Covering Up The Clutter

I'm all about hiding the clutter in my classroom. Even if everything is neatly organized and labeled, I just don't like to look at it. For the past three years I've had a green bed sheet hanging from my ceiling to cover up that organized mess you see below, but this year I decided to make it a little cuter. Armed with 6 1/2 yards of blue fabric, my handy hot glue gun, bulletin board cuties, pvc pipe, wire, and of course my awesome hubby, we set to work! It's not completely finished yet. I plan to make paper frames for my three years of class pictures and add them to the scene, as if they're flying through the air in a bird's beak. I want to add the class picture to the scene each year.

Here's another one of my pet peeves...the backpack area. Oh, I know the kiddos have cute backpacks, but I despise looking at them all jumbled up and hanging in plain sight. My solution was to make these cute curtains to cover the mess!

And finally, the project that I actually sewed. After "living" in my room for three years I finally decided what type of curtains I wanted to make. They don't actually hide anything, but I absolutely LOVE the colors and the polka dots! 

Sorry about the bad picture!

Guided Math: Putting it Into Practice

Better late than never, I guess! I'm finally posting on Chapter 9 of the book study (12 days late). Why so late, you ask? Well...our system recently purchased a new math curriculum and we just had our training today. I didn't realistically think I could make any plans for putting GM into practice until I had an idea of how our program would run. All through this book study I've been *hoping* I'd be able to implement some of the things I've been learning with our new curriculum, and I'm happy to say I will!

We've adopted Go Math! and the structure of the program pretty much follows the GM format using whole group and small group. Here's a rough outline of what I'd like to implement next year:

Pre-Lesson:

• Calendar Math (not included in GM, but I'm hoping to pull something together from all the great resources I've stalked found this summer!)
• Fact Practice: (Using sheets and manips/games I've accumulated) I've just really seen in my experience that about 5 minutes of practice each day is a must, especially multiplication and division in fourth grade.
• Check last night's homework: My grade level coworker and I plan to do this differently every day. Some days we'll check the whole paper and give kids a treat for getting x% correct. Some days we'll just check a few problems. With this program they'll all be the same skill as opposed to Saxon's 30 different skills in each lesson, so we can get away with it. Some days, we'll just check to see whether it's done...Kiddos won't ever know which day is which. We like to change things up like that to keep it interesting and keep them on their toes.

During Lesson: 

• Short Whole group minilesson: Go Math is designed for this, but I'm really going to have to practice to make it "mini." We'll see :) After the mini-lesson comes independent practice and formative assessment. There are two problems in each day's lesson already built in for formative assessment.While students work I'll go around and check those two problems. And here's an awesome tip I got from our presenter today:
• Carry a purple, green, and orange pen or highlighter with you when checking. If a kid gets both problems correct, give a purple check. If he misses only one, give a green check. If he misses both, give an orange check--now your groups are made! How awesome is that?! 
• At this point I'll pull small groups and follow the lesson plans prescribed in the program (at least until I know a little more about what I'm doing). I LOVE that the groups are truly fluid and flexible! 
• I also plan to conference with individuals during this time. 
• While I'm meeting with groups and/or conferencing, the other kids are: finishing independent problems or beginning homework page, doing center activities, reading math readers, playing math games, or doing something on the computer related to the lesson.

After Lesson:

• Journals: I plan on incorporating our math journal here. There's a prompt at the end of each lesson and I may use it until I build a database of other prompts. 
• Whole group meeting: I envision this as the time for students to share what they've learned or what they have questions about and what strategies they've used that day. 

Well, that's the plan anyway. I know that when I dig in and get my hands dirty I'll have to adjust, especially once I get the curriculum under my belt. Sorry this post was so late! If you'd like to read more about implementing Guided Math, check out some of these great posts and the bloggers who linked up:

Chapter 1: Primary Inspired

Chapter 2: Third Grade Gridiron

Chapter 3: Making It as a Middle School Teacher

Chapter 4: Once Upon a Teaching Blog and Sweet Seconds

Chapter 5: Toad-ally Exceptional Learners and Pitner's Potpourri

Chapter 6: Barrow's Hodgepodge and Reaching for the Top!

Chapter 7: Mrs. Patton's Patch and Thinking of Teaching

Chapter 8: Primary Inspired

Chapter 9: The Creative Apple and Second Grade Math Maniac

Monday Made It!

It's Monday and you know what that means...Monday Made It! I'm so glad Tara started this awesome linky, but my to do list just keeps getting longer because of all the awesome things people keep posting that I just HAVE to make! Here's what I've done this week:

Thanks to Teri at A Cupcake for the Teacher and her awesome freebie, I made a Pick Me pot. Here's her version:

And here is mine. I'm hoping this will not only be cute, but a great way to keep me from loosing my equity cards. I'm so bad to set them down and forget where I've put them. 

And for my next Made It: Pom Pom erasers hot glued to markers. When I first saw this over at The Teaching Thief I couldn't believe my eyes! How did I NOT think of this?!? I was literally searching for this very solution last year and even nearly purchased some marker caps from a school supply store that had erasers on them. My coworker and I even went so far as to try and figure out a way to attach tissue. All I can think now is "DUH!" I'm so glad that I found this or I might never have figured out a solution :)

Well, that's all folks! Be sure to hop on over to Tara's blog and see the other crafty things that have been going on this week!

Make My Forms Yours: A How-To Guide

  

After recently receiving a very kind email asking how to change some information in the forms I've shared (Guided Math Form and Reading Record Form), I thought maybe more than one person needed to know how. So, I've created this quick tutorial:

1. First, open the spreadsheet that I shared in the posts I've linked above. 
2. On the File menu, click Make a copy...
3. Enter a name for your copy of the form and click okay. You're new form will open automatically.
4. On the form menu, click Edit Form. 
5. A new window will open that looks like the picture below. You'll be able to edit each question and the theme if you wish. 

The best part is, everything is saved automatically! 

Good luck, and if you have any questions, please let me know. I'll be glad to help!

Are You a Whole Brain Teacher?

I first found Whole Brain Teaching the year that I had "that group." You know the one...you love those kiddos and do everything you can, but nothing seems to work. After some web surfing I found my light at the end of the tunnel. When I first found it, it was called Power Teaching. Chris Biffle has created many, many downloadable books all dealing with classroom management strategies and learning activities. All of his items are free, and he even has a YouTube channel with videos of the strategies being used with actual students.

Here's a video with the basics of WBT. It's seven minutes long, but well worth it!

Some of the things I really like are the daily reviewing of rules and procedures, the scoreboard, and all of the active participation strategies such as Teach/Okay, Mirror, and the use of gestures in so many different ways.

Since that year, I've used many aspects of Whole Brain Teaching, and I'm still learning. How about you? Do you use WBT or some other form of classroom management?