TpT Back To School Sale is Happening Today and Tomorrow!  - August 4 -5 

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Making Common Core Cute

This year I thought the worst part of teaching Math was that everything NY made for the Common Core Math program was boring! Especially the number bonds, which have such potential.  I decided to make some activities that can be used either at centers or has additional work.  I put them in plastic sleeves and used them as reusable worksheets at a center with the answers on the back.

In September my focus in Math are the number bonds and skip counting. - $5.50
In October my focus in Math are the number bonds, skip counting, and tape diagrams. $3.50

In the past, I feel like I have had PACKETS and WORKSHEETS and PAPER, PAPER, PAPER...EVERYWHERE and NOWHERE all at once!  "Where's your packet?" and the reply is, "I lost it!" Last year I tried using interactive notebooks a little bit and loved it.  Yes, they took a little bit of time to set up, but the end result was incredible!  There was this little black and white notebook that was always at their fingertips as a resource of information and a collection of all of their learning and hard work! This coming year is going to be the year of the notebook for my classroom. 

One of my biggest struggles with the ELA Modules was constant referencing work completed in previous lessons completed week's ago! Most of my students threw out the work or lost it.  Not that I could blame them, because I didn't tell them to keep it! How was I supposed to know that in 2 weeks they would need that Close Reading Recording Form again?! I  am determined to organize all of the paper this year. It's going to take a lot of glue or tape and every single page in those composition notebooks, but it will be organized in one safe place.  

Anchors Away is a FREE DOWNLOAD! 

My New Benches!

I'm so excited about my new classroom benches.  My classroom used to be part of the school offices in a trailer add-on to the school.  It has ZERO storage.  The district gave me 2 metal closets and called it a day.  For the past two years I've been trying to come up with good storage solutions.   I was able to buy these expedit ikea shelves from a florist that was going out of business and it came with 4 of the wicker baskets! I then made the cushions on top and wrapped them in a heavy vinyl to keep them from getting stained and ruined. I purchased 6 canvas boxes from ikea for $6 each.  I am super proud of this storage solution!  It also helps for the times when I want my students to come over to the carpet area.  In 3rd grade some of the students are just too big to fit all of them on the rug, and unfortunately some of them are so out of shape, or some students have OT or PT issues and its really difficult for them to get up and down from the floor, so this is a great solution for bringing everyone to the carpet area comfortably.  I also found those storage cubes at my reading table on Overstock.com and decided to use them instead of the students dragging their chairs across the room. I feel like I ended the school year being excited to start the next one with my decor! 

So Happy For Module 2!

I FINALLY FINISHED MODULE 1!  Oh my god that was the longest topic ever and near impossible to teach with fidelity when you don't have the materials to support the lessons!  Having to improvise on a daily basis was exhausting.  I am so happy to be starting the unit on frogs.  It's a relief because we have enough books for almost every student (maybe short 1 or 2 books per class).  I also taught this unit last year and loved it.  I have my notes from last year of what worked and what didn't.  I am comfortable with this... I can do this!  The kids loved this unit last year, and they looked forward to reading the books each day.  If you haven't already seen the interactive notebook activities I've created, you definitely should check them out.  Those boring, ugly worksheets that NYS has given us drain every ounce of interest and excitement out of the kids, so I highly recommend using the interactive notebook activities in place of the state has supplied us with (sub-par as usual).  How is everyone else feeling about Module 2?  Any good ideas of how to make it better?  Last year we got tadpoles and fish tanks and watched them turn to frogs... this took MONTHS and the maintenance of cleaning the tanks
 was too much.  We opted against it this year.... too smelly, too dirty!  I would love to hear any other ideas you have!  Please share!

Are you settling into Common Core with style?

Wow, September was hectic!!!! My district barely had any of the materials ready that were needed to teach these modules! So frustrating!  It it weren't for the teachers pulling together I honestly don't know how we would have made it through September!  

How are your students liking the lessons?

ELA - So far so good!  I am really impressed with how my students are rising to the occasion with these lessons.  I am using Lesson 8 in Unit 1 as a mid-unit assessment.  This is the writing piece about Nasreen's Secret School.  Instead of using the graphic organizer we used index cards to organize the writing.  Then they put the index cards in order to create paragraphs.  I was pleasantly surprised by how wonderful these paragraphs came out!  It's also been heartwarming to see how the students showed so much empathy for Nasreen and her life.  This was a very emotional story for some students in my class - especially when we saw the picture at the end of her parents in the clouds (heaven) looking down on Nasreen.  Another adaptation that I made  in my class was with Lesson 9 for That Book Woman.  The lesson calls for you to give students excerpts from the story and then they write down the gist of each excerpt.  The language was EXTREMELY DIFFICULT for my students.  I have several students where english is their second language, so it took some real endurance and stamina to get through this story on both of our parts!  Instead of giving the students the excerpts, I read each excerpt with my class and we wrote down the gist of each excerpt together in notebooks.  I will post a picture tomorrow of what this looked like!  The kids really enjoyed this interactive notebook activity.

MATH - Well the math is tough! Right? OMG!  The kids are having the toughest time just following directions and figuring out what the question is asking them to do.  I'm up to lesson 11 right now in class.  My students did the Mid - Unit Assessment and though it wasn't a class of 24 - 100's, I still was happy with the progress they made.

I have to keep reminding myself... common core is mainly about teaching the students how to learn, and less about what to learn.  Its frustrating and difficult but if we keep trucking along with the program, I think we will be surprised by what they are capable of.

Store Updates!  I am running another sale on Columbus Day Weekend!  Module 2A Unit 1 will be released very soon!