The Perfect Storm

Teachers have a special power.

{besides the obvious} 

We know when the weather is going to change. We also know when there is going to be a full moon. With the behavior of my students, I knew something was in the works. 

Well, by 1PM it was raining, and we were getting messages that it was freezing and making it very slick and unsafe. Well, we got the kids out and then went out like a small army and started scraping our cars together. It was so heart warming to see all of us helping each other scrape the parking lot full of cars. Everyone had sincere concern for each other and worry for each others' safety. 

Then when I got home, I found out that there is a super moon outside. Which is like a Full Moon but bigger. And closer. And crazier. 

So, of course my students couldn't focus or pay attention or do their work or listen to me or ... anything! 

Needless to say, I am glad it's the weekend. Even though I know I just get two days and then it's back to "the grind"

Also: I'm working on a set of cards for our calendar set. We are currently using Calendar Math; but I find myself without direction on certain parts, and those are some of the most important parts.
What I'm working on will help us be a little more focused when it comes to the "coin counter" aspect. Calendar Math gives you a card with an item on it that is blank for the price. That makes it really hard for me to stand up there and think "well, this month we're talking about quarters, what's the best way to make them think about using quarters and handle change..."

It's just too much.

So I thought I would take month by month and make some word problems so that you could just flip through them without a whole lot of problem. Our district has also taken out the Money Chapter in our actual pacing guide, so we have to be sure to teach money really well during calendar time. (eek!)

Have a great weekend, stay warm, watch the super bowl, & Hopefully we get good news from that groundhog! 

Getting Things Done

I know they always say that "a teacher's work is never done" but I really have this feeling that I can get some things caught up so that when we have conferences and when we have mid-terms and all that jazz, I will have some of the other "little" things done. 

The month of February always goes QUICKLY so I have my gifts printed off for the kiddos for the 100th day and I finally figured out what I wanted to do for Valentine's Day. I made up a mustache-themed Valentine for the kids, and I'll put a little piece of candy on them!

And it's here as a freebie for you all!

Have a great week back if you haven't been back fully yet! 

Math Workstations

So after coming back from Christmas in Second Grade we are tackling multiplication and division. Which normally when I've been here teaching in Second Grade we have taught near the very end of the school year. So I was really nervous about how to do this. 

I took a lot of my time out of my Christmas break making plans for the next Chapter in our math curriculum (Which are here at my store) and researching math workstations. I have always wanted to do them, and never thought that I could. It seemed like such a daunting task! So after reading A LOT, I finally figured out a plan for my kids for some workstations. So..... here's what math workstations are looking like in my room so far: 

Sorry about the ultra blurry photo, I took it with my phone. BUT These are my workstations. 

Workstations

They spell out "MATH" 

M= Math Facts

A= At your seat

T= Teacher's Choice

H= Hands on

I have made tubs with the same graphics (Which are from Thistle Girl Designs) so that the kids know where their materials are for each rotation. I'll talk about rotations in just a minute. 

Inside the "Math Facts" tub I have things that will increase their math fact fluency. Ten-frames that they use for games like War and Concentration, flash cards, number cards, dice, etc. 

Inside the "At Your Seat" tub, I put a problem solving problem 1/4 sheet that they can glue into their journals and work with a partner to solve. 

"Teacher's Choice" is meeting with me at the table. We do activities according to the lesson and what the students need, as you would with reading groups. 

Inside the "Hands On" tub, I put a game, problem solving skill using manipulatives, or sort.

I also created a "When you're Finished" Tub. I put math books inside the tub that compliment the subject that we are talking about. -- hopefully this will keep them from coming to ask me "what do I do now?!"

Rotations

Let's start off with explaining that our second grade is departmentalized, which I L-O-V-E! So, I teach four sections of math: one hour each. Since I only have one hour to teach math, I was really worried in the beginning about how I was going to divide the time to allow for "workstations." 

This is what I have come up with so far, and it seems to be working & the kids are enjoying it. 

5 min: Beginning "Warm-up" Activity 
20 min: Whole Group instruction 
15 min: Workstations <--- this is where I was originally so confused. Only meet with ONE group per day. On the top of my Workstations chart where it says "rotation 1,2,3,4" Really, those are "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday" I'll get into this more in a minute. 
15 min: Independent Practice (Could be a worksheet or Journal Activity) 
5 min: Closure/Clean-up/Exit Ticket

**My groups are named things like "Quadrilateral, Hexagon, Pentagon, Triangle" ... things that second graders need to know also. 

What I have been doing is splitting the kids off into their workstation after the whole group lesson and then meeting with my group at my big table. With meeting with only one group per day, I don't have to do *quite as much* prep for the workstations, because they only go to each station ONCE per week.

Because my schedule just has four rotations and only goes through Thursday (and the M-A-T-H allows for four rotations nicely) I left it all that way. Some weeks we don't have school on a Monday or a Friday. Or we have an assembly which throws the schedule off. Or we may just need to re-do a rotation. Having just four 'rotations' gives us a little flexibility. 

Re-reading all of this it sounds very confusing but honestly it isn't not that I've been doing it for a week, and the kids look forward to it.
Add to it that each of my second grade classes has 27 kids... it can be a confusing schedule! 

In other news ... one of my colleagues asked me to make a persuasive unit up for her and so I did really quickly last night. It is a three-week unit on persuasive letter writing geared towards Second Graders, but could be used for third or fourth. Here it is in my store:
 

Have a great weekend!! 

-Hilliary 

 

Professional Development

Today our district participated in Active Intruder Training. I have always participated in "lock-down" drills through my district. But never have I actually been formally trained. Today we were made to think about some things that were uncomfortable, stressful, and also made to think differently. I have always thought "what if" in my teaching career; because I have just recently become a teacher, Columbine occurred when I was in fifth grade, VA Tech when I was a freshman in college, and Sandy Hook most recently. 

But today we were made to think differently. I always thought that I would be able to think on my feet. That I would know exactly which resources to utilize in my classroom if the situation arose, and would be able to do so. But today I was brought to the realization that I don't have all the answers, and that there is always more to be learned. I have always thought "what if" but I'm glad today we practiced a few things to take some of the anxiety away. 

I know that most of the country is under a winter storm, we here in Missouri are expecting -30 degree temperatures in the next few days! I just can't even imagine!

I'm watching my Mizzou Tigers (hopefully win) the Cotton Bowl tonight so I thought I would leave you with a little inspiration as we all get ready to go back to school for the next semester: I had to watch this video for one of my graduate classes this summer and I love it! It is one of the most inspirational "teacher-y" videos that I have ever seen!

Dalton Sherman's inspiring back-to-school speech 

A lot of Work

For as much time as I haven't been on my blog, I have actually been doing a lot of school work. I just love those few people who still think teachers don't do any work over breaks. (and maybe there are a few teachers who do leave their work behind) but I have NO IDEA how that doesn't stress them out completely. 

I have been busily working on Teachers Pay Teachers products because it really is a big goal of mine for 2014 to become part of the "TpT world" and the "blogging adventure" ... so I have been busy learning and trying new things with products and experimenting with power point and so on. My aim in all of this is NOT to become a millionaire. My aim is really and truly to become a better teacher, and as I'm just a little over a month into this adventure, I can honestly say that it has forced me to become a better educator. I look at EVERYTHING with a critical eye. Worksheets that come with our pre-packaged curriculum I look at and think "I can make that, and make it BETTER" ... so I go home and do that. I look at other teachers' products and critique them, always learning from what they have done, how to use space and colors, where it's best to place clip art and text boxes, how to layer and form pages. It's been so much fun for me! 

I go to sleep making lists in my head of things I want to make, how I can help my teammates, what other teachers may want, what I want my goals to be with this adventure, and it's energizing. At one point on break, I actually went to bed, had too much going on in my head, and had to wake back up to create another product. Whoops! 

Another aspect of this that has already made me a better educator is that I have had to scrutinize the standards with every product I make. I know what they say for my grade level, and often I look ahead and below to see what they should have known and where they will be going with their information. 

So with all this cheesy enthusiasm, I am going to be throwing a sale in my store starting tomorrow in honor of the New Year, in honor of our break being over and in honor of me upgrading to premium membership (woot!) 10% off everything! 

And I just added a whole new unit for an Introduction to Multiplication for my Second Graders. I spent many days over break working on it, and I'm really excited to get back and start it! We're also going to start "workstations." Here's a visual of what the plans look like in the unit: 

In the Unit there are also 20 other pages of sheets/stations/sorts aligned to the common core to supplement the Singapore Lessons that we teach from!
Have a great week back to school, or if you're starting with PD or workdays... I know we're getting ready for a big winter storm here in MO!