Meet the Teacher Night

Our Meet the Teacher Night is July 31st and I am busy, busy, busy getting things ready for the parents and students.  In Kindergarten, Meet the Teacher can be kind of daunting because you never know what you will get- you never know if the students are going to be running rampant through your classroom pulling out legos, puzzles and anything else they can kind find or staying close to Mom and Dad.  I generally stay away from a Station approach in Kindergarten because there are so many Kindergarten parents that are so needy at Meet the Teacher.  It never seems to work the way I want it to.  But, since I will be teaching 3rd grade next year, I decided to go ahead and try a station approach.  I don't have it all set up yet, but here are my station cards.  I am going to have the students and parents go around to six different stations.

 In the folders, I have PTO information and some other forms like one for email addresses, a get to know you form for parents and a "fridge facts" sheet with school information and a QR code that takes them to my school webpage.

 Parents always bring lots of supplies to Meet the Teacher.  I will have bins, tubs and boxes labeled for those community supplies.

 I want them to choose where they want to sit the first day, but will explain to them that I will most likely move them after the first few days.

 I will have a tub for books at the middle of the table for students that first week.  Once we've explored the library and taken the STAR test then students will have book bins that are individualized.

 The students will write their names on a small white board and I will take their pictures.  This is so I can learn their names more quickly, but also it's nice to have a beginning of the year picture. In Kindergarten I used this to see if they could write their names- not so much in 3rd grade, but it does give a quick assessment of handwriting legibility.

These next two ideas are floating around Pinterest, so they are not my original ideas.  I just changed them a bit to fit my needs (and school colors).  Both parents and students will take a little treat.

 You can get the Parent freebie here.

You can get the student freebie here.

I have a couple of more things that I will share with you in another post.  Hope you are excited for the new school year.  And, I hope your Meet the Teacher Night runs smoothly. :)

Karla

Active Listening Proficiency Scale

Back a million years ago when I taught 3rd grade before, I used to make a t-chart to show what Active Listening was and what Active Listening was not.  Then we would do some practice scenarios where students were actively listening and some scenarios where students were not actively listening and we would talk about the differences.
In Kindergarten, we always spent a lot of time talking about what it means to listen.  We practiced a lot- we practice the whole year.
There are a million cute visuals out there on active listening- or whole body listening. And they are all wonderful!  But this year, with my brain thinking about proficiency scales, I decided to create a proficiency scale for Active Listening.  I plan to go through this process with my students, but I needed to do one ahead of time to think it through.

When I do proficiency scales with my students I explain the numbers this way:
4- Above and beyond
3- Just right- exactly where you should be
2- Almost there- just missing a few things
1- A good start but a long way to go


I started with that "just right" listener- and asked myself what that student is doing. Going back to my kinder days, this listener is listening with his ears, his eyes, his body, his hands and feet, and his brain.  Those became the criteria for the "3".  Then I bumped it back to a "2"- maybe they are doing everything except one of those.  Then I bumped it back to a "1"- maybe they are missing two of the criteria.  Then we always end with the "4" and it's always the hardest because sometimes the "3" has everything you want.  For the "4" on the active listening proficiency scale, I decided that I would use the last criteria we talk about in Kinder and that is the heart- the listener cares about what the speaker is saying.  But I added to this and said that the listener is engaged in a conversation with the speaker.  I thought that would add that extra above and beyond that the "4" needs.

It's not perfect and you'll need to make it your own with your students, but it's a different twist on a common back to school topic.  Here are some pictures of what's in the FREEBIE. To help you make your anchor chart, I added some adorable pictures from Melonheadz that you can use as labels for your descriptors, the numbers for the proficiency scale and a title if you want to use it.

Back to School Proficiency Scales

Proficiency scales became a large part of my classroom last year in Kindergarten.  We had one for our math journals (See blog post here) and several for writing (see blog posts here and here).  I want to continue with proficiency scales in my 3rd grade classroom because I feel like they are a great tool for students to assess their own learning.  But, I want to introduce proficiency scales in a fun way for students. I recently made some homemade chocolate chip cookies.  When I finish a batch, my son always looks at the cookies cooling on the rack and he takes a very long time deciding which cookie he wants.  While he was doing that this weekend, it hit me- why not make a proficiency scale for the perfect chocolate chip cookie?  It's not the best idea- there are flaws inherent in the process because everyone likes their cookies a little different- some like chewy, some like crispy etc... so when you look at this, keep that in mind.  But, I think it serves its purpose- to introduce students to the concept of proficiency scales in a fun way.  I began by thinking about characteristics of the perfect cookie- size, texture, and color.  Then I created the "3" which would be the "just right" cookie.  After I created the criteria for the "3", then I went down to the "2" and to the "1."  Get the whole freebie here. I included a little background on how I created the scale, the final scale, and then some cards you can use to have the students grade the chocolate chip cookie.  My grand plan is to bring in different kinds of chocolate chip cookies and have the students score those cookies on the scale (and then have an extra snack-yum!), but the cards will work too. I think this will make a fun first week of school activity.  Tune in tomorrow for my "Active Listening" Proficiency Scale.

An Amazing Give-Away

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I am a terrible student...

The student-teacher relationship is important.  Respecting your students and getting to know them is important.  How your students feel about you CAN affect their learning.  I knew this.  I did.  If you would have said those things to me a week ago, I would have agreed whole-heartedly and, in my head, I would have said, "Duh- of course- why are you telling me something I already know?" However, this week I made this realization for myself in a very painful way.  Third and fourth grade teachers in my district were asked to participate in an INTEL sponsored math class.  It's a class designed to provide in-depth math training for teachers so we understand math concepts being taught K-8. It spans the entire school year for a total of over 180 hours of math instruction.  This past week was the first 40 hours- 8-5 every day. Basically, we relearned every math concept we ever were taught but in a conceptual- you need to understand why it is this way- kind of way.  There were difficult concepts, things that conceptually didn't make sense, things I struggled to understand, abstract ideas I had a hard time wrapping my head around.  But that's not why I realized I am a terrible student.  It's because I realized I wasn't connecting to the teacher and this was affecting my math learning. I didn't feel she respected us as professionals.  She gave us the answer keys and then took them away from us when she thought we might look in them for the answers when we weren't supposed to.  She had a system for working (green cards, yellow cards, red cards) that I found annoying.  She moved our seats and made us sit with people that we didn't know for arbitrary reasons (She said it was to talk in grade level groups- but I felt like she was just trying to get us to not talk as much to each other). She had an annoying way of referring to the time- "refer to your timepieces and come back in 5 minutes." She would say things like "I am going to push the pause button on your conversations for a minute."
She gave us class norms instead of creating them ourselves.  One of our class norms she offered to us was "Make it about the math- not about the person."  Each day, we had to evaluate the day.  I am guessing that she didn't have such great evaluations the first couple of days because on Wednesday, she told us that we weren't making it about the math, we were making it about the person.  That was one of our norms and we needed to stop doing that.  That statement- make it about the math- not about the person- really struck a note with me.  Sometimes, you can't separate the content from the person delivering it.  We had another teacher in the class, a professor from a community college, and when he taught the class, I listened more, I participated more, I enjoyed my experience more.  Often we see the content through the filter of the person delivering it.  So, if we don't connect to the teacher, we might not connect to the content.  If we feel like the teacher doesn't like us or doesn't relate to us, we don't learn as much as we could.  Long story short, on Thursday I think I had reached my limit.  We were discussing something and apparently I was very defensive.  She told me I was defensive every time she talked to me- the sad thing was, she had never talked to me- and she reminded me that we had over 140 hours left together and she wanted me to reflect on whether or not this grant was right for me. Well, I reflected for about 30 seconds and decided that I didn't need the stress and pain of sitting in this class with a teacher I really didn't feel was good and didn't feel cared about my learning. So, I left.
But, everything happens for a reason and I felt I needed to reflect on this experience and see if I can get some positives from it. There's some math to share too, but first a few of my A-Ha moments.

• Starting off with a long pre-test the very first thing is not a good idea.  It sets the wrong tone and makes the learners feel frustrated before they even begin.  I know that we need to pre-assess, but I think I am going to try to pre-assess in short chunks instead of in long tests.
• Management systems don't work for every student.  We had cards in the center of the tables and when we were doing problem-solving we moved the cards to indicate what we were doing. I really hated the "yellow card means I working; green card means I am done; red card means I need help."  But, it worked for other students.  So, for me, I am going to try to avoid using something like that...
• She never really spoke to me the whole week-never really got to know me.  I don't think this is unusual in a adult class.  But, I need to remember to make those personal connections with EVERY student in my class, not just the ones that are the most verbal in class.  
• Brain breaks are important.  She had us sitting for 2-3 hours at a time with only two 5-minute breaks in the morning and two 5-minute breaks in the afternoon.  It's important to work hard and then take some mental breaks.
• Be careful to not overuse your favorite phrases... it can be annoying!
•  Create class norms together; have your ideas, but take the ideas from the students.  "Buy-in" is important.

Okay, now for some math.  One of the cool things about the class was that they listed these progressions for the different math concepts- addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  They are lists of skills that students understand listed in the order that students generally understand them.  I think I will use them to help plan my instruction for multiplication and division. But they could also be used if you have a student who is struggling with a particular concept- you could refer to the list to find the gaps in understanding.  Math Progression


Thanks for reading my long post today!
Karla

We Go Together: A Back to School Activity- Flash Sale July 7

Today I would like to share with you a fun and easy back to school/ice breaker activity you can use the first week of school.We Go Together: A Back to School Matching Activity

Originally, it was designed for use in my Kindergarten classroom as a pocket chart station at the beginning of the year.  We do a lot of sorting the first month of so of Kindergarten and this is a variation of that.  They have yellow cards with pictures on them and they need to match it with a blue card that goes with each yellow card. It's a great activity because the students have to talk to each other about why the cards go together or don't go together.

I used it last year at the beginning of the year and the students really liked it.  Once they are finished, they can also do one of two worksheets.

But, this year I plan to use it as an ice breaker/get to know you activity with my 3rd graders.  I plan to give student either a yellow or blue card.  They have to search around the room for their card's match: peanut butter with jelly, paint with paintbrush etc...  There are enough pairs for a class of 30 students. Once they find their partner, then they have to find out something about their partner using this form.

After that, they will introduce their partner to the class.  Quick, easy and fun for the first week of school.

August Morning Math: Kinder and 3rd Grade Editions- Flash Sale July 6

Today's flash sale features TWO of my August products- both of them are daily math reviews.
Kindergarten August Daily Math
3rd Grade August Daily Math

(Please Note: Most of my Kindergarten products were sold under Kinder Karla; I recently changed my store name to reflect more diverse products)

In Kindergarten, these were used to start my day.  They were "bell work" for the students.  I have all months available for Kindergarten and they follow a logical progression of skills throughout the year. I really like them because each sheet has different skills to practice.  Here are some picture of the Kindergarten product. As you can see, student practice writing numbers, counting, drawing a set and making a pattern.  The first two weeks, the number they write matches what they count and what they draw.  The second two weeks, those are mixed up.

In 3rd grade, I plan to use these as a warm-up for my math block.  Or I might use them as homework.  We'll see how it goes.  I haven't created more than the first month for 3rd grade yet because I want to see how successful they are with this group of students.  Each week has Operations and Algebraic Thinking and Numbers in Base 10, and Measurement, Data and Geometry- alternating between time and money and beginning fractions and graphing.  All skills covered in August are 2nd grade standards meant to be a review of skills from the previous year.