5 for Friday March 21 - Vote to Win a Freebie of Your Choice!

  Time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five For Friday for a look back at our week.

This week we had parent teacher conferences.  I had mentioned in an earlier post about how I have my students lead the conferences and evaluate themselves.

On Monday I had them complete these "report cards" evaluating their own work habits.

They often write funny things on their papers, but this one really cracked me up!  I might have to buy him a tub of sour cream one day!

We also presented our animal reports this week.  They really did a great job!

This little one was even dressed to match her project -love the tights!

We played a game with the counselor this week using special balls that the students passed to each other and then answered the questions under their thumbs.  I have seen this idea before for math facts or comprehension questions - it was a good reminder for me.  I think I will be incorporating this activity into our test prep coming up the next two weeks.

I just absolutely LOVE this picture!  They were having so much fun!

Spring craziness and parent conferences always makes for a rough week - so we decided to indulge in a healthy snack during Daily 5 with a fruit tray.  The students loved it since they don't normally get to eat in class!

Last, but not least- our school is in the running for $10,000 to improve our playground which is in dire need of repairs.  Please take a moment to vote to help us win!  You can vote even if you aren't local, and you can vote once every 24 hours.  Voting ends Sunday!  It is really neck and neck and we would love your help and support!

As an extra incentive, I will give everyone who votes (and leaves a comment below) any item of your choice from my 

TpT store.

 Vote here!  Our school is Fernley Elementary :)

Enjoy your weekend!

Five For Friday - With a Freebie!

Woo Hoo!  Friday, Friday, Sweet Friday!  It has been a looong week for me, so I am happy, happy, happy that it is finally Friday!  And... time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

I started my week with this awesome Dollar Tree Haul.  I have a lot of great ideas in store for my kiddos next week.

Of course I will post about them as we use them!

And speaking of the Dollar Tree, while I was there I found these great writing process and editing posters (it was a 2 pack for $1).  I normally make a lot of my own posters (or buy them on TpT), but for $1 and a lot less hassle, I thought why not?  Plus the kids Loved them! (They are actually poster size even though they look small in the picture).

Our reading responses are getting a whole lot better thanks to our What Does Good Work Look Like lesson.  I will be sharing how the pictures translated to their writing next week.

And, fractions got a whole lot sweeter when we practiced Finding Equivalent Fractions with Hershey's Kisses.

I simply wrote fractions on the undersides with a sharpie, and they had to find the match.

I posted this picture of my students using their multiplication factors on Instagram, and they were a huge hit!  With my students and the teachers who follow me on Instagram! Here is the link to print them out - and it is a FREEBIE! They are pretty self explanatory to use, but I will be writing a full post about them on Tuesday along with a few other ways we have worked on those pesky multiplication facts!

And.... I am super excited because tomorrow I will be having a 300 follower giveaway!  Over 60 amazing bloggers have gotten together to help me celebrate, so there are tons of prizes.  I am overwhelmed by the fact that I have 300 followers on both Bloglovin and TpT - but I was even more overwhelmed by how many people offered to help me celebrate!  Don't forget to stop by tomorrow to celebrate with us!

Teaching Students - What Does Good Work Look Like? Thursday Throwdown

One thing that I have really struggled with is getting my students to edit their work and to edit the work of their peers.  They want to glance over it and tell me how wonderful it is.  Then they turn it in and the errors are basic and glaring!  Usually sentences started with lowercase words, horribly spelling, run-on sentences galore - you know what I am saying? Right?  Please tell me I am not the only one who has problems with students not able to improve their work.

Well, I may have found the solution!

I ran across this video awhile back, and decided to show it to my students to see what their reaction might be. They were amazed to see what a six year old was capable of as an artist.  I asked them, what things stood out to you?

Their thoughts:

                       "He made six drafts."
                       " He kept working until it got better and better."
                       "He persevered."
                       "His friends helped him to make it better."

My thoughts,
                    "If a first grader could do this couldn't fourth graders?"
                    "Could we translate this to our writing as well?"



 They were up to the challenge.  We decided to add some scientific pictures to our animal reports. Once they learned how to critique each other's drawings (and how to use that feedback to improve) we would use those skills to edit our writing.

Some of the students were clearly inspired by the video to research butterflies.

I was blown away by the amount of care that went into their drawings (some even pulled out their cell phones to match details).  Their feedback was amazing and clear too.  No one said, "It's great." and no one said. "That's awful."  Instead the feedback was clear and direct, "You need to angle this a little more, look at it carefully."  No one took offense to the suggestions (not even my most sensitive souls) - they all reacted by saying things like, "You're right, I'll go try that!"

And they did!

Here are a few other animals in progress:

Sugar gliders

Coyotes

Scorpions

Jaguars

We are still working on the drawings and reports, so I will share more as they progress.  I just wanted to share what happened so far in case it is something you would like to use with your students. 

 I am linking up with Erin at Loving Lit for her monthly Thursday Throw Down.  I get some of the best ideas and inspiration from these posts - I hope you do too!

How to Determine Student's Prior Knowledge

I found this info-graphic and I just had to share!  I love all of these ideas!  I already have used a few of these, but there are definitely a few new to me ideas that I am going to try out!


Find more education infographics on e-Learning Infographics

Assess Deeper With Multiple Choice Questions

I recently got a new professional book that I am totally obsessed with!

 The book is about using multiple-choice tests to improve math instruction, but I have been taking it so much further, and I am glad that I have been.  Recently I had my students read a passage about the Pony Express from Edhelper.  Then they answered multiple choice questions.  I sat down with each one and asked them to explain WHY they chose their answers.  The book focuses on the why of their answers.  I am so glad that I started doing this because of one particular student's work so far.  Normally, if a student answers questions correctly, I tend to move on thinking that the student "gets it".  But in the case with this student it couldn't have been farther from the truth.

I'm not sure if you can see the text clearly in the picture, if you can't click on it and it should make it bigger.  Anyway, the question she answered correctly was "How many years did the Pony Express run?"  Her answer was C. 18 months. The place in the passage that answers the question is circled in red and states that the Pony Express ran for a year and a half.  When I asked the student where she found the answer she pointed to the two years that were listed (circled in blue), 1840's and 1860.  She said because there were 18s in the years, she thought that meant 18 months.  She lucked into the correct answer without any understanding of what the question really was asking, or how to find it.  If I hadn't asked her directly, I never would have known.

How many times have you used formative assessment in your class only to find that the students who "got it" bomb the state tests?  I know for me it has happened way more often than I would like.  I feel like going deeper into the multiple choice is a great way to really see what they are thinking.  I have also started to give less questions, but asked them to explain in writing why they made their choice.  It has really helped me tease out their misconceptions.

Have you ever asked your students to explain their thinking when taking a multiple choice quiz?

What Are We Learning About? The Pony Express!

We live in Nevada and Nevada Day is on Halloween!  We now get the day off the Friday before, but we are still going to celebrate at school by having a Pony Express between our elementary school and another elementary school in town.  The students at each school are writing each other friendly letters which will be delivered via "Pony Express".  To get the students ready, I decided to have us learn a little bit more about the Pony Express.

To get the kiddos excited, and engaged we did a pre-activity where I had pictures in various spots around the room.  The students wrote down what they noticed and what they wondered about each picture.

 

Then we came back together to talk about what was written about each picture.

 

 

On one of the pictures someone had written, I wonder if there will be a fire.  That confused me a little, so he came up and showed me that there was a fire extinguisher in the picture.

See it?

It always amazes me the things they notice!

Then we wrote predictions about what we thought we were going to be learning about.

Some great guesses, and one of them hit the nail on the head.

 

 

Do you ever have your students guess your teaching topic ahead of time to build anticipation?  What other anticipation activities do you use?