Morning Meetings in Room 21-SALE :)

Morning Meeting is one of my favorite times of the day.

No matter how busy we get with assessments or how lost in our one-to-one laptop world I love this 15-20 minutes a day of pure "face time" with my kiddos.

Morning meeting is a great time of day to work on teambuilding and community skills with your

class. It is also a useful time to incorporate vocabulary, spelling, and math facts in the form of fun
games for your students.

I gather my students in a circle on our back carpet. I sit in my rocking chair and my "first mate" doubles as my morning meeting leader sits next to me. The first mate selects a greeting from our greeting bin. The greetings vary from a simple handshake where we practice eye contact and speaking clearly to fun ones that involve chanting and silly body movement.

After our greeting I give my students a brief overview of our day and important upcoming events. This is also a great time to discuss issues/behaviors that my need to be addressed in our classroom.

Next we complete a fun activity. This can be student or teacher choice. All of the activities are designed to work on speaking and listening standards, following directions, literacy, and/or math skills.

Class favorites are always Sparkle and Monkey Math Facts (see my packet for more info).

To finish we rotate between four different closure.
One of my favorites is "wishes" each student thinks of a wish and whispers it into their hands. On the count of three all the students "release" their wishes into the air. The morning meeting leader then picks a friend or two to share their wishes.

My Morning Meeting packet on TPT has been one of my best selling items.  I have sold close to 100 copies and right now over 60 people have it on their "wish list"

In honor of getting back into the groove of blogging and since so many people have saved it to their "wish list" I am marking my "Ultimate Morning Meetings" packet down 20% until Halloween! Get yours now :)

Don't forget to comment with your own Morning Meeting ideas!

More New Classroom Pics (and a special thanks to the hubby)

Seriously after all the work...I really hope I don't have to move for at LEAST ten years.
My heart is in third grade, I enjoy my school, and wellllllllll I don't want to have to box everything up AGAIN.

Last year I used fadeless paper (see above). This year I took the advice of my new teammate and went and got felt for my boards. SO GLAD THAT I DID. Thanks to my awesome hubby my boards look incredible and the backgrounds will hold up for years to come.

My new favorite addition (as far as bulletin boards go) is my "Instabooks" bulletin board.

#keepcalm & #readon (spelled out in Lilly Pulitzer patterns of course!)

I actually created an instagram account (@mrsnpartyka) to photo and filter pictures of the books we have read. As the year goes on I will post pictures of the books on the board. This way students have a remind of all the books we have read. PLUS since I use many of the same read alouds from year-to-year I can save them to put back up next year. In my opinion it is way more fun (and current) than having a long list of titles and authors. 

(PS found the cute Surf's up sign at my favorite teacher place--Dollar Tree!)

This picture above shows one of the areas I am MOST excited about--above my cubbies and cabinets.  Once the hubby finished putting my felt on the large bulletin board I measured it out and realized I had enough to cover the ugly ugly dirty looking walls above my cabinet.  Fortunately my incredible hubby is over six feet tall (he's an entire foot taller than my practically legal midget status) so we were able to staple all the left over felt up there. (Years ago the entire wall was a bulletin board). Afterwards while I continued to organize and set-up my awesome hubby added some underwater cutouts and bordette for me. Then he places all the super cute stuffed animals of book characters my former first grade teacher grandmother had given me. 

It is incredible how much brighter and cleaner my classroom looks with this little touch. Plus it will keep me from getting lazy and throwing old materials up there. I hate how cluttered some classrooms look because of that!

So another great reason NOT to move...I don't want to have to make the hubby redo his incredible bulletin board! <3

Math Workshop-Place Value Resources (Freebie Alert!)

I write this blog post as I watch my poor poor UConn Huskies have another rough football game.

Sigh.

Anyways! Math Workshop is one of my favorite parts of the day. 

I love teaching my mini lessons, I love my guided groups, and I love watching my kids have tons of fun in their stations.

Three years ago we transitioned to a math curriculum based off common core standards. 

The first year was rough. Kids were missing a lot of the building blocks they needed to be successful and we spent a lot of time working hard to fill in the missing pieces before we sent them off to fourth grade.

Last year it was significantly better. I could see right away what a huge difference it made that students were exposed to the common core curriculum in second grade. I was hoping to see the improvement continue this year, considering students had been immersed in this curriculum since first grade. 

However this year, with trying to work in a brand new ELA curriculum, I personally felt my math workshop instruction had not been as strong as the two previous years. I post-tested my students on Friday fully expecting to have so-so results and several friends who would need to revisit the concepts in small group.

I was so relieved and ecstatic to find that 90% of my students exceeded the goal of 80% (most pretested with scores in the 20-30% range) with most scoring 90% or better. My students that did not hit the 80% still increased from their pretest scores by over 40% and are already receiving extra help in both math and reading. With the long week I had, the results almost brought tears to my eyes.

I attribute my results to my solid math workshop routine (see a previous post for more info here) and my math workshop stations for this unit I have worked on and used for the last three years.

It is important to me that all of my stations have tracking and accountability for my students. 

This year I started using TenMarks and FrontRowEd as part of my "Terrific Technology" station but I also like to mix gaming and tracking sheets.

I love www.abcya.com they have some great quick mini games that my students can play on their laptops. Prior to our shift to one-to-one devices I only had one student computer and access to a handful of iPads. That was when I created three (free!) tracking sheets to go with ABCYa's Base ten Bingo.

Check them out in my TPT Store!

Place Value Bingo With Subtraction

Place Value Bingo With Rounding

Place Value Bingo

At "Games Galore" I expect students to be reviewing skills and concepts in pairs of small groups while having some competitive fun. It is important to me that they have "never ending" activities so I can work with my guided groups.

Digit Flip (2 and 3 Digit!)

Two math stations in one! Great for differentiating. My students absolutely love this game. I included digit cards to print and laminate but for a fun twist it is easy to play with cards as well. Students can play "two digit flip" to review ordering of numbers and expanded notation. For a challenge, or when students are ready to move on, they can advance to "three digit flip" Teachers can also up the ante by allowing students to play with multiple decks of "digit cards" at once.

Rounding Rampage (Rounding to 10s and 100s)

Another bonus buy with two math stations in one! Great for differentiating. A great game for students to play independently while they learn how to round! I use the same digit cards for Rounding Rampage as I do for Digit Flip (and many other stations), Less Prep Work!

Three Digit Addition & Subtraction Slides & Ladders

This station is a complete fan favorite. I introduce it during our first unit of the year with both 2 and 3 digit addition and subtraction equations. Kids must solve the problem (and their partner must agree!) in order to be able to stay on the square. As we move on into multiplication and division I have gameboards made for multiplication and division facts as well. I send home copies for kids to play and review at home. Families love the fun twist on addition and subtraction. 

Packet Includes:

4 game boards to practice three digit subtraction or addition

4 answer keys for game boards

4 printable game pieces 

Directions

Tracking sheet

So excited to see the great results I got from these resources.

During "Practice Makes Perfect" I expect students to review and explore concepts independently. I try to give them stations where they can modify the level of challenge (or I can assign) based on their own needs. 

Check out the links below for more Place Value & 3-Digit Addition/Subtraction Practice 

 

Addition Challenge

Representing Numbers in Four Ways

Rounding Numbers

Subtraction Challenge

3-Digit Subtraction

In order for my students to be able to work on their own, we build 'tool-kits' with all of our songs and strategies. I had out hard copies of these strategies and keep a set in our "LiveBinder" (check back soon for a LiveBinder post!).

Click here to get your own copy of our toolkit!

While working in guided groups during our normal math workshop block I focus on problem solving skills with my students.

One-Step Word Problems

Multi-Step Word Problems

Last (but not least) I love my "Superhero Power of One" lesson I have taught for the last three years. I wish someone taught ME this strategy when I was 8 instead of 25! It makes subtracting across zeros incredibly easy. Plus the kids love that it is a SUPER POWER!

Now that we have a super successful first unit under our belts I cannot WAIT to dive headfirst into multiplication and division after this 3-day weekend. 

Don't forget to leave your own Place Value and Regrouping Tips in the Comments!

 

Another New Classroom, Another New Set of Pics

This past summer was a whirlwind of packing and unpacking...and more packing...and more unpacking...

As we moved from 5 team members down to four I had to move my classroom down the hall. 

While it is nice to be in a quad with my team members instead of down the hall on my own it is definitely a double edged sword. I love the social aspect (and having three teachers and two aids in the quad who can keep an extra eye or ear out if need be) buttttttt I am having trouble getting more work done since I am near everyone else.

While I have an AC (that somewhat works and by somewhat might take some staleness out of the air...) I ended up further from the bathroom and the printer/copier...two seriously important items during the school day.

Overall I love my new classroom (and I cannot thank my incredible husband enough for all of his help) but it was made that much more difficult by the fact that I also moved in (and out) of my summer school classroom. Needless to say at the current moment I am very much looking forward to Christmas Break where I'll have more days off than I did all summer!

Check out a few new pics below! 

I'll be following up with some more posts about each one...

Small Group Table

(Top New Room, Bottom Old Room)                                                       

This is one of my FAVORITE upgrades in my new room. 

Check back soon for some tips on integrating stability balls in your classroom.

Rocking Chair/Morning Meeting Area

(Top New Room, Bottom Old Room)

I was lucky enough to stumble across this awesome blue and white flowered fabric while cleaning out the cabinets in my new classroom. My husband had picked out the shiny blue fabric for my last year. Somewhere in the course of the year it came away slightly stained and tattered. 

Both wall hangings actually came from Dollar Tree. I was nervous that I would damage the whale when I took it down so I bought the palm trees as well. I absolutely love the way it brightens up the whole back corner. I even used it for a backdrop for some first day of school pictures. 

Last year my door was fairly boring. I had fish labels on the door and eventually added cards and letter to/from my students. This year the hubby (super handy with a straight edged razor) helped me to wrap the door in blue fadeless paper. Check back for future posts and my super cute Captain Mickey and Sailor Minnie name tags! 

Updated job chart! This time I (and by me again the hubby) used felt as the background for all of my bulletin boards. Check out last year's post about my job chart (http://mrsnpartyka.blogspot.com/2013/10/all-hands-on-deck-pirate-job-chart.html) for information on the jobs and where to get your copy!

Last year I hated how dingy, dirty, and scratched my desk was. There just never seemed to be enough hours in the day to do something about it. This year it was a priority and my wonderful husband and his straight edged razor again saved the day. We (and by we again I really mean he) wrapped the desk in fadeless green paper. I use the bottom half of my old whale wall hanging from my last classroom to spruce up the side. I then decorated the front with magnets I made myself using Lilly Pulitzer 5x5 designs and some of my favorite designs from Lilly. (I hope to share some of my magnet templates in a future blog post so make sure to check back!)

Another dingy metal area I spruced up (this time on my own!!) with fadeless paper and Lilly magnets!

Plenty more ideas, freebies, and TPT ideas to come. Make sure to check back for more posts in the next few weeks as I get back into the posting routine. 

For now enjoy this freebie 

Click here to get these numbers!

Associating With MONSTERS--SALE ALERT

I am a typical New England girl. I love fall. I love the leaves changing colors. I love pumpkins. I love ghost stories. I love monsters!

This has been one of my favorite lessons for the last two years. I am already super excited about creating these monsters with my students this year!!

We teach multiplication and division over the course of two units in our math workshop (and of course continually revisit for the rest of the year...).

Our second unit with multiplication and division introduced the distributive, commutative, and associative properties of multiplication.This introductory/exploratory lesson requires students to apply their knowledge of the associative property of addition and multiplication facts to create a giant monster. I love how different and creative they all come out! It is a great opportunity for students to work on their fine motor skills. 

Last year I took some small video clips and tons of photos of the kids while they were working and of their finish products. To surprise them I edited it quickly together in iMovie on my phone using the "horror movie preview" template. The kids LOVED it and it was a great way to showcase a project like this when our bulletin board was in use and we have limited display space inside of our classroom. 

In honor of my love of fall and Halloween...Associating with Monsters will be 20% off until the end of the month! Check out all 32 pages here in my TPT store (http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Associating-with-Monsters-388319) 

From my product description;

A great lesson that can be adapted as an exploratory, introductory, or review lesson regarding the Associative Property of Multiplication. This lesson plan includes Five worksheets for your "on grade level" students as well as several accommodations for students below grade level, students who need review, and enrichment students. Plenty of open ended graphic organizers to keep students brains working!

This is a perfect tool for teaching these Common Core Standards

Content Standards: 

CCSS.Math.Content.3.OA.A.1 

Interpret products of whole numbers, e.g., interpret 5 × 7 as the total number of objects in 5 groups of 7 objects each.

CCSS.Math.Content.3.OA.B.5 

Apply properties of operations as strategies to multiply and divide.2 Examples: If 6 × 4 = 24 is known, then 4 × 6 = 24 is also known. (Commutative property of multiplication.) 3 × 5 × 2 can be found by 3 × 5 = 15, then 15 × 2 = 30, or by 5 × 2 = 10, then 3 × 10 = 30. (Associative property of multiplication.) Knowing that 8 × 5 = 40 and 8 × 2 = 16, one can find 8 × 7 as 8 × (5 + 2) = (8 × 5) + (8 × 2) = 40 + 16 = 56. (Distributive property.

Happy Haunting (and Multiplying) Friends!

PS This is also a great excuse to watch the clip below:

Time for CHANGE

Last year I totally fell behind on my blogging and TPT-ing!

In January I hopped on board our Language Arts Curriculum Committee...and spent the next nine months submerged up to my eyeballs in common core reading, writing, language, speaking, and listening standards. Now that my time on that committee is done I've moved on to some work on Google Docs and trying to get my own classroom up and running!

I also tried to take some time to focus on myself. Between graduate school, wedding planning, and moving to a new school I had forgotten that important detail. I started working out again, dropped 30 lbs and started teaching fitness classes for the first time since I was an ungrad. I feel better than I have in years!

Now that things finally seem to be settling down (well as much as they ever do...) it is time to get back into one of my favorite hobbies of creating materials again.

To get back into the blogging aspect I wanted to hop back to a material from my days in second grade. 

Normally priced at $10 I am putting my "Changeopoly Jr." on sale for $7.50.

This 65 page packet is available in my TPT store.(http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Math-Workshop-Change-and-Coins-Change-opoly-Jr-548067) 

Change-opoly Jr. encourages students to work on cooperative play, coin identification, coin counting, addition, and subtraction.

Included in this kit:
• One “change-opoly” 32 square game board
• 30 ? card fronts
• 30 ? card backs
• 4 game pawns
• 48 (12 of each color) “math books” to mark classrooms owned
• Coin cards to print on colored paper
• Colored coins to print on white paper
• Directions for assembly
• Directions for set-up and play
o Directions are a bit wordy. I would recommend walking through the game play with students before sending them off on their own.
• A tracking sheet to follow students’ progress

When I used this in second grade, I glued the game board onto the cardboard from the back of a pad of chart paper. I store the game board and all of the pieces in a Nordstrom shirt box---perfect size for a game box! 

Since we do not explicitly teach change in 3rd grade I use it as a review station and sometimes the students choose to play with it during our "Ketchup and Pickles" time or even indoor recess.

Check back soon for more new posts and pictures of my new classroom!

Please Like and SHARE!!

Help out my super cute kids who want to meet the UConn Huskies!!

Post by Newington Public Schools.

Love is in the SALE!

Pre Valentine's Day sale!!!

Take advantage of 20% off all items and 33% off of my Valentine's Day Fractions!

Stock up on great word work and math workshop items, then enjoy your snow days instead of planning and prepping!

Sale goes through February 8th!

Life is Like a Box of Chocolate...Valentine's Day Fractions!

Between a snow day on Monday and an anticipated snow day on Wednesday (that came true!) I knew my students were going to be a bit of an itch on Tuesday.

We got some of our "business" out of the way, February Spelling Pre-Tests, working on our recycling project in Reader's and Writer's workshop etc. but the last thing I wanted to do was really jump head first into our new unit on fractions when I knew their heads weren't 150% in the game.

It was also time to update our New Year's Resolution bulletin board, so Monday night I decided we were going to do Chocolate fractions as an introductory/exploratory lesson....and to help spiff up our bulletin board.

I was super excited over break when I stumbled across some really cute borders in the clearance section of Walmart. I scooped up a ton of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and Valentine's Day border trim for 50 cents! So now I had my border trim, what to put on the board?

Thinking of boxes of chocolate obviously made my mind wander to one of my favorite movies--Forrest Gump.

"Life is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you're gonna get!"

I quickly put together a packet for my students (get yours here!!) that introduced them to fraction vocab like "numerator" and "denominator" (and was full of cute graphics from http://www.mycutegraphics.com/).

The packet asks students to fill a heart shaped candy box with as few as 4 or as many as 12 chocolates. Then determine the fraction of uneaten and the fraction of eaten chocolates. Making sure that when they add the two fractions together...they should have a whole box of chocolates.

I created a tracer to cut out the hearts, and asked two students to use it to make a few extra tracers. They sat with me at the reading table while the rest of my students unpacked and settled into their morning routine. While they were tracing and cutting I was assembling my example piece. They started questioning why we were making a Valentine's Day craft when we hadn't  "filled our bucket" and earned a class Valentine's Day treat yet. I told them they were learn more later in the morning but it was to be our first math lesson on fractions. They excitedly continued cutting and talking about how this was SO much better than just doing a worksheet...and how much they love my class.

The quick intro lesson and craft took about an hour and a half. We spent about an hour in the morning, then finished the last bit after lunch. The kids took great pride in decorating their candy boxes.

In the TPT packet you will find directions for your students on how to assemble their candy boxes, example photos, a worksheet for students to determine the fractions of chocolates eaten/uneaten, labels for their candy boxes, chocolate clip art, candy wrapper clip art, and clip art to decorate their candy boxes.

--I also let my kiddos decorate with some sequins!--

In the end we made it through our introductory fraction lesson, listened to some great Disney Pandora, and we have a super cute Valentine's Day bulletin board that cost all of 50cents!