Absurd

I love teaching. Super love with unicorns and rainbows and glitter everywhere, like LOVE teaching. Not because it's a snap for me, because it's not, I struggle a lot. But I love it because it's so interesting. It's creative, challenging, rewarding, and exasperating all at once.

There are so many things, in any given teaching day, that have a surreal quality to them. For me, none more so, then the number of times people try to hand me their teeth. At least twice a week, a small person walks up to me and tries to hand me a tooth. "Ooohhhhh goodness! Um...here, let me get you an envelope for this treasure!"

A Little Help Goes A Long Ways

One of my favorite number routines is, of no surprise, the Number Talk. But perhaps my SECOND favorite is a "number of the day" exercise we do in our journals during our calendar work. We count the number of days we've been in school, adding a sticker to a ten frame each and every day.

Oh! Quick bird walk. This is not my idea, by any means, but it changed my life, so just in case you don't do it yet, here it is....quick and powerful, and it requires no brain power from me. Could it be more perfect? I used to have the calendar set that had the straws? Where you'd count the day, and add a straw to the little pouch labeled "ones" each day...then when you had 10 straws you'd bundle those up with a rubber band and move them to the pouch labeled with "tens". Nevermind, here:

Okay but many years ago I switched to this:

And never looked back. Never once did my kiddos ever say "We're almost at ten" when I used the straws. We just kept counting them every day. Over and over. But with the dots on the ten frames, they suddenly started saying it spontaneously..."Two more days until ten! We almost have another ten! Here comes another ten day...let's see...four more days, and it's Thursday today....so we should have ten on Wednesday." I do not jest or exaggerate. And as for my teaching? I did exactly zero differently. These babies teach themselves. And, bonus time, when you fill them in side to side, you get to talk about odds and evens every day because the dots have a partner...or they don't.


Okay, back to the point. Number of the Day is another math routine that I love a lot. It's perfect for getting kids to use the properties of arithmetic...like commutative, associative, identity...you know, Big Ideas. Each day, the number of the day is the number of days we've been in school. We start with, "You have to make that number five different ways"...On the tenth day of school, you have to start making the numbers ten different ways....on the twentieth day of school, it's 20 days. Kids find patterns (plus one/minus one compensations for addition and minus one/minus one or plus one/plus one compensation for subtraction) plus what happens when you add/subtract zero, and whether the commutative property works for addition AND subtraction...it all comes up, even when you are just trying to make the number 1! Such a boon, I love it.

Here's sweet, hard working Alex. I spot check the journals the first few weeks of school (and then every few weeks after that, as comfort sometimes breeds laziness in these activities), and this is what I found in Alex's journal as he was recording the ways for day number 14...which means, he should have been making 14 over and over.

Oopsy! That won't do! So I showed him how to use unifix cubes (and keep getting another one for each new day, to add to his train) and then we practiced breaking the train into parts, counting those parts, and recording what we did.

 

He's currently recording it strictly as addition, but we'll work on relating what he's doing to subtraction as the weeks progress. Two great things came of doing it this way:

Here's his journal just a few days later, for day 17. {LOVE} And the second thing is a different student was having a similar struggle and I said, "Hey, Alex, why don't you show your strategy to Vineet?" So he did. And that moment, when he was showing somebody else what he could do, that  my friends, was a magical moment for The Boy Who Struggled.

 

Cheap Ikea Trays

I have had these Lakeshore plastic crafting trays in my room for the past 4 years, and they are going strong. They are $15.00 for 4 of them, which makes them prohibitive, in my opinion. At the time, I had gotten a wee bit of money for my classroom, and had purchased 2 sets on a hog-wild-whim. The remaining six sets (for $90 plus tax) were out of pocket for me. I loved them that much.

 Here they are in my math space, stacked up there on the left hand side. We use them very nearly daily, and we love them. Just you can see them in action here, and also, just about anywhere I talk about doing math with kids.

 

Whenever I'm sharing with teachers about doing math with little kids, these trays come up. They are so appealing! I used to use felt mats I cut from a roll of felt that was gifted to me. Those were free, and I used them for two years. (I cut them up and made them into whiteboard erasers since I retired them from being math mats, so I am very grateful for that gift!) The mats were good, because it defines your space. Nobody was allowed to touch your pieces once they were on your mat, so it created a nice culture in the classroom and kept others from "tidying up" your opus. It also helped with the management of 33 Littles, as they were able to move to any spot in the classroom (on the carpet, other work tables, a corner of floor) and they felt like (and acted like) they were at their own desks because of those mats. Here they are in action, with the plastic zip lock gallon bags that were our original "Math Bags".

 Then I got the trays and I saw that, really, there were some serious advantages... Case in point, this is J, and she wanted to show me this great idea she had. So she trotted it over to where I was, which she could not have done on the flimsy felt.

 Because teachers are so clever and resourceful, I've heard of lots of great ideas for having the "tray experience" without the outrageous price tag. The dollar store sells cookie sheets, for example, which I thought was super smart. There is only reason I was STILL glad to have my fancy trays after hearing that awesome idea, in fact, and that was because my trays are extra deep compared to the relatively flat lip of a baking sheet. That's not a deal breaker (especially for the cost savings) but there are many times when we have to set our math aside for the day, and the extra deep sides of the Lakeshore trays means that we can leave our math tools set up and still be able to stack them without worrying that they would tip over or not stay flat. Super helpful!

 But just this weekend I was at Ikea and found these Smula Trays. They are a frosted plastic, nice and deep, and almost exactly the same size as my trays. They are a nice hard plastic and I love them. And, they only cost $1.99 each! What a bargain for what I think is a very perfect math tray!

In Math...Using Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) for Problem Solving

 We read our first problem together, with no numbers. Jose and Khazjon are students in our class, and I picked Lego Ninjagos as our math currency because it didn't take me long to figure out where our interests lie. Once we read the story, I asked them what was happening in the story in their own words. "Jose has legos!" Mmhmmm....do we know how many Legos? "No! I think he has 5." hahahahah so funny this always happens! I can't tell you how many times I write a problem just like this, then when we finish reading "How many Lego Ninjagos does he have left?" I turn to find a forest of little hands, waving in the air, wanting to "answer" the question. LOVE

So what else do we know about our story? "He gives Khazjon some of his Legos." Do we know how many he gives him? "No! But maybe he gives him 10, I think." Maybe! What else do we know. "Jose has some left." How do you know that? "Because we have to count them." And what will that tell us? "How many he still has." Who is he? "....." It says "he" still has....who is "he" in this story. "...Jose!" Yes, we are finding out how many Jose still has. Our school is two-thirds English Language Learners, and I have learned that these referent pronouns are tricky...it is not always obvious who "he" refers to...is it Jose? Or Khazjon? They can figure this out, but asking the question surfaces it for them, and they sort it out, before we get into problem solving.

Next, I put two numbers on the chart, under the story, and we reread the story putting the numbers in order as they come up. We did 8 and 3, then we did 12 and 5, then we did 14 and 6. I have a small tub with a variety of tools, similar to their Math Bags, and two students (first Jose and Khazjon, then students acting as Jose and Khazjon...boys and girls alike....good times, good times!) act out counting out the starting number of Legos, then act out giving some to the other person, then we predict what is left in their hand, and I always ask, "How can we prove it?" I get either "because 3 and 5 is 8!" or else "we can count them!" and we always do. "So we think there are 5 in Jose's hand right now, let's count and see if we are right!"

Once we understand the problem, I set them off on their own with two final numbers. Because I'm a masochist, I gave them the numbers 22 and 7.

 They did a spectacular job! They grabbed their Math Bags and a tray, and with the vague instructions to "show me what the problem looks like", they got right to work. Here we see Dontrell and Jossah using two different tools to build the 22 units, and then they broke off or removed 7 tiles/cubes and counted what was left. Nice solid CGI strategy.

 

Now, I have worked with third graders who lost their collective minds when they built their numbers with base ten blocks and didn't have enough units to give them away. I've seen some seriously crazy stuff. But this Little One (second grade) took it in stride. She built her 22, pondered it for a few minutes, and quickly changed paths to make 22 unit blocks so she could give away 7. Please to note, she did not "exchange" one of then tens for the units, which would have sufficed, but instead completely rebuilt the number using all unit blocks. I see that efficiency is not on her mind! Good job, Abbs, you knock my socks off!

Daily 5 - What the What Am I Doing?

I think I'm really going to like Daily 5...if I can ever figure it out! It just didn't seem that complicated when I was reading about it, but I'm not nailing it, just being totally honest.

Here's the nut of what I understand: Introduce a system of reading and/or working with words; build stamina in that system; use the Comprehension/Accuracy/Fluency/Expand Vocabulary (acronym: CAFE) to introduce strategies to the class; as students move to independence in these systems, use the time to create flexible groups and a conferencing schedule to support students in using the strategies we are learning. This appealed to me because I've always used a combination of Guided Reading and Reader's Workshop for the literacy block, but it wasn't as effective as I wanted (needed) it to be.

Here's what I've been doing: I made a poster (for myself) that is on the wall above my desk. It's not cute, it's not labeled, it's worthless to anybody who is not me. But when we are doing our whole group work on the carpet, I am facing that poster, and I use it to remind me of the steps of how to introduce a Daily 5 component. It's the system these ladies have created to foster independent work, and it includes a lot of modeling and feedback and modeling again. I have it all outlined on my poster. It went great for the first component, Read to Self, and my kiddos are up to 15 minutes of Read to Self every day. (Mostly) up to 15 minutes of Read to Self. What to do when you have one Buster who knows what to do (repeatedly models it incorrectly and correctly, per their instructions) but just needs a babysitter? A job, by the way, I am not applying for?

It's all fine, except I haven't had much conferencing or flexible group time. I still haven't done my running records. Ok, this week, I'm on it.

At around 11 or 12 minutes, it seemed like a good time to introduce the next component, Read to Somebody Else. Last Friday was our 10th day of school, so I'm probably doing fine, but I started Read to Somebody Else on Tuesday and it...was not smooth. Finally, on Thursday night, I went back and re-read that part of the book, and sure enough, I had totally botched it. On Friday, we backed up and did it like we were supposed to in the first place, restarting it. They did much better, and I have some hope now. Here they were on Friday, they are wonderful in spite of my incompetencies.

 I'm following their directions this week on Read to Somebody, and it will take the whole week to do it right. That's very different than the one lesson on one day I had gone with. And, let's assume, it's not just different it's also a lot better. 

Here are the things I've been doing that do not suck: The Pick a Book lesson with the Shoes....nailed it. I also went to the public library just a few blocks from our school and renewed my teacher's library card. This was an easy process that involved my school id, a driver's license, and a check to reimburse them for the 11 books I had out on the card from eleven years ago. You heard me right. Just because it's too freaky, I will add that since I got that list of truant titles...I've found 4 in my room! I did not even know that they were the library's. In my defense, I have a lackluster class library (hence needing the public library) that includes some discards from various libraries. Look, I'm sorry.

They were soooooo excited at the 80 or so books I brought in! We had read "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" and "Knuffle Bunny" by Mo Willems, and they are among our most popular titles. Thanks to the library, I was able to introduce Elephant and Pig and "Elephant Broke His Trunk" rocked the room.

Everybody got to pick two new books. This took some time. First, we did the "I Pick" my "just right" books lesson from their book. Then they picked the two books that were interesting to them. Then they had to check if it was "just right" and there were some adjustments, not gonna lie, it took us a while to get everybody settled.

I scooped up the remaining books (affectionately referred to, in my head, as The Losers haha) and put them in a special basket  in the class library. In a few weeks, I'll exchange these for more books. I HEART the library!

 

Dot Talks - The good, the bad, the ugly

I spent all summer telling teachers to start their Number Talks with dots. I mean, I always do, and I have video and photographic proof that it works. My third graders came in 2 to 3 years below grade level (and I'd always joke, "How are they 3 years below grade level? They are in THIRD grade! Did NOTHING happen in three years?" but really...it's not funny) and I swear by dot talks to build their number sense and make things happen from the first day of school.

As a math coach, I did "dot talks" in hundreds of K - 6th grade classrooms. They are a miracle, I swear it!

So it is with great humility that I relate that, on the fourth day of doing dot talks with my new second grade class, I FINALLY did one that worked with this group. Oh. Em. Gee. The first three weren't just bad....they suuuuuuuucked. Big Time.  And it hurts because I think I know where I went wrong.

I'll start at the beginning. I used this dot talk on the first day of school, and it should have worked. I've done it on the first day of school for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades.

The general protocol is to show the card with the dot configuration and ask "How many dots do you see?" I show the whole class, then drop the card. (If you hold the card up the whole time, they will just count them, one by one. I want them to rely on parts that they see to put together the total. Counting still happens, but I want them counting the parts they see, not just the whole thing at once.)

When I asked, "How many dots are there?" I got from 4 to 11. Hmmm....should have been my first clue?

When I look at our recording poster, I have to admit, it doesn't look that bad. But it was painful, my friend, I cannot lie. Here, see what I mean?

 Still, no worries, I have had terrible dot talks. I mean, as much as I love them and believe in them, there is no question that they can go very badly. Having a bad first dot talk is not even unusual, as I am fairly rusty after summer and most of the time it's my students' first experience with them also. Surely, they will get the hang of it for day two!

Or.... I can pick easily the most confusing dot configuration on the planet, and then I died.

Do you see how arrogant I was when I chose this configuration? After the pain of the first day, I wanted to use that familiar "5 from a die" shape to get the party started. Then, I quickly tacked on three more dots in a "sideways triangle" type shape. (Please excuse all these technical math terms. ahem.) When I stepped back, I saw what they would do, but I underestimated how painful it would be.

Here you go, in case you don't see it yet. Daveelah's way nets 10 dots, and Alex's way nets 8 dots. All 30 students were nonplussed. It was totally fine with them that these two got two different answers. They both looked right, we understood their explanations, so why not?

No need to panic! I'm a professional. I quickly asked their table groups of 4 to determine how many dots there really are. About three quarters of my class was convinced that it was 8 dots, including Daveelah who offered this explanation:

I was pretty sure they would see that the two dots in the middle were counted once in the blue box and once in the green box. We had just done a venn diagram, so we were on solid ground. Fail.

But don't worry, I got out a bucket of chips and asked them if they wouldn't mind terribly BUILDING this thing we had just done, surely they would see that they couldn't build the first one out of counters unless they had the two middle chips stacked double high. Fail.

In fact, it was so hard to get them to even engage in the ponderings....that I was actually getting frustrated. Not a good way to start your math program. So I let it go (after a very small lecture on what I expect when I ask them a question..."I expect you to think about what is asked...you don't wait for somebody else to think, you dive right in!"), praised dear sweet Abi for her excellent model, and slinked out to recess/yard duty, defeated by dots. We never looked back. As far as I know, they STILL think it's fine that this had "two right answers".  

"Do you see how it matches, mathematicians? Who sees the five part in our dot card? Can you show us where the five part is in Abi's dots? What is the other part? Can we see it in both places? Abi, we understand what you did!"

I have no pictures of the third day dot talk. It was bad. I'm sure you believe me. Here is day four's dot talk though, and it was perfect! A square of four dots, with one dot added on to either end, and we finally got some traction.

Now just like that (*snap my fingers) we are cooking with fire when it comes to our dot talks. I can actually remember why I love them so much. <3

Launching Writer's Workshop

My writing coach is aces! I wish I could keep her in my room all the time; she is so observant, so positive, so tuned in to what kids are doing (and not) in their writing. I learn so much watching her mellow, instant conferences as she moves effortlessly through the room. And when we meet after school, and talk about what we saw, she always has great ideas for where to go next. Really, I need to stop going on about her, or somebody will come take her away. I feel the same way about my principal, haha. Like, nothing to see here! Move along! But really, they are both fantastic and I live in fear that they will be whisked away for greater things. We already share Lisa the Writing Coach with another (huge) school, so I'm on eggshells with this one.

Anyway, we launch Writer's Workshop on the very first day of school, and by the 15th day we are doing our first publication. It's our way of introducing the whole writing process, beginning to end, before we go into our first full unit (Narrative, for us).

I also have this little area above my writing center, which needs to be populated with the different things students write ("things" is, obviously, a very technical term) but meaning letters, lists, stories, postcards, notes, etc.

 

The 15 days of launching lessons are pretty flexible. They're structured enough if you're just beginning to implement W/W in your classroom, it will support you in the day-to-day decision making that keeps the class moving. But there's definitely room for adjusting and making it your own if you've been implementing for years. I am going to say, no matter how long I've been doing this, I will always appreciate the road maps. I just don't have the band width to kill it for 7 subjects every day. I'll take all the help I can get!

And well...that's how I came to be doing a lesson on "lists" during the first day of school to launch W/W with my second graders. The launching lesson was to be for teaching the process of Think-Pair-Share, but, honestly, our kids have been doing a knee-to-knee T/P/S protocol with A/B partners and structured language support since Kindergarten. We can all do it with our eyes wide shut, so instead, I decided to link the writing to a shared experience.

First thing in the morning, to launch Daily 5/CAFE strategy (check for understanding), I had read the students the book "Friends" by Helme Heine. It's such a sweet story!

Later, when they came back from lunch recess, I read them the story of Mean Jean, The Recess Queen by Alexis O'Neil

 

We had just had recess, then we read about recess, so it was time to talk about recess. They moved knee-to-knee to tell their partners what they liked to do at recess. They had plenty to talk about!

 (Writing Coach Lisa...down on the floor listening to kids! <3 her!)

After they had a chance to tell their ideas orally, I introduced the format of a list. They told me about where they had seen lists before (when they go grocery shopping, at Christmas time, etc.) We referred back to the "Friends" story (this was now the third time we'd used this story on that day, so they were very familiar with the characters and the plot). I opened the book to different pictures, and asked them to remember what the friends did on their adventure. As they remembered, I recorded them on our chart, and pointed out how I was making a list (the title, "Things the Friends Did Together", the numbered items, etc.). Then I gave them a piece of paper from a list notepad (long and skinny, with lines on it) and they went back to their desks to write a list of "Things To Do At Recess".

 What terrific little writers they were! They got right to work, and of the 30 students, 29 of them followed the list format I had modeled. Awesome! Lisa and I conferred with writers, mostly about stretching out words and writing what we hear...they were very hung up on "how do I spell..."  There's a place for that, but it gets in the way of getting our ideas down, so we will continue to develop our sound it/write it strategies. For our mid-workshop interruption, where you highlight some positive thing you see somebody doing, to help direct (or re-direct, as the case may be) any students who are having a hard time getting started or are confused about some aspect of the writing, we highlighted two students who had made a title and used numbers in their lists (most kids had done both without prompting, based on the modeled lesson) and two students who stretched their words and wrote what they heard.

The second day they wrote about a special object. We read Knuffle Bunny in the morning and Ira Sleeps Over in the afternoon.

 

I cannot be the only person who has used one or both of these texts to introduce writing about a special object, but I will go on record to say they work, alone and together, perfectly to inspire a full page of writing from Littles, which I for one, will be using as a baseline for their second grade writing.