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Building Mathematical Comprehension - Chapter #3


Happy Tuesday!

So...this week has been eventful.  I'm out of school - thank goodness and my Long Term Sub found another more permanent job (I am SO SO SO happy for her - she deserves it without a doubt, but I can still have a pity party for myself right??)  Now I am back to interviewing for someone to start the year for me and I am busy making a SUPER SUB BINDER for whomever this lucky person is!

At least this week's chapter is one of my favorites - making connections.  Who doesn't like to make connections (sometimes I need to tell myself not everyone needs to know my connections to every little thing!!)???  Before reading Guided Math last summer though, I never really thought much about making connections in math.  

As in reading there are 3 different types of connections to be made...

Math-To-Self -  connections between life experiences and mathematics (students developing number sense connect their age (5) to the number of fingers on one hand)

Math-To-Math - connections between their present learning and past learning (Last year we made arrays to think about multiplication, but this year we are learning X about multiplication).

Math-To-World - connections between math and the outside world (using current events will help students to make these connections)

Check out these posters - free from my friend at Splish Splash Mrs. Lander's Class!!



Now, how can we teach these??

Sentence Stems 
-  I remember that...
-  This is just like when...
-  I know that...
-  That reminds me of...
-  That is similar to...

Math Stretches

I LOVE these - Check out my math stretches pack for the whole year HERE!

Think Alouds
Think about how you would do this in reading and try the same strategies in math - demonstrate the strategy, name the strategy, and clearly describe the strategy to the students.  

Use Children's Literature
One of my teacher goals for next year is to add more read alouds to my math lessons - It took a lot of extra time and planning to get Guided Math off and running last year and one thing I wish I did more of was to read and talk about math as I am teaching the concepts.  Pinterest is a great resources for this!

I hope you were able to make some connections about connections!  Keep reading to find out what some of my sweet friends had to say about math connections.  And don't forget to come back next week when we talk about asking questions!



Summer Stock Up :)



How excited am I???
  Last day of school??  Check  Summer Stock Up for fall?? check

Are you ready for some AMAZING goodies!  A group of us have teamed up to bring you goodies from all areas of teaching - what you need to start school!!

I will be sharing...

Getting To Know You Ideas...
I love getting to know all of my firsties. This freebie includes samples for a September activities, but the whole pack has one for each month.  I LOVE to put them together and make a book for each kiddo at the end of the year! 
e.  Kids can complete this on their own in grade 1 or 2 or teachers could write for the kiddos as I did with my little lady who is 4.  
Here is a blank one.

Here is one Addison and I completed tonight.  She's ready for summer like me!


Find the FREEBIE HERE for the weekend.  Like what you see??  Find the whole set HERE!
and Homework Ideas...

We all teach spelling and if you are like me I am always looking for ways to make it more connected to what we are working on in phonics and guided reading while still making sure we meet the sight word needs of firsties too!

So...I created these spelling lists and homework sheets that last the whole year and follow a standard progression of first grade phonics skills.  I have a pack for second grade too (I will link that at the bottom!)

The pack includes...

Spelling Lists


Word Writing Practice (matches lists) - I use this as Monday Night Homework


ABC Order  (matches lists) - I use this as Tuesday Night Homework

Fill-In-The-Blanks   (matches lists) - I use this as Wednesday Night Homework

Sentence Writing   (matches lists) - I use this as Thursday Night Homework


Find the Freebie Sampler HERE
Find the Grade 1 Bundle HERE
Find the Grade 2 Bundle HERE

There are TONS more activities to check out! 


Learn Like A Pirate - Chapter #4 - Improvement Focus Vs. Grade Focus

Welcome back friends!!  Can you believe that I am finally D-O-N-E with school??  I said goodbye to my firsties yesterday and am back in the classroom today packing and sorting and getting ready to say goodbye to my school until DECEMBER - that's a crazy amount of time for me to not be working!!  While I am excited - it's also more than a little scary to be leaving my classroom in someone else's hands - and let's just say my first experience with maternity leave did NOT go well!

Enough about me - today is all about improvement focus vs. grade focus.  I'll be honest teaching first grade is NOT very grade focused.  We work to get kids to benchmark (grade level for reading, writing, and math), but we don't give grades out for anything except spelling - and even then it's 10/10 or 9/10, not "real" scores!  However, many families put so much weight on actual grades I feel like I know exactly what Paul is speaking about in this chapter.  

I also LOVE the  talk about what we call at our school - the growth mindset.  The idea that kids need to work hard to make improvements and these are what should be celebrated.  Too many kiddos find school easy early on and don't have to work hard.  Often their families unknowingly add to this by talking about how inherently intelligent these kids are.  The don't understand until later that hard work is necessary to be successful - things are not always going to be so easy!

Thanks for reading along with me!  Looking forward to reading some more this week (and not teaching while I am reading!!)  Until then read some more from my favorite bloggy friends!


Building Mathematical Comprehension - Chapter #2


Hi favorite friends!  I am happy to be back this week again to talk about Guided Math and specifically  building mathematical comprehension - vocabulary!  With only 2 half days left I feel like I can breathe!  The light is coming and I can make it!!

This week's topic was vocabulary which is a good one for me.  Last year, I took an intensive ELL class which focused on vocabulary skills for English Language Learners.  What I learned was that good teaching for your ELL's also looks like good teaching for all your students!

We all know that teaching vocabulary is a necessary thing to do.  We also know that in the past vocabulary instruction was more than BORING!  There are ways to bring it to life and make it interesting and meaningful!

Some ideas brought up in this chapter were:
-  word walls

Here is a blurry pic of mine - Find it HERE as a freebie from Lovely Little Leaders

-  graphic organizers


-  matrixes

-  vocabulary charades

-  Make My Day (example:  give kids cards with addition or subtraction problems and the teacher will call out "If you have a sum of 10 make my day  - kids with a card that has a sum of 10 step forward.)

-  I Have...Who Has...?  Find this one HERE - free!!



-  Math Hunt (scavenger Hunt for math terms/concepts in books/magazines or allow kids to create collages or diagrams)

-  Talk A Mile A Minute (kids are in teams and one student on a team is the "talker" who tries to get kids to say a specific word by describing the word as quickly as he/she can)

Thanks for reading along with me this week!  I am excited to continue this journey into next week - chapter 3!  Until then read and comment on what some of my super sweet bloggy friends have to say about math vocabulary!


Soccer party - Monday made it!


This week's Monday Made It will be short and sweet and mostly in picture form. This weekend took everything out of me (and I have three days left in school!)

Between this amazing soccer party and a crazy fun wedding this preggo is in need of a BIG nap!

However, I promised some pics from the party set up, so I will oblige ;)




















Happy party planning!!


Learn Like A Pirate - Chapter #3 - Peer Collaboration

Welcome back!  Have you been loving reading this book??  Just today I was laminating in the teacher's room and I was listening to some teachers talk about how they want to take some of the competitiveness out of the classroom and I jumped in saying they have to read this book!  They all added it to their summer reading lists!!

This week we read Chapter 3 - Peer Collaboration and whether you have a student-led classroom or not there are some AMAZING ideas to get kids working together (without you tearing your hair out dealing with management and behavior issues)!!

There were TONS of ideas in this jam packed chapter, but here are three of the ones that spoke to me!

Passive Leadership
Teaching kids that it is ok to be a passive leader sometimes and let others be more active - not everyone can be an active leader all of the time.  Teaching kids to choose the time to be each.

Conflict Management
How often to small squabbles interrupt your teaching?  I know with 5 days left it is more and more common!  Paul suggests three strategies to teach kids to use when managing conflict.
-  Rock-Paper-Scissors - How easy is this one!!!! 
-  Compromise - Take ideas from each other and make a plan
-  Choose Kind - Do what the other one wants to do because it's also a good idea.

Marble Theory
I would need to modify this concept a bit for my littles, but I love the idea of sharing that we are all intelligent, just intelligent in different ways.  A great way to begin a conversation about multiple intelligences!

Thanks for joining in for week 3!  Please come back next Thursday and learn with us all about improvement focus vs. grade focus - sure to be an interesting discussion!



Building Mathematical Comprehension - Chapter #1



If you have been reading my blog for awhile you will know that I fell in LOVE with Guided Math last summer while reading Laney Sammons book on the topic.  With the help of some AMAZING teacher blogger friends I was able to delve deeply into the concept and present it to my grade 1 team as a "HOLY MOLY WE HAVE TO DO THIS".  Sure enough they were crazy enough to believe in me and in Guided Math and we did it - and got some AMAZING and IRREFUTABLE evidence of our success.

Now we have a year under our belt and of course I want to learn more.  I was torn between two different Laney Sammons titles for this summer, but ended up deciding on Building Mathematical Comprehension.  

And this week with some help from my teacher friends we will embark on a journey to read and internalize the idea that reading and math are more connected than we (or at least I) thought!  Join in and share your thoughts!!

As a first grade teacher I am able to teach reading strategies with relative ease. It is something that I do day in and day out year in and year out.  However, I never really gave it a lot of thought when it came to math.  This chapter got me thinking about how students need to use many of the same strategies when comprehending in reading as they do when having to understanding in math.  What worried me was when Sammons wrote about how we use different language to describe the strategies in math and reading.  And while I am not sure I use different language, I am sure that I am not explicit about my teaching of math comprehension strategies!  This clearly needs to change!

I also liked how the book broke up some of the comprehension strategies that I teach and placed them into categories 
-  "beginning" (though I usually think of this as before)
     -  monitoring meaning
     -  making connections
     -  making inferences
     -  asking questions
 -  "during"
     -  making connections
     -  asking questions
     -  visualizing
     -  making inferences
     -  determining importance
     -  synthesizing
     -  monitoring meaning
-  "after"
     -  making connections
     -  determining importance
     -  synthesizing 
     -  monitoring meaning

I am excited to read chapter 2 for next Tuesday - all about math vocabulary!  Join us and read what my bloggy buddies have to say!!


A Teacher Mom's Birthday Bash Blowout



Come help me celebrate my Birthday! 

My bloggy friends and I have teamed up to give you some goodies on my BIG day!

We have 3 AWESOME things for you!!  $1 deals ready to roll for Today 6/15 and tomorrow 6/16!!

Then keep scrolling for TWO HUGE giveaways!  Products from my friends and $50 Gift Certificate to Lakeshore Learning Store!  Woo-hoo!  Enter away!!




An InLinkz Link-up




a Rafflecopter giveaway



a Rafflecopter giveaway

Made-It Monday - June 15th - Last Patriotic Craft...I Promise!



Did you all have a great weekend??  I was able to get away to the beach for the weekend before I head back to school (yes I am STILL in school for 8 more days!).  It was super nice to spend some time with family and see my favorite little lady swim in the ocean!

Also awesome was a trip to The Dollar Tree!  We don't have a true dollar store close by - the one we have has a name that makes you think things are a dollar, but they are not!

I saw this on Pinterest and I thought it would be cute and easy to make!

I also knew this was NOT a craft I wanted to spend a lot on, so the dollar store was a have to this weekend!  

Here's my haul - I really wanted 3 pairs of red and white striped flip flops but of course they only had 2 pairs.  As I was getting into line I spotted these red star flip flops and thought they would do the trick.  


I got the light up necklaces too as decoration for the middle - though the lights had already burnt out by the time I made the wreath today - LOL!!

First you need to get a small piece of wood to use as your base and hot glue 4 flip flops (1 of each pair) to the wood.



Then, add the other flip flops in the empty spaces.  

Then add what you want to decorate the center...

And hang and enjoy!!

What do you think?  Would you want to try one??

Check back next week when I change my theme and share a WHOLE end-of-season soccer party that I am planning for the little lady on Saturday - TONS to do for that one!!