborative community of teachers developing and sharing projects (you will have to create an account for this), and videos of students and teachers working through and planning projects etc.
Do Government Monopolies Have a Child’s Best Interests at Heart?
In John Stossel’s recent report on public education, he conveys how the government school monopoly does not trust education to the free market even though the free market has made everything else in America great. Opposing teacher’s unions argue that the parents aren’t real ‘customers’ because they aren’t knowledgeable enough about education. Stossel’s report implies that if we trust public education to the teachers unions as we have before we will get more of the same–increased funding yet no results shown in improving student achievement. Teacher’s unions continue to advocate that they are ‘for’ improving education, yet some teacher’s unions are explicit in their thoughts such as one teacher’s union leader who stated, “When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”
To read more click here.
Free Printable Number Discs
With second grade right now, students are doing a lot of place value activities and are using base ten blocks as well as math discs. I made these printable math discs for the kids to represent and compare numbers. If you would like to use them they are available for a download. I am copying the ones on white, the tens on red, and the hundreds on orange paper to represent the math discs. Students are going to cut these out and glue them down to represent a number.
