What's Working and What's Not

Two weeks in and I can really see the things that are working and the things that just aren't going to happen in my classroom.  I am really happy with the way the year has started off and I'm excited to see how my kids do this year.  One of the biggest things I notice is that even though I have ALWAYS had high expectations, this year they seem the highest they have ever been.  I'm not sure why or what changed in me to make this happen, but I like it and the kids seem to be responding!

What's Working
1. So I will start off with the biggest surprise of all (to me) and that is the "whole brain teaching" strategy of "Class, Yes" and the scoreboard.   I am using the Class/Yes, with all classes, but I'm only using the score board with 7th grade.  Always liked the Class/Yes idea for getting their attention because it makes them respond and then be quiet, I've always done the "hands up" for attention and while it works really well for our school, for example when we are in the auditorium or cafeteria, its not so great for the classroom as I was never able to get 100% participation.  With Class/Yes, I am getting that 100%  I also might get into other types of call/response phrases after a while, just because I think its fun and I'm always looking for ways to put fun into my math class!! Here is a list I found on pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/193303008978990418/
My 7th graders really like the scoreboard and I can do things like give them a frowny point instead of Shhhhing them when they are too loud for example.  That has been great as I teach them my expectations.  Right now there is no prize/consequence with the game but I'm thinking that will be coming soon.

2. Next up is my SWAG sign!  When I notice them starting to drift, daydream, lose focus, etc, I just say "Show me your SWAG" and they all sit up straight no questions asked!  I don't want to jinx myself, but even my tough guys are buying it!  Love it!!!  Sometimes I say "Table 1 sure has SWAG" and they all follow whatever Table 1 is doing or whoever is following the rules.  Another thing I noticed yesterday was that when I taught the procedure for "SWAG" we went through each letter, and I didn't really model the sitting up straight part, just what it didn't look like.  Well I've noticed that when I ask to see their swag some of them are even clasping their hands on the desk, it is too cute and so funny to see these "too cool for school" preteens doing exactly what I want them to do!

3. Something I call the Circle Tracker.  I made a list of the skills that I was looking for in the chapter.  I put it in a spreadsheet with all of their names.While they are working (workshop time) I go around with my clipboard, check certain problems, ask directed questions and get a feel for their mastery of the skill.  If they have no clue, I leave the box blank, sort of get it I put a circle, get maybe one small thing wrong, I put a line through the circle and if they show complete mastery its a plus sign in the circle.   We were required to do this last year and it just seemed overwhelming.  Somehow this year, it just seems like a natural fit, and I think its due to the workshop model I am trying to implement.    I like that the circle tracker gives me a really clear visual as to where the class is.  Yesterday I noticed that only one of my 36 students could approximate a cube or square root on the number line so I focused my mini lesson on that.


4. Math workshop:  I am so glad I read the book over the summer, it is one of those concepts that really changed the way I look at my teaching.   At first I was going to classify this as "Almost working" because it doesn't quite look like the videos of math workshop that I've seen, but then when I went explain what exactly wasn't working yet I realized, its pretty darn close!  I have to work on my timing and I now have two timers, one I use for the kids (this one) and one I wear around my neck (this one).  The timing issue is also because I am just getting to know my students and the new textbook series oh and after transition times, I am only left with about 48 minutes for each class!  It seems that my class right after lunch can be down to 38 minutes-that is just unacceptable and we are working on it. (We are a K-8 school with no bells since we all run on different class times.)  Once we get the timing down things will go a lot smoother.  I am definitely breaking the lessons in to 2-3 days, so that makes it look a tiny bit different too, but still effective for me-I think, since we are still in the middle of only one lesson right now!

What's not really going to work:
Flipping:  I had originally envisioned doing videos for the skills content and then having students work on the juicy problems in class.  This is just not going to happen.  I am able to get the skills taught in the mini lesson and I noticed that each class needs them tweaked a little bit anyway, so my videos would not be effective for everyone.  I will consider sending them to virtualnerd.com, AFTER I teach them if they are struggling with homework or want more review for tests.

First Week Recap

One of my goals for this year was to blog more, last week was fast and this weekend was just a killer with lesson plans due Monday, our first annual Back to School BBQ (huge success!  Met lots of new parents in a nice "out of school" setting-really helps us to establish a community!) on Saturday and then taking my daughter and her friend to a concert in Philly on Sunday.
So lets recap, last week was great!  I did all of my expectations and procedures teaching just from their observations (I notice) and their questions (I wonder) and from the Post it activity that Sherrie posted about: http://7thgrademathteacherextraordinaire.blogspot.com/  I also did the Guess Who game workshop style and it was a hit!  The thing I love about the workshop model is that it actually works really easily. It didn't feel like I was "doing" some special thing.  After our discussion about mistakes and how we learn from them, the students discovered that it is not the actual mistake you learn from but the feedback you get!  I thought that was really cool.
I made sure to focus on how this year we are going to dig deeper into the math and that our focus is not going to be only on getting the correct answer but explaining how we got it.  And on that note I am going to stop.  I am so beat, want to check in on #msmathchat and I want to keep my goal of posting, so if I try to make beautiful epic posts it will not happen!!!

Day 1! Welcome Back Students!

Holy cow am I beat!  I am so exhausted!! Mostly because I have started getting up at 4:30 am to workout.  I really have to push through and stick with this routine, I am consistently gaining 10-15 pounds every year and it needs to stop!

So today was great, the kids are really awesome, both 7th and 8th grade I just love them!  The class periods go FAST!  I am so worried about implementing the workshop model!!  I will do it though!!!  :)

Today we just did a kind of get to know the class/teacher day.  I went with the whole I wonder, I notice? idea and the kids liked it a lot.  It got them involved and I was able to teach some procedures just by giving them answers to what they noticed and wondered!   One of them was my SWAG sign.

I started by asking them if they remembered SLANT (Sit up, lean forward, ask questions, nod, track speaker)  It is a strategy from Teach Like a Champion, that the staff had to read a few years ago.  It was one of those things we were told to implement, but it never "stuck"  I could never get into the practice or routine of saying "I need to see you SLANT!" it always made me think I was asking them to slump over!  So as soon as I mentioned it they groaned.  I explained how even I didn't like it, but that I liked the idea behind it.  That it is just a gentle reminder of how you should be sitting in class, and to focus.  Then I said that what I could get into the habit of saying was "Show me your SWAG" They loved it!  It was great when one or two boys didn't sit up right away and I was able to jokingly say "oh man, so and so doesn't have any SWAG!" They would immediately sit right up!

The other came from the activity of noticing and wondering.  I had them first spend 3 minutes looking around and thinking independently.  When it was time to call them back I told them that in order to get their attention when it was time to regroup I would say "Class" and they would respond "Yes" and be silent.  I've tried class, yes in the past and I couldn't get it to stick because of my classroom neighbor. We have kind of thin walls and he would always yell "Hands Up!" which was his way of quieting and getting the attention.  Well by the second week I was doing the same thing.  Its ok, the kids are supposed to put their hands up and be quiet, but you know some don't put their hands etc and it just kind of gets old.  They loved the Class, Yes and really liked when I changed up the way we said it.  My 8th graders bought right into it and worked hard at getting it right.  My 7th graders also bought into it but were having a little difficulty getting it down as well as the 8th grade so I introduced the Scoreboard! (These are both Whole Brain teaching strategies if you want to look them up)  So now my two 7th grade classes will be battling each other in the scoreboard game!  Never planned on that one but it worked so well!  Not sure what the prize will be, but they didn't seem to care, I'll probably do Battle of the Homeroom points for like some crazy amount like 1000.

Like I said it went fast, I am not really used to these short classes (48 minutes each compared to the 75 I had last year)
Tomorrow I plan on passing out syllabus and do procedure and routines.  I am going to have them start working on community building as well and start off with the Post-it poster activity that I got from Sherrie at http://7thgrademathteacherextraordinaire.blogspot.com/

Oh and the other cool thing that I did was wrote a Vision Statement for my classroom!!  Here is our Vision Statement:

We will persevere in problem solving.  We will not fear mistakes but embrace them as opportunities for learning.  We shall achieve the goal of becoming mathematical thinkers.

My First Currently

Wow!  I am finally doing a Currently link up!  I've always liked reading these and thought they looked so cute and creative. I never knew how it worked until I stumbled upon this blog http://ohboy3rdgrade.blogspot.com/!

  I hope I didn't cheat with the same wanting and needing but they really are one and the same!!

I'm listening to Fall Out Boy and Panic! because I am taking my 16 year old and her friend to the concert on Sunday.  I am super lucky that I like these bands, I don't know what I would do if we didn't like similar types of music!

So The Thinking Blocks website is really http://www.mathplayground.com/.  We are using Math in Focus: Singapore math and one of the strategies they use a lot is bar modeling.  This website/app is going to be fantastic in teaching them how to use the bar models!  Oops I did the old the the typo!!

Going crazy trying to figure out how to "teach" kids to have a growth mindset.  I have been searching for youtube videos to play for them, but none seem to be what I'm looking for.

Wanting/needing.  Oh boy this is a big one. It started out as 20 pounds three years ago and has been creeping up ever since.  The sad pathetic thing is that I know exactly what to do and how to do it, yet I do the exact opposite. So I want to do this because I can't stand not fitting into any of my clothes, looking at pictures and not recognizing myself and I need to do this because I can't keep on going the way I am or I will be over 200 pounds and at 5'1" that is not healthy at all.

So the three things I picked for the love yourself spot are to make sure I drink my water (really want to get a gallon in, but I'll start with 100 oz for now.) Pack my meals because if I do that I know I will stay on track and then lastly make sure I spend time with my own two kids each day and just focus on them.  It is easy now that they are older and self sufficient to think that just being in the same room is enough, while I try to grade papers, make up new lessons etc. and really make sure I'm focusing on them.

Back to School-PD Day 4 of 5

Thursday was our last PD day and on Friday we had an optional day to come in and do our room.  Of course most of us were there since we weren't given a whole lot of time this week to do that.
Thursday started off with us going through the results of a climate survey we took last year, which basically said we were unhappy with the hours of the school day (8:00-4:00 which they shortened this year to 3:30) and unhappy with administration.  They said that they are going to work really hard to change those results.
Next we had new student/parent orientation which is always fun, I got to see some of our new students and even some old ones who graduated in the past 2 years.

Finally Thursday afternoon we sat down and sorted out our classes.  Unfortunately, my admin decided that they were going to ability group.  They built in double blocks for struggling students and everything. Sooo I guess we are just going to have to make the best of it.  I have to say I really like the groupings of kids that we made personality wise.  One of the things I love about working at my school is knowing all of the students.  I will have 4 new 8th graders and 6 new 7th graders, but hopefully they will fit right in.

The only other thing I am nervous about besides the ability grouping is that my classes are only going to be 48 minutes long.  On Monday I will get one of my 7th grade classes for a double class, on Wednesday the other 7th grade gets an extra class and on Friday the low level 8th grade gets an extra class. I'm not sure how I will plan these classes yet, I'm thinking the second class will be a big remediation class, maybe doing stations.

Now to the fun stuff, I finally finished my room and I LOVE it!  My room colors are what I call boring beige and puke-y green, so I just love to put as much fun color in as possible.
Here are some pictures then I have to get into some serious planning!  I hope to do another post with my first/day week plans for MS Sunday Funday!

I didn't take a picture of the other wall with the door because that is going to be my Math Word Wall, right now I don't have anything on it!

Back to School-PD Day 3 of 5

Going to my "happy place" in my mind.  Taking deep breaths!

School starts next Wednesday and
1. We don't know our bell schedule yet.
2. We don't have our class lists yet.
3. Our student management system is not finished yet.
4. My 5/6 math teacher didn't agree with the training on Math in Focus and doesn't want to teach the bar method to his students.

I know these are things I can't control, so I'm going to just breathe deep and do what I can do!
Today's PD was simply training on our new math series: Math in Focus: Singapore Math.  I LOVED the trainer she was awesome!  I am really excited to start using the series.  I can totally work it workshop style, just most lessons will be 2 days like I was thinking.
So here is the takeaway from my training today...the goal is to create mathematical thinking!  Yay-love that!
They have thought of everything, as far as pretesting, remediation, transition, IWB lessons, enrichment, etc.

Ok, so here is the only thing I have to work on, there are about 4-5 teaching examples that are meant to be taught "whole group" with guided practice that follows.  It is meant to be taught in chunks in a we do, we do fashion.  I don't think I can throw all 4-5 examples up for a mini lesson and then have them work on the rest.  So that is what I'll be focusing on this week!  Lesson plans!!!

The bar method is really cool...it is basically this: http://www.thinkingblocks.com/ it takes some time to get used to and if you are a real algebraic thinker set in procedures it will be really hard (that is why my colleague had such resistance) However, once you "see" it you REALLY see it and understand so much more.

Here is an example of a problem we did and how we did it with bar modeling: (not sure if I remember the exact wording, but this was the basic problem)

Mary cut a string into three pieces.  The shortest and longest piece have a ratio of 2:3.  The third piece was 1 and 3/4 inches shorter than the longest piece.  If the total length was 22 1/4 in. find the lengths of all three pieces.

Pretty cool right?  So this is just supposed to be a strategy something that leads them to understand why we would do: 2x + 3x + (3x-1 3/4) = 22 1/4

Back to School PD-Day 2 of 5

Whew what a day!  Our school is changing over to PowerSchool so today we had a half day training on the new software.  I am trying to be very positive about everything and I hate to complain, but our database is not set up yet so it is very frustrating, when I learn something new I like to be able to get in there and play with it.  So even though we got to try out a demo account, its not the same.
I am pretty excited about all of the new features and things we will be able to do!  One of the things I want to really try in the future is SBG which is available in the grade book!  http://www.pearsonschoolsystems.com/products/powerteacher/features/

Other than that it was more curriculum mapping and that was about it!  Looking forward to Singapore training tomorrow and we even have some yoga scheduled!  Should be interesting!