Cyber Monday and Tuesday Sale

This is Robyn and Amy and we are joining in on the Cyber Monday and Tuesday sale on TPT! We are putting everything in our stores on a discount of 15%!!! You can find some great things on a discount! Click here for Robyn's TPT store!
This is one of Robyn's new Christmas/Winter items!
                      

Click Here to visit Amy's TPT store!  Here are a few Christmas products Amy has just released!

  

Decorate the tree.  Each tree has the product or quotient to a multiplication.  Match the factor ornaments to each tree.

 

This product has one and two step multiplication word problems.  Students work through the problems and then use an IPAD to scan QR codes to see if their answer is correct!

 

Mistletoe Multiplication contains 20 multiplication sentence cards with a matching array card, groups of card, repeated addition card, and related division sentence card to help your students better understand multiplication strategies!

December Currently

Can you believe it is December?! This is the best and craziest month of the year.  By the way, this is Robyn!  I am linking up with Oh’ Boy 4th Grade for her monthly currently.

Listening: COMPLETE SILENCE! Miss Priss is sleeping and that always makes things much quieter. I am enjoying this!

Loving: I am loving all of my Christmas décor.  I haven’t really decorated the last few years.  This year I am really in the mood. We have a total of 4 trees in the house this year!

This is our main tree.  It has lots of silver, white, and blue.  It also has all of Andrew’s ornaments that he made in daycare last year.

This is my favorite tree! This is in our kitchen.  It has burlap ribbon around and on the bow.  LOVE IT!

Thinking: Do I have to go back!? We go back to work next week after a whole week off. It is so hard to leave my own children!!

Wanting: A date night with the hubby! One weekend really soon we are going on a date all ALONE! We are going to have a nice dinner and watch The Hunger Games!

Needing: To spend time with friends.  I have missed spending time with the other two ladies that contribute to this blog! They are such wonderful friends! We are getting together next Sunday!

Favorite Tradition: Secret Santa! We always have Secret Santa at work and it is so much fun! I got a really great person this year! SHHH!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

Spark Student Motivation Saturdays - Self-Assessements

Hello everyone!  This is Kim again, bringing you a way to motivate your students.  I am linking up with Head Over Heels Teaching for Spark Student Motivation Saturdays.

Several units ago, I created a self-assessment form to use after my students take major quizzes or tests.  I particularly like using these after a major quiz because it gives the student a very good idea of what they need to work on before the big test.  Realizing what their strengths are and that they may only have a few skills to work on to be proficient can be motivating for students.  Now that I have the form created, it takes just a few minutes to change out the topics for the next set of skills.  I have also included a section for them to write to their parents or guardians a reflection about how they did on the test.  I have had parents write notes back to me or better yet, to their own student!

The top picture is the back page of one of the self-assessments.  The students put check marks by all of the questions they got right in a particular area.  They then calculate the percent correct for that particular sub-section of the quiz or test.  Sometimes we take the time to work the percentages out by hand.  We also discuss the connection between common fractions and percentages.  In the bottom picture, we are using BYOT to speed up the process for that particular class period.

Taking the time to do the self-assessments has helped my students be more aware of their own learning.  I have had some students pull out the self-assessment from a quiz and show me that they improved on that area for the test.  The more I can get them aware of their own learning, the more they may care about their grades!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Kim

A Peek at My Week Before Thanksgiving Break - Kim

Hi everyone!  I hope you have had a good week so far and that Friday brings a great finish for you as well!  I am going to link up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings for a Peek at My Week.

So my 6th grade math partners and I decided to finish up our unit on equations and inequalities before leaving for break.  We scheduled the test for Thursday to give us enough time on Friday for self-assessments, test corrections, celebrations, and of course, make-up testing.  We have really been into data as a school this year, which has prompted me to keep track of student data outside of just keeping a grade book.  I have found that I collect and analyze as many non-graded pieces of work during the week as I do graded pieces.  Here is how the week shaped up:

Monday - We finished discussing the last piece of new material (substituting into inequalities to find solutions) and assigned a short 6 question homework assignment.

Tuesday - We reviewed homework, completed a graphic organizer (made with a cute chevron pattern-maybe it will one day be in my TpT store), and did a ticket out the door.  Here is the best part:  The ticket out the door had 6 questions, one of each skill that the test was going to assess.  I let the students use their graphic organizer for one very important reason.  If they could be successful on the ticket out the door with their graphic organizer, but didn't do well on the test, I knew that they really just didn't study the material well enough to know what to do when.  If they couldn't get the questions correct even with the graphic organizer, I knew I would need to do more work with them on Wednesday.

Here is how I analyze data that is not in my actual grade book.  I have one master excel file that includes all 5 of my classes.  I have each student, any special information such as testing accommodations, and column after column of formative assessment data.  Once you get the excel file set up, it is just as easy to add information here as it is to a grade book.  I let excel do all of the calculations for me.  I have highlighted below how to let excel calculate the percent proficient for each particular assignment (I set it at 70).

The formula is (COUNTIF(P5:P25,">=70")/COUNT(P5:P25))*100

Wednesday - I arranged groups based on my ticket out the door data.  I do NOT record ticket out the door data into the grade book.  The average column is really for me to see more class information.  Also, in fairness to the students, a score of 4 out of 6 would cause the student to show up as not proficient.  This gives me good data to base instruction, but does not represent a fair grade in the grade book (in my opinion).  I retaught word problems with equations to the whole class (based on the data) and then made different activities for other areas of weakness.  I was able to pull 5-6 students to the back table to work with me, while other students worked on technology or practiced other self-correcting work independently.

Thursday - TEST Day!  After grading tests today, I am extremely pleased with the results!  It is so rewarding to see students who received not proficient scores earlier in the week make HUGE strides.  Sharing the data with the students can be a huge motivating factor if done correctly.  These types of formative assessments give students a way to get help in the area(s) they need it most. 

Friday - Tomorrow we will complete a self-assessment form (another potential TpT product that I have created) that will allow students to calculate their percent proficient in each sub-section of the test.  We will then work on test corrections.  As a reward, students that have made a proficient score will celebrate by bringing in a snack during class! 

This is the first year that I have ever kept numerical data on students outside of the normal grade book.  So far, it is providing extremely valuable information to help me meet students where they are.

Happy calculating,

Kim   

Tried it Tuesday---Blog Partner and Websites

I am linking up with 4th Grade Flipper’s- Tried It Tuesday!   This is Amy and I am going to share a few things I've tried this week.  Not only am I blogging with two very awesome educators and two women I care so much about, I am also learning from them.  This week I tried Kim's word problem wheels in one of my math stations.  My students enjoyed the hands on technique added to the problem solving skill.

 

My students have also started learning about rocks and minerals in science.  They LOVE it and honestly it is one of my least favorite things to teach (only because I don't have an abundance of knowledge in the area).  I worked with our STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) teacher this week to find a creative way to engage my students when it comes to investigating minerals.  The students were able to use mineral kits to conduct scratch test to see the mineral's streak and test the minerals hardness.  Then we introduced them to this mineralogy4kids.org  an AWESOME interactive website.

Check it out:

An excellent introduction to The Rock Cycle

 

This part of the  website allows students to explore mineral groups, mineral properties, crystals, minerals used everyday, and interact with a mineral identification quiz and mineral games.

I loved the mineral properties section and hope to be able to use it in the upcoming weeks as my students learn more about color, cleavage, and luster.

 

The mineral identification tool was our main focus.  Students were asked to take a 5-step quiz to help them determine the mineral they were given.  For the most part, the mineral identified was the mineral they were given.  The students kept asking for new minerals to see if they could correctly identify it through each step.  It was awesome to see how excited 8 and 9 year olds were over MINERALS!

Monday Made It

Happy Monday everyone! This is Robyn and I am going to share one of my newer TPT products.  Thanksgiving is right around the corner and I love to incorporate holidays into learning! Below are some examples of what is in my Thanksgiving Literacy and Math Fun!

Color by Sight Word- 2 versions

 

KWL and Venn Diagram

Math- Ordering Numbers, Comparing Numbers, Fillin the missing number

Thanksgiving FUN! Reader

I have already used many of these and the kids LOVED them! You can get this here! Enjoy!! 4 more days to Thanksgiving break!!

Spark Student Motivation: Homework Pass

                                              
This is Amy and this is our first time linking up with "Head Over Heals for Teaching's" Spark Student Motivation Saturday.  Over the last few weeks, I've noticed a lack of drive in my classroom.  The concepts being taught are getting harder and the demand on my students has increased.  I am constantly trying to find new ways to motivate my students.  I've used candy, spell out word motivation, extra technology time, and extra credit points (dojo points) with many of my previous classes.  I have also purchased those cute little homework pass certificates sold at The Dollar Tree and used them for students going above and beyond.  I have not attempted the homework pass approach this school year, but after viewing my homework check-off sheet, I actually don't have a problem with my classes completing homework. This week after dealing with the same students participating, answering questions, and going above and beyond; I knew I needed something to "get those hands up."  During planning, I quickly made these homework passes and started passing them out to those students who were always participating during math discussions. 
                                                         
By Friday, it was amazing to see the number of students participating.  You can grab these passes FREE at my TPT store!  I would love to hear how you motivate your students!!

Five For Friday - November 15th

Hello everyone!  This is Kim again bringing you my "Five for Friday"link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching.  So here are my 5 random things for the week:

When I picked up my nearly 3-year-old daughter from day care Friday afternoon, she asked "Will you guys play with me tonight?"  I love how she is becoming so fluent with language.  She often cracks me up with her phrases and how much she understands.  Well fast-forward a few hours to after we get home from Friday night dinner.  I was sitting down thinking of writing this post, when she asks "Will you play with me?"  How can I refuse that?  I made a very purposeful decision to stop everything and play Candy Land with her.  These days are passing all too quickly.  As teachers we tend to pour EVERYTHING we have into other people's children.  Not that doing that is bad, I just want to be more aware of being in the moment for my own children.  So, we had a competitive game of Candy Land, and let the record show that my daughter won!

This week, the other 6th grade math teachers and I reorganized our students in our "extra help" period depending on results from a recent pre- and post-test cycle.  My group ended up modeling distributive property problems such as 3(2x + 4) by either creating a Prezi or making a video using our classroom iPads.  They learned that the number outside the parentheses tells how many groups to make that contain the contents that are inside the parentheses.  For example, one group made up a story problem pretending that they worked on a boat dock.  The man in the problem wanted to sell fish.  A boat came in with cases of fresh fish that he could purchase to then re-sell.  In the problem above, x would represent "cases of fish" in each group.  The 4 would represent how many individual fish were in each group.  So, the fisherman made 3 groups containing 2 cases of fish and 4 individual fish to sell.  In total, he had 6 cases of fish and 12 individual fish, which ultimately models the distributive property.  For 6th graders that level of understanding is awesome!  As a former high school math teacher, I can tell you I had honors students that may not be able to model and explain what the distributive property really is doing!  

I had 3 goals that I was hoping to focus on starting this week:  eating better, working out, and starting a TpT store.  I find that I will sacrifice and go overboard in relation to my teaching job, but I have little drive to do the same in eating better and working out.  In different phases of my life, I have been a healthy eater.  I just had my 2nd child, but was diagnosed with gestational diabetes in spite of being "normal" weight for my height.  It forced me to really evaluate what I was putting into my body.  As a result, I ate well and felt REALLY good.  I gained less than 15 pounds during pregnancy, which for a 120 pound girl starting out, that was pretty good!  Growing up I was always playing sports or involved in physical activities.  But now that I have 2 kids and a demanding teaching job, I just can't find the motivation to eat well or work out after getting home after 5:00 each night.  I am also wanting to start a TpT store to share resources that I am creating.  Thanks to Robyn, I now know what to do to start my store, I just again can't find the time to do it!  I know that seems like a lot of excuses, but I really just want to make my goals somewhat public in hopes that it will inspire me to get going.  I am currently watching Biggest Loser for inspiration as well!

Before leaving school on a Friday afternoon, I took the time to start a data wall.  The purpose is to show class statistics on pre-tests, formative assessments, and post-tests.  It does not show individual student results but does allow for students to set classroom and individual goals.  It may also serve to motivate some students to achieve at higher levels.  As a school, we are going through a data transformation so most of this is required.  I do hope that it helps put the spark into some of my students!

Ok, so my 5 is short and sweet...We only have 5 more school days before Thanksgiving break!  I cannot wait to spend time with my 2 precious children, my amazing husband, and the rest of my family and friends!

TGIF,

Kim

Activities Like This...Give Me Fun Feedback!

This is Kim and I am participating at http://imbloghoppin.blogspot.com/ for the "We Are Thankful For" linky party!

When I taught high school math I had a set of interactive voting devices.  Students would answer any multiple-choice or true/false questions using a little blue remote.  I do not have a set of these devices at my current middle school.  Most of the voting devices are quite expensive and some become outdated quickly as technology advances.  In the last 2 weeks, I stumbled on Polleverywhere.com.  You really, really should give this a try if you have access to computers, or if your students can BYOT (bring your own technology).  

Here's how it works.  First, you go to polleverywhere.com and create your first poll question.  It's FREE!  You can watch videos to see how easy it is to incorporate into your classroom.  For educators, there is a free plan that gets 40 responses per poll (that means for each question I ask, I can have up to 40 students respond at any one time).  Since I do not have a class with that many students, the free plan is working great right now.  There are, of course, some reasons to look into a paid version, but I am not quite there yet.  

So your polls can be multiple choice, open-ended, or even a type of question called "clickable image" which would be useful if you loaded an image like a map or a biology cell and had students identify parts.  The multiple-choice can even have images as the choices!  I have one poll that I created that asks "How do you feel about today's lesson?".  Students can click on a red, yellow, or green circle to give feedback.  Here is a screenshot of what students would see on their device:

You can be very specific in your questions or you can create more generic questions that can be used over and over.  If you look at this screenshot below, I have math specific questions, but then I also have 2 generic questions that I can activate at anytime.  

This is how I usually use polleverywhere.com.  I have them look at a handout that already has a multiple-choice question or other math problem to solve.  I select the appropriate poll.  If I have an open-ended math question, I have them type their answer into the poll text box and then add their name to the end.  I hide the answers on the screen so that they cannot wait to answer after they have seen what the majority of the class is answering.  If you have a "freeze" button on your projector's remote, you can freeze the screen so they cannot see each other's responses either.  

I then "PUSH" the poll down to the student's device.  This can be a classroom computer, a tablet, a smartphone, or any device that can access the internet.  The students simply go to your polleverywhere.com class website.  Once you have "pushed" the poll, the question is now live and students will see the poll live on their device.  

They answer the poll question and their response instantly goes on the screen.  You can hide the responses or choose to leave them visible.  The graphs are instantly updated and you can literally watch the answers come in!  If it is open-ended, you can set the visual mode to show a list of responses, a "wall" of responses, a "news-ticker" style response flow, or even a word cloud.  If the question is multiple-choice, you can see a horizontal or vertical bar graph.  

You can even click on "Response History" and get a easy to read list of responses.  On this page, you can choose to export the responses as a csv file (spreadsheet).  As you see below, you may need to have discussions about expectations with this type of technology.  This screenshot is from the first time I tried polleverywhere.com.  You can see that students are free to type anything!

QUICK OVERVIEW:

• Great for formative assessment.  Can be used as a ticket-out-the-door to set groups for the next class day.  Can replace using "sticky" notes on the board to see how students are responding.
• Great way to engage students in today's technology.
• VERY easy to set-up and use.  You can customize the look and feel of your polls.  You can download the poll questions into PowerPoint.  I have only scraped the surface of what this simple website can do.  
• Create generic questions that can be used quickly without having to spend time typing in polls.  I have one generic that says "What is the answer to this question?".  I have it set as multiple-choice and open-ended depending on the question we are working on.  I literally just "push" one of those questions down to the student devices and we are ready to respond.  
• Reserve your own polleverywhere.com website by clicking on the "How People Can Respond" dropdown on the right side of your poll question screen.  Find the blue link under "Web Devices".  It should lead you to a page to reserve your own web url.  Your students will just need to visit this one reserved page to access your polls.  They can also text in their response if you are ready to handle that!

I am a huge fan of the instant feedback that this website can provide!  In this age of data and accountability, it gives me a way to get usable data and engage students at the same time.

Here is what it looks like being used in my classroom:

Oh, I used an app called "Skitch" to annotate over the screenshots above.  Try it out too if you get a chance!

Let me know what you think in the comments section below!

Happy polling!

Kim

Techie Tuesday - Use Remind101!

Hello everyone!  This is Kim here bringing you a quick technology idea.  I am posting a "new idea" that corresponds to the "We Are Thankful" linky party hosted by http://imbloghoppin.blogspot.com/.

I am also linking up with Techie Tuesday at TechnologyTailgate.com, so hop over and check out more technology ideas when you get a chance!

We all want an efficient easy way to communicate with parents, the community, and even students (when age-appropriate) about classroom activities and assignments.  We use classroom newsletters, weekly folders, and agendas to send messages home via paper.  As technology has improved, we are maintaining classroom websites or blogs.  Even though each of these communication tools is very useful and necessary, sometimes a quick message home via text message gives parents enough information to prompt students on what assignments are upcoming or due.  Enter...Remind101.com!

Go to Remind101.com to sign up for your free account.  All phone numbers are private and messages are one-way.  This is a great way to communicate without having to use your personal cell phones!  

Once you sign-up, you will arrive at a screen that looks similar to this:

You can set up multiple classes so that you can send specific messages to certain groups of students. Are you a coach too?  Set up a group for your athletes!  If students or parents do not want to get involved with receiving text messages, they could sign up to receive emails instead.  Your messages are limited to 140 characters, so you do have to be very concise.  Talk about a great way to get teach students to stick to the point.  Have them write the remind101 message for the night!  One of the BEST things is that you can schedule the message to go out later in the day.  I usually write my messages during the day while I am thinking about it, but I schedule them to go out around dinner time.  

I send messages out 3-4 times during the week to help my students remember to complete homework or remind them to study for an upcoming quiz.  I also include messages that give parents an idea of when the next test might be scheduled.  When you are ready for students or parents to subscribe, look for a blue button that says "invite students and parents".  You will get a printable page that looks like the one below.  It will have a number and message to text for subscribers to use to access your messages (removed from image below).  

Are you a school leader or guidance counselor?  Remind101 can also be used to communicate messages about school events or important school deadlines.  

At the middle and high school level, you may find that both parents and students are subscribing to the text messages.  If you want an easy, quick way to communicate short messages, give Remind101.com a try!

Happy Reminding!

Kim

(I was in no way compensated for my post.  It is my own opinion as a result of experience!)