Young Teacher Love

Point of View Eyeballs!

2013-05-11T09:12:00.002-04:00

Happy Saturday everyone! I just wanted to quickly share another cross-curricular project I did in my classroom this past week! We have been studying the Revolutionary War in social studies and point of view in ELA. So why not mix the two, right?!

I got this idea from the fabulous blogger Sandy, over at Fearless in 5th! She has some AWESOME ideas for upper grades, and this has been one of my favorites!

One of my big focus lessons for our Revolutionary War unit is how the British viewed the events leading up to the war vs. how the colonists viewed the events leading up to the war.

To teach point of view this year, I added this fun point of view eyeball project to really drive the point home! After seeing Sandy's awesome eyeballs, I just had to try it! My students had so much fun completing them and they look amazing lining our walls! Some students sided with the colonists and some sided with the British.

The prompts I gave to the students were:

1.) Imagine that you are an American colonist. Draw an event leading up to the Revolutionary War from the perspective of an American colonist. The drawing should demonstrate how you feel about Great Britain, how you feel about British soldiers being in the colonies, how you feel about your fellow colonists, or how you feel about a specific event leading up to the Revolutionary War.

OR......

2.) Imagine that you are a British soldier. Draw an event leading up to the Revolutionary War from the perspective of an American colonist. The drawing should demonstrate how you feel about the colonists or how you feel about a specific event leading up to the Revolutionary War.

The Quartering Act- a British Red Coat knocking on a colonist's door to stay the night. So awesome!

Tax collectors knocking on colonist's doors to collect.

The Boston Tea Party!

Didn't these turn out so fun?! Head on over to Sandy's blog to check out her student's work! I hope everyone has a wonderful Saturday and to the moms out there, an even better Mother's Day! :)

Teacher Appreciation Sale!

2013-05-06T18:00:00.000-04:00

First and foremost, to all of my teacher friends out there...

I'm sorry, but I can't help it!!! Those EYES, the furrow of that brow! HAPPY TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK!!!!

More importantly, Happy Teacher Appreciation SALE!!! It's that time of year again, when you can load your cart up with some goodies and go all types of purchasing crazy for your classroom! I will be participating in the site wide TpT sale BOTH Tuesday and Wednesday!

Below are some of the items I have for sale in my store:

Start your year off on a positive note next year with my Student Data Tracking Binders and Standards Based Assessments with Teaching Notes!

I have them for grades 2-5, and ELA Assessments are coming soon! Click the pictures below to check them out!

Here are my best selling, back to school products to start out your school year! Click HERE and HERE to check them out!

AND since I can't share with you my WHOLE entire store, my last two products are my favorites right now!

They are my Analyzing Characters Pack:

and my massive 5th Grade Common Core ELA/Literacy Assessments and Teaching Notes *ALL STANDARDS*:

HAPPY SHOPPING!!! :)

Teaching and Assessing ELA in the Classroom using Social Studies Content!

2013-05-04T16:01:00.000-04:00

Happy Saturday blog world! I imagine many of you are gearing up for the last few weeks of school. We will be going strong until June 11th, therefore there is lots of learning left to be done here!

Does anyone else feel that crunch at the end of the year? As in OMG I have SO much left to teach and NO time to do it? Yeah...me too. That's when you have to get SUPER creative and start tying in subjects together. (Have I mentioned it's 80 degrees and sunny here? AND we have no air conditioning in our school, so you can imagine how fun it has been for us!)

So...creative we must be, right?

This week, we covered 5.RL.7, which reads: Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, or poem). ***[Note: The first time I read this, I was like, "ummm, what?!"]

Like...seriously?! Thank the heavens I put in the extra work to make these teaching notes because these standards STILL confuse me at times!

I had planned to read my students this fabulous poetry book about Paul Revere already for social studies...

...and I could use it to introduce this standard for ELA. Jackpot!

So, for a quick and easy lesson, I posted the standard on our anchor chart during social studies.

We did a quick lesson on the tone, mood, and beauty of a text. (side note: a great thing to say when teaching tone is to say, "Hey! Thanks a lot!" in a happy tone, and "Hey! Thanks a lot!" in a sarcastic tone. So simple and those two quick phrases spurred the lightbulbs and the oohhhh, I get it!!!)

As we read The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, students kept track of words, phrases and/or picture clues that contributed to the text's tone and mood.

We then shared together all of the elements we found and I posted them to our anchor chart:

We practiced throughout the week using our own reading books and started talking about how multimedia elements (videos) use visual and sound elements to create a mood and tone as well. It was so fun hearing all of the wonderful conversations about such a high level concept in my student's book clubs!

Finally, at the completion of the unit, I decided to assess my students by comparing a specific text to a multimedia presentation (video), and pictures. I wanted the video and pictures to go with the text in order for my students to understand how authors use visual elements to add tone, mood, and meaning. Many of the examples that were out there were of these videos that were hours long and I had such a hard time locating a matching text, that I decided to just create my own!

I assessed my students as a whole group by playing the video on our projector.

I then pulled a few of my lower readers to view the video independently or in a small group using our laptops and my teacher computer.

Here a few excerpts of my student's assessments comparing a text to pictures and a video representation of the text:

All of the above assessments, video links, photos, teaching notes AND MORE can be found HERE in my 5th Grade ELA/Literacy Assessments and Teaching Notes!

I would love to hear your ideas for teaching 5.RL.7! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

5th Grade English Language Arts Assessments are DONE!!!!!

2013-04-30T12:09:00.000-04:00

FINALLLYYYYYYY!!!!! 8 months my friends. 8 months of laboring over this child and giving it my blood, sweat, and literally LOTS of tears to make it perfect for all of you (for those of you that have labored a real, live human being, my hats go off to you ALL, as I am not there yet and know that creating an ELA Assessment is not the same!).

This assessment has been through my engagement, multiple holidays and even survived a move! ;) It is classroom tested by a few different classroom teachers in order to make it even more perfect for you!

Without further ado... here she is in her 400+ page glory! CLICK HERE or the cover below to check out a closer and more detailed preview!

I've decided to create a 30+ page preview so that you can really see what is in this assessment.

Below are a few snapshots of the preview pages so you can see what is included. Some of the pictures here may seem a bit blurry because of the transfer of "snapshot" to blog. Click HERE to see a closer view!

All standards are assessed, even the super tricky Speaking and Listening, which hopefully won't be as tricky with how I break them down:

First up:

Next up...Reading Informational:

Next is writing. I have included assessments for both the main standards (think 5.W.1, 5.W.2, 5.W.3, and all substandards 5.W.1a, 5.W.1b, etc.).

Language standards:

Reading Foundational Skills:

And last, Speaking and Listening. No more thought of in my book as the forgotten standards! Who can relate!??!

And there you have it! Please know that this is a snapshot of the preview in which you can download and see closer HERE. Also, please know that this is only a preview of the 400+ pages included!

I will be blogging about these assessments in detail, since my students have been using them, in hopes that it helps many of you ease into assessing and tracking your students ELA data with my Student Data Tracking Binders:

Here is the 5th grade ELA/Literacy Student Data Tracking Binder:

Click HERE to check out my math Student Data Tracking Binders for other grades, and click HERE to check out my Math Assessments for other grades.

Hurry up and grab these assessments! They're 15% off just for tonight!!! :)

Five for Friday!

2013-04-26T17:00:00.000-04:00

I swear I am alive and kicking over here!

Number one: This baby has been my life for the last 8 months. I put the finishing touches on it this week and should have it up this weekend/week. Praise.The.Lord.

Number two: Moving into a new home means no more coming home from work and chilling on the couch! We've been busy. This was 30+ landscaping trash bags later.

Number three: This man loves me. :) Putting together our new (SUPER CHEAP!!) headboard that I scored on Amazon! Excuse the ugly mattress. ;)

Number four: This e-card is kind of amazing. When it comes to picking out curtains and paint colors...yeah. I am sure many of you can relate. ;)

Number five: We took 150 5th graders to camp last week, and of course it stormed like crazy and POURED for the entire trip. YAY. Here is how you attempt to keep 150 5th graders occupied while you are taking shelter from the impending storms. Yes...that is me on the stage with wet hair and wet clothes, and later in the life jacket. JOY! ;)

Happy weekend teacher friends!!!

Character Study Part 2

2013-04-11T19:48:00.003-04:00

Welcome to Part 2 of our Character Study!

You can read up on Part 1 HERE!

Our Analyzing Character Unit is in FULL swing in our classroom.

We started by discussing the different types of characters in our books. Since we've had many read alouds and read a lot of mentor texts this year, it was easy to refer back to stories we've read together as a class.

Once students were familiar with the types of characters, we went more in-depth with personality traits and physical traits. To demonstrate these concepts, we read the story Boundless Grace, which is a phenomenal mentor text for not only character traits, but for character change as well!

Since I teach 5th graders, we took traits to another level and discussed how authors may come out and explicitly tell you about a character's personality and/or physical traits, but often times do not. Instead, you have to infer these traits from a character's actions, dialogue, thinking, etc.

Studying character traits lasted a few days and I met with groups to re-teach, review, and enrich. I used task cards to give my lower groups quick and easy practice to help with these concepts.

Switching it up now and then can be very beneficial for your lower groups. If students are struggling with reading and comprehension, the idea of inferring character traits may seem overwhelming to them. By providing my students with these short passages to infer character traits, they had the opportunity for extra practice and felt less overwhelmed with the task.

For a quick (and FUN, SUPER CUTE HALLWAY DISPLAY-BONUS!!) formative assessment on physical and personality traits, we completed these Open Mind Profiles which show the inside of our character's brain.

After a few days reading different mentor texts and analyzing/inferring traits, we then moved into character change.

I went back to our original mentor text of Boundless Grace to make those meaningful connections with my students.

This book is also great because so many of my students can connect to the character's problem in the story. Essentially this is what we want our readers to do, isn't it? Not only comprehend and see the character change, but to also take away the "bigger picture" or message and apply it to their own lives? :)

To assess my student's understanding, I gave them a quick reading passage and assessment.

Next, we will start to explore the concept of character conflicts. We will learn about the different type of character conflicts in order to prepare for our next unit on plot.

All of the posters, over 10 graphic organizers, activities, task cards (and much more!!!) can be found HERE in my Analyzing Characters Pack!

Check them out!

Character Study Part 1: The Westing Game

2013-04-09T17:03:00.000-04:00

Read aloud time is a very sacred, coveted time in our classroom. My kids beg for more of it and some of the best conversations and deepest thinking happens during this time.

We are starting my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE read aloud in our classroom this week, The Westing Game. We are knee-deep in our character unit and this book is perfect to use in any character unit for upper grades because there are over 26 characters to keep track of.

Before we started our read aloud, I wrote all of the characters' names on anchor charts.

I then typed up all of the characters names, folded them up, and put them in a container.

I went around and had each student close their eyes and pick a character.

Students are responsible for keeping track of their character for the duration of our read aloud.

I cut sticky notes in half and gave each student a stack to hold onto while on the carpet. Anytime we learn something new about a character (whether it be a physical trait, personality trait, interaction with another character, etc.) we write it on a sticky note.

Then, at the end of our read aloud time, students walk up to the anchor charts to quickly slap their notes under their character's name.

This is such an easy way to introduce our character unit. It gets them excited and makes them accountable.

Stay tuned to part two of our character unit where we have fun exploring character traits more in depth!

For those of you inquiring, click HERE to check out these posters! Part 2 is coming soon!

SEE PART 2 HERE!!!!

Currently April

2013-03-31T22:39:00.000-04:00

Is anyone playing an April Fool's joke on their students today? I would love to hear all of your fabulous ideas!

I am on Spring Break (as we all know from my previous post), so I will probably be back to blog later in the week.

So, for now I am linking up with Farley for my favorite "Currently" linky party!

Click HERE to join up!

Happy Spring Break Sale!!

2013-03-29T10:35:00.001-04:00

Today is my FIRST day of Spring Break. There are no words. Well, actually there are...

I posted this on my Facebook page, but for those who haven't seen it. That's all I can say! ;)

So, in honor of this well deserved BREAK, I'm throwing a SALE in my store today! I've put 5 items on sale!

Two of them are my most recent 4th Grade Math Packs, and you'll have to search my store HERE to find out what other 3 items are on sale today!

Click HERE or the pictures below to check out the previews.

I will have the last 2 packs up within the weekend/week! :)

Here's how we finished out March is Reading Month and our last day of school before break:

This was 2 1/2 hours of straight reading with begs and pleading for it not to end. I love my little readers! But this teacher needs her some SPRING BREAK!!

For those of you on break this week, LIVE IT UP (like I am on my couch!)

March Madness and Prepping For Spring!

2013-03-24T09:00:00.000-04:00

Our March Madness Tournament Project is in FULL SWING!

Since the majority of this project can be completed after the tournament is over, we are having fun right now just watching the games at home and updating our brackets. I love hearing that my kids are at home spending time with their families by watching the games and talking about math! :)

The great thing about this project is that it can be implemented at any time of the year. I had a teacher share with me that she used last year's brackets and did this project back in January!! It can also be an independent home project or an at school whole class project. I plan to use it both ways since our Spring Break starts next week. So, I plan to slowly teach my kids each part of the project in order for them to complete some of it at home on their own.

I always start by teaching my students how to fill out the brackets. Some students have parents at home that are into sports and shared with them their own brackets, but this year my kids needed a bit more help. It was super easy and because 2 of our state's teams are in the tournament this year, I had their FULL attention!

Once the students understood how the bracket system worked, the next morning I gave them time after their morning work to update their brackets. Many of my students don't have access to televisions or computers at home, and despite the fact that we only have 2 laptops in our classroom this took my students about 3 minutes.

On Monday we will do a little cross-curricular work and tie in social studies in order to see which states have teams playing in the tournament this year. This will then kick off our study of probability, which my high kids have been begging me for this year! Click HERE to check out the March Madness Activities above!

On another note, since we only have 3 days of school this week, I prepped these super cute writing projects from my Spring Persuasive Pack.

Some of the prompts are about Spring Break, some are about Easter, and I've even gotten a head start and started thinking about Mother's Day and started planning! You can check these writing projects out HERE!

Being that I am in the middle of packing boxes, hiring painters and plumbers in preparation for our big move, I will thank myself in May when I drop dead of exhaustion! ;)

What are you up to blogger friends!?

Factors and Multiples

2013-03-18T17:30:00.000-04:00

Happy Monday blog world! How many of you are knee deep in fractions right now?!

Last week we started talking about factors, multiples, simplifying, equivalents, and more. Before I knew it, my student's eyes looked a bit cross. Many of them were tripping up on the difference between a factor and a multiple. No matter how many times we repeated it, wrote it, acted it out, they couldn't quite remember.

Then, as if the clouds parted and the angels started singing, I remembered this fantastic anchor chart that I saw a while back about a factor ninja??? and multiple monster??? You can see the originals HERE.

...and VOILA!!!

With a little Miss Nannini touch, I had my kids chopping up products all afternoon (with ninja sound effects of course!)

They absolutely loved these ideas to help them remember the difference!

Here they are on our math focus wall (or door!):

As a quick formative assessment, we threw out our typical paper/pencil test and created artistic posters instead. Sometimes you need to create alternative assessments, especially when your kids have spring fever, and it is conference week.

I had each student take their student number (unless you were #1 and #2...they were assigned different numbers) and list out all of the multiples and factors of their student number. They also had to give me their own definition of factors and multiples. I didn't give them any other guidelines besides the fact that they could be as creative as they would like when decorating them.

-Has my obsession with doodle borders gone to my kids now too!??!

We finished these in 1 math block and it was a super easy, fun way of giving me a quick check of where they're currently at with these concepts. I know it's nothing profound, but I like an honest quick assessment that doesn't always require a dog and pony show! ;)

Here are a few more examples of the finished assessments:

How cute is this student's poster?! He asked if he could "theme" his poster, with Despicable Me. Of course I couldn't say no. I have such a creative group this year, so any chance for art is a must!

*I wanted to update those of you that purchased my March Madness Math Project. I updated all of the rounds to reflect the new tournament "lingo" this year. I also updated all of the websites to include the current brackets! Go re-download your updated version for free, or if you don't have it go check it out HERE! It starts this WEEK!!!!

Have a great week everyone!

How to Get an Updated File on TpT

2013-03-11T19:18:00.003-04:00

Hello sweet friends, I received a question today from the sweetest lady on TpT. She was concerned that she had already purchased my assessments, and now that I had updated them with the answer keys, she was afraid she was going to have to purchase them again! Oh I felt so bad! Once you purchase something, it is yours, FOREVER!!!

Any updates that I have made to any products, you get to download, FOR FREE!!

I have added ALL answer keys to ALL assessments, and am now working on changing the font of my 5th Grade Homework Packs.

For those of you that are unsure of how to get your updated file, see below:

First, log in to your Teachers Pay Teachers account, and go to your "dashboard."

Then, follow the steps below:

Sorry I don't have more to share with you this evening! My conferences start tomorrow and I am in the middle of moving...AHH!! Say a prayer I make it Spring Break my friends!!!

P.S.- I PROMISE ELA Assessments are coming VERY soon! I have received ALL of your emails. Y'all are TOO sweet! :)

March is Reading Month!

2013-03-06T17:30:00.000-05:00

As if you didn't know! ;) Reading month is kind of a big deal in my classroom. While we're busy creating a LOVE for reading all year long, March is when we KICK IT UP A NOTCH! So, with that being said I wanted to share with you a few things that I am doing in my own classroom this month!

AR Point Competition:
While "competition" usually doesn't come to mind when curling up with a good book, let's face it, our kids LOVE a good old friendly competition.

Side note: I know all of you amazing teachers out there have a love/hate relationship with AR, (and trust me, I'm on that boat with you!) but I mean, do you see those points?! It's only March 6th!

Please excuse the not so pretty font! No cute fonts on my school computer = :(

Decorating Lockers with Book Covers:

We also decorated our favorite book covers on card stock. I attached them to the front of my students' lockers with string so that visitors are greeted with a hallway of colorful books.

Didn't these turn out awesome?!

Book Swap:
I do this every year and my kids act like it's Christmas!!! Nothing like out with the old and in with the new! Click HERE or the picture below to grab this freebie!

Poem in Your Pocket Day:
The real "Poem in Your Pocket Day" isn't until April 18th. But since I absolutely love this idea, we are celebrating it twice this year! For those of you that haven't heard of this, the idea is simple. Students select a favorite poem, they put it in their pocket, they then share their poem with friends, other teachers and whomever else on this special day. A fabulous teacher I work with even used chalk last year to decorate the entire playground with her student's pocket poems! :)

Writing our own novels:
We have a short few weeks to take a breather from testing, writing to inform/persuade/research/narrative, YOU NAME IT! During this time, I allow my students the freedom to just WRITE! I did this last year using THIS website:

You MUST go check this out! They have an entire "noveling" unit FOR FREE! I'm talking lesson plans, graphic organizers, the works! My kids had a blast doing this last year and when they were finished, we had a read-a-thon dedicated to reading each other's novels.

I would love to know what you do with your students in your classrooms for March is Reading Month!

Spring Persuasive and a Currently!

2013-03-03T13:40:00.000-05:00

I wanted to stop by real quick to update you on all of the goodies I have recently added to my store.

First of all, how cute is this button!?!?! I have a slight clipart/doodle frames addiction, and how PERFECT is this?! It's made by Beth over at: Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs:

I LOVE IT!!

I have added (due to MANY requests) a Spring Holiday Persuasive Writing Pack.

There are 6 different prompts with matching themed publishing paper for cute holiday displays!

Also in this Spring Persuasive Writing Pack, I decided to include non-themed Persuasive Writing Technique Posters. I've received SO many requests for these, so ask and you shall receive!

Click HERE or the pictures above to check these out!

**I have put both my Doodle Frames and Spring Persuasive Pack ON SALE for 20% off until midnight! HURRY UP AND GRAB THEM!

Last but not least, I am linking up with Farley for her March Currently!

(I totally did NOT follow the rules of using the letter of my first name for the like, love, hate section. OOPS!)

My view right now...a little depressing, but at least it's SUNNY!

My other view...packing boxes. UGH!!

BTW- no baby, just some free boxes! HA!

Head on over to Farley's blog to link up!

Have a great Sunday blog world!

Fraction Freebie!

2013-02-26T18:28:00.000-05:00

Howdy blog friends! This little lady is bracing herself for a HUGE snowstorm this evening. Don't forget to wear your jammies backwards, flush an ice-cube down the toilet, and sleep with a white crayon under your pillow (yes, they get crazier each year).

While I've been watching the update of school closings, I whipped up this freebie for you all! It is a FREE St. Patrick's Day "Color by Fraction" page!! The super cute leprechaun is courtesy of the amazing Krista Walden over at Creative Clips! Isn't he adorable?!

All of the doodle frames on this cover are made by ME! Click HERE to check them out!

I put a bunch of these Color by Fraction and Decimal activities in all of my holiday math packs, and my kids LOVE them!

Fractions can be such a tough concept for students to master, so why not make the practice fun?!! Click HERE to grab this freebie! ENJOY!!

Here is one of my student's finished product:

Hope you all are staying warm, safe and dry! :)

Khan Academy Part 2: The Data

2013-02-25T17:42:00.006-05:00

Now, for part 2 of Khan Academy: The DATA!

The data this site provides to both the teachers and the students is pretty awesome. What makes it even more awesome is that the data is created automatically as your students work through their knowledge maps on the website (see part 1).

Here is how to get started:
Once students have a log in and they sign into Khan for the first time, they have to add you as their coach. This obviously means that you need a log in for yourself as the teacher/coach.

To add you as their coach, students click on the coaches tab which is found on the left side tab in their profile (see below). They type in your log-in information or email address and simply "add you as a coach."

Class List:
Once all of your students have added you, you can log into your teacher account to see your class list of students. When you see all of your students in your class list, you are ready to go! Students can start their knowledge maps (see other blog post) and you can now track your student's progress with the data the site provides.

So, now that you have had the opportunity to log in and see your class list, below I will walk you through the data that the site generates for you.

When I click on the "coaches" tab on the top right side of the screen, I am brought to this screen, which then gives you a coaches tab on the left side with "Reports." Below you can read about each one of these "Reports"

Progress Summary:

This screen is the first thing I am shown when clicking the coaches tab.

This Progress Summary is organized by topics. If you scroll through this Progress Summary, you will see a list of every single topic available on Khan Academy. If you notice above the topic heading of "addition and subtraction" it says Expand All- Collapse All. I currently have it on Expand All, which is why it is showing those colors with numbers. If you click Collapse All, it will not show the colors and numbers, but instead just a list of topics.

When clicking Expand All, I am shown these different colors, which represent the progress my students are making on different topics. So, on 4 digit addition with carrying, you can see that I have 8 students that are in review (remember after some time it brings back old concepts for students to review), I have 12 students that are proficient, I have 3 students that have not started it, 1 student that is struggling and 1 student that has just started this skill.

I can then click on the individual colored bars to get a more in-depth look. It is important to remember that no matter the view of the data, you can keep clicking the data to "dig deeper" and get more information. Below you can see I clicked on the topic decimals on a number line:

When clicking on the individual colored bars, I can see the students that are in review, those that are proficient, etc. etc.

Another great thing with this Progress Summary is that you can filter what is shown on your screen. If you notice the search bar in the picture below, you can type anything in that search bar and it will filter the results, so you don't see the entire list of every single topic. You can also click that little "struggling" box (next to the search bar) to only see a list of the topics that students are struggling in, versus every single topic. You can filter for a time period, maybe instead of looking at all time, you just want to see today's progress. Lastly you can filter an individual student to see only their progress versus the entire class.

Progress Report:

Another way to view all of this information is to click Progress Report on the side coaches tab. This is directly underneath Progress Summary. This will essentially give you all of the same information, but presented in a different way. Instead of a list going down the screen, it has all of the concepts listed on top, with students going down the left hand side.

**Side note: I love this view, because our computer lab is set up so students are sitting in a half circle, and unable to see each other's screens. So, if I want a quick snapshot of my students' progress, I ask them to pull up this page (remember, they seen all of their own data too), I then do a quick glance around the room and can pay attention to the number of struggling skills (red boxes) and/or proficient skills (blue boxes). Below is the student's version that they show me.

Going back to the coaches view of Progress Report, you can filter this data as well. I filtered it for struggling skills, and when I hover the mouse over one of the red boxes, it will show the student's progress on that particular "struggling" concept, as well as when it was last attempted.

Then, I can click that red box, and get an EVEN MORE detailed view:

This view, in my opinion, is the meat and potatoes. This view allows you to see an individual skill broken down to its barest bones. It allows you to dig deeper and diagnose your students in terms of the help and/or remediation they may need.*Side note: students can see this in their own profiles under "Focus".

The question marks above each bar show that the student clicked "Need a hint?" Which indicates that they could not solve the problem on their own, and needed help. You can also see how long it took this student to complete each question. Then, you can get even more detailed by clicking the individual red and blue bars (which are the problems students completed) to see the exact problem the student attempted.

You can see below, I clicked on one of the red bars from above.

You can see how the student answered the question, as well as the amount of time in between the multiple attempts, and the number of hints they took. The hints are an awesome feature, and very helpful for students, but it needs to be documented that this student required 3 hints in order to attempt to solve it, and still did not get the answer correct. Not good.

This is one of my higher students, obviously, because negative numbers aren't a 5th grade skill. But still, this is great data to show me right on the spot that a quick reteach/mini-lesson is needed.

The equivalent of this for students is the tab "Focus" in their profiles. They will see the image below.

As with all of the data, students can click the different colored bars to dig deeper into the data and see the different skills and problems. As stated above, when students click the different sections of the colored circle, they see the above graph of red and blue bars (skills proficient in vs. struggling).

Daily Activity:

This view allows you to see what students are working on and how long they are working on it both during school hours and outside of school hours. You pick a date on the calendar and it will show you the screen below. The dark blue represents outside of school hours and the light blue represents during school hours.

My favorite part about this is the after school hours data. Knowing that my students have internet at home, I may tell students to go home and work on a particular skill. I can hover the mouse over the dark blue section to see what this student has worked on at home, and for how long.

Also, I can easily see which skills this student worked on during school hours.

Student's can also view their own activity under their "Vital Statistics" tab under "Activity".

This is their view:

You can see that their view shows video time vs. skill time, and energy points earned. They can also click the individual colored bars to dig in deeper.

Progress Over Time:

This is another way to view student's progress while working on the website.

The bottom of the graph shows the days working on the site, and all of those circles are skills completed. So when I hovered over a student's (shown in a color) small circles, the highest circle is the last skill completed.

Energy Points:

This is directly connected with the amount of energy points the students receive as they complete tasks (read more about this in my other blog post: Khan Academy Part 1). A fun thing to do is create a goal to earn so many energy points by a specific date, or turn individual energy point accumulation into a friendly competition!

Goals:

The last view on the coaches tab is Goals. You can read more about students setting personal goals for themselves in my other blog post found here. But, as the coach, you can see how your students are progressing towards individual goals, and you can also see the new goals students have set for themselves.

Like the other coaches view options above, you can also click each of these colored bars to find out more detailed information.

Remember that students can also see all of this information in their own profiles. This data helps give them a quick view of their progress and also allows them to see how they have been spending their time on Khan Academy.

Being that my students are masters at tracking their own data, they now understand the benefits of tracking their own learning and understanding and have even grown to love this process of seeing their mastery of content. Using Khan is another fabulous tool to support data tracking and what's even better is that with the individuality of this website, students get the opportunity to steer their own ships. Can't ask for anything better than that!

*See part 1 of this post HERE!

Hall Pass Linky Party!

2013-02-23T16:41:00.001-05:00

I'll be back in my next post to share part 2 of Khan Academy, because I couldn't pass up this great linky party!

Reagan Tunstall (have you seen her classroom? I DIE!) is having a linky party called:

This is a great opportunity to step outside of our own classrooms to see what's going on in the classroom next door! Although, do you think our kids talk about what they're doing in class when they "need a bathroom break?" Yeah. Doubt it! ;) A teacher can dream...

Product: My data tracking binders!! They have changed my teaching life like WHOA! I blog about them A LOT! I have just recently started implementing them in our ELA block as I have been finishing up ELA assessments. Click HERE to read up on these babies! There are 'lots more posts besides just this one.

Area: Our read aloud/mini-lesson area. This is where my kids beg and plead for me to keep reading, even through our lunch. This is where some of our best conversations about characters and visualizing and inferring happen. This is where my kids sit and learn to fall in love with reading. Something magical happens in this space, and I kind of love it.

Signal: My #1 transition signal is this music triangle:

My kids know that sound means STOP EVERYTHING and DROP EVERYTHING! It's kind of funny how quick they've got used to this routine. I mean, pure silence. Pretty awesome!

I am also a serious Whole Brain Teacher lover. I use a lot of transition signals and sayings. For an everyday transition like taking your math book out, I love the call and repeat. I say, "MATH BOOK!" and my students repeat back 3 times with: "MATH BOOK, MATH BOOK, MATH BOOK!" and quickly race to pull it out, place it on their desk, and put their hands on the book. I sometimes even award points for the quickest group!

Sanity: My personal Pinterest page. I have a separate teaching Pinterest and personal Pinterest. When I need a second to step away from grading papers, responding to emails or calling parents on my break, I go on my phone, put some Pandora on, close my door and PIN AWAY! My fiancé knows that when I am on my personal Pinterest looking at home decor, super adorable outfits and yummy recipes, I have had a hard day and need to escape. ;)

ooohh....ahhhh.... HAPPY PLACE!

Head on over to Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits to link up!

Khan Academy Part 1

2013-02-19T17:41:00.001-05:00

Hello blog world! Did you all get a nice long weekend for President's Day? Perhaps you are on mid-winter break?! (Yeah, us neither!) For those of you that were/are off, I hope you paid tribute to our wonderful nation by planning all things educational for America's future (our kids)! Or perhaps you stayed in your jammies and watched realty television? Hey, who's judging?!

I wish I could be in my jammies and/or planning but I have been so busy! It never fails that just when you feel like you can't possible get any busier, you have to throw something else into the mix. My sweetie and I are in the middle of potentially buying a house (fingers crossed!) So, I have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off.

I feel like I've been so M.I.A. lately, and I must apologize! This sweet baby blog feels all types of neglected! What with snow days and 4 day weekends, when's a sister supposed to teach!? (SHH don't let the snow day gods hear me sayin' that!)

I come to you today to share with you a great website that my kids are just eating up this year. We are all so obsessed with it, and I promise I'm not getting paid to talk about it, I just love it that much! The website is Khan Academy and it is like an online math coach, tutor, game and data tracker all in one!

I'm breaking the posts about this website into 2 separate posts. One will be from the student's point of view and the other will be from the teacher's point of view. This particular post will be the student's point of view and I swear I'm not even scratching the surface. There is so much more to this website that I have yet to explore. This is just an intro! ;)

Essentially, the website allows students to work at their own pace to explore any math concept. They have the option to watch videos, complete practice problems, create goals and review past concepts. While doing this, they earn points and badges, much like a video game or app. With the points and badges, they get to do little things in their profile like trade in badges for different badges, or change their avatar to be a silly little creature. The more concepts you master, the more badges and points you receive. So, the students view this as a game. They see it like they're playing a video game or an app and they think it's the coolest thing ever. What they don't realize is that they are only do math practice problems and instead of doing them on paper and pencil, they are doing them on a computer. Also, instead of listening to me teach, the listen to a short video clip on the concepts. HA! (sorry is that sneaky of me?!)

While the students are in it, working and "playing" there is a tremendous amount of data being tracked for me, the coach. I get real-time data on concepts that students are struggling in, how many students still haven't mastered, for example, dividing decimals, which particular problem on which particular standard they got wrong, how many times they needed a "hint" in order to solve the problem and how long it took them to solve 3 problems in long division, for example. It is absolutely incredible and I now have kids working on Khan Academy at home and begging to go on it and all times at school. I'll save going into details about all of these data tracking goodies for the 2nd post.

Let me take you on a quick tour:
-First things first, you need to create an account as the teacher. Once you create an account, then all of your students create accounts and add you on as their "coach".
-I allowed my students to have gmail accounts at school for this, to easily sign up. Otherwise you may have to sign them up as their "parent" then click all of the links in your teacher email to start their accounts.
-Once the students log in, they get this prompt, and they get to navigate around their personal profiles.

If you are unsure of what you are doing, or would like a tour, it will show you around and share all the cool features with the students. Trust me, I was overwhelmed and felt like I needed to learn it before I let my students go at it, but your students will end up teaching you more than you think! They do best when they can just jump in!

Once the students are in their profile, they can click their name to change it and play with their avatar picture:

They can see where to keep track of their personal badges. Students earn badges as they master certain math standards:

Their profile also shows all of their "vitals" or real time data. Both the students and the coach (or teacher) have access to all this amazing data:

There are a few more cool features in the profile, but here is an example of one of my student's profiles:

Now that we have that fun profile business out of the way, let's get down to the nitty gritty! Each student has a "knowledge map" and this knowledge map keeps track of the concepts that students have:
1.) Not yet attempted (shaded gray)
2.) Attempted and mastered/proficient (blue with yellow star)
3.) Finished and mastered, but then spirals it back in after a while for review (orange)
4.) Suggestions on what to work on next/ currently working on (green)

Students can view their knowledge map in a real map-like format (outerspace-ish looking), or as a nice neat list on the left side. You can see on the left that this student is working on a few different things right now and hasn't "finished" or mastered any of them quite yet. I know she is a super high math student though, so I am not worried about this.

When students click on a particular skill to work on, this is what they might see:

You'll notice on the right hand side the "Need help?" section. If a student clicks that they would like a hint or would like to watch a video, it is noted in their data and the coach/teacher has access to this. Not a bad thing, but I may tell some students that they don't necessarily want to click the hint (can you imagine "hint", "hint", "hint" being clicked, just to get an answer). I tell my students to instead try to solve on their own, try to watch a video and use the hint as a last resort. The hint should help them solve it and if it doesn't, then they need to ask for help.

Students don't always have to follow this knowledge map. They can click on any particular standard they want, and can even use the search function to search for a particular concept. I often let my very high students just go off on their own to explore some higher level concepts, but I may tell a small group of students that they must be on for example, multiplication today.

Another neat tool is goal making. A few weeks ago my students took the STAR Math test as well as our algebra pre-assessment from our data binders. I handed them back some pretty great data from those assessments and students went through and highlighted areas they were not proficient in. I then had them use these areas to create KHAN Goals. They can abandon goals, create new goals whenever they would like and keep a list of goals they have mastered. I was surprised to hear all of the students that actually love this feature and asked if they could make their own goals after the ones I required them to make.

As you can see below, students can name their goals whatever they like (lol...).

Like I said, this doesn't scratch the surface! The beauty of this website is that when we go for our allotted computer lab time, I can sit about 5-6 students in one area of our large computer lab for interventions. I can peek over their shoulders and give quick mini-lessons when they need it on a particular concept. Then, these students take that mini-lesson, apply it on the spot and get immediate feedback. All the while, my higher kids are off doing negative number lines and algebra, and are learning concepts that are well above 5th grade, that I don't always have the opportunity to teach them. This website spans from telling time all the way through college level math, it is incredible. Really, it is a win, win and all of my kids have a blast doing it.

I will be back for part 2 to show you all the super organized data this website provides for both the student and the teacher.

You know we all love us some DATA! Stay tuned...

See part 2 of this post HERE!

Valentine Products Sale!

2013-02-13T16:37:00.003-05:00

Hey last minute planners! My Valentine products are marked down to 20% off until midnight! I won't judge ;) I'm last minute this year too!!

Click HERE to check them out!

A Quick Check Formative Assessment Idea

2013-02-12T19:19:00.002-05:00

Hello bloggy friends!! I want to share a quick idea that I used in my classroom this week. By quick, I mean you can whip this out in 5 minutes on your lunch break with half of a sandwich in your mouth (don't judge). I promise that is all it takes and it will be time well spent.

So you might be thinking," why do this?" or "I already have a system for this." That's fine and you do what works best for you. But my kids were getting bored of the ol' tried and true individual white boards.

**Another strategy I used is the sticky-note quick check, which you can check out Cheryl's Classroom Tips Blog!**

I do absolutely LOVE the sticky-note strategy, and have used it a ton in my classroom. The only problem I found is that I needed a way to differentiate some of the questions since I have such a mixed group this year. I know I could do exit slips or small pieces of paper with questions on them, but that's a lot of work! Not to mention, my kids seem to think learning is SUPER fun all of a sudden when I switch it up a bit! So, switch it up I did.

I swear nothing fancy is going on here, but it was worth a million dollars! All I did was take a piece of anchor chart paper, make some quick lines, write my students' numbers down the left hand side and laminate it.

(It kind of makes me want to cringe because it is not very pretty. But it most definitely serves its purpose!

Then, whatever the particular skill is that we are working on (writing algebraic expressions), I write a question for each student for them to walk up and answer with wet-erase markers.

I had it hanging up first thing in the morning. As students were walking in, they read our morning message, and then had to put their answer next to their number. I currently have a few students who are still really struggling with this concept, but I also have some students that have mastered this concept and are begging me for some harder stuff. With this style of a quick check, I was able to differentiate each students' question and take note of each students' level of mastery with this strand.

The beauty of this is that it took me about 5 minutes to put together, about 3 minutes to write out the students' questions, and there is no paper involved! CAN I GET AN AMEN?!!

(Sorry for the poor quality! Forgot my camera this day!

That's it! Nothing fancy, but it sure feels great to have a clear picture of the students that need some reteaching (and if you look closely, I got a few that need it...OY)

I'd love to hear how you do quick checks of your students in your rooms! Happy Valentine Party planning!!!! ;)

Using Data Binders Mid-Year: Intro to Algebra

2013-02-10T12:33:00.002-05:00

Happy Sunday blog friends! I've been getting 'lots of questions lately about implementing data binders and standards based assessments mid-year. A lot of people are concerned that if they didn't start them at the beginning of the year, that they can't start them at all. I'm here to show you that this IS NOT TRUE! You can start them ANY time of the year.

The most important thing to remember is that your students will probably not be able to do all of these steps you are about to read overnight. It takes time. You have to "train" them in order to get them to follow these steps, and as you will read, do them in about 15 minutes flat. Remember to read through my FREE FAQ pack in my store for some tips to get started. Start off slow and introduce one step at a time. I promise you your kids will get it by the next week! Practice makes better! :)

We started our Algebra unit this week and I want to show you how I used the data binders mid-year.

We started the unit by taking our algebra pre-assessments. Students took about 15 minutes to finish and I checked them during their specials (now that I have answer keys, it makes this process go WAY faster). I immediately handed their pre-assessments back to them so they could see how they did and graph their results in their data binders.

Since this is the first year my 5th graders have been exposed to algebraic equations and variables, I expected pre-assessement scores to be low. Not a problem! This just further helps me to see where I need to focus my instruction this unit.

Because I took the time to break each standard down with the teaching notes, I don't have to waste a ton of time planning. Since I have these teaching notes all organized in my lesson plan binder, a quick glance helps me see what I need to do and where I need to get my students by the end of this unit. See more about the teaching notes HERE.

Students typically take about 3-5 minutes to check out their assessments and record their scores in their notebooks.

We then go directly to our "I can" statement posters on the wall to see where we are heading in this unit.

Students then write the "I can" statements and their pre-assessment scores in their data binders (2 minutes max). These posters can also be found HERE.

Since these algebra concepts are so new to my students, and because a lot of the vocabulary is foreign to them, we went a step further (for the first time) and broke the "kid language" statements down even FURTHER in our student math notebooks. I knew my students needed this when I was reading the statements and the looks on their faces were scary. This honestly was the first unit we have experienced this, and I know it's because of the lack of prior knowledge with Algebra. This mini-lesson took about 8 minutes.

Once we delved into this quick mini-lesson on the vocabulary of the unit (algebraic expression, equations, variables, etc.) we then went to our "Rate It/Date It" section. I have our Marzano inspired posters hanging on our data wall for students to refer back to.

I simply call out for students to rate their understanding/learning of the "I can" statement at this point and students hold up their fingers.

I appreciate their honesty and they know the importance of rating themselves honestly.

Students then go right to their data binders and "Rate It/Date It":

You can see the current concept we are on is the 3rd statement from the top. The top 2 statements went through this same process, and we finished the standard with post assessments at the end of the unit.

The above process of "Rate It/Date It" takes no more than 3 minutes. So, in total from the beginning, about 18 minutes. Not too shabby!

Now that we have set ourselves up for the unit, I have the rest of my math block to TEACH and break my kids up into groups to provide any intervention/guided group instruction!

The first lesson we tackled, focused on writing algebraic expressions using operation words. We had a lesson at the beginning of the year on operation words, but I brought this back out as a refresher. My students need a strong foundation with these operation words in order to write algebraic expressions from sentences like 5 more than twice a number x!

The above operation word sort can be found in THIS freebie:

As our learning activities continue, we will progress through the unit spending a few days on each of the standards. At the end of the unit, my students will take their post-assessments and graph their results, and finally check off the standards they have mastered in their data binders.

This process has been such a blessing with my kids in math. They actually LOVE this process and LOVE being in charge of their learning and data tracking. Many of them tell me for the first time that they actually "get it" and see how all of the learning standards are connected. Their self esteems have gone through the roof because of this!!

Read more about data binders HERE!

Winners and February Currently

2013-02-06T18:39:00.002-05:00

Howdy blog friends! The day has arrived for 1 fabulous follower to WIN a $50 gift certificate to TeachersPayTeachers! Once again, thank you to all of you for entering. Your constant blog reading and comments mean the world to me!

DRUM ROLL PLEASE...

Erika Reyes

Look in your email for your prize! CONGRATULATIONS!!

...AND because I could not just let 1 person win, I decided to offer 2 other fabulous people ANY single item from my store for FREE!! The next two winners are:

Shannon Engley
Donna Milligan

Check your emails for a message from me to claim your prizes. Once again, thank you SO much for the overwhelming love and feedback from all of you. It means so much to me!

I am also linking up for Farley's February Currently:

Head on over to link up as well!

The BIG SALE!!!!!!

2013-02-02T16:09:00.003-05:00

Are you ready for some...

SHOPPING!!

Let's get real peeps...I watch the Superbowl for the commercials and half time show. Am I alone on that one?!

My whole entire store is on SALE, so you can stock up on EVERYTHING at 28% off both Sunday AND Monday!!!

Don't forget I am also doing a giveaway right now for a $50 TpT gift certificate!!! Click HERE to enter to win!!!

HAPPY ~~football watching~~ SHOPPING!!

A THANK YOU Giveaway!!

2013-01-31T18:22:00.002-05:00

Well my friends, the time has come for me to pay it back. You have all been SO kind to me through your emails, your comments, and your feedback on TpT. I must tell you that I am truly humbled that you all take a few moments out of your precious free time to read my blog.

In the true spirit of paying it back, I am throwing a giveaway for a $50 TpT gift certificate!! Yes, $50!!! Do you even know the amount of damage $50 can do? Um...A LOT!

Just enter the Rafflecopter below, and I will announce the winner, winner chicken dinner next Wednesday! GOOD LUCK!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

*for those of you that originally saw $40, there is no such thing as a $40 gift certificate on TpT...so I changed it to $50! It's ON! Please make sure to follow all of the rules! I will make sure the winner is a rule follower ;) THANK YOU!

Social Studies Freebies and Ideas

2013-01-29T19:42:00.000-05:00

I don't know about you, but my FAVORITE subject to teach is social studies. Something about the Revolutionary War and Colonization makes this girl sing! Sick, I know! ;)

One of the big topics we cover in 5th grade is the Columbian Exchange. Per usual, our textbooks provide us with literally one sentence on this massive event. So, over the years I have found some pretty phenomenal resources that I want to share with you today!

My absolute favorite resource is a freebie from the website Guest Hollow. Click HERE to go directly to the 4 page PDF:

It's such a simple and fun activity. The students cut out each individual square:

Use the chart to decide where the product/crop/animal originated from, then students glue the squares onto a world map. Super easy, hands on and it drives the topic home.

Great for my hands on/visual learners!

Some other things I have used to teach the Columbian Exchange are:

BRAINPOP! My favorite video website for obvious reasons. Our school has a subscription, but you can sign up for a free trial to check out all the features. Click HERE to check out the resources on the Columbian Exchange.

Last but not least, I love to use PowerPoints when teaching social studies simply for the visual aspect they provide. If the content is boring and dry, you show them a battle scene from the French and Indian War, and they are HOOKED!

Click HERE to grab the PowerPoint I used below with my class to teach The Columbian Exchange:

Click the images below to find a few more examples that are a bit higher level:

I love to cut and paste different slides to make my own. Unfortunately, I want to pay credit where credit is due. If you happen to know where these PowerPoints originate, PLEASE let me know. They are too awesome to not pay credit to the owners!

Have a great day!