MIA

Things have gotten...well...crazy around here!
First of all, I am sorry that I have not posted for quite a number of days but hopefully when you hear what's been going on you will understand.

1. I learned last week that my teacher performance appraisal will be taking place from the 30th of April to the 2nd of June. That's right...three days! One day with a meeting with the VP, and 2 days of being observed for a math and language lesson. I've been unit planning, lesson planning, room tidying, assessment binder organizing, etc all in preparation.

2. My husband and I were invited to a friend's wedding in Mexico over next Christmas vacation. We really want to go so we have been crunching numbers and analysing budgets in order to make this decision....not to mention rounding up grandparents to babysit for a week. And, yes we are going!!!

3. We've been in talks lately about selling our house, buying a new house etc. All of a sudden it became more than just talking, we met with our real estate agent, viewed some houses and put in a offer today...what??? Crazy! Now we have to get our house ready to list and be viewed...and of course sell it!!

Needless to say I have been busy, stressed and frantic. I promise to be back very soon with some good posts....you know, when I get my sanity back.

Thanks for understanding,
Beth

Elapsed Time...a race to the finish!

We have been working on elapsed time in math class recently and I have discovered that my students are pretty good at converting between digital and analog time but are struggling with how to solve elapsed time word problems.

So last week I paired (and three-d) everybody up and we played The Amazing Race...Elapsed Time version! I posed 7 different problems around the room with a basket under each problem.

The students were given 45 minutes to race through and complete as many of the problems as possible...but!! They had to leave their work behind in the basket and they had to make sure that every member of their group understood the strategy they used to solve the problem before they moved onto the next one.

My plan was to gather all of the solutions left behind and be able to assess them for my student's current understanding of how to solve elapsed time problems. What I found was that many (too many) of the groups were doing stacked subtraction and borrowing to attempt to find elapsed time. For example:

10:25

-2:57

Obviously this won't work because time doesn't have the same place value as most of the other numbers we worked with. So I put an example problem on the board using the exact numbers I have displayed above. I showed the answer using stacked subtraction and a second solution using a number line.

I once again split of students into groups and asked them to tell me which answer was correct and why....thankfully, this time the majority seemed to see that the stacked subtraction just wasn't working. We discussed place value and what it means to borrow and why we can't borrow 60 minutes across a column of numbers in a time question. 

Each group was asked to come up with another strategy for solving this same problem and I collected their answers and created an anchor chart (which I didn't take a picture of...sorry!)

So then I sent them out to look over the answers from the previous day's amazing race. I had posted them up together with the correct answers on one side and the in correct on the other. Each student was given 2 post-it notes. The pink one was for them to share what they liked about how the group solved a problem and the yellow was for a suggestion of how the problem could be solved differently in order to find the correct answer. 

And that was that...I asked each of the students to pick 2 activities they do during the day and find the elapsed time between them using 2 different strategies in their math journals....here's hoping they didn't use stacked subtraction!!!

Glow and Grow

Jen over at Runde's Room has done it again!!! I originally posted about a self/peer/teacher formative assessment strategy that I learned at a workshop here, but today Jen took the idea and RAN away with it. Right into the land of fabulousness!!

Head over to Runde's Room to check out her anchor charts and 2 column reflection sheet. I LOVE IT ALL!! I am totally going to be "stealing" all these great ideas and using them to beef up my own student's use of the Glow and Grow strategy...I even have the perfect assessment piece! The Money Passports my students have been creating during the money stations I posted earlier today for the Bunny Hop Freebie.

What a great day it has been!

Bunny Hop Freebie

Welcome to Freebie #!

Thinking of Teaching is hopping down the bunny trail along with my fellow TBA authors!! We hope that you join us for this fun celebration.

My contribution to this shindig is a set of math stations I created for my class' unit on money. As I teach in Canada I am using Canadian money as manipulatives for my students but it would be just as easy for you to adapt these stations to the currency used where you live.

There are 11 stations and I had my students meet with me as a 12th station so I could have a one on one conversation with each of my students and assess their understanding using anecdotal observations.

Click on the picture below to pick up this freebie for yourself.

The clipart used in this freebie is from Scrappin Doodles.

The fonts are from: Kevin and Amanda and Sugar Frog Fonts.  

Once you have downloaded the math stations freebie you will need to do a little prep before using these stations in your own classroom. I went to Math-Aids.com to create the money manipulatives and coin/bill counting sheets you will need for the stations! I would have posted mine but I used Canadian money and that won't be useful to many of you! You will also need to collect grocery store flyers, toy store flyers and pizza place flyers. 

Have fun!

Click on Egg #6 to keep on bunny hopping on to the next freebie. Thanks for visiting!

Behind the Scenes Of Thinking of Teaching

TBA is celebrating our first fabulous year with a look behind the scenes of the authors and their blogs! Here's a quick peek into my life...

Daily 5- Word Work Update!! (Freebie)

I am still loving the Daily 5 in my classroom and I am more and more impressed everyday with how well my students work during our Daily 5 time. I do, however, have lots of things I want to change next year in order to make it even better! One thing that I am constantly struggling with is Word Work. I find that my grade 4's are too old for a lot of the hands on type of activities...even though they may really enjoy them. They just don't focus the way younger students do with the tactile activities.

So we first tried a modification of some of the activities I had been seeing on other blogs and Pinterest. I created a bunch of activity cards and bought some plastic chick/eggs (Easter style) for the cards to go into. The students were able to choose a different chick each time that we did our Daily 5 and that's how we practiced our spelling words and worked on our grammar lessons. But.....the students were not very good at making sure the chicks were put away neatly, the cards were always falling out and no one could find the card they were working on from the time before.....le sigh!

What to do? What to do??

Here's my new plan....I created a BINGO board with a variety of spelling and grammar activities based on the language arts expectations for Grade 4 in Ontario. Then I set some point values for "playing" Word Work Bingo! The students are expected to completed at least a straight line, in any direction, for 5 points. After that if they want to complete an X, a box or the whole board they can earn points...plus practice more spelling, vocabulary and grammar.

The best part is...my kids were really into it when I introduced them to it today. They did, however, want to know what the points would be going towards. Mostly, it will be for me to track who is putting forth a great deal of effort to practice their skills but of course, I want to reward the students as well for all their work. I plan to start a classroom economy soon so that my students will be practicing their adding and subtracting decimals/money skills so this seemed like a good time to make a trip for prizes. I went to the dollar store and party packagers after school to stock up on small little trinkets for the prizes. I am also going to add in certificates like "sit in Mrs. Lyons's chair" and homework passes...but naturally that will be worth A LOT of points!!

If you are interested in using my bingo board in your own classroom just click on the image below to get a copy!

I'll be posting each new bingo board so be sure to check back often! I would also LOVE any and all suggestions for other activities to add to future bingo boards. 

Thanks for all the comments...in advance of course!!!

Calling all Grade 4, 5, and 6 blogs!!

One big difference I've noticed about Americans and Canadians is how we refer to elementary and secondary school grades...we say Grade ____, i.e. Grade 4....whereas my lovely American friends would say 4th grade. Interesting little cultural difference, eh? (yes, Canadians also say eh...and I am proud of it!)

That being said Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies is having an upper elementary blog linky party! If your blog is aimed at Grade 4, 5 or 6 head on over. You should also go if your blog is for 4th, 5th or 6th grade! LOL

Busy busy....

I'm super busy these days... Enjoying my March break with my daughter. Although I must say that a 14 month-old is exhausting! At least my grade 4's stay put.

And next year I will be teaching....

Grade 4!!! I get to stay!!

Whoo hooo!!

Thinking of Next Year...

Tomorrow is the day that we learn what our tentative assignments are for next year. I am very nervous. I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I am going to be moved out of Grade 4 and I really don't want to go!

We had a new principal start at my school right after the Christmas holidays and things have been going well. Each teacher completed a sheet outlining what we were interested in for next year (I put Grade 4 as my first choice, with 3 and 2 after that) and we sat down for a "fireside" chat with the principal. I tried to make it very clear that I really wanted to stay in Grade 4 as last year I only taught for 4 months before going on mat leave so this is my first full year in Grade 4 and I would like to get a few more years under my belt before tackling a new grade. However, we also had to indicate what our last 5 years of teaching experience included and mine is all in Grade 7 and 8! We have a very tough group in Grade 7 this year and I am very nervous that my new principal will see my previous experience with the intermediate students and move me back there for next year...especially since so many current intermediate teachers have requested to leave the grade. (Intermediate in Ontario is Grade 7-10) .......

I know that this point I have done all I can do and have requested to stay in the lower grades but that doesn't seem to do anything to help this knot in my stomach!!