My First Five for Friday

Hey everyone!

I'm trying something new today, and participating in the Five for Friday linky with Doodle Bugs.  If you have any tips for me about this linky, please let me know.  (Please note, it was a CRAZY busy week, so only a few pictures will be featured.  The rest are all from Google Images.)  

1) We are continuing to work through our math Investigations curriculum.  We have been working with 100, adding up to it and subtracting from it.  Here you can see one of the games the kids played this week.  

To play this game, students first covered the game board with 100 cubes.  They rolled 2 dice or number cubes to determine how many cubes to take away.  After each turn, students said how many cubes were still on the board.

2) We have been studying weather and seasons in science.  Students made a poster this week that illustrated what each season looks like outdoors, which months fell in each season, what a person might wear in each season, and a typical activity for each season.  My girls made me laugh because we decided that they could wear "tasteful" swimsuits for their summer pictures.  

  

3)  With all of this beautiful spring weather in Texas, the only drawback has made its appearance.  Seasonal allergies.  When I have what I fondly refer to as a "sinus eye-graine" (that delightful headache you get right behind your eyeball), I find that there's only one cure (especially when I'm at school):

Needless to say, it's a good thing that our vending machine now takes credit and debit cards.  

4) This month at school, we are promoting Autism awareness, so we all wore blue today.  We also have been given ribbons like the one below that we are wearing each day this month.  

  

5) Tomorrow, my dad and I are finally going to go see Divergent.  I've read the entire series, and I remember Insurgent was a bit difficult to get through (not unlike Mockingjay from the Hunger Games series).  Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to seeing the movie.  The guy who plays Four (Theo James) is ADORABLE!!!  I know I'll enjoy watching the movie for that reason alone, if nothing else.  

  

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my first attempt at the Five for Friday linky.  Head over to Doodle Bugs Teaching to link up and join the fun. 

Until next time,

Ah-ha (!!!) and Campus Book Study

Goodness gracious!  Considering that this summer I am taking 9 hours of graduate school credit (3 classes), I can't seem to get away from book studies.  I have participated in the Guided Math blog book study which has been fantastic.  I have even had the opportunity to e-mail back and forth with Laney Sammons and get her help with some things.



For my campus, I have just finished reading Teach With Your Strengths.  It was a quick read with a lot of valuable information.  For those of you that are familiar and were wondering, my five signature themes are:

1. Includer
2. Focus
3. Responsibility
4. Harmony, and
5. Developer

The second theme, Focus, was particularly funny for me to read about this week.  Thursday, I attended a training on my district's new elementary math curriculum, Investigations.  I came home completely frustrated because so many questions remained and I just couldn't "see" how this would look in the classroom.  The explanation of the Focus theme says "you need a clear destination.  Lacking one, your life and your work can quickly become frustrating."  BINGO!!!!  Needless to say, this theme of mine inspired me to go home and head to the computer to learn as much as I can about Investigations.  I found their website that features some video clips showing Investigations in action.  Laney Sammons has suggested that I do all of my direct instruction in small groups, and I must admit, I'm intrigued.  I can't believe I'm saying this (nerd alert!), but I'm actually looking forward to staff development in August because I hope to get more answers about Investigations math and how it will look in our 75 minute math block.  (We are actually split by lunch and recess so it is 30 minutes, followed by 45 minutes.)  Do any of you use Investigations?  How does guided math fit with that? 

What's next?  In addition to reading for my classes, I'd really like to get through The CAFE Book.  I've read The Daily 5 book and implemented it most successfully.  I'm curious to see how the CAFE system can enhance my small group reading instruction. 

It's amazing how we teachers keep ourselves so very busy during the summers.  How are you staying busy (or relaxing) this summer? 



Don't Forget, XtraNormal, and My Spinning Head :-)

Hello!

Don't forget to visit my post from last week (you can find it here) and link up with ideas for the first day of school.  I've read some GREAT ones so far!  :-) 

In that same post, I mentioned xtranormal.com. 



Last year, I only used it once (it was a HECTIC year) to show my students a video I had made concerning classroom rules and procedures.  They really enjoyed it and asked to see it again and again.  It ended up on my classroom website for their repeated viewing and so that those of them that had computers could share it with their parents.  The site runs on a points system, but here's where it becomes AWESOME (again, xtranormal.com has not encouraged me to brag about them at all, and I'm receiving nothing extra for doing so).  The site is so teacher friendly.  If you e-mail them and let them know that you are a teacher, they give you FREE points!!!  When you run out...E-MAIL THEM AGAIN!!!  :-)  Amazing, right?! 

Here's a picture of a character I'm using in a movie I have started to make using their Celebz collection:



Once I tell my students that he brought them the iPad, how excited will they be?!
He of course belongs to xtranormal.com-no stealing!!!  :-)

It is very easy to create these movies.  You choose the collection you want, set your background, and choose your characters.  You can add dialogue (spoken in robotic voices), sounds, and character movements (high fives, etc.).  
Anyway, xtranormal.com is a great resource and so easy to use.  How will you use it in your classroom?

On to my spinning head.  :-)  Yesterday, I attended district training on our new math curriculum Investigations (in Number, Data, and Space). 



After using Envision for a few years, this is a HUGE change. The rationale behind using this program cannot be argued with: we are creating students who are skilled problem-solvers.  After attending the training, I'm more convinced than ever that the learning curve will be steep, but it will be well worth it.  I still have so many questions, many of which I cannot yet articulate.  Do you use Investigations?  How does it work in your classroom?