5 Things I Want to Try in My Classroom This Year!

Hey guys! Today I want to share with you the 5 things I want to try in my classroom this year.  Last year we went full common core in math and reading. After a year of getting my feet wet, I'm now ready to dive in and see how it goes. Here are the 5 things I'm wanting to try during my "diving in" process! 

Number 1: Number Talks 

During a recent math conference this book was brought to my attention as a great way to work on fluency and math strategies with students. This book has common core connections and is for grades K-5.  I have talked my school into purchasing the book and am waiting very impatiently to get my hands on it! 

Number 2: A Carpet 

This one may seem strange but hear me out! In my school only K-3 grades have a carpet in their classrooms. It was always thought to be "too young" for 4-5 grade. To better implement number talks from above I need a "meeting place". Thus I would really like to get a carpet this year. I have read many blogs about intermediate grades using carpets successfully. Of course when I go searching for them again, I can't find them. ::sigh:: Once I have implemented the carpet and number talks I promise to come back and report how it is working! 

Number 3: Desk Organization 

I found a blog that had a really neat idea on how to keep desks organized when students switch classrooms. I am really hoping to try this this year to help keep the desks from becoming black holes. This idea can be found here: http://www.ashleigh-educationjourney.com

Number 4: Fractions 

During a recent math conference, this book was recommended to me for teaching fractions. In 4th grade CCSS fractions are a major focus. I really want to make sure I am teaching it in a way that my students will understand and comprehend, not just know how to find an answer. 

Number 5: I Can... Bulletin Board 

I am really wanting to turn my small bulletin board into an I Can.. CCSS Bulletin Board. I have been posting my standards on my white board, but now that summer is here, I am ready to tackle the bulletin boards. There are MANY cute ideas on how to decorate or organize an I Can bulletin Board. I'm juggling ideas around in my mind and have decided that I will decided on July 1 (when I am allowed to go to the teacher store and purchase items for the new school year) what route I want to go. 

What are some ideas that you are hoping to try this school year?

I hope you enjoyed!

Mathematical Practices Common Core Posters

Hey guys! This summer I have been doing lots of work to prepare for the upcoming Common Core implementation for our county. I found these cute mathematical practices posters that correlate with the 8 mathematical practices of common core. There are posters for K-1, 2-3, and 4-5 that are written in kid-friendly terms. I've included the links below so you can check them out! These would be great to help explain to the students what test graders are looking for on their constructed response assessments!

K-1 Posters Click Here

2-3 Posters Click Here

4-5 Posters Click Here

ABCya.com

Hey guys! Here is a really neat website I just discovered! It's abcya.com. I'm still browsing through the site to see what all it offers, but so far I have been really impressed. When you go to the website it looks like this...

You can choose the grade that you want to look at and it gives you language, numeral, extra, holiday, and fun games to play appropriate to that grade. I already have a website that my students use to play Math, Science, and S.S. games on if they finish an assignment early (learninginfourth.blogspot.com), but I am definitely adding this to the list! Another thing I use this site for is low students. I have some students who are still trying to master second grade skills and so I can have them practice a skill like place value on their level. I hope you enjoy! 

Additional Resources & Differentiating Instructional Worksheets!

When I graduated from college and started my teaching career I remember feeling like I knew everything and was going to change the world! I quickly realized how much I didn't know and started trying to absorb as much information from my fellow teachers as I could! I can say that I am still growing and changing, and I truly hope I never stop! One thing I have learned recently came from the teacher next door! She teaches Reading, L.A., Spelling, & Writing. She was telling me about how she taught Language Arts and I realized that her method would also be perfect for my math class! What she does is for every topic such as plural nouns she has three varying levels of worksheets; easy, moderate, difficult. She begins with the easy worksheets and works her way to the harder worksheet last. This gives the student several opportunities and varying levels of difficulty practicing this skill.  This works well for several reasons. 1) you always want to build on something in teaching. When they begin with something easy they can take that information and apply it to the moderate and difficult worksheets as well. 2) Our state test has varying difficulty questions on the test. Thus when we practice with all difficulty levels nothing is a "surprise" on TCAP.

Okay so back to math. As I said I thought this would be a great idea to use in Math as well! I want to expose my students to as many types of questions as possible to prepare them for the "final exam." For example this week we are studying about graphs. I have found or made worksheets that are an easy example first and then we work our way towards harder levels. It's been working great! HOWEVER, the book series only gives 1 Reteaching page & 1 Practice page per day. I wanted more and honestly I can't go home and make 3 worksheets for every lesson every day as much as I would like to! Finding GOOD resources was my only real choice! I wanted to share my resources with you in hopes that if you find this leveling a lesson a good idea then you don't have to go searching to much for good worksheets! Even if you don't want to use three different worksheets then these resources can also help you differentiate for your lower or higher students.

http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/ - I love super teacher! It has been one of my new best friends! It does require a memberships to see all worksheets, but it gives MANY FREE worksheets that are good! I'll admit I'm not a member yet and have only used the free worksheets, but I have been so impressed I may actually join next year!

www.teacherspayteachers.com - Teachers Pay Teachers is fantastic! The products on this site are made by other teachers so their things I are usually on point. They also have tons of free items! I have been very impressed with the quality of work from this site!

http://www.math-aids.com/ - Good website for math worksheets! You can choose options so that your worksheets are exactly what you need.

Do you have websites that you love for additional resources? I'd love to hear about it!