It has been a long 2 weeks. I said to my Mom on the phone the other day that I can't keep up with my own life. Between school, home, and trying to create things for TpT and my class I can't keep anything straight. I know it will slow down soon... hope it's soon :)
Anyway, we have been working on a couple things these last few weeks. The first thing is decimals. The CCSS and our NGSSS have us both working to recognize, round, compare, add, and subtract decimals. My kiddos had a good base when they came to me, so we just reviewed place value. However, when we started to talk about word form and expanded form that was another story. I saw a cool idea on Pinterest the other day that showed a place value mat that was put into a plastic page protector. Loved the idea! So I whipped one up real quick, grabbed some page protectors and started using them. The kids really were digging using them. Plus they said they wiped off so easily. When I was teaching in 4th grade we also used this unit that my assistant principal shared. It was great practice, plus it had a fun game that I printed and made. I also worked with my kids as I used this PowerPoint to help talk to them about the value of decimals and how to compare them. Overall, it went well and we are going forward with adding and subtracting decimals next week.
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| Click Here for Place Value Mat |
So beyond decimals we have been diving into our Leadership Notebooks hard core. They are an intricate part of our Leader in Me philosophy. Our students have created their own mission statements, set personal and academic goals for themselves, and have been keeping data on themselves. I have put together several items that have helped them with this. The first thing we did was brainstorm a list of ideas, words, and thoughts for their mission statement. A web worked well for us, but another graphic organizer can work too. Then I just simply had them write a rough draft and I made time during the first week or so of school to look over it with them. I gave them a piece of paper that I had typed My Mission Statement on the top in cute letters and then provided lines for them to write.They did have a little practice before hand when we wrote our class mission statement. Plus mine is displayed on my desk. You can see that here.
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| Class Mission Statement |
So once we did our mission statements we started concentrating on our goals. A lot of the academic goals come from our grade level indicators and their baseline testing at the beginning of the year. The personal goal is exactly that. I have kids that want to be able to do a front tuck, barrel race, be a better baseball player, you name it they want to do it. So once we figure out the goal my next question is how are you going to help yourself accomplish this? That is the part that takes more thought :) I give them time to think about it, and then we come back together and look over the goals and put them into their notebook. I thought I would let you see some of the forms I use. They aren't anything fancy, just a way to help the kids stay organized. Beyond those two things I just made forms for them to write down their test scores that they take at the beginning, middle and end of the year so that they can see how they are doing. I also have a set of sheets that they track their weekly reading tests on and write about the struggles or strengths, and a math sheet where they track their chapter tests and vocab tests. Those are more individualized to what I'm doing, but I would be more than happy to share those too.
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| Goal Sheet |
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| Mission Statement Sheet |
Ok... so the Delish part is this yummy fall treat! It's nothing fancy but my kiddo and I love it! So have you ever mixed candy corn, M&Ms, and salted dry roasted peanuts? OMG it is so good! Plus I have an adorable dish that I picked up from Kohls a couple of years ago. The best part is that I can see how much my son has enjoyed the M&Ms, my husband has munched on the peanuts, and that leaves me with a whole lot of candy corn.. oh well time to add more goodies to the BOO bowl and call it a night!
Liz
