Math Notebooks

     Literacy is obviously my first love in the classroom, but if you have noticed.... there are other things we must impart to the children. So, with that in mind, I have to make sure I keep a good attitude about Math. It isn't that  I don't like Math. I just don't love Math, and is that fair to the kiddos? Nope. Clearly. As much as I LOVE my Reader's and Writer's Notebooks, and with as many ideas as I have seen (read: borrowed/stolen) from Pinterest about Math Notebooks, I really had no excuse not to give them a shot this year. In the past, I had half-heartedly used three ring binders for the students with sections to hold their "stuff". B-O-R-I-N-G. So, I picked out some scrap book paper, wrapped up some journals, and off I went.

     If you have read my previous posts, you know everything else is in black and white (as far as their journals go), but I wanted these to be different. I chose this pattern because it was fairly neutral but also represented a shape (hello Geometry!.... stop laughing).
     I have a memory from 7th grade and Algebra. The teacher made us keep a three prong folder that held all of our assignments and required an extremely specific and orderly Table of Contents. I loved that folder. I loved using the ruler for the perfect lines, having everything spaced out just so on the page, the look of the full  page representing accomplishment..... OCD much? Notice this has nothing to do with the Math? Did I mention I don't love Math? Anyhoo... this is the one I have the students keep in their journals.

     I let them use this as a resource so I am very specific about how they title their entries. The actual entry ideas I either find on Pinterest or create myself based on student needs. Notes go on the left and foldables/models/drawings go on the right. My favorite is the fact fluency graph. Being in the 5th grade, my crew really needed to work on multiplication fact fluency to be able to tackle the higher level skills. This graph has helped them more than I could have EVER imagined. It is visual, keeps them accountable and competing against themselves, and provides me with data for IEP goals. Win-WIN! They actually request to do these fluency checks so they can add them to their graph. What?!

These graphs have also helped them learn and apply how to find their percentage based on the number they have correct. 

Here are some more pictures of entries and foldables. Like I said, Pinterest has more ideas than you would ever need. I have a million more pinned to my Math board if you want to check that out. 

  This was a lesson on coordinated pairs that included the negative numbers. The color coding helped tremendously. 

Greater than and less than with decimals

 Operations rules for decimals

 Equivalent Fractions and Decimal Models

 Factors and Improper Fractions

 Number Form and Mixed Numbers

 More Improper Fractions and Types of Numbers

The one above is an example of how I add their vocabulary to the notebooks. They write the word, define it, and then draw an example. I had initially thought I would keep the vocabulary in a separate section, but as I worked through it, it made more sense to keep it with the actual topic so they could find it easier. 

     Not bad for a first attempt at Math Notebooks. These pictures only represent a few months. As I mentioned, I started them later in the year. The potential though, is staggering. The kids LOVE them, I LOVE them, and let's face it.... it encourages us to almost love Math. 

     Happy weekend, friends! It is pouring rain outside so Mr. Wonderful and I are headed to the book store (AKA: Heaven). Now go read something!

Mrs. Beck

     

Classroom Quotes

     I use quotes in my classroom. A lot. I use them to teach mini-lessons in my daily Social/Emotional groups at least once a week. We all have a quote that speaks to us, and we all hear quotes that are inspiring but forgotten in even a few minutes. I have some tried and trues that you will even hear my students use among themselves (which always makes me smile), and then some I find and swap in and out of the frames around the room. Adults use them, too. After all, can't we all use a little inspiration every now and then?

     This one I heard from Dr. Phil. Now, I am not a fan of Dr. Phil, but this quote is perfect, really. I mean...if it isn't working, fix it! Do something different! You will hear this all the time in my room from the students. They get it! I printed it on my classroom paper and put it in a cheap, black frame from IKEA.

I heard this line in Bridesmaids a few summers ago when I saw it with my daughter. I laughed out loud. So simple and so true!!

     Here are a few I found on Pinterest and just printed out. When I put a new one up, I have the students try to figure out the meaning, and then we discuss it. Sometimes they see it from a totally different point of view that actually makes perfect sense. Many of them support types of figurative language as well.

 This one is actually a greeting card I found. 

     The picture above is my "Attitude Wall". The anchor charts are used every single day. When you teach students with Emotional/Behavioral deficits, the point is not about you changing their behavior as much as it is teaching them how to change their behaviors. They need options! After all, they leave you in a few years. At that point I cross my fingers, hold my breath, and hope against hope that something stuck. I have high, high aspirations for every single one of them. The good news is, for many it does stick. You just have to give explicit instruction on how to react to certain situations and feelings. I had a student that I taught from K to 4th grade. He left for another school the summer before 5th grade and we were both suffering extreme withdrawal. He cried the last day and said, "How will I do this without you? How will I do this without those charts?" Well, friends, he promptly got his very own charts (and almost me to go along with them!), but we talked about how it was up to him now, and he could totally handle it. It was a rough start. But now friends, he IS handling it. He uses his strategies and he is in control of his behavior. Now....on to middle school. Fingers crossed!!

Here are the anchor charts close up.

     These give them options and ways for them to be in charge of their reactions. I promise, they work! After teaching them and having the students add the options to their Notebooks (I LOVE my Morning Group Notebooks!!), you can refer to the options in a moment's notice. By also giving examples of what they can't do, it gets them to stop and think that maybe their current choice is not such a good one after all. This does not happen overnight. Or over the first months they are with you. But...stay in the fight! We are in this not just to survive our current grade level, but to help them get through life. Suit up! Nothing will make you smile faster than a student in full melt down mode who rushes over to the charts and just starts reading. That shows they are trying to handle it on their own. They are striving to get control. Nicely. Done.
I wish all my teacher friends in GCPS a wonderful Furlough Day tomorrow!
Mrs. Beck

Graphic Novels

     I attended a Reading Conference two or three years ago in Perry, Georgia. My fellow teacher friend (read: teaching soulmate) and I eagerly signed up to hear Donalyn Miller, Jeff Anderson, Harvey Daniels, and a host of other amazing speakers. At one point, and anyone who has attended one of these types of event can relate, our schedule left us with a gaping hole in which no one we wanted to hear speak was available. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, we signed up to attend a session on graphic novels. Ew. Graphic novels? Who teaches with comic books? Well, neither of us - that was certain and true, but we couldn't very well waste the time and money invested in this conference so away we went. The speaker (and this is horrifying to admit - but I cannot even remember his name - I am so sorry - I told you we weren't thrilled with the topic, right?) was AMAZING. He was energetic, he was funny, and he knew his stuff. He taught us how to read a graphic novel. Imagine that, teacher friends, explicit instruction. And it worked! He showed us how to draw in our most reluctant readers. He taught us how to hook our most off task and unfocused students. My friend and I left in awe of graphic novels and all they had to offer! We even had the perfect candidates picked out in our classroom. And then....  school/life/planning/teaching/families happened and we promptly forgot about graphic novels. Now I know you can relate to that as well.
     Fast forward to this current school year. I pride myself on inspiring my readers. I can usually choose a book for any student and eventually they will have the one they love. My current group is with me for a third and final year. I have had them since third grade and off to middle school they go next year. I am truly going to miss them. What I was NOT going to miss, however, was how out of love they had fallen with Reading! What happened? I had instilled such reading passion in them!! Hormones happened I think, but I digress....        As I sat a few weeks ago, literally staring at my computer screen despairingly  and trying to plan the Literature groups for my boys, I was struck with the thought: graphic novels. What the heck. I'd give it a shot. Off to Barnes and Noble I went. I was desperate, after all.

     Welcome to the Amulet series by Kazu Kibuishi. I bought two copies of Book 1 (at $13 each, I felt I should gamble small) and presented them to the group of two boys I wanted to read them. I, of course, read it the night before. Now - I cannot say I loved it. The story was good and had a great ending, but I was distracted by all of the beautiful artwork on the pages. And the layout left me wanting to clean off the pages and neatly line up all the pictures and put the words in some kind of order...I was not, however, my target audience.
     I will speed it up here and say: They LOVED them. No, love doesn't do it justice. They cannot get enough of them. I can't get them to put them down long enough to do anything else. S.U.C.C.E.S.S. Yes! These are my most, maybe the most ever, reluctant readers!! And you should here the discussions! I was speechless and screaming with joy all at the same time. Here are some shots of the crew devouring them.

**Saw this chair strategy on Pinterest. Even my gigantic 5th graders love to read this way.** 

     Inspired my success, we branched out. We read Sticky Burr and of course Mo Willems for my younger (and even some of the older) ones. 

     So friends, you have got to check these out! I promise to find that wonderful, inspirational man from the conference and send him a heartfelt thanks. Sometimes, you just need the spark to re-energize your readers. Thankfully this one worked, and I have the waiting list for these books (of which I have now purchased all) to prove it! Admittedly, I started with the boys. My girls were reading (and crying over the ending of) Stone Fox. Now, however they ALL want them. And seriously... the discussions. S.U.C.C.E.S.S!!!!! As my one most reluctant reader said: "Mrs. Beck - these books just grab you." WOW.
     *Disclaimer from me: Be careful about your choices of graphic novel. I find mine in the children's literature section. There are tons and tons and tons based on Marvel comics, Japanese style writing, superheroes, The Last of the Mohicans, even the Twilight series is done in graphic novel form in the adult graphic novel section. In a word: Inappropriate. The art, the themes, the violence, the topics.... be careful. That surprised me greatly. I feel sure they can handle them in middle school and beyond, but not yet.
Happy Reading!
Mrs. Beck

   

Reader's Notebooks

One of my favorite things in the classroom is Reader's Notebooks. I have been doing them for several years, but here lately (at least in the past two years or so) everyone has started them and the ideas are AMAZING! Just hop on Pinterest and see for yourself. Some teachers order those expensive pre-made ones. Not me - mom of two in college - so I make my own. The way I did them this year will now be my go to procedure. Paper, journals, three pieces of packing tape, a mailing label and voila!

     The classroom colors are black, white, and red so I went with the black and white paper set. There are many, many sets to choose from at Hobby Lobby. And the font.... Janda Swirly Twirly. Love. It.

    

I explicitly teach the students how to care for these journals and truly, they last all year. They are "as precious as gold" and should be treated as such. At least, that's our mantra. They store them in their book boxes, not their desks (aka: black holes) so the tabs stay in good shape. They store their books and all three journals (Reading, Writing, Math) in their book boxes.

     Some of the early entries set up our Reader's Workshop procedures. Such as...

We talk a lot about Real vs. Fake Readers. They illustrate examples of each then copy the anchor chart we generate into their notebooks.

I also  teach what qualifies as an appropriate independent reading level book by the codes E (Easy), JR (Just Right), and CH (Challenging). We use the coding system in our Reading Response letters as well. 

These are the rest of the Reading Codes. Some of them are of course from Strategies that Work by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis. We use them all the time!

The two on the left are based on the amazing book Comprehension Connections by Tanny McGregor. When I taught the students about metacognition for the first time you could almost see the light bulbs going off over their heads.Using the paint color cards is not only free (although I did ask to make sure), but it is a visual that totally makes sense to them. I tied it in with the Post-It note thinking rating system (shown below) and they had it down amazingly well. It truly gave them ownership of their thinking. 



I enlarged the graphic from McGregor's book and let the students write on it so they had another level of visual support for metacognition. I also made an anchor chart for the room.

The Post-It note thinking is something I adapted from Pinterest. I had been looking for a good way to have them rate their thinking and it went well with the above metacognition lessons so I went with it. I need to add a picture of the anchor chart we did together,but here is an individual journal entry.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, The Cafe Book changed the way I taught reading when it came out a few year ago. After identifying the area of need for each individual student (fluency, accuracy, comprehension), I start explicitly teaching the strategies. Those are the anchor chars you can see hanging on the Starbecks CAFE wall earlier posted. I also have them keep track of the strategies in one section of their notebooks. When teaching about fluency, I have to define it for them clearly. We did a word splash of what fluency is and is not, then each of them graph their words per minute (WPM) monthly based on either a formal or informal running record.





The fluency graph was adapted from this site http://helloliteracy.blogspot.com/2012/06/progress-monitoring-vs-progress.html. I honestly try to give credit when I show something I got from Pinterest! Her blog is wonderful. The word splash is, well - a word splash. But I did see it on Pinterest as well. I had already come up with it myself though! Great minds. Seriously, follow my boards (Mechelle Beck) and I will follow yours. No need to re-invent the wheel, am I right? I am happy to share. In fact, as soon as I figure out how to add my attachments I will put them all on here. Let's not judge my lack of technological skill, please.

My favorite part of the Reader's Notebooks is the Reading Response Letters (RRL) that I have them write each week. They sometimes have a task such as writing about the theme of their book, telling me how the author's perspective affects the story, etc. Most of the time they are just asked to write. It is surprising how well they do incorporate what we have learned all on their own. Ahhh...the sound of learning and readers who think and reflect on their reading. Reading SUCCESS!

They have one letter due each week. I always return them the following Monday after I write them back. Some teachers grade these. I do not. They are a grade free, judgement free, write what you are thinking assignment. I tell them they have to write about their reading in the body of the letter, but may include a personal question or thought in the PS if they wish. Notice, I want Olivia's boots for Christmas. They really are great boots!! The letters not only show me how well they are thinking about their reading, but they also show me what they truly can apply and understand and what we might need to revisit. Love, love, LOVE them.

Okay...world's longest post. I could go on all day about these. I have a whole post about graphic novels (that I HATED and now I love) that I will do this week. Spoiler alert: My most reluctant reader, maybe the most reluctant reader in HISTORY, has devoured a set of graphic novels that I found. He actually said to me on Friday as he finished book four: "Mrs. Beck, those books just grab you in and won't let you go." Whoa. Reading SUCCESS.

Happy Reading!

Mrs. Beck