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! 

The First Week of School

The First week of school was GREAT! I have such wonderful students and I am really excited for this school year. We did a lot this week and I think I will have to keep the momentum going! We started the week off by doing Time Capsules. Since my students stay with me for three years, I thought this would be a fun activity. Every year, we will add to the time capsule and on the last day of school, when my students are 6th graders, they will get to look back on what they were like at the beginning of the school year in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. They also wrote a letter to themselves that they will open on the last day of school.

Everything they completed for the time capsule went inside a manilla envelope along with a picture of them on the first day of school, and a piece of string I cut to their height. It'll be interesting to see how much they change over the next three years!

We also did a partner activity this week called "Language Ladders". Partners had to take the word "TEACHER" and write it vertically on one side of the paper, and then vertically backwards on the other side. It looked something like this:

T               R

E               E

A               H

C               C

H               A

E                E

R                T

Then, using a dictionary, they had to look up words that started and ended with the letters. For example: a word that starts with T and ends with R is tractor. 

If they didn't know the meaning of the word, they had to write the definition. I set a timer, and the team with with most words won a prize. I also gave prizes for the team that had the longest words. 

Everyone really seemed to like this activity, and it was a great way to introduce working in pairs. Before we started, we went over what a good partnership looked like. We also used student dictionaries, so I didn't have to worry about students coming across inappropriate words. 

On Pintrest, I saw this great math activity called "Figure Me Out" where the students have to solve math problems in order to find the answer about their teacher, like how old she/he is or how many people are in her/his family. I thought this activity would be great reversed, and I had each table come up with their own math problems about themselves. 

It turned into "Figure Us Out" and they LOVED it! Some students got really creative with their math problems!

We also did these self-portraits!  

Over the summer I went to Japan for my honeymoon and my students last year knew about my trip, so this year they were really curious. I decided to use my trip in the classroom, and made our Social Studies and Art this week all Japan themed! I made a slide show with the pictures from my trip, gave every student one yen, and taught them one Japanese word a day. They loved seeing all the pictures, hearing about all the food I ate, and thought getting real Japanese money was pretty neat. Here's a little peek at what I showed them:

Continuing with my Japanese theme, we read "Sadako and The Thousand Paper Cranes" and I taught them about the tradition of origami in Japan.  Then, we made paper cranes, but I forgot to take pictures of them! I also showed them a kimono I have, and we read about kimonos and when people wear them.

I found a kimono book mark template online, and adjusted it to allow my students to create their own patterns.

 The template had a bun, so the boys in my class just decided to cut it off in the end.

For writing this week, we learned about and wrote our own Haikus! It was fun, and some of my students got really into it!

This was the Haiku we came up with together as a class. Why they wanted to write about spring I'll never know!

To end our week, we learned about the Cherry Blossom season in Japan. I wish I could have seen them in person, but they only bloom in spring and our break last year was only a week.  Still, I think our paintings came our pretty well.

Overall, I'd say it was a successful first week of school. I can only hope the rest of the school year is just as good!

Welcome to Room 12

Well, all the pencils are sharpened, desks are arranged and bulletins are up! I am ready for the first day of school tomorrow! I have a lot planned for this first week of school, and I can't wait!

I saw this idea for book bags on chairs here!

 This board I am really excited about! I made those pencils from construction paper :) It's for "The Great Pencil Challenge". Pencils are kind of the bane of my existence during the school year. They often grow legs and/or get eaten. It drives me crazy! This is a challenge to see who can make their pencil last the longest. I got the idea from Ladybug's Teacher Files! She has some wonderful ideas!

This is for my class jobs! 

So there's my classroom! Once I get some student work up it'll be even better :) 

Where Do I Begin?

This is probably my 3rd attempt at blogging, and I'm still unsure where I begin.....I guess I'll start from the beginning.

My name is Morgan and I am an elementary teacher. I teach at a wonderfully small school where every grade is a combo. My class is the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade room. Yes, you read that correctly. I teach three grades in one room. Now, I promise, it is not as scary or weird as it sounds. Last year was my first year teaching this class and it was great! 

Since I feel like I have a better handle on things, I am hoping that this year I can actually blog about the school year! Keep your fingers crossed! I go back into my room on Monday and I couldn't be more excited!