Day 9/10-"Centers"

I tried the reworked version of my centers and found that it still needs a little tweaking, but it is definitely headed in the right direction.

The baskets worked great!  I had all of the supplies including printed directions in each basket.  I assigned a Captain and a Supply Manager for each group. My Captains kept everyone focused on the task and kept track of time.  The Supply Manager distributed the supplies out of the basket, read the directions and collected everything at the end of the time limit.  I feel like they did a good job with their roles so that is staying.

I did change the desk set up though, I had three groups of six which I really liked, but 1. it was hard to get them in position, and 2. this is a very chatty group of students and although I'm working on getting that under control, I think its too many together.  Right now they are paired up in rows and I have three groups, I had  the middle pair split up and one will move to the right and the other will move left.  So it will look like this:

xxx     xxx

xxx     xxx

xxx     xxx

I  still had 3 activities but I made two baskets instead of one.  Also, instead of the basket moving, I had the students move in order to give them a little leg stretch during this long block.  This worked really well even on the first try!

This afternoon, our external instructional coach came in and I got some really good feedback.  She said I was on the right track and gave me some things to tweak. Especially the type of work I should be having the students do.  I am super excited to try it out tomorrow.

Another observation I've made is that this group of students, while they are challenging as far as their behavior goes, they have already demonstrated some great math talk and reasoning!  I can't wait to start actually blogging about their math soon!!

Day 7/8-1st Full Week Done!

First let me say, I survived the first full moon of the year!  If there is one thing that I have learned during my time as a teacher, it is that students are definitely more challenging on a full moon.  That doesn't have to be a negative thought either, and its not just them, I believe I have to watch my own behaviors during this time as well.  I try to be more soothing and calm and not get them too hyped up.

I have learned soooo much this week and I am excited about that!
I attempted to introduce "centers" and conferencing with students.  This is something I have struggled with forever and I am more determined then ever to get it right this year.  I now have a 120 minute math block in the morning and about 95 minutes in the afternoon.  There is no reason this can't work!
Lets just say this was a great learning opportunity for me.  Especially since our wonderful RTI specialist, who I just respect so much and adore was in the class with me.  She gave me some really great suggestions and helped me make a plan for next week!
What I learned and how I'm changing it and concerns:
Not enough structure!  Since I have 18 students and set my desks up in three rows of pairs, after the mini lesson, I will have the pairs of students turn their desks and face each other. This will create 3 "groups" of 6 students.  I will have 3 activities planned with all of the supplies in a basket.  I will designate a captain for each group, that person will keep the group focused and on task.  Each group will have a supply manager who will be responsible for distributing and collecting supplies from and to the basket.  There will also be a messenger who, if the group is having a problem or question and cannot figure it out themselves, the messenger will be the only one who can ask me the question.
Concerns:  I'm pretty sure I know my high, middle and low groups already, but I know there is not a perfect 6 of each.  Something I plan to do is pull 4 students at a time to my back table.  So I will also have to take that into consideration, would I want all lows together and when I pull my 4 only 2 are left?  Still a lot of learning for me to do and I think I won't be able to know for sure until I try it.

WBT is going well and still a lot for me to learn here too.  Of course in my mind I expect instant perfection and I'm not there yet, but that is OK.  In the first week I have seen more than one student who has the tendency to be off task and disruptive, self correct and work really hard to get a "line" on my tracker sheet to earn a star.  That is success in my book!  Here is the other thing I noticed this week.  I've raised my voice once or twice and said some negative things (Do you want to lose recess?  If you can't follow the rules you are not welcome in my classroom-things like that) and some of the support teachers have done the same.  The students respond to that really well AT THE TIME, but then go right back to the behaviors we do not want.  On the other hand, I've already seen as mentioned before, behaviors being changed from the positive reinforcements even when I'm not actively talking about it.  I'm not sure I'm explaining that correctly.  Anyway, I plan this week to really focus on and call out all of the good behavior I see and less focus on the misbehavior.  I won't let the misbehavior off the hook, they have already learned my stink eye and I will stand by students who are talking out or not focused, I will still wait for 100% and things like that, but I will go out of my way to make a big deal over students who are doing the right thing.

Friends and Enemies

July Blogging Challenge Day 20

Today I'm going to blog about an idea for an activity I want to try out this year.  First a little disclaimer, I can never think of things myself, everything is always stolen from much better educators!  So I was reading  David Coffey's blog and found this great post about worksheets and in that post he talks about a little twist to make boring worksheets better like asking students to pick 6 problems to solve and then explain why you picked them. After he presented the idea to student teachers they came up with fun stuff like "What items would you assign your best friend?  Your enemy?  Why?"  That is where I got the idea for this activity.

First start off with a boring worksheet.  I have Kutasoft's Pre-Algebra and Algebra 1 worksheet makers that I loved for 7/8, but I think for 5/6 I will use some online worksheet makers more often like  http://www.math-drills.com/

Next students would be asked to pick either 6 items they would assign their friends or 6 items they would assign their enemies and why.  I'm thinking that students will work off of one sheet and record everything on a separate piece of paper.  Then I would have students choose a slip of paper from a jar that is either red or green.  If they pull a green they are a friend and a red would mean they are an enemy.  Then each student would give and get the appropriate problems based on if they are friends or enemies.

While they are working, if an "enemy" gets stuck, they can ask a "friend" for help.  After they have completed the 6 problems, they have the person who gave them the problems correct them.

I'm thinking I would use this activity at a station or center with a group of 4 students.  Still not sure how my centers/stations/math workshop is going to work, but this is one of the activities I will use!