Classroom 2015-2016

Just finished the first few days of the school year. Last year I started with 35 kiddos...this year it's a perfectly reasonable feeling 28. The school I teach at was built in 1950....and it has not gotten many updates since then.  We have internet access, we boast whiteboards (haha no kidding it hasn't been THAT long), and just last year I moved up from an overhead projector to an elmo/projector combination.  The building classrooms were updated with central heating some years ago, but only the portable classrooms can claim a/c.  I teach in a portable for the last three years, since moving to second grade. Other perks (besides the a/c which is not trivial) are that all the walls are potential bulletin boards and we have a great relationship with the local fauna that nests in, on, and under our sweet classroom. Hello mice, squirrels, and bunnies!

A way too long look at this year's attempt to stay organized, functional, and charming. I used black sheets with colorful accents. I don't put anything on the bulletin boards to start the year....we always build it together.

 From inside the front door. Two small windows do not make my list of "pros"...I love natural light.

 Just to the right of the door is a small writing table and what I'm thinking of as a "work on writing"/language area.  I have since managed to cozy it up with a little rug and I did work those wires back behind the shelf. But I can't do anything about the fire alarm or the fire extinguisher just out of sight to the right. So I decorated it and explained to my Littles that it is not a toy and they should not touch it. They nodded carefully and never gave it another thought. I swear, kids can adapt to anything.

 Just past my filing cabinet (which is solely used for housing my mentor texts, in alphabetical order....BOOM) is my class library. And window number two. These books, after much back and forth angst, are mostly leveled for Guided Reading. I've really struggled the last few years with how to handle the class library. Up until this year, I've always had a section of leveled books, and then a bigger section by narrative genre, and another section on informational by genre, and a set of chapter books. But, after much soul searching, I just made the leap and leveled the majority of what I have. A to L.  M/N/O/P books are in the lower right, labeled not by level but as "LB" for "look books". I just found too many of my struggling readers staring at inappropriate books and not making much movement in their independent reading.  I modeled, reminded, coached, cajoled, begged....but they just have the hardest time getting into those "just right" books.  It's still my goal, but I had to just level for now.  We'll see how it goes. (They are not marked correctly on the boxes, but the books are labeled with dots...I need to make labels for the boxes. Adding it to my to-do-list as we speak.)

 Swinging around is the word work station. That was my grandma's antique desk. I don't have a teacher's desk, though this little treasure used to collect junk by the door to my classroom. It's better suited here. On the left in the color drawers are activities for the word wall.  Generic games that can be used with any set of words from the wall. On the right are the activities for the spelling/sound pattern of the week. (My students LOVE some books to DEATH every year...and I have to replace them. The bunting is made of pictures of a Knuffle Bunny Too book that fell to pieces last year.)

 I can't believe how toned down this area is compared to previous years, but looking at this picture it still feels so hectic. This is the listen to reading area. I've never successfully done it, I've never had an actual listening center. Now I do, the headphones are in the box and YES that's a little "boom box". I die. haha The books below all have CDs with them. I would love to have iPads or something where they could listen online. I guess I officially have access to chrome books now, thanks to a Google Grant we won last year, but...is it wrong that all I hear is WORK and CHAOS when I think of training these little squirrels on how to use them? :-/  The green framed board will have reading artifacts.  You might be able to see the clothespins at the top there, and in the next picture, too. They are hot glued right to the fabric and are perfect for holding our anchor charts.  I also decorated them with little rhinestone daisies in different colors because....sparkles.

The rolling cart is for student portfolios on one side and my emergency sub plans (5 days worth) on the other side.

 This is behind my small group table. There is a shelf here full of binders and resources I can't quite wrap my tiny addled brain around. My teaching friend and neighbor found those sparkly coils at the re-use place and she gifted me a few for the Science bulletin board. I am in love.

 Just past my small group table is a larger rainbow drawer set with puzzles and art/craft activities for "Fun Friday" type time. I haven't worked all that out yet, aside from collecting various things all in one place. Then a basket full of hundreds flats (as you do) and some math manipulatives. My beloved math trays are stacked on top of the tiny shelves, which have rulers on the top shelf and a basket of calculators under that.

 This is a little something I like to call HELL YEAH. The number one hateful thing about being in these portables is the lack of storage. No really. Have you seen ANY yet? The open shelves with my class library....that's it, and here we are in the back corner of the room. I mean....really.  Behind those curtains are a host of professional books. I have culled out many, but these have made the cut, currently. I don't want to see them and now I don't have to. The black boxes have math games, word work, language work, etc. by topic. And those colorful boxes are....wait for it....empty. Yep. If you truly want to declutter and organize an entire classroom, I highly recommend this little thing called "margin". You simply MUST have spaces that are not accounted for. 30 people, all the work and thinking and excitement....it generates STUFF. Leave some empty spaces to absorb that STUFF.  You will be so happy you did.  The trays stacked on our spare chair are the Day Two "math tool" (unifix cubes) that we explored this week.

 Turning now, the wall opposite the front door. We are skipping the sink, nothing special there, especially if you enjoy sparkling HOT water that is undrinkable. It may not even be legal, but there it is. The clipboards and whiteboards are always there, the pompoms and colorful bunting are just because. A few years ago, my class made the art by melting crayons.  Learn. Create. Laugh. I stand by that.  The boxes and blue tub are the math games and centers. Under the counter storage, four file boxes behind each curtain, for (you guessed it) more math, some social studies, and science. There is a box of rocks in here, and that's all you really need to know about how odd it is to be a teacher.

 All the way to the end of the room with our TWO whole cupboards and one DOUBLE WIDE CLOSET. I'd show you inside them, but it's not safe to look directly at them. Glue sponges and scrap buckets, another hanging plant...and the ugliest wall ever. In addition to a random fire alarm smack in the middle of a wall, they take up most of this wall with a thermostat box and a vent. Like, what? Our two rules, committed in wooden letters:  Be kind, work hard. Easy-peasy.

 Most of my whole group lessons happen here on the carpet. Teaching students in desks makes me grumpy. There are just too many of them, spread too far apart, with too many distractions. Get into your casita (little house) we are going to do some learnin'.  The book boxes are on the shelf behind my grandma's rocking chair. The beautiful hand made quilt was gifted to me by a dear friend when my brother was ill. The bulletin board behind here is impossible for me to maintain, or at least unappealing to update, so I will eventually hang the Daily 5 anchor charts here and call it a day. The bunting is a combination of cute red polka dots and a Clifford book that also bit the dust.

 On top of the book boxes is a small shrine I keep for my brother. He passed away in April, 2014 and it was devastating. This brings me great peace, these little pieces of him.

From the back corner, facing the front door. The math bags are hung under the white board from cup hooks. These will be full of a variety of tools the kids use with the trays during problem solving workshop.  Our very low key calendar is the brown thing hanging on the far side of the whiteboard. Above the white board is a birthday board. Every month is there, and I will add a group picture of that month's birthdays. The cubbies are full of writer's workshop folders and notebooks and stationary and office supplies, the board above it (with more clothespins) is for the writing anchor charts. And that little beauty next to the door is where their published writings will go. Yummy!

These pictures were all taken before school started...three days in, and it already feels so different! It may look quite decorated, but truly, every class comes in and makes it their own, in ways both subtle and overt. Our school is almost 70 years old...it's not well maintained, honestly. For years they were going to close it....they don't talk about that anymore, but it really is not pretty to look at. Chipped and pealing paint, power washed walls to remove graffiti, old playground equipment, scorched earth where there should be grass, even the asphalt on the playground is coming up in chunks. No, really, it is not cute. It means a lot to me that my students come through the door and know that in this room, they are cared about. The environment is pleasing and respected and THEIRS. There are very few things in this room off limits to them, actually, and that feels right to me.

Practice Puzzles: Math Practice Three

Math Practice One and an explanation of the puzzles
Math Practice Two

There is nothing more charming (and alarming) to me than to listen to a child try to explain themselves mathematically. I truly do love every second of it...I never tire of it, and it never gets old. Having said that, I'm not the only teacher who has to reconcile the balance between pushing past, and lingering in, the nonsense. In all of these Math Practice Puzzles that I am sharing, there is way more to the practice than I have given rise to here in these captured moments. The point was to find ONE thing we could use as an entrance to the practice...I wasn't looking to frontload it in its entirety, I just wanted one shared, contextualized experience to draw out the practice. The rest has unfolded as it has, with some practices more easily expanded on than others. Which feels exactly as it should for working with the Littles. They have Kindergarten until Senior Year to sort it all out. I'm just doing my small part.

So, Practice Three....there are so many deep and important truths in this practice, but the one that we have cleaved to early on is the idea of revision. This practice is tightly wound with other practices, and as we see more patterns, learn more structures, take command of more precise language, and test more solutions and strategies, our communication and explanations will continue to evolve. But these are lofty aspirations indeed, if you consider how we start on this path. There is no primary teacher on the planet who hasn't heard such carefully crafted nuggets as: "I know it's five because that is my favorite number." Or, "I know because I knew it in my head" (which is MOST exciting when it comes with a wrong answer...."8 + 3 =12, because I knew it in my head"). Other oldies but goodies include "I counted on my fingers" and "I guessed".

Early on, I introduced the notion that the onus is on the explainer....if somebody doesn't understand you, it's your job to keep revising your explanation until they do. It's not because they aren't listening to you (they aren't though) and it's not because they aren't smart (they really are) it's because the explanation wasn't sufficient. The correlating piece to this is it doesn't have to be perfect to get started. Focusing on revision means that all you have to do is start. Just say SOMETHING. Then you'll get some feedback, and you can add on/change/delete to make it more clear. Get more feedback. Make more changes. And so on. You don't have to wait until you know exactly what to say or how to perfectly explain something. Just say anything.

From the classroom: Afoa had JUST told us that the two numbers we were going to use to solve our problem were written on the poster, 37 and 43. I turned to Natalia and asked, "So...which numbers do we use?" And she says, I swear, "I don't know." I want to cry haha but instead I tell Afoa, "Well, I'm afraid that explanation wasn't enough for her to understand" and bless his pea-picking-heart he immediately updates it to, "It's the purple numbers on the bottom, 37 and 43." I made SUCH a big deal about this to the whole class! "HOLD UP!! Did everyone SEE what Afoa JUST did???" and then I explained that what he had done was soooooo mathematical because he didn't tell Natalia that she wasn't listening, he didn't tell her oh well you just don't get it, he CHANGED what he said to make it a BETTER explanation." Then Afoa talked about what he had said before and how he changed it. Natalia confirmed that NOW she understands what to do.

Look. It was only marginally mathematical and even calling it an "explanation" is a stretch (it was more like a clarification) but it was all we needed. We have talked about this idea over and over and, in conjunction with a few other key moves, my second graders have made enormous leaps in their ability to explain and question each other. I'm taking it!

Practice Puzzles: Math Practice Two

Math Practice One and explanation of the puzzles can be found here.
 

Math Practice Two: Reason Abstractly and Quantitatively
This practice is when a mathematician makes sense of the problem in context, then ignores the context to do the calculation, then steps back into the context to make sure the answer makes sense. For example, a child may make sense of the following math story as a combining story:
          "There are 6 kids playing soccer. Some more kids come and now there are 10 kids playing soccer. How many kids came to join the soccer game?"
        In other words, they see this as combining the kids who were playing with the kids who came to join them, and ending up with 10 kids. The model is 6 + ____ = 10. Even though this is additive in context, a child may solve the problem by subtracting 10 - 6 = ____. Once they've made sense of a problem, they can solve it however they want. Then go back and see if it still makes sense.

 I watched my students do this a lot the first few weeks of second grade. They would build the two parts (contextualize) then put them together and count them by 1s, 2s, 5s....however they wanted (decontextualize). They started out building everything as single blocks, and then combined the quantities into one long train. (See the picture above) They were able to go back to the context and tell me the unit, for example that the answer was a number of stickers for this particular problem. But once they made the long train, the original parts were lost to them.

Look, here was the problem: "Diva had 4 stickers. She went to the store and got another 8 stickers. How many stickers does she have now?" So the problem was that they could answer (12 stickers)...but if I then asked, "So how many stickers did she buy?" they would say "12". Because they totally forgot about the parts once the parts were swallowed up into the whole amount that was the sum.

This is problematic because keeping track of those parts is what connects addition to subtraction and it's what is going to allow us to solve subtraction problems as missing-part addition problems (for example, seeing 12 - 8 = _____ and thinking 8 + ___ = 12).

As they got better at thinking about quantities, I started making a VERY big deal about students I saw who were making the parts and color-coding them or counting by 10s and then continuing with the ones without physically moving the cubes to be together, (See picture above) thus maintaining the two parts. When I asked them I would usually say, "Which ones are the stickers she had? Which ones are the stickers she bought?" and when they could answer it was a very good thing. I'd even reserve their trays intact, to use as a mini lesson to start our next workshop....."Friends, do you see what she did??? Like all mathematicians, she arranged this so we could tell which ones were the stickers she bought! Can we answer the question of how many stickers she has now? Of course we can! AND we can still see the two numbers she made....Who remembers what this first number means? What about this second one? And how many all together? Who thinks they can work on keeping their parts like Ariel does? Off you go."

Practice Puzzles: Math Practice One

 The first few weeks of this school year, I stumbled across a way of introducing and using the Math Practices that really worked for Room 29, so I wanted to share it. I've seen lots of examples of "kid friendly" language for the SMPs (Standards for Math Practice) but this is a little more organic. What I did was, I started our Problem Solving Workshop time on the second day of school. And as my students struggled to make sense of problems, to explain themselves, to model the mathematics and find viable solutions, I just looked for ways that they were already, intuitively, using the SMPs. Little kids are natural mathematicians....never once did I have to tell them how to be mathematical. I just had to open my mind to the possibilities of what each practice might look like.....as performed by a 6 or 7 year old.

Once I had collected all eight (and I'm not going to lie, a couple were a real stretch haha) I used blank puzzles and I drew the incident right on there, labeling it all up. I am nobody's artist, but they are easily impressed and it turns out hairstyle is an easily identifiable attribute among my students. So even though any picture was only marginally akin to the child, everyone totally GOT IT.

 I gave each group of four students a tray with the puzzle pieces for one practice ready to be put together. They had a blast putting it together and then they went NUTS when they realized it was THEM. Oh my gosh! SO GOOD. :D

 

Once they had the puzzle together, they read it to each other, and made sense of what it was saying. Since they were right there when it happened, and I had made such a big deal out of each one and even repeated it over and over, they had a built-in context for making sense of each one.

Math Practice One : Make sense of a problem and persevere in solving it

            All the kids were on the carpet. I had written a simple “put together” problem on a poster at the front on my easel. “Diva had  _____ stickers. She went to the store and bought another _______ stickers. How many stickers does Diva have now?” In this process, the students have acted out the problem with a variety of numbers I supply them. She had 4 and bought 7. She had 8 and bought 3. She had 12 and bought 4. Different students act out the building of the numbers and combining them. When it comes time to do the problem on their own, I give them bigger numbers they wouldn’t really be able to do in their heads, like she had 17 and she bought 18.

            After giving them the numbers 17, and 18, I ill-advisedly did one more check for understanding. That’s when I asked Janiya what was happening in the problem. After a tense 60 seconds of silence, she slowly said, “Divaaaaa….is….she has…..stickerssssss?” Yes! And how many does she have? Janiya stares off into space. She clearly thinks I will lose interest and ask somebody else. No way, Sister. We are at an impasse, until she absentmindedly swings her head around and looks toward the poster.

            “OH MY GOSH!” I practically yell, “DID EVERYBODY SEE WHAT JANIYA JUST DID????” The other 34 students (you heard me, it was a rough first month) look at me expectantly. That’s how I imagine them, anyway. And I make a VERY big deal out of THIS THING Janiya did….because when Janiya wasn’t sure what number to build, SHE LOOKED BACK AT THE PROBLEM! Isn’t she a good mathematician? That’s what mathematicians do, when they are making sense of a problem, they LOOK BACK TO FIND WHAT NUMBERS TO USE.”

            It was a stretch, but it’s a point we’ve made over and over….’Remember what Janiya did? She did what all mathematicians do….she looked back at the problem when she needed to remember which numbers to build.”

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}