Finally Joined the New Age?

This week was extremely long and full of sickness.  I have 17 kids in my class, but had at least three gone every day.  One day I had 6 gone! Anyone else experiencing this?

One of my students was out with influenza b so she missed all week.  She was tired, but not horribly miserable and would have spurts of feeling better.  One day she face timed a friend at the end of the day so she could say hi to all her classmates, which brought about a wonderful idea!  She could face time so she can join some of our lessons.  We set it all up for the next day, then the student that was in charge of this happening became sick as well.  I have never face timed before, so I had no idea what to do.  Thank goodness for a class that has technology experience!  Another student knew how to run my ipad and got us all set up!  It was so cool!  The student joined us for reading.  We were beginning a new text with close reading and I had sent her a copy  of the text through Edmodo so she could participate fully. She was able to ask questions, join in discussion, and be part of a small discussion group!  It was so cool!  I also sent her the response task through Edmodo so she could respond and turn it in.
Now the whole process was a little distracting for some of my students that are not accustomed to face timing, but I can see this passing as it could become a more typical practice.

I am sure that most of you are thinking, "Why is that so cool? I do things like that all the time."  If you are I am sorry for my old age excitement, but I really thought it was a great time!

So now its time to hear your technology experiences?  What cool things do you use and do in your class?  Remember I am easily impressed so please share even what you might think is old hat!

Practice for Learning

What a crazy week! Nothing new in the bathroom that I want to share yet. Maybe this weekend we can get another step done enough to share.  Our busy lives have put that on hold since we went back to work.

School life was very busy as well.  This week was our first week back from break. I was thinking it went by really fast, but then I really can't remember Monday too well!
 I gave a practice performance task in writing this week. I had the class complete it over a two day period and the kids handled it really well. Much better than I thought they would.
The topic was Zoos.  Wednesday I gave an opinion article written by a student (found on-line) about how zoos are not good for animals.  We have been doing close reading lessons all year so the students knew how to read this for understanding and mark up the text.  I provided the note taking page for them to use and it had the main idea already stated on the top.  I then gave them the second article which was more of a debate. It provided the pros and cons of zoos. Once again I provided the note taking page which had the main idea already stated on it.  These two tasks took a lot of the morning, but the kids worked very quietly and wrote notes like crazy. We took a break and went to recess and lunch then when we came back we went over our notes and discussed the articles. That ended day one.
Thursday I introduced the video clip. We have never done this type of task this year, so I had to mentally prepare them for the expectations.  I gave them the note taking page and we discussed how this is the same as reading an article.  We watched the video once just to watch, then we watched it again with the purpose to take notes. The video was only 1:30 minutes long so it was easy to watch over and over.  I did give them a couple pointers on what should be written.  I allowed them to watch the video multiple times till they felt they wrote all they could. Now it was time to write!  We have written a couple opinion pieces this year already so they are familiar with the process to use.  We reviewed the process and the materials to use then I let them loose.
All in all it was a very smooth process. I can't wait to read the results to see how they handled the task at hand.  The kids really enjoyed to topic of this task and enjoyed the articles they were given.

I am still wanting suggestions for grammar work with 5th graders. What processes do you use? Do you combine it with their own work in writing or is it a separate time each day? Share your experiences and practices.

Spur of the moment better than planned?

Have you ever had those lessons that end up being the best thing ever when it wasn't even planned? Don't you just hate that you spend a ton of time planning, copying, and analyzing  and then the better lesson is when pull out a piece of paper and write it down.  That was my close reading lesson today. I had a response all planned, but once we got into sharing of the story something else came to mind instead. Plans out the window, and it turned out exactly the way I had hoped.  Just another plus to my job.

Time Flies!

I think today was one of the fasted work days ever! Anyone else feel like it flew by? Kids were very excited to come back, but yet they were pretty calm. I arrived at school not sure what I was going to teach today. You see, we had two snow days right before we were released for break. So.... I was not able to fully prepare myself for today, nor bring things home to work on during break.  Thank goodness for early arrival, specials break first thing, and art day!  We are a late starting school, 9:05. 5th grade has special classes from 9:10-9:50, we then went to the library to check out books for the new year.  I thought today would be a good time to assign new seats and new jobs so that was next.  I gave the kids a middle of the year reading analysis survey and then cleaned out our "briefcases" of 2nd quarter papers. It was then 11:30 already, but it feels good to have everything cleaned out and ready for a new semester.
My grade level partner and I was able to have a free trial on a website called Reflex Math.  The kids played games on math facts and earned coins to spend at the store.  They created an avatar to use and then bought things to customize it.  The students really enjoyed this program. We will start a new trial to a different math fluency program next week.  I used this opportunity to write an opinion piece about the Reflex site and hope to do the same after the next trial. Nothing like finding a topic that means something to them to write about. It was the easiest lesson I have taught in writing and the students didn't feel like they were working on an assignment.

How did everyone else's Monday go?  Kids crazy, clam, or out of it?

Back in the Saddle

Tomorrow is officially the first day back with students.  It has been a long and wonderful break. I am sad to see it end, but I am excited to see my students again.  These next couple of days we will get acquainted with a new student, have new table and job assignments, and make some 2nd semester goals.  We will analyze district test results and decide what the focus for the semester will be in math, reading, and science.  As I said earlier we will take a practice performance task and plan an opinion piece on an on-line math program we tried. Hopefully by Wednesday we will be back in full swing of the new semester units.  I am in need of grammar instruction.  What ideas do you use, what works for you? Any professional reads you recommend?

The next crazy is my grad classes start back up tomorrow as well. I received my text book in the mail on Saturday and my first email with a big assignment due this week.  This class is about school and community relations.  I have to interview an administrator on the policy and laws for community relations, then write a 4 page paper on my findings.  Hmm, this will definitely be an interesting class that is starting with a big bang!

Sorry but no updates on the bathroom project. My kids' basketball activities started back up and we spent the weekend at 5 different basketball games, dance classes, and running the kids to practice events as well.  This week's evening activities seem fairly calm so maybe the hubby can get back to it. I know our daughter would enjoy having a door back on her bathroom.

Anybody else back at school tomorrow?  What are your plans?

And so it returns!

I started back to work today! It was a day of meetings and PD, but it's still work.  We will return with students on Monday and start the second semester.  The plan is to give a writing performance task to our students so we can get an idea of how this will play out.  The students will be given a video and article to take notes from and will then use that to write an opinion essay.  That is all I really know at this point.  I will learn more when we return to our building.

Our building is implementing data teams this year.  What a task that is.  I have never had so much intentional collaboration in all my years of teaching.  It is very overwhelming, stressful, and exciting all in one.  My team has completed two cycles this year.  We have learned a lot about what not to do in a cycle and will continue to learn with each cycle.  How does your building handle data cycles?  I know there are a lot of this going on out there, please share your pros and cons that you have experienced.

On my family life, the typical craziness is back in swing. Two of my kids had basketball games tonight while the third had practice.  More games tomorrow as well as dance practice for the girls. I am already missing the nice and relaxed break. Do you ever wonder if allowing the multiple activity involvement with children is a good idea? The older the kids get the more I wonder if I would miss the hustle and bustle created by these activities.

Going Dark?

Sorry I have been dark for a few days!  We have to rely on a mobile hotspot for our internet connection due to the location of our house.  On Sunday our hotspot decided it was done being hot for us :(.  I called customer service and they gladly helped my situation by ordering a replacement! Yay!  It was shipped out Monday morning, but Tuesday was a holiday so we didn't receive it until yesterday evening.  That was a long three days, but it showed how addicted I am to being online.  

The bathroom is coming along really well. We have changed our minds in the process and went with laminate wood flooring instead of tile.  It is a basement concrete floor so it is very cold to walk on. We decided that putting tile down would not help this situation so we went with a floating floor.  The floating floor has a layer of foam between the concrete and laminate to act as a barrier.  We figured this would help prevent the cold in the floor.  We love it! It looks great and very tolerable to walk in with bare feet.

   

     

The first picture shows the floor after the leveling agent was laid. The second picture shows the laminate laid down.  You should notice the wood step to the right of the picture, we covered that with laminate tile.  When the grout is dry I will post finished pictures of it.  Big improvement huh?  Anybody else use laminate in their house?  This is our first time, so I am anxious to see how it holds up.