Blog Awards and a Little Bit of Classroom Decor

Hello all!

Since I've been so busy, I've neglected to announce/thank my fellow bloggers for some awards.  I have received the following 2 awards:

Allison from Busy Teacher Love, Sailing Second Grade Seas, and
 

have given me:

Thanks ladies!!!  :-)  You all were so sweet to think of me and my little ol' blog!  :-)  The rules of the award are:

I order to receive this award I must:

1) Copy and paste the award onto my blog.

2) Thank the giver and link back to them.

3) Nominate 5 other bloggers and let them know by commenting on their blogs.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I ALSO received The Versatile Blog Award from Shelly at
 


  

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  :-)  Again, so very sweet of you to think of me. 

The rules for this award are:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you.
2. Include a link to their site.
3. Include the award image in your post.
4. Give 7 random facts about yourself
5. Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award
6. When nominating, include a link to their site.

7 Random Facts About Me

1. I'm a fluent Spanish-speaker and former bilingual elementary teacher. 
2. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Mexican food and could probably eat it every day (I probably almost do).
3. If I ever had to quit my job, I'd only give it up if I could be a world traveler instead.  Dream destinations include: Costa Rica, Australia/New Zealand, Ireland, Portugal, somewhere in South America, and South Africa, among others.
4. I'm somewhat ambidextrous, which I credit to only being provided "righty" scissors in elementary school.  I'm a proud lefty.  :-)
5. I like baking, but I don't do it very often (grad school keeps me busy-I feel like I'm beating a dead horse with the grad school statement).
6. I have a photographic memory-it's scary how much I remember! 
7. I'm really not one yet, but I'd love to be a runner.  I'm working on it!  :-) 

As far as all of the other rules (re: re-gifting the awards), I have to break them.  I like giving these awards to people who have not received them, and I don't have time to search the blogs I follow to check.  Here's what I'll do: if you want the award, leave me a comment with a link, and I'll edit the post to award you one or both of the awards.  :-) 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, on a completely unrelated note, I've started to experiment with PowerPoint because I read that it was the application (along with Word) that was frequently used for all of those lovely products that you all create.  :-) 

My classroom theme last year (that I'm modifying, tweaking, elaborating, and keeping), was RETRO, peace signs, denim, tie-dye, etc..  I bought these adhesives that I used as locker tags, but getting them off turned out to be a BIG disaster.  So, I created what you see below.  To protect my students, I am only showing the "new student" template that I saved in the event that I need to create an additional locker tag. 



The student's first names are there in navy blue font.  I plan to size them the way I want (2 to a page?), print them out on white cardstock, laminate them, and attach them to the lockers.  I haven't decided yet how I'm going to attach them so that they stay but the kiddos don't play with them all year...suggestions? 

Anyway, I know that this is NOWHERE near the realm of some of you fabulous TPT creators, but I'm so excited to baby step my way into this world.  There was something so satisfying about making exactly what I wanted.  Do you have any tips?  :-) 

Guided Math Book Study Chapter 4 and My Blog's First Award!!!

Hell-oooooooooo blog world!!!  I have been a prisoner of my grad school class for the month of June.  I'm so excited about the little break I have before the second session starts up in a few weeks!!! 

First things first:

I was awarded the One Lovely Blog award by Where Seconds Count. 

As I said, I was given this award by:




  

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!  :-)

Once you receive the award, you must follow 3 rules:

1. Follow the person that gave you the award

2. Link back to the person that gave you the award

3.Pass the award on to 15 new bloggers

I have chosen the following blogs to award:

1) What the Teacher Wants

2) Thinking of Teaching

3) The Teacher Wife

4) Teaching in Flip Flops

5) Sweet Seconds

6) Step Into 2nd Grade with Mrs. Lemons

7) Primary Graffiti

8) Pitner's Potpourri

9) One Extra Degree

10) My Second Grade Journal

11) Mrs. Freshwater's Class

12) Lory's Page

13) Hopelessly Devoted to Teaching

14) First Grade Glitter and Giggles

15) Create●Teach●Share


Now on to Guided Math Chapter 4!!! 

This chapter was all about whole class implementation of Guided Math.  Here are my thougthts:

1) Whole class instruction is certainly appropriate in some situations.  Those include: mini-lessons (another link I saw to reading instruction!!!), activating strategies, math read alouds (this is something I'd like to incorporate more), setting the stage for math workshop, Math Huddles, practice and review, and formal testing/assessment.  As I implemented the Daily 5 in reading last year, I can certainly attest to the importance of setting up routines, and in this case, setting the stage for math workshop.

2) I think the biggest challenge that Sammons mentions with regard to whole group instruction is the inability to provide timely and appropriate feedback.  This is SO, SO important for your struggling learners.  The danger here is allowing students to incorrectly learn and reinforce this.  Very difficult to undo once it has been cemented. 

3) I'm so glad that Sammons provides us with the sample architecture of a mini-lesson.  I can't wait to try it out!

4) With regard to activating strategies, I have a confession to make.  With KWL charts I have used, of course I had students fill out the "L" column stating what they have learned.  HOWEVER, I never had them revise what they thought they knew.  BAD TEACHER!!!  This was such a "Duh!" moment for me.  I'm a bit ashamed. 

5) As my district moves from Envision to Investigations, I'm excited to adapt the KWL charts for problem solving as Sammons suggests (p. 119). 

6) I'm not sure what I think about Word Splashes yet.  I am willing to give it a try, and I think it will really work well with Thinking Maps, which my school has adopted for the coming school year.  What do you think about this strategy?  Will you try it with your students?

I need to get reading Chapter 5 (remember a few posts ago, when I detailed the saga of my defective book that was missing 30 pages?).  Anyway, Laney Sammons came to my rescue and sent me a new book, so I'm good to go.  I can't wait to catch up on the book study. 

Until next time,