Language Arts

This year for Language Arts my school has decided to pull our own resources in order to align ourselves closer to the Common Core Standards. One of the things that I really like about Common Core is that it is an advocate for cooperative learning. With this in mind, I decided to do chapter books throughout the entire year and take on Literature Circles.

I found a great Interactive Literature Circle on teacherspayteachers and my students are loving it. They love their reading groups and the books we are reading. I started the year off with three groups based on reading level. Group one is reading Sarah, Plain and Tall, Group two is reading The Witches, and Group three is reading The BFG. I meet with each group everyday to read and discuss things that are happening in the books so far. It's great! I have never seen my students so excited about reading before. On Fridays, they get into their Literature Circles groups, go over their jobs for the week, and present to each other what they did. My jobs are Discussion Director, Character Sketcher, Word Wizard, and Passage Picker. Here are some pictures of our first Friday meetings:

Each group also has a set of vocabulary words that they are supposed to learn every week. I am also doing grade level spelling and grammar as well, and on Thursdays we do Writer's Workshop. On top of our meetings on Fridays, I also give a grade level spelling test and comprehension quiz for each group.

Overall, language arts has been challenging and a lot of work so far but I actually really love it. I love seeing my students engaged and, mostly, I love seeing them excited about reading.

Quick Pencil Update!

I just wanted to mention that we are in Week 3 of school and ALL, thats right, all my pencils are accounted for! My students have been so excited for The Great Pencil Challenge! Keep your fingers crossed the excitement continues throughout the school year! I'll check in again later this week to discuss Language Arts this year.

Math

The second week of school was just as good as the first. We dove headfirst into our math curriculum on Monday, and things are going well.

My school uses the Math Expressions curriculum and I actually really like it. It has an adaptive technology piece, and I am fortunate to have a laptop cart in my room. Every student is assigned their own laptop in my class, and we went over internet safety and rules last week. The first few weeks of the school year I will continue to remind students of our safety and rules while on the internet, and they are also posted in my classroom.

This week fourth graders were learning about place value and brushing up on rounding large numbers. Fifth graders are reviewing fractions and will shortly be adding and subtracting them. In sixth grade, we have been working on Rate Tables.

With three grades, teaching math can be challenging since I have to teach based on the grade level Common Core Standards. I basically run three groups, one for each grade. When I am working with fourth graders, my fifth and sixth graders are reviewing the previous lesson, or are working on their computers with that adaptive math program. After the lesson with fourth grade, I send them to their seats to work independently and once they finish working on the day's lesson, they can work on their computers too. I rotate through each group, and usually have about 10 minutes left before lunch so I can work one-on-one with some students, or circulate and help where ever I am needed.

Here's a picture of the 6th grade math boards from Thursday's lesson:

For my next post, I will write about what we are doing in language arts. Until then, have a safe and fun Labor Day weekend!