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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!

ELA and Math Common Core Craziness!

Hey Friends!

I haven't posted in a while because I've been a PowerPoint creating machine! First of all, I have to say, the feedback you guys have been giving me on TpT is so gratifying and motivating! I finished ELA Module 1 Unit 2! That was such a relief!  I was getting burned out on that topic and I haven't even taught it yet! If you haven't seen, I've also been creating the Math Module 1 in PowerPoint.  From what people have be

en writing to me, it seems that many states are adopting the New York Math program!  Woo Hoo! I am a fan of it but I can't imagine teaching it without the PowerPoint lessons.  Module 1 is teaching Multiplication and Division and you constantly need to be showing the students arrays, tape diagrams, groups and sets, rows, columns... sheesh!  How would anyone have time to prepare this on chart paper, or are we supposed to draw these things while the kids are waiting... that was very confusing to me!  I know I would lose 90% of my students if they had to sit there while I try to draw objects in perfect rows and columns on the board.  Ridiculous.  Now, I don't have to worry about this, and neither do you (if you go on TpT and purchase the powerpoint lessons).  Please "pin" the products you like to help me spread the word! 

Half Way There!

I took some time off from work in July and August 1st I got back in motion!  I'm half way done with ELA Module 1 Unit 2.  I'm really excited about the feedback I've been getting from Module 1 Unit 1.  It seems that everyone is really excited to use the lessons in September!  I'm hoping to get Unit 2 completed by the end of this week.  I'm spending this week at home potty training my 2 1/2 year old so when I can occupy him with a coloring book for a little or be a really bad mom and put a movie on (who doesn't do that once in a while?) I can manage to get a few minutes of work done!

Here are my issues... The Unit 2 lesson plans are no where as clear as the Unit 1 and I've found a decent amount of errors that Engage NY has made.  I've been trying to add my "notes" in the "notes" section on PowerPoint, so if you are purchasing Unit 2 then I suggest reading the notes.  Unfortunately any time I've contacted Engage NY or Expeditionary Learning with a question no one has gotten back to me which is a huge disappointment for me, so good luck if you try contacting them!

I really appreciate the feedback everyone has been sending me!  Keep it coming and don't forget to rate my products on Teachers Pay Teachers!

Na, Na, Na, Na... Na, Na, Na, Na... Hey, Hey, Hey... GOODBYE!

Isn't this the best moment!  We have the music blasting in the background, the kids are on the bus waving while the buses are pulling out of the bus circle, the whole school stands outside waving good bye, and I will be singing in my head Na, Na, Na, Na... Na, Na, Na, Na... Hey, Hey, Hey, GOOD BYE! Tomorrow is my last day!  

This year has been a very difficult one. The Common Core "Curriculum" coupled with equally difficult students that were not prepared for this, has made me overly prepared for a summer break! I have worked extra hard this year and I know next year is not going to be easier with this curriculum. I have made a promise to myself to not work too much on school work.  I am doing some curriculum writing to integrate Social Studies into the curriculum on 3 scheduled days, I am going to try very hard to limit myself to those 3 days!  Congrats to all my hard working teachers out there!  Congrats to another year under our belts!  

Love Always,

Module 1 Unit 1 is D - O - N - E !

I'm so excited to have finished the PowerPoint Lessons for Module 1 Unit 1 for September / October... whenever we start the modules!  I feel so prepared for next year!  I'm really excited to see how the kids do with these interesting topics as well as the parent feedback.  Nasreen's Secret School will definitely be raising some eyebrows in homes across New York State!  I also noticed that there really weren't too many modifications in the Module 1 Unit 1, which is disappointing.  The modifications for ELL's during Peter Pan were extremely helpful.  Well, go over to my teacher store and buy ALL OF MODULE 1 UNIT 1 for $50 ... which is a steal.  You will be using these PowerPoint Lessons for at least 12 hours in your classroom, and saving yourself an equal amount of time in preparation!

Peter Pan...

I felt the hardest part of teaching Peter Pan this year was that I had to constantly look at the lesson plan from Expeditionary Learning.  I literally was learning along side the kids!  Every morning making the anchor charts and getting the right worksheets out to use on the document reader has been a lot of prep work, yet I always felt during the lesson at some point, I was missing a step or a chart!  These lessons expect you to fit a ton of material in an hour, this year I had an hour and fifteen minutes and it would still take me two days to get through one lesson.  I tried to go through the lessons with a fine tooth comb and make sure everything is included.  I finally finished making Unit 1 and I've started making Unit 2 which is like 14 lessons and Unit 3 is another 10 lessons! As soon as I'm done with Peter Pan, I will get a move on with Module 1.  Being that I didn't teach that Module this year (it was released in November) I need to spend more time reading it through to fully understand the "central idea". My goal is to have Module 1 Unit 1 complete before July.  I hope that deadline works for everyone!

Love Always,

Stepping it Up!

I've been examining the top selling materials made and sold by teachers on TpT and trying to get a handle on this new venture I've decided to take on!  I can't get over how absolutely amazing the work is that people are creating.  There are really incredible teachers out there!  It's time to step up my game!

When I started teaching the 3rd grade modules this year, the 1st module was not out yet, so I haven't had any materials for the first module created yet.  I decided that Module 1 was going to be where I'm going to show myself what I'm really capable of!

The area of focus for Module 1 is Superheroes of Reading from Around the World which is actually a pretty intense topic.  It's going to be interesting to see how well the students are able to grasp it.  Since this is such an intense unit I felt like I needed to lighten it up with a Superhero theme! 

Love Always,

Welcome to Common Core with Style!

I am over the moon excited about my new blog!  I am so grateful for the help from Megan over at Bird in Hand Designs... she did an amazing job reading my mind and delivering exactly what I wanted!  I highly recommend her to anyone out there starting a blog! 

I will mainly be blogging about my experiences with the "New" New York State Common Core Curriculum for 3rd Grade since that is a major hot topic right now.  I spent the 2012-2013 school year putting my blood, sweat, and tears into modifying this "curriculum" for my students.  Since I am in one of the few districts in New York that decided to dive in head first this year, I thought I would share my experiences with all of you! 

We are on this journey together so why not blog about it?

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Love Always,