Close Reading & Tessellations

This week was...odd. We had school Monday, snow days on Tuesday and Wednesday, then school again on Thursday and Friday. It honestly felt like a week of Monday's. Between rescheduling and moving around lessons, communicating parent conference information (oops just realized as I typed that sentence that I forgot to respond to a parent request) and getting my intern back in the loop about what's going on in sixth grade, I'm glad I made it to the weekend!

Every year I like to do an activity with my math students about tessellations. We don't go as specific as say, M.C. Esher or anything, but they have fun. Here are some examples of the work that they did. Ignore horrible shadows, I'm a bad photograph and it was late when I took these :)

They were required to use 3 shapes and the shapes had to colored in a pattern. We had fun sharing using the document camera (I use an IPEVO) and explaining our work. 

In study Ancient China I thought it would be a good idea to take a break from the 'ancient' and teach them a little modern history so they could get an idea of what more recent life has been like. My intern and I found a challenging article using Britannica and made handouts for each student. We then had them do a close read. They read it once to get a general sense of the article, then they partnered up and went through it more closely, marking new vocabulary words, important points (we call them VIPs), and questions. They discussed it together. Finally they worked independently to create a 3-2-1 worksheet where they listed 3 of their VIPs, 2 new vocabulary words, and 1 wondering. We then had the students sit in a group and share out their thinking.

They loved the strategy! They felt like it was a meaningful way to work through the reading and by seeing it twice they were able to understand it better (this coming from some of our struggling readers!). Success at the end of a hectic week! Woot!

To wrap up the week I have some students who are going to perform on Monday. Yes that's right, perform. They have a made up group called 'California Cows' and they are going to sing and dance. My class makes me laugh, I can't wait to see what they are going to do. Have a wonderful weekend, around here it's a bit busy because at PSU it's Thon weekend (FTK!). If you want to check it out here is the live stream. Pretty amazing stuff happening. 

Youth Group - a different kind of teaching, and Read Aloud Day!

This morning marks the kick off to my church's new Youth Group program. I'm fortunate enough to be able to use my teaching talents to participate as the coordinator and assist a great group of teachers. We are using Lifeway's The Gospel Project curriculum and I think it will be really good. 

Isn't it funny though, that when you go to teach something that isn't in your classroom, or is in front of a different group of people, how nervous we get? I can't believe how much I've worried, planned, changed, and prepared for this lesson today. Takes me back to being a first year teacher! I'll be honest, I don't miss that feeling. 

In addition to writing the lesson plans for the teachers each week, I also decided to do a bit of decorating in the room that we will be using. Take a look! The theme comes from a kit I picked up at Office Depot. I think it is just enough color for the small space!

Those ugly brown bars got some cute border paper the other day too!

While I was planning for that this morning I stumbled across World Read Aloud Day! Did you know that it's coming up on Wednesday March 5th? So, what does a proactive teacher do when she knows how busy her favorite readers are? Yep, sends out early morning emails to her favorite principal, librarian, superintendent, and coach (Kris if you are reading this, look for that email soon hehe). 

Here is a link if you want more information about it. I want to surprise the students with a full out read aloud day. We'll have some special surprise readers lined up, as well as a homework assignment to bring in their favorite picture book for that day. We'll get into groups and read to each other our favorite stories! I can't wait. They offer this great classroom kit and I'm going to send home the statistic page. What motivation to read to your children! Sign up, it's a good time.

http://litworld.org/storage/litworldwrad2014classroomkit.pdf

It's snowing here today, wherever you are, enjoy your Sunday! And if you can, try to do something for you today. Recharge, because tomorrow we start again! Happy teaching :)

Happy New Year!

My goal during our winter break was to blog. Right. Well, now that I have failed miserably at getting on my computer I can honestly say that I don't mind. Yes, I enjoy blogging and writing about my class. I also enjoy writing a little more now than I used to. But seriously, walking away from my computer and putting up my 'out of town' auto response in my email was fantastic!

Looking ahead to the next half of the school year I have a few new things I'm going to try. I have a site set up, and approved through my district, on kidblog.com. I'm looking forward to being able to teach students the joys of writing publicly (I'm hoping that it will improve some of the grammar issues if they know others will be reading and responding to their work).

It's a really easy site to set up and the teacher controls are easy to use. I'm also looking at ways to incorporate journaling into writing class. Like, crazy doodling, lists, high/lows, all over, type journaling. I want my students to be able to express themselves in less structured ways so that we can use that format to make some of our more tedious tasks (like comparing and analyzing poetry) more enjoyable. I got some ideas on Pinterest already. Feel free to check out my Classroom Ideas board: http://www.pinterest.com/leekm2006/classroom-ideas/.

This one is probably my favorite version so far:

http://hopewallace.com/gallery/ringed

I'll post pictures of mine soon. I'm wanted to share with my students how fun, messy, and creative this could be. I'd love ideas on how to make this work for curriculum areas!

And finally, as I prepare to go off for an end of the year hair cut and pop by my classroom to build some book shelves, I want to wish you all a Happy New Year. Please be safe, read a good book, and make for yourself a goal that will sustain you through the next few months of teaching. 

Math Journals and Parent Conferences

Over the years I have gotten slightly more comfortable with parent conferences. And by slightly I mean, well, seriously a small amount. I am so much more comfortable conversing with my sixth graders. I have nightmares about parents coming in and yelling at me, even though they have been mostly calm since the first day of school. I'm sure everything will go well, at the middle level they are so concerned about their children making friends that we can use the conference time to reassure and comfort. My intern and my advisory partner will be there to help, which will be wonderful to have another set of eyes and ears in case I miss something.

In order to prepare for conferences our students create goals. While they do not attend the conference, we do like to share their goals with their families. Most of the time everyone agrees on what has to be worked on. I also like to sit and type up some strengths, concerns, and/or goals for the children based on our observations in the classroom. With 15 minutes to meet each parent it certainly goes fast. I'll keep you posted on how they go. If you have conferences coming up soon, either as the teacher or the parent, please be kind :)

My projects today, I think, are a distraction from the above. I am loving, and I mean LOVING doing the math journals and stations with my students. Being a type-A planner I have math journals and standards matched up until the end of October. Here are the next two that we are going to be working on (again, Runde's Room was my resource for all of these ideas).

Equivalent Fractions

The week of Halloween - they will use them to explain fraction operations.

Happy weekend everyone! I hope you have time to do what you want, even if that means sitting and coloring math journals :) Let me know if you have questions about anything you see.

Introduction

I'm not a writer. I'll start with that. Teaching writing is actually the subject that I feel is my weakest area. Sentence structure, grammar, all of it...beyond difficult. But here I am, writing on a blog. You may ask "why?" That question would have a few parts:

• I hope to encourage new teachers, and any teacher really through my blog. My goal is to be encouraging and positive. I love sharing ideas, helping others through unexpected challenges, and talking about my experiences in the classroom. I am hoping this is platform for that.
• With the understanding that teachers are multifaceted creatures, I aim to use this blog to show that side of our career. I am a teacher, but I am also a wife, mother, Christian, wanna-be-runner, and gym rat in the making. Many lessons I learn in other areas of my life cross into my teaching, and vice versa.
• Reading blogs of other teachers has encouraged me, but finding blogs of middle school teachers, and specifically the rare bread of 6th grade teachers (not quite elementary but not quite middle) has been tricky. I hope to be a voice for those of us who are learning about this delicate and difficult age. 

Now that I have my goals in place, how about a little about me. Well, as you've probably guessed by now I am a sixth grade teacher. 2013-2014 will be my 7th year (what!!) of teaching this age. At my middle school we are a 6-8th grade building, however our 6th grade are not departmentalized (that means I teach everything, everyday!). In 2013-2014 I will also be working with my first intern (our student teachers are with us for the entire school year) so I'm looking forward to sharing my learning experiences through that adventure.

I am a mom to lively, rambunctious, and stubborn 3 year old who keeps me on my toes every day. I am the wife, heading into my 7th anniversary, of a Godly computer software engineer who is incredibly talented at anything he sets his mind too (including but not limited to his job and playing the bass guitar). I am a Christian, something that in pubic education can be something of a challenge. I love my new Bible Study on Twitter (#hellomornings) and my Facebook group through (in)courage.me. I work out at an amazing gym every morning at 5:30am - hey, it's the mom/full time work thing, when else will I find time! And I have an amazing extended family.

I hope that this blog will be an encouragement to those that need it. I welcome comments, however please keep them positive. What I share is my personal experiences, my personal life, and with that in mind I ask for your respect as a reader and as a colleague. Best, and happy reading!

My loves