This Week in Daily Five

I started doing Daily Five the first week of school, but it's sort of finding its groove these last....couple of weeks. No, really. It wasn't until December that I started to feel like I had my feet. It's not even that it's complicated (I'll leave it to greater minds to explain the details) but the act of figuring out how it works for me with this group of students has not been trivial. In full disclosure, I really only do it from 9:35 to 11:15, which gives me just enough time for three mini lessons and three rounds of Daily 5 3. We only do Read to Self, Read to Someone, and Word Work, though I keep committing (then backing out of) Writing. We already do a Writer's Workshop block, outside of that literacy time, so it's not like they aren't writing. It's a logistical issue for me...since there are only three rotations, 4 options means that I will have to work harder keeping track of what they've done over several days, to make sure there's balance. Friends...I'm not up to it. Just saying.

I took the plunge after Thanksgiving and had them make choices. Up until then, it was we all read to ourselves, we all read to somebody else, we all do word work. I was super worried about giving them more independence. I thought for sure some of them would not be able to read to somebody else quietly enough to also have people reading to themselves at the same time. Same for word work. And look, I'm not prone to hysteria, nor am I terribly obsessive about control. Let's just say... I had reason to believe that they would not handle this well. I also had evidence that I would not handle this well.

I was so wrong, on both counts. There is such a lovely 'buzz' of productive work during this literacy block. I love that I get to listen to every child read, individually, every week. It helps me collect ideas for lessons and small group work too. (Though the small group work is definitely my Achilles in this situation....I'm telling myself that I'm getting plenty of traction with individual conferences, but I am still hoping I'll figure this out! Tell me...how do people plan all this? and prep for all this? how many hours are in your day, I ask you??)

My friend, colleague, and former principal shared this photo from his new school, and it made me happy!

I have no control over what happens at their homes each night, but they are getting those minutes during the day, and now I want to show this to my students just to tighten up our "sense of urgency". Lately I've been feeling like they're getting a little loose with "getting started right away" and "working the whole time". I always have that feeling, actually, but when I take a step back and really look at what they are doing...I'm all smiles, I promise!

 

Read to self

 Read to somebody

(these two are like peas and carrots...love it!)

  Word Work

 I've been modeling a "Talk to the Text" comprehension strategy for the last two weeks, and they are loving it! They write on post-it notes, leaving tracks of their thinking, as they read. It can be a question, a connection, a summary, a prediction...They really love it!  

ps...these head phones serve no purpose, really. They are broken headphones that I cut the cords off of. They have no real noise blocking qualities. The kids, however, are convinced they do haha and just putting them on seems to help them focus during Read to Self.

I love finding these little "tracks of their thinking" in the books, and this is one of my favorites, found in "Pigeon Wants a Puppy". (It says, "This pegeon has lost it" haha!!)

{LOVE}

Buddy Classroom - Math

My friend and colleague is a Kindergarten teacher at my school. Although we have a ridiculous mobility rate (to wit: two students still haven't returned from their yearly trip to Mexico; one student who just came here from Egypt - Egypt! - in October is now leaving because her family found a place to live in a neighboring district; and I have a new student starting Monday from the Philippines. And that's just this week!), there is still a good chunk of my students who had her for Kindergarten the year before last. And a handful have siblings in her class right now.

A couple of months ago, we wrote them a big poster letter:

 "Dear Room 1, There are 2 ducks in the pond. Then 3 ducks came to the pond. We want to give every duck 2 peanuts.  How many peanuts do we need? We need your help! Please! Please! Please help us solve this problem! Love, Room 29

My students delivered the poster to their former teacher, and her students solved the problem by acting it out. She video taped the entire activity, from them making sense of the problem, to figuring out who should be a duck in the pond, to what should they use for "peanuts", to counting (correctly, then incorrectly, then correctly) the number of peanuts they needed to solve the problem. 

She sent the video back to me. And then I died. It is 9 minutes and 48 seconds of YES. I laughed the whole time I watched it, and I still do. It's just too good. It's hard to pick a favorite part, but watching them decide what to use as "peanuts" has got to be up there.

Teacher: Okay, so we have our ducks in the pond, what do they need now?

Them: More water! 

Teacher: Let's read the story again (reads it to them) What do they need?

Them: Peanuts!

Teacher: But we don't have any peanuts, what can we use instead?

Montrell: How about peanuts?

Teacher: But we don't have any peanuts, is there something we can use to pretend?

Elmer: We could use popcorn!

Teacher: Well, let's look at the problem, is it popcorn or peanuts?

Them: PEANUTS!!!

Teacher: Right, but we don't have any peanuts...is there something else we can use? ....maybe something in this classroom that we can pretend is a peanut?....maybe some math manipulative that could be a peanut?

Girl: How about those blocks?

Teacher: (sweating) Ok! So show us what that would look like....

Here are my students watching the video of her kids solving the problem. Along with the video, they sent a poster letter back asking us a math question too. Their question was "How do you make five?" Haha! I love them!


At first, both the Kinder teacher and I worried that it wasn't problematic enough for my 2nd graders, but it turned out it was a great question for them. We played a game of "Shake and Spill" using cups of 5 yellow/red counters. The game and the recording of how the counters landed wasn't terribly difficult for them (but it was exceedingly fun!) so our problem solving experience focused on how they could prove that they had ALL the ways, and this included making sense of the commutative property (is 2 yellows + 3 reds the same as 3 reds and 2 yellows?). They made a poster of their findings, and we sent it back to Kindergarten with a video of us playing the game and proving we have all the ways.

We are loving this way of doing Buddy Math! All of our students are working on the things that are grade level appropriate, and that are truly problematic for them, but they are still experiencing the excitement of working together through the letters and the videos.

{LOVE}

Sticky Situations

TL/DR: Scroll down and make a set of glue sponges. You're welcome.
 
People of earth: I hate glue.

I hate the gooey white glue. I have memories of spreading a thin layer of elmer's on the palm of my hand, just so I could let it dry and then pick it off. That may have happened last week. *cough* Still, I don't like to deal with it in my classroom. Either I never did it at school, or my teachers were a lot cooler than I am. I hate the way it leaks everywhere...I hate the way it clogs up and dries out in the nozzle...and I hate the way it leaves bumps under the paper they are gluing down. I am full of hate for white glue.

This problem is not solved with glue sticks. Of all the unimportant things (and there are many) that make me  feel like I'm slowly going insane in my classroom, glue sticks have to be very near the top. They don't work (papers once tacked down pop off when the glue ages), they don't last (it seems that a single child can easily plow through three sticks a month), and the kids just absolutely refuse to take care of them (I am constantly finding the lids kicked under furniture as the stick dries in the materials box). Oh, I know, I've tried so many ways to manage the glue sticks. From numbering the glue sticks, to lecturing on the importance of caring for our materials, to even guarding them with the intensity of a mother lion protecting her cubs....I can never get over the fact that they seem to be eating these things. There is no other explanation for the vortex of glue in my classroom. Sometimes, I'll walk through the room, sprinkling new sticks into the material boxes like a benevolent Fairy Godmother. Other times, I have refused to release my vice grip on any new glue sticks. I have, I regret to inform you, sternly watched 6 kids try to finish their projects before the recess bell as they pass a single, half-dried stick between them, satisfied that they are finally beginning to understand what happens when we don't take care of our 15 cents worth of glue. Get the straight jacket, I've totally lost it.

I hate glue. I hate myself because of glue. Enter the glue sponge. I found a video of it here. It's a fine video. If you are like me, you will resist watching any instructional video longer than 90 seconds. It's nothing personal, just not my preferred method of delivery. So, go watch the video. Or, check this out:

 

Pour some white glue in the bottom of a disposable sandwich tupperware.

Place a sponge (and half of another sponge if needed) on top of the glue.

Pour more glue over the top. Make sure you secure the lid correctly.

 Set it aside over night (at least).

Students take their papers, pat it firmly but gently against the sponge, and press to their project. 

No. 

Seriously. 

You only have to do this once. Just add glue as needed to refresh. (I've not had to yet, and it's been a couple of months now). The boxes have changed our lives. Two tips, one I've used and one I have not: First, keep a spray bottle of plain water; before you put the lid back on the glue box, just spritz the sponges with plain water to keep them moist. Second, if they get smelly (SUPER looking forward to this, but nonissue so far!) dribble a few drops of mouthwash onto the sponges.

{LOVE}

Spinning with The Pigeon

TL/DR: There's a pretty cute and easy free game at the bottom.

Is the weather horrible where you are? If it is, I apologize. It's almost assuredly because I have yard duty this week. When I am on yard duty, it is guaranteed that it will be terrible weather. Not complaining though....just saying. If yard duty is my least favorite thing about elementary school, that's not such a bad thing. There are so many more magical moments that more than make up for it. Sorta. ;)

One thing I love to do with The Littles is to bring things they love out from our books into the world with us. As you've heard me complain explain before, I'm doing Daily 5 with my class this year. I don't have an extensive class library to fuel the wide range of reading levels, so I've been getting beginner chapter books from the public library. I've found that if I want them to read Henry and Mudge, I have to read it to them first. Same way I got them interested in Frog and Toad. Once I read it to them, the titles fly off the shelf. One such series is the "sister" series to Henry and Mudge, called Annie and Snowball. These are stories about Henry's cousin (and neighbor) and her pet bunny.

We noticed that on every page, the bunny was sort of cleverly hanging out somewhere in the picture. And right around that same time, one of my students gave me a palm-of-my-hand sized stuffed white bunny. So I started hiding the bunny around the room, and when they'd discover it, I'd move it when they went to recess or left for home for the day. Then they'd discover it again, over and over. Oh my! So much joy in that moment! I just laugh and laugh when they point and jump and exclaim over where they've found that silly little bunny!

Here's the little bunny on top of the loudspeaker in our classroom. 

Today, they found her perched on top of the overhead screen.

Okay, back to math! haha! This is actually a mathy story, because for our math games, which I'm in the middle of rotating out, I made a fun little spinner game (for recording: spin, tally, graph.... add/compare options) and they can't get enough of these activities. They just think they are so fun! So for this one, the four options on the spinner are each from a book we've read together. The bear from Ira Sleeps Over, the purse from Lily's Purple Plastic Purse, that crazy bike from the original Splat the Cat, and finally a hot dog from The Pigeon Wants a Hot Dog. They loved these books, and they loved seeing these old friends incorporated into a math game. 

You can download from my google drive here:

* Spin and Record with Literature Connections
* Y por los chicos y las chicas

Logistics: These are color prints. For the math box, I print 3 copies of the spinner itself (which go into sheet protectors), throw in a few generic clear spinners that they overlay on the spinner page, and include a matching number of recording sheets, also in sheet protectors. In the tub are also 3 expo markers and a swatch of felt they can use to erase their work on the plastic protector of the recording sheet. I don't have unlimited ink budgets, so this is a good compromise. I also reserve the right to print the color pages in black and white, but they seem fine so far with just erasing their work at the end of their work period.

Matching Cards

I made these matching cards right around the time school started, and I kinda love them. If you love them too, you can download the pdf files from my google drive. I use all the sets with my second graders. I just photocopied each set onto a different color of cardstock, and they keep the whole stack in their shared materials buckets in their table groups.

If they finish their journal and calendar work before their classmates, they can pull out the cards and play "concentration" style to match the cards.

 They can play alone...

Or with a partner or small group.

They love these cards as much as I do! They are always available, and I have to admit, they have saved my bacon more than once completely outside of our math block. Nothing like a no-prep no-fuss activity that can be used anytime they have a few minutes to spare.

Me: Why are you running with a broom?

Them: I'm done!

Me: Put that down and get out your math cards. Please.

*ahem*

Because we want our students to use the standards for math practices, it's been equally beneficial to have some more structured time with the matching cards, too. For example, I'll have them all use the same purple set, and they need to take turns putting two cards together with an explanation for why they are choosing a particular pairing. Then everybody in their group has to agree (thumbs up) or disagree (offer a different pairing and explanation).

Click here to download:

* Numbers 1 to 9, match to pictures of one to nine objects

* Teen numbers 11 to 19, match to double ten frames (10 + extras)

* Random Numbers to 20, match to tally mark representations

* Ten frame representations of 9 +, match to ten frame reps of 10 +, match to numerals 10 to 18

* Ten frame representations of 9 +, match to numerals 11 to 19, match to "9 + ___ is 10 + ____"

* Numerals between 10 and 150, with base-ten "ten stick" picture representation