Lightbulb!!!!

“Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof. Clap along along if you feel like happiness is the truth…”
Happy Monday!!! I’m EXTRA happy because I’m on Spring Break! But like probably every other teacher out there I’m already batting around ideas about next school year…come on I know I’m not the only one.
I must confess that this school year my blogging has been…well....blah.
                                          

 I’ve been waiting and waiting for inspiration to kick in and  it’s still MIA. So I figured maybe next year a change was in order, which lead me to the decision to give my classroom a total makeover, maybe that will kick the inspiration up a notch. So I’ve been doing a bit of pre-planning.

Disclosure: If you are one of those people who doesn’t like preparing your space before the kids arrive, if you think it's not good pedagogy, blasphemous, sacrilegious, or if you have some aversion to the dreaded "cute" word, then please stop reading. I'm totally okay with that.

But if you’re like me and want just a touch of inspiration then please read on. Let me just say I prepare the space and my student's work is like the icing on the cake. I have to live in my classroom for nine months, five days a week for 7-10 hours daily so I’m just saying.

Step 1: Scour the blogisphere for ideas that speak to you, tickle your  fancy, get the creative ball rolling and all that jazz. I must say that First Grade Blue Skies is my current favorite for tons of ideas for my classroom space. I’ve also just discovered The Pink Pineapple, love her Instagram pictures and I love how her student’s work is everywhere! If you’d like to check these ladies out then click on their buttons below.
                   

Step 2: Decide on a color scheme. I’m going with a sort of light teal, lavender, a touch of hot pink and black as an accent. I created the slides I’m about to show you in PowerPoint. I found some backgrounds in my clipart collection and started from there. I’m thinking Chevron and/or polkadots?????



Step 3: Copy and paste ideas against the backdrop of your color scheme and type notes as needed. If I copy and paste an idea I’m more likely to remember it, and I may not do it exactly like the picture, but it’s the idea of it that I’m interested in. I also copy and paste things I’d like to order from places like Really Good Stuff or Lakeshore. Also, having my color scheme in mind helps when I go into Target, Walmart and The Dollar Tree.


Step 4: Keep adding ideas until I’m satisfied! I know lots of people probably do this same thing, but I just wanted to share my little ole process. Now fingers crossed that it turns like like the picture I have in my head of my classroom space for next year!

The pictures from this post came from: First Grade Blue Skies and Ladybug Teacher Files. If you see a picture from a blog I didn’t mention, please let me know so I can credit the proper person. Thanks a bunch! Now I’m off to read, relax and enjoy this beautiful day!

Math Hunts Done

 

After many e-mail requests I have uploaded my first set of math hunts to my TpT store. My students are enjoying these! On Friday I gave them a cumulative unit test on all things Common Core: Operations in  Base Tens and they all rocked it! It didn’t record a grade below a B plus! I’m so proud of them! They are getting a special treat from me on tomorrow…shhhhh don’t tell them!

If you would like to check out the March Edition of my math hunts you can click here.

 

I am also diligently working on my April edition. Have a great Sunday and a marvelous Monday!

 

Back on the Blogging Block

Okay…..so I know It’s been a while since I actually did some blogging. Sorry about that. But I’m back now to share a little of what we’ve been doing.

This year I have some really great mathematicians, and they are surprising me everyday with their thinking!!! Some days I end Math Morning Meeting literally blown away by some of their problem solving abilities.

I was trying to come up with a way to keep math problem solving abilities front and center, sort of like a spiral review without all the worksheets. I wanted something I could leave up all month long and something that covered lots of skills within a domain. So here’s what I came up with.

I am currently testing it out in my classroom, and my students are having fun completing one activity each day. I made 26 cards, a-z. This allows me to keep them up for the entire month. After they complete their daily story problem they can complete one card of their choice. Here are some examples.  

        

In order to help them keep up with which cards they’ve completed I simply stapled a cover to half sheets of white copy paper. After I gave each student their books I instructed them to fold the white pages in half, that way they could complete two cards per page, front and back. I also made them an insert so they could color in the letter of each card they completed.

       

So far they are loving it, and I get to see each of their individual thinking on paper. On all of the cards they have to show their thinking. I am working on an April one that I hope to upload to TpT.

So there you have it. How do you structure spiral reviews in your classroom?

Have a great  rest of the weekend!