A Birthday Cupcake for YOU!

Happy birthday to me!!!!! This week, I'm turning the big 4-9. How on earth did I get here? There's something about facing 50 that's making me get a move on some goals that I've been putting off. This week Wild Child Designs is having a store-wide sale. Come help me celebrate my birthday!

CLICK HERE TO VISIT!

                                    Tracy @ 

Pssssst! Have you followed Wild Child's blog yet? My followers get a monthly freebie! February's freebie is coming up next week. Join me and subscribe here.

4 Ways to Balance Literacy Instruction + Free Writing Resources!

Nicki pinned me to the sky, like Mrs. Brown pinning our constuction paper snowmen to the classroom bulletin board. I gripped the handles tightly while my legs dangled uselessly from the teeter totter seat. 

"Put me down!" I ordered. 

"Make me!" she sneered. 

I began to bounce on the seat and swung my legs wildly.  But, it was no use, I was at her mercy. I hung there and plotted my revenge. When I got the chance, I left her dangling in the air and let her down with a huge bump on the ground. 

Teaching language arts is a lot like the playground teeter totter torment that filled our recess time in grade school. There should be a balance between our reading and writing instruction. But with recent laws that focus on reading performance and student retention being enacted around the United States, the curriculum focus has shifted to reading instruction. Regardless of what research on language arts learning tells us, retention laws and the curriculum mandates that follow are not in the best interest of our students. 

What we know is that reading and writing skills develop hand-in-hand, and that as soon as we teach them in isolation or ignore one to give more time to the other, we cripple our students thinking skills and language development. In fact, it's imperative that we feel the same urgency with writing instruction as we do with reading. "How?" you ask. Your teaching practices need to be equitable. No subject should be left hanging in the air on the language arts teeter totter. You need to strike a balance. The teaching practices you implement in your reading block should be implemented in your writing block.

Guided Reading/Guided Writing

In reader's workshop, we teach guided reading and strategy groups. If you have equitable language arts instruction, then you also teach writing in small groups.  In order to do this, you have to know your writers. Here's how I do it:

• I give a writing pre-assessment for the unit we're on. We use Writing Pathways by Lucy Calkins, but you can do this with any writing rubric or scoring initiative your district mandates.
• I create a "nugget sheet." This is a simple spreadsheet on which I list my students in alphabetical order and the writing goals of our current unit at the top. I enter their scores for each writing goal (elaboration, conventions, development, structure, etc.).
• I highlight areas of concern on the spreadsheet.
• I group students by those areas of concern. 
• I either meet with them one on one, or I call them together for a guided writing/writing strategy group lesson. This takes place after the mini-lesson of the day, and it usually lasts about 10 minutes. 

Guided writing helps me differentiate for my students and gives me another chance to watch them while they practice.

Suck It Up, Buttercup

Write With Your Students

For many teachers, one of the scariest parts of teaching writing is that you must write with your students. Every day in reader's workshop, you probably read aloud to your kids. While you read aloud, you stop and think aloud. You make comments. You ask questions. You model what readers do when they read.

Do you model what writers do when they write? Young writers need to see their teachers writing aloud.  They need to hear the thinking their teachers are doing while they make writing decisions, while they make writing mistakes, and while they make writing revisions. In order to do this, you gotta suck it up buttercup and do what you are asking your students to do. NO EXCUSES. This practice is too powerful to ignore.

Copycat Your Favorites 

& Bridge Both Workshops

This requires some thinking and planning on the part of the teacher, but WOW! Does it work! When we teach reading, we teach students about figurative language, idioms, proverbs, puns, and descriptive language. In fact if you ask, many teachers will tell you that these are some of their favorite lessons to teach. They are fun, aren't they? 

But are you teaching students how to write these? One of our huge fifth grade writing goals is for students to develop writer's craft. During reader's workshop while I'm reading aloud, I'll stop and identify sentences where the author has used figurative or descriptive language. We'll talk about why the author chose the words she did. We'll write the lines down on chart paper and talk about how they help us visualize and understand what we are reading. 

Then later, in our writing block, we'll go back to those lines on the chart paper. We'll pick a lackluster line or passage from our own writing, and we'll try to copy what the author did. We don't use her words, but we use her strategy or technique. 

If you do this enough, use your mentor text as a bridge between your reading and writing instruction, you'll begin to see your students thinking as writers. Which, by the way, develops analytical thinking, one of the deepest forms of comprehension. 

Make the connection between reading and writing visible.

Stamina: It's Not Just About Reading

As teachers, we put so much energy into building our students' reading stamina. We want our kids to read at home. We provide independent reading opportunities in our classrooms. We graph our minutes read in data notebooks. We send home reading logs. But what are we doing to build our students' writing stamina?

One of the ways I help my students "train" to increase their writing stamina is by assigning 20-30 minutes of free writing a night. It's funny, but as soon as I say the words "free write," there are gasps of delight. My students know that they will be able to share their writing at the end of the week. This, alone, is a HUGE motivation for them.

At the beginning of the year, I set the routine of using stamina journals. One week, I ask my students to read every night. The next week, I ask my students to write every night. They reflect on their writing stamina every morning, from the night before, using a stamina reflection chart. They graph their writing minutes in their data notebooks. They discuss the quality of their writing sessions. We talk about what writer's do when they lack focus. We brainstorm ways to help ourselves write stronger and longer. This type of problem solving is something we do in reader's workshop. But guess what? It works in writer's workshop, too.

I hope this blog post has given you some take-aways to enrich your language arts instruction. Some of the resources I use in my writer's workshop are below. They're a great place to start if you're wanting to empower your student writers. Some are free!

                                     

         

This week I've linked up with some FABULOUS educators for our monthly Teacher Talk focus. Check them out below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Halloween Social Skill Activities

by Kathy Babineau
Grades Kindergarten - 5

Halloween Social Skills Task Cards

Halloween can be a really fun and exciting time of year. There are also many social challenges in trick-or-treating, attending Halloween parties, talking about costumes and candy and haunted houses and ghost stories…. To help navigate this spooky fun holiday, this card set will hopefully give your students some opportunities to discuss social skills and safety in a fun, interactive way. This set includes social language task cards that target solving common problems, sticking to the topic when talking with others and some fun “Act it Out” cards for common Halloween activities. 

To use, simply print out the cards, cut them apart and laminate them if you wish.

Set contains: 16 Problem Solver Cards, 16 Topic Talker Cards and 16 Act It Out Cards.

If you like this product, you may also like:

Turkey Talk Social Skills Cards

Winter Holiday Social Skills Cards

Halloween, Thanksgiving and Winter Holiday Social Skills Cards Bundle

Halloween Speech and Language Activity Kit

Top Ten Things I Like About Halloween Freebie

Halloween Glyph Freebie

Thanks so much for checking out my products!

Kathy Babineau

Join The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative at
http://www.thebestofteacherentrepreneursmarketingcooperative.com/2014/01/the-best-of-teacher-entrepreneurs.html
and get THOUSANDS OF PAGE VIEWS for your TpT products!

Victoria Leon's TpT Store

Go to http://www.pinterest.com/TheBestofTPT/ for even more free products!

Dr. Frankenstein, I Presume? Developing Culture With Lab Classrooms

                                 "Dr. Frankenstein?"

                                 "Frankensteen."

                                 "You're putting me on!"

                                 "You must be Eegor."

                                 "No, it's Igor."

                                 "But they told me it was Eegor."

                                 "Well they were wrong then, weren't they?"

The words "lab classroom" never fail to conjure up images of crazy-haired Gene Wilder and boggle-eyed Marty Feldman in the opening scenes of "Young Frankenstein." I imagine myself in a white lab coat, wearing glasses that make my eyes appear 10 times larger than they really are...and my students tethered to numerous scientific experiments, calmed only by the strains of "Puff the Magic Dragon" played on my ukulele.  In fact, I'm giggling to myself as I sit here typing these words.

Pedagogy Is a Science

All kidding aside, pedagogy is "the art, science or profession of teaching" (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).  Sometimes, it does feel like "MAD science," as we race around implementing procedures and techniques that have very little basis in the real science of educational research.  Some days, I do look a little like Gene Wilder. Other days, I think I channel Marty Feldman.

My staff has been on a journey over the last two years.  We've begun delving into the work of Harvard's Project Zero, and we've chosen to examine Ron Ritchart's Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 Forces We Must Master to Truly Transform Our Schools and its implications for us as a community of learners. We began this journey by reading Making Thinking Visible (Church, Morrison & Ritchart). This year, we've waded into the deep end of this inquiry. 

One thing that became apparent in our learning is that we are really good at talking about data...REALLY good. We examine it. We know where our students are in their learning. We know who needs to be pushed. We know who needs remediation.  However, we seldom talk about the how. How do we push this child? How do we help that child? In our PLTs, we seldom discuss pedagogy.

Dr. Frankenstein Has Entered The Room

We want pedagogical conversations to occur naturally.  And on some level, they used to before the content of team meetings became so heavily monitored or dictated. So in order to shift our staff culture, we scheduled two lab classroom days.

What are lab classrooms?  In our building, lab classroom days are when staff members, who have agreed to open up their practice to their peers, teach a 45 minute lesson in front of 4-5 colleagues. Within the lesson, the host teacher is using a thinking routine embedded in the lesson. Colleagues are there to observe, not participate or interact with the students. After the lesson, the host teacher leaves the classroom (a substitute or another staff member provides coverage) with the observing colleagues for a 30 minute debriefing session.

The debriefing session is highly structured and requires the host and observing colleagues to reflect on the moves the teacher used to encourage student thinking and the evidence of student thinking during the lesson. Another staff member or in our case, a staff development teacher or coach leads the debriefing session.  

During the debrief, participants are not allowed to make judgement statements...this includes PRAISE.  Not praising a colleague is perhaps the hardest part of the debrief.  The purpose of it is to focus solely on the what was observed and the evidence of thought.  The minute we start to praise, objectivity goes out the window. On our lab classroom days, we secure 4 substitute teachers who travel throughout the day to cover staff members who are observing.  We have five teachers who volunteer to teach lessons using thinking routines, and then we schedule the rest of our staff in groups of 4 or 5 to observe those teachers.

When You Put The Lab Coat On...

I volunteered for the first day of lab classrooms, since I had facilitated them as a coach in years past, I felt more comfortable in sticking my neck out.  I chose to model a thinking routine that was new to my students, because I thought that watching a teacher "unpack" a new routine might be beneficial for my colleagues.  I chose Claim-Support-Question.

We had been studying powers of ten in our math workshop, so I came up with the question, "Do other multiplication patterns exist when we use exponents with other numbers?"

I began my lesson by introducing the Claim-Support-Question Routine. Using a slide show that I had created, we discussed the words "claim" and "support."  I asked students my math question, and then sent them back to their table groups to discuss it and write a claim statement on their table's chart paper.

After they had written their claims, they returned to the carpet to report out to the whole groups.  Then, we talked about how we might support our claims.  What procedures might they follow? They returned to their tables to investigate. 

This was fun to watch. All groups, except one, claimed that there would be patterns.  All groups chose a number and found the exponential products for that number up to an exponent of 10.  I allowed them to use calculators for this part, so it was more easily investigated.  We stopped briefly to remember that scientists and mathematicians want more than one set of data to prove a claim, and then groups continued to work with other numbers to triangulate their data. 

At this point, I had to leave with my observing colleagues and a substitute took over. But before I did, I asked my students to talk to me about their thoughts about the new thinking routine and the type of thinking they believed they engaged in... in other words, I asked my students to engage in some metacognition.  They did not disappoint. Using Project Zero's Circle of Understanding, my students engaged in a lively debate about uncovering complexity and reasoning with evidence.  Then, my students continued the investigation without me.

Mad Science Without The Crazies

The debrief of my lesson was fun.  The lack of praise was weirdly awesome.  Here's why: When people praise me, I am uncomfortable.  Sometimes, I distrust what they say.  Often times, I feel embarrassed.  In the debriefing session, I heard specific feedback.  I heard my colleagues comment on the amount of scaffolding I used to introduce a new thinking routine.  I listened to feedback about differentiation and how I utilize the Circle of Understanding in my classroom.  I swelled with pride as they named and noticed evidence of student thinking and depth of student thinking.  All of this without, "You did a good job when..." Afterward, I walked out feeling six inches taller, and I had some new pedagogical targets to chew on for upcoming lessons.

Shifting Culture

We have a long way to go in our learning community.  Don't we always?  That's the nature of being a community learners: CHANGE. That being said, I've noticed three shifts as a result of our lab classrooms.

1. More of us are talking about our classroom practices more often. 
2. These discussions have an inquiry-like tone.
3. Our conversations and reflections have deepened, and we are asking more questions about our practices.

Ohhhhhh, Sweet Mystery of Life

"Ohhhh, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you..." Madeline Kahn rocked that song at the end of "Young Frankenstein," didn't she? Change has begun in our learning community because of lab classroom experiences.  It's exciting to see what happens when teachers take control of their own learning and protocols are implemented that promote a safe sharing environment.

When I returned to my classroom, my students showed me their questions. They asked a number of questions, but two particular questions gave me goosebumps:

1. If we multiply fractions exponentially, will there be patterns?
2. If we multiply decimals exponentially, will there be patterns?

They connected the inquiry to our past units of math study! "Ohhhhh, sweet mystery of life! At last, I found you!"

FREEBIE ALERT

If you'd like a copy of the inquiry math lesson I taught during my lab classroom experience, click the picture below.

You might also be interested in the these visible thinking resources:

Until next time, teach on!
P.S. Come back next week! It's 3 E's Blogging Collaborative Week and there'll be free goodies!

Reader's Workshop Strategies in the Math Class: 3 Components

With my school district's emphasis on workshop approaches in reading and writing, more and more of my colleagues began scrutinizing the way they teach math.  I was no different.  I watched classroom organizational wizards design visual rotation schedules for students to follow.  They developed a center-like approach where students were divided in to 3 or 4 groups (ability, based on unit pretest data), and they taught the daily math lesson to each of the groups...think guided reading groups for the math classroom.  Because I have always been somewhat organizationally challenged, I paid close attention to the structures my colleagues were developing. I learned early on in my career to "borrow" organizational structures from my colleagues.  I contribute to our teams in my own way, but organization is not my forte. 

After watching and listening, I tried implementing similar routines in my math class. I created a gorgeous rotation schedule. I created and collected center materials. I analyzed my pretest data and formed math groups.  As a former literacy coach, this didn't feel foreign to me, and I thought to myself, "I got this!"

Self-Reflection is the Root of All Learning

I fell flat on my face and learned something about myself and my pedagogy.  My gorgeous rotation schedule was a problem.  It was too rigid, and unlike guided reading, my student's math gaps with unit content closed more quickly than instructional reading levels improved in guided reading groups.  So, I would move my students in and out of groups over the course of a week.  This disrupted any rotation schedule I was trying to maintain. 

I also wasn't comfortable giving up my whole group math lesson. My math instruction felt disjointed, and this created the challenge of keeping track of instruction of the same lesson for 4 math groups, and God forbid one group didn't get their lesson for the day due to interruptions. Did I mention that I'm organizationally challenged?  

EUREKA!

After struggling for three weeks, I had an epiphany.  I was tuning into a Jennifer Serravallo Heinemann webinar about small group instruction in readers and writers workshop, specifically STRATEGY GROUPS.  Cue the "Hallelujah Chorus" music.  As I watch Serravallo teach three young students a new reading strategy in a brief small group lesson, I thought about the rigidity of the workshop structure I was trying to implement.  It wasn't working for me or my students because the pretty rotation schedule was the focus---not my students!

I returned the following week with new zeal and a belief that this could work.  Over time, I was able to identify 3 important components necessary for the success of my math workshop.

Strategy Groups Are THE Answer!

Strategy groups are the answer for me.  They allow the grouping flexibility I found necessary for my comfort level.  Here's what I did: 

• I used our unit pretest as a way to inform my groupings during the first week of a unit.  Think of it as peripheral vision. 
• Students met with me in small groups based on concepts where their tests showed weaknesses.  These flexible groups also were based on my students communicating their needs during whole group instruction.  
• As a unit picked up steam (beginning of second week, usually), my strategy groups were formed based on students' performance on independent work or homework.  These were formative assessments...they drove our strategy groups because by week 2 of a unit, the pretest is OLD DATA.

 The Pretty Rotation Schedule: It's All About Purpose!

My rotation schedule became a weekly schedule, not a daily schedule.  It went like this:

Mondays: We focused on skill building like basic facts or advanced multiplication and long division, depending on where we are in the school year and the grade level I'm teaching (4th or 5th).  This means I work with small groups at this time.  The groups are determined by students' levels of mastery. They are based on weekly skill assessments I developed.  Students that I am not meeting with are engaged with online math learning like www.mobymax or odyssey learning.

Tuesday: Whole group lesson and independent work (+/- enrichment). I teach a whole group lesson to my class using a workshop structure.  This means I introduce the teaching point, we ask questions, we explore together, I model, students practice with support (on the carpet right in front of me or with a peer), and then they practice independently.  During independent practice, I move around the classroom interacting with students, like I do when I hold writing conferences in writer's workshop with individual students. Then, I go to the back of the room (another teaching area in my classroom), and my students know they can join me there if more support is needed.

Students needing more enrichment have more advanced problem solving opportunities embedded into their independent work. Sometimes this is created by me, and other times it is provided by our math series.

Wednesday: Number of the Day learning opportunities.  This is a small group instruction day. That means that I use my students' class work from Tuesday to form strategy groups.  As we work together to gain understanding, other students are engaged in reteaching or enrichment number of the day opportunities. They draw a number and complete problem-solving tasks around the number.  I created these around skills that demand more repetition for student mastery. Many of them are centered on fraction and decimal concepts which are challenging in 4th and 5th grade.

At the end of this session, we come together as a whole group and examine our thinking with "At first I thought...now I think..." visible thinking routine.  This helps us cement our learning.  During this time, I also do some pre-teaching about the whole group lesson coming up tomorrow.

Thursday: This day is a repeat of Tuesday's structure.

Friday: On Fridays, we assess our leveled skills we've been working on all week via homework.  These are the skills that were taught or reviewed on Monday.  

In addition, we engage in project-based learning in which math is heavily integrate for much of the day, or we begin another whole group math lesson from our unit.

Student Self-Reflection is Key 

I work very hard to incorporate reflection opportunities into my math teaching every day.  I rely heavily on visible thinking routines developed by Project Zero and Dr. Ron Ritchart.  Using routines like Claim-Support-Question, See-Think-Wonder, and Tug of War elevated our discussions.  We often choose one problem from our lessons to delve into more deeply.  Our math workshop has become thinking-based.  My students are engaged because they have a voice in their learning.  

Implementing a workshop approach in any subject area is a journey. I knew this from my work with literacy. I 💓workshop pedagogy. I'm still not satisfied, but I've come a long way.  And isn't that the point?  As teachers, we're always learning, developing, and changing because we're learners. 

Some of the resources I mentioned in this post can be found below. Some are specific to 4th and 5th grades. Others are more general.  

Number of the Day

Each of these can be used as remediation or enrichment. I use them for an entire month at a time because practice makes permanent. Display numbers, an assessment and answer key, and a daily workout are included in each one.  OR you can buy the whole bundle at a discounted price and get 7 months of number of the day activities.

      

Math Workshop Organizational Bundle

This bundle consists of calendar and small group instruction planning pages, as well as a rotation schedule bulletin board.  Once you purchase it, you will enjoy a yearly update for free!

Project-Based Learning Opportunities

These are project-based math and art projects. All have a literacy component and require critical thinking and higher-level problem solving tasks. All include an math-art project.

Skill Challenges

These two leveled skill challenges are motivating for students. The advanced multiplication challenge takes students through 6 levels of advanced multiplication from 4 digit times 1 digit to decimal number times decimal number. 

The division challenge has four levels, and students move around the bases on a baseball diamond.  First base begins with 3 or 4 digit numbers divided by a one digit number.  Home plate (the last level) requires students to divide decimal numbers by whole numbers. Both product include data notebook sheets for student use.

Should you choose to purchase any of these resources, be sure to leave feedback and email me, letting me know what you purchased and your user name for verification purposes.  I will send you a free number calendar/number of the day organizational mini-bundle for your use! 

Not only will you earn TpT purchasing credits for leaving feedback, but also a free product.
Until next time, teach on, friend!