Learn Me Good

Something is, as something does

2012-01-24T20:46:00.004-06:00

I have a confession to make. I used the "s-word" in class yesterday. Repeatedly.

Fed up with seeing the same kids coasting through class, eyes fixed on the floor, the wall, or their pencil while we read through instructions for an upcoming activity, I decided to say something about it.

I told the kids that I felt that some very Stupid decisions were being made. I told them that there were lots and lots of Stupid adults in the world. That I knew some of them and that they were no fun to be around. That Stupid adults made Stupid choices as kids and decided to be Stupid students.

I then made it clear to the kids that I wasn't calling any of them Stupid, but that some very Stupid decisions were being made. That if they didn't want to become Stupid adults, they needed to make sure that they did NOT turn into Stupid students.

After that, the hands-on, small group activity went REALLY well!

Fascinating, ain't it?

2012-01-18T17:07:00.004-06:00

Well whadda ya know? Out of the blue, I received an email saying that my blog had been nominated for a "Fascination Award" under the category Teaching Blogs. Apparently, this post called Pimp My Name from all the way back in 2007 earned me a nod for best blog.

So starting Saturday, Jan 21, the polls will be open for voting, and I sure would appreciate it if you would click on the badge below and vote for Learn Me Good!

And now for a little light literacy

2012-01-13T10:00:00.000-06:00

Over the Christmas break, I finally read a review copy of a book that I had been sent by Jonathan Grant, a former newsman in Georgia. The book is called Chain Gang Elementary, and in a nutshell, it describes an all-out war between the head of a PTA (PTO actually) organization and the principal of his son's school.

I told Jonathan that I would recommend it here on the blog and post my review as well, so here it is:

I was contacted by Jonathan Grant a few months ago and asked if I would like a copy of his new book, Chain Gang Elementary, in order to review and share with the readers of my blog. Being a teacher myself, I got a bit bogged down in the intervening time period and didn't get a chance to read it, but here in the middle of our Christmas break, I was really able to get into it.

I highly enjoyed this novel. It was exceptionally well-written, the dialogue was crisp, and the characters were completely believable. I found only a couple of formatting errors, and most importantly, once I got into it, it had me enthralled.

The hero, Richard Gray, is a parent at the school, who winds up falling into the position of Parent Teacher Organization president. Since this is his story, most of the people on his side (the protagonists) are fellow parents and PTO members. Many of the ANtagonists are teachers and administrators at the school. Believe me when I say, the LAST thing I want to read is another round of teacher-bashing (which seems to be getting way too prevalent nowadays), and I will admit that I was a bit anxious when I started getting into the "battle mode" of the story. However, this is not at all a work of teacher-bashing. There was a very heroic teacher (who was of course labeled "the worst teacher at the school"), along with several other common-sense, cause-friendly teachers at the school. The teachers and administrators who were "enemy combatants" were truly idiots and awful people. I found myself getting angry at their actions, thinking that if I or anyone I knew did those sorts of things (putting in a cartoon then lying down in the teacher's lounge, while kids got into fights in the classroom, for instance), I would want to take legal action myself.

I have worked with my share of kids like Devonious, Alicia, and Nick. Obviously, Jonathan Grant has had some experience as well, because the characterizations were authentic.

Well done, Mr. Grant, and best of luck with the promotion of this great work.

****************
In other book news, I just noticed the other day that Carl Ashmore has FINALLY released the second book in his Time Hunters series -- The Time Hunters and the Box of Eternity. I really enjoyed the original Time Hunters book, and this one already has 6 glowing reviews, all of them 5-stars. Looking forward to getting a copy and devouring it!

Lastly, Vicki Lieski, another popular indie writer, has started up her own book site, called Addicted to ebooks. This is a place to go and look for reviews, genres, descriptions, and links to all the sites that sell the book. Check it out!

Rounding for Dummies...

2012-01-11T22:27:00.001-06:00

I received a new review on the Amazon page for Learn Me Good last night, and it kind of stunned me. It wasn't that it was a 1-star rating (though that's never music to my eyes); it wasn't that the lady ended it by saying that she regretted recommending it to some teacher friends before she read it.

What floored me was that she gave it a 1-star and said the book was total crap because of one story in the book where I taught the kids estimation.

Here is an excerpt from her review:
***********
But in the middle of the story, I began to suspect his identity, and doubt his credibility as a teacher. He wrote of teaching his third graders estimation ... he claimed to have a strong background in his subjects, having gone to college to complete teacher licensure classes ... yet there he was, using a metaphor of "punching" a number up (which no third grade teacher would willingly use, being wary of accusations of encouraging physical harassment.)

To seal his fate with me, he then proceeded to write of the difference, within his metaphor, or punching a number up vs letting it fall down. He was teaching them to round up or round down. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ROUNDING DOWN!A teacher would know that. Teachers spend years clarifying that for students and their parents.
*************

Forget the fact that the punch it up method is something I learned FROM a teacher and have passed on TO many other teachers, all of whom use it and love it. What concerned me was that I am a teacher, and I did NOT in fact know that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ROUNDING DOWN!

I don't normally respond to bad reviews, but I had to ask for clarification. 34 does not round down to 30? 125 does not round down to 100?

In the meantime, I posted about it on Facebook and got a ton of responses. One of my friends posted a link: http://www.jimloy.com/arith/rounding.htm
On this page, Jim Loy seems to agree with the Amazon reviewer:
"Rounding down" is ambiguous, and is not an expression used by mathematicians, nor is it found in arithmetic text books in grade school. It shows a small misunderstanding of the term "rounding."

He then goes on to talk about rounding and estimation, but every one of his examples uses integers and decimals. Not exactly what we're talking about in 3rd grade.

I figured that this was probably a matter of semantics, and that the reviewer somehow thought that I was teaching the kids to drop 34 to 20 -- actually subtracting 1 from the tens place. Sure enough, she did reply to my reply today, and confirmed that this was her understanding from what she had read. She went on to tell me that visual number lines and manipulatives are a must and gave a mini-lesson on how she would teach estimation.

I'm not exactly sure why she would think that a short, funny anecdote in a humor novel would go into detail about every single step used in the classroom (obviously, she thought punch it up/drop it down was my single verbal instruction to the kids), or even why this one detail would totally derail the book, or heck what the phrase, "I began to suspect his identity" even MEANS!

I'm pretty sure now, though, that I'm not leading America's future generation astray. I had my doubts last night, wondering if I was totally missing something, teaching the kids the mathematical equivalent of "E before I, except after C."

And maybe the phrase "rounding down" really ISN'T found in any grade school math books. I doubt phrases like, "Go next door and get ten more," "Subtract the neighbors in a pattern," or "The alligator eats the bigger number" are to be found anywhere in a grade school math book, either.

Doesn't mean us teachers (and, um, those of us who only play a teacher on television?) don't use them all the time to help the kids remember their steps and strategies.

Oh, and just between you and me...

Check out Step 2 in this 3rd grade STAAR Readiness manual I found today...

Parts is parts

2012-01-09T16:51:00.002-06:00

I had a really good day today, with both classes. I showed them how to use the "Part-Part-Whole" strategy to write fractions. The kids caught on really quickly, and most of them really took to it as something that they might use on a regular basis now. We'll see what kind of results I get back on tonight's homework, where I told them that they could use part-part-whole if they wanted to, but that they didn't have to.

So for this week's INTERACTIVE MONDAY, I'm asking: What is a lesson you've done recently that has worked really well? And if you can't think of one, then tell us one you've done recently that just backfired horrifically!

Missing the point

2012-01-07T18:32:00.003-06:00

So I just spent about half an hour writing some variation of the same theme on 18 notecards. The main idea was "We saw in our experiment that gravity pulls things down at the same time." 18 out of 19 notecards in my afternoon class.

This week, the science focus has been gravity. I started by showing the kids three water bottles of the same size but different mass. One was empty, one had wet paper towels in it, and one had sand in it. They were labeled, respectively, lightest, medium, and heaviest.

I had them write a prediction for what order in which they would hit the ground if they were dropped at the same time and from the same height. Most of them said the heaviest would hit the ground first. This seems intuitive at that age. Some of them said the lightest would hit the ground first, and qualified that by saying that since it didn't weigh as much, it could move faster. OK, there are no wrong hypotheses, after all.

But then the kids did their own experiment involving three different items of varying mass. They dropped the items repeatedly at the same time and saw that they all hit the ground at the same time. We discussed afterwards how items hit the ground at the same time due to gravity. I told them that if we went up to the top of the school and dropped a bowling ball and a grape at the same time, they would hit the ground at the same time. I even held up a tiny eraser and the big thick math textbook and dropped them, and (GASP) they hit the ground at the same time.

So yesterday, for their test (AKA "Reflection"), I showed them 3 items with varying masses. A big heavy Baby Care book that a fellow teacher had loaned me (the kids found this hilarious; one girl even snorted, "HA! BABY!"), a mostly empty water bottle, and a little binder clip. I identified them as heaviest, medium, and lightest. I then asked them to write, on the index card, what order the items would hit the ground in if dropped at the same time, and to explain their reasoning.

One girl, out of nineteen students, wrote that they would hit at the same time because that's how gravity works. The other eighteen wrote some staggered order, most of the explanations being that the more mass an object has, the faster it will fall.

Wow.

I really hope a lesson on magnetism is coming up soon, because at least then SOMETHING has a chance of "sticking" in my class.

My first new year success

2012-01-05T22:26:00.002-06:00

On January 1st, I did accomplish something. I took a song that I had made back in 2009 and put it up on YouTube. This song is called Chili Mac, and it's a parody of the Justin Timberlake song, Sexy Back. I really did have aspirations of making a video to go along with it; an SNL-esque type deal with me in fake beard and ridiculous glasses. But I finally realized that I would never get around to that, so I just threw a bunch of random pictures into a slide show and put the song to picture.

Enjoy!

How was your first day back?

2012-01-03T18:50:00.002-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen -- I present to you -- INTERACTIVE MONDAY! (On Tuesday, yes; I'm a little behind.)

So my question today is How was your first day back? This might have been yesterday, it might have been today, it might not be till NEXT Monday. At any rate, once it's over, come back here and answer the question!

As for me, it was a really good first day back. Sure, I didn't do anything that I had on my lesson plan. This was because our copies hadn't been made, so I couldn't give the new unit pre-test as planed. However, it made it possible for me to hold a fun little review game that let the kids work in teams to refresh their memories on concepts like polygons, congruency, and estimating.

I'm going to try to encourage the kids to start looking for and sharing real-world examples of math usage, so I started today by telling the kids about how my wife is pregnant and that when we went to the doctor we learned that it usually takes about 40 weeks for the baby to come, and we've already passed 21 weeks. Then I asked them how I could have figured out how many weeks we still had before the baby's arrival. Many of them of course said ADD!

I had to inform them that if anyone told my wife that she still had 61 weeks of pregnancy, she would chop my head off.

We're starting a unit on fractions, so this should be an interesting few weeks.

Looking forward to hearing how YOUR first day back went!

Welcome, 2012!

2012-01-01T10:18:00.001-06:00

Happy New Year, everyone!! Have a fabulous 2012!

To kick off the new year, I am putting Learn Me Good (Kindle version) on sale for --- FREE, starting tomorrow, January 2. The sale will end Wednesday, January 4.

Even if you've already read it, please do me a favor and one-click Learn Me Good and/or tell everyone you know to do the same.

Thanks!

2011 Year in Review

2011-12-29T22:07:00.003-06:00

It's almost the end of 2011, and as has become tradition, I've put together a little year-end wrap-up. Enjoy, and be safe during the remaining holidays!

January –

Mrs. Teacher and I kicked off the new year in downtown Dallas, first celebrating a good friend’s birthday then watching the fireworks from Victory Plaza outside of the American Airlines Center.

Grades for the evening – Company: A+ Dinner: B+ Fireworks: A Smell of the DART Rail System return ride home: C-

I surprised Mrs. Teacher by taking her to a quaint little bed and breakfast for her birthday. Unfortunately, to get TO the B&B, we had to drive through the seediest part of Ft. Worth, leading Mrs. T to think I had “scored” something else entirely.

Later in the month, the world was rocked when the Astrological Grand Poobahs declared that there would now be THIRTEEN horoscope signs instead of twelve. Suddenly, I went from not knowing or caring what my sign was to not knowing or caring what an Ophiucus was.

February –

The first day of February was also the first of an unprecedented FIVE days of inclement weather and no school. We played in the snow, we built a snowman, and we cultivated a four-foot long icicle. We were both reminded of WHY you don’t eat the yellow snow.

For Valentine’s Day, I went online, taught myself a new recipe, and served Mrs. T a lovely Italian dinner of chicken parmigiana, spaghetti, and white wine. Proud of my new trick, we had chicken parm three times a week for the next 6 months until Mrs. T finally screamed, “ENOUGH!!”

Mid-month, I took the online Jeopardy! contestant test (for roughly the 13^th time). Once again, even through a mere digital avatar, Alex Trebek someone made me feel like a complete idiot.

March –

March is the month of Spring Break, and this year we took a trip down to scenic Glen Rose, TX to witness some good friends get married. The weather was incredible for a lovely outdoor reception by the river, and Mrs. Teacher and I even began a heart-warming new tradition, one which didn’t include cigarettes, swamp water, OR small mammals.

We came home one day to find our front yard torn up and our sprinkler system disarrayed, all courtesy of city workers. Turns out they were pouring a new incline at the curb corners for handicap accessibility. I haven’t seen too many people in wheel chairs use these inclines since, but I sure do get sweet air whenever I jump my Huffy now.

Self-proclaimed Warlock Charlie Sheen told everyone who would listen that he was “WINNING,” but the real winners were college basketball fans. After years and years of getting it wrong, CBS finally got it right and aired every minute of every single March Madness tournament game. The world may end in 2012, but Heaven had arrived in 2011. Still getting it wrong – Billy “Fudge” Packer, who insisted that without being TOLD which game to watch, the general populace would fall into chaos.

April –

Once again, the dreaded TAKS reared its ugly head, like a door-to-door salesman who just won’t take, “Not interested,” “No thank you,” or, “My gecko has knocked the lamp over and now my baby is on fire!” for an answer. To the relief of some, it was announced that this would be the last year for the TAKS. Next year, it will be replaced by the STAAR test, proving that spelling will most definitely not be a major factor during testing.

Having made it through most of the school year without catching anything major, in April, I contracted Strep Throat not once, but TWICE in a row. One of my friends jokingly compared this to someone winning the lottery twice in a row and how lucky that made me. I promptly licked that friend’s fork and coughed in his face.

On a seasonably warm evening in late April, it suddenly occurred to me how simple it would be to develop a low-cost, environmentally-friendly, renewable power source for future automobiles. But right then, an episode of Wipe Out came on, and the big red balls completely wiped the idea from my mind. Oh well.

May –

In early May, Mrs. Teacher made a major life decision and changed her hair color from blonde to brunette. Her students were not fooled for a second, and they continued to give her hell. Several of our more distant, less observant acquaintances, however, did think that I had traded in one wife for another.

It was perfect weather on the day we attended the Wildflower Festival in Richardson with some friends. The headliner of the evening was REO Speed Wagon (just one stop on their “Remember us? PLEASE!” Tour), but we bypassed those geriatric crooners to take in a truly awesome Bee Gees cover band. We were staying alive with ridiculous falsettos all night long.

Over Memorial Day, with less than a week to go in the school year, I decided to invest in red pen stock. My reasoning (from experience) being that there will ALWAYS be kids whose tests scream to be canvases for red ink.

June –

The end of the school year finally came, but Mrs. T and I did something very different this year. We actually worked summer school. Well, not truly summer school, but each of our schools had a short summer camp, and we both signed on. It’s unbelievable how refreshing it is to work with kids when there are no standardized tests looming ominously in the distance.

After summer camp and as the summer vacation began, we had a wildly successful garage sale. Clothes, kitchenware, movies, and more flew out of our carport, finally allowing me to park my car indoors as well. The chances of my remaining three hubcaps being stolen immediately decreased significantly.

Midway through the month, we FINALLY met our neighbors from the house two doors down. Not that we had Google Earthed the neighborhood when we moved in to see which houses had pools and then stalked them for months to get on their good side or anything…

July –

On July 2, Mrs. Teacher and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary. To everyone who said we wouldn’t last a year – SUCK IT!! We spent the night in the same hotel where we stayed our wedding night, and a few days later celebrated Independence Day with a really cool air show and fireworks display in Addison. We also managed to survive random fireworks set off for the length of that week by our new neighbor friends with the pool.

Proving once and for all that she truly loves me, Mrs. T agreed to undergo a road trip with me. During the last two weeks of July, we visited Charleston, Durham, Ashville, and DC. We caught up with old friends, and even made new ones during a two-hour stop down on I-95. To the lady in the blue halter-top, standing up through your sunroof while honking incessantly the whole time – stay classy, tiger.

While in DC, we saw the final performance of Rock of Ages, featuring Mrs. Teacher’s crush – Constantine Mariachiopolis. She even got to meet him after the show, and somehow her glazed eyes and ear-to-ear smile didn’t make him run away in fear for his life.

August –

The heat in Texas continued to rise, and while we missed setting a record string of 100+ degree days by a single day, we most definitely set a record for FaceBook pictures showing car thermometers with triple digits. Good times, good times.

On the first day of the new school year, I released my second book – Learn Me Gooder. My older nephew, Ethan, graciously agreed to appear on the cover with me, and upon seeing the cover for the first time, my younger nephew, Josh, noted, “That’s Ethan, and that’s Uncle John – with a RED face!”

School year ’11-’12 began, and Mrs. Teacher and I both worked hard to get to know our new classes and bond with our new kids. Days later, we worked even harder to keep getting up and going to work and not cause bodily harm to those new kids.

September –

While I was watching Monday Night Football, Mrs. T came into the living room and handed me something that looked like a blue highlighter. I took it, realized it was a pregnancy test, quickly taught myself how to READ a pregnancy test, and discovered that we were going to have a baby! The names “Krzyzewski,” “Boba Fett,” “Snake Eyes,” and “Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged” were quickly suggested and summarily rejected.

(I did some quick math and ruled on the possibility of it being Constantine Marigoldilalaland’s child.)

This exciting news did put just a LITTLE bit of a damper on our September tradition of wine sampling at Grapefest. However, we had already paid for it, so we still went, and while Mrs. Teacher did not drink, she WAS able to get samples at each booth and pass them over to me. Therefore, BEST. GRAPEFEST. EVER!! We ran into some old Grapefest friends and made some new ones, and nobody puked on anybody else.

Someone passed on an article that described some people who had a fear of ketchup. Good thing they don’t have a fear of being mocked mercilessly, because that would be a nasty double whammy.

October –

Midway through the month, we attended a Murder Mystery Dinner with a group of friends, one of whom was having a birthday. Though it took a while to warm to the prospect of “interrogating” fellow guests for clues, we eventually lost our shyness and grilled a few suspects. Unfortunately, the first guy I probed for answers turned out not to even be one of the main characters. Our guess for the murderer ultimately proved incorrect, but after loudly arguing and haranguing the host for 45 minutes, the fact that we were thrown out and ordered never to return proves that deep down, they knew our scenario was better than theirs.

At the end of the month, our neighbors threw a Halloween party, and we all went dressed as Justice League characters. Mrs. Teacher and I were Supergirl and the Flash, and neighbors included Batman, Robin, and Wonder Woman. Conspicuously absent – Gleek and the Wonder Twins.

October marked a new life experience for me as, one day while bored, I cut through a tin can AND a tomato in the same setting.

November –

After having Mrs. Teacher’s old condo on the market for nearly a year, we FINALLY had a buyer in November. Sure, the guy whittled the price down so much so that we metaphorically had to sit crying in the shower for an hour afterwards, but the money pit was finally off our hands. The day before closing, I left a special housewarming gift in the condo for the new owner. Wonder if he’s discovered where that smell is coming from yet.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Mrs. Teacher’s parents down in Blanco (now with TWO stoplights!). We all drove in to Fredericksburg the evening after for a musical performance at the Rock Box Theater, which was highly enjoyable. On the way home, several suicidal deer jumped out in front of me, but thanks to my lightning-fast reflexes and my inherent dislike of venison, those deer did not meet their maker that night. I may have crushed a careless turtle, though.

Two days after Thanksgiving, I was visited by the 69-year-old version of myself, using a time machine that I will apparently co-create with Mark Cuban, Papa John, and The Situation. I told myself that the Kardashians WOULD eventually go away, and I was very relieved.

December –

Choosing to be surprised earlier than later, we learned that our growing “quark” was a boy! Mrs. Teacher was just a little disappointed at first, as she really wanted to be the one to break the “Pearson curse,” while I breathed a sigh of relief that our child would never appear on an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras.

Mrs. Teacher and I once again split the Christmas holiday with our families, spending Christmas Eve in Arlington with my folks, Christmas Day in Blanco with her folks, and roughly 3 hours on I-35 with random folks. Upon arriving in Blanco, we found a rifle laid out on the bed. I think that if my father-in-law did that to send a message, he is the worst procrastinator in the universe.

We plan on finishing out the year by having a nice, laid-back, quiet evening at home, relaxing and enjoying each other’s company. Oh, and finishing off the 2 gallons of blue drinks left over from our Christmas party. Well, ONE of us will be drinking them, anyway.

Christmas party gems

2011-12-19T13:03:00.002-06:00

Friday was our last day of school before the Christmas Break, and there were SEVERAL stand-out moments from the day to last in memory for some time to come. I thought I'd take a minute and list some of them...

- I wrote the daily word problem on the board to include the name of 3 of Santa's reindeer -- Blitzen, Comet, and Dasher. The kids had no earthly idea who these were, and to my amazement, there was only one kid in each class who had even heard of RUDOLPH!!

- A little girl gave me a candy bar, something called a Bubu Jubu or Lubee Boobee or something. It was a chocolate covered, marshmallow and jelly candy. Pretty tasty. When we left the room to walk to PE, I told the little girl that it was tasty and thanked her. The little girl in front of her heard me and said, "I gave that candy to her this morning." RE-GIFTER!!

- Before our party started, I asked the kids to write one thing they had learned about Force (our science focus for the past few weeks) on a notecard. One boy wrote, "I lern Force is so good to hos." Somehow managing not to bust out laughing, I asked him to read his sentence to me, and he said, "I learned Force is good to us." Someone really needs to focus on their spelling.

- The holiday party time was very clearly set at 1:00 - 2:45, according to mandate by our principal. Why then, was there a fire drill at 1:30???

- During our party time, my room was where the games were being played. One group was playing a money-related game that apparently was missing some coins. A student came up and told me, "We don't have any sense!" (cents)

- Another boy asked if he could have an empty bottle to play truth or dare. When I asked (for my own curiosity) how one played such a game, he basically explained the game of Spin the Bottle (minus the kissing) to me. Needless to say, I did NOT provide a bottle.

- At 3:05, right as I started calling kids to line up at the door, a child handed me about 20 envelopes with kids' names on them. He told me that another child had brought them and wanted to pass them out. Way to not wait till the last minute. And no, I didn't even get an envelope myself...

Enjoy your time off, and Merry Christmas, everyone!!

Break it down!

2011-12-15T17:44:00.002-06:00

'Twas the night before Christmas (Break), and all through the house,
Just one creature was blogging, while using his mouse.

Tomorrow is our last school day before break, day 77 for anyone who is counting. You would think 77 days would be a long enough time period to establish a routine or two, but my kids seem to take the adage "Every day is a NEW day" QUITE literally. Still, we will be having a little bit of a party after lunch tomorrow. Nothing major, just some fun time for games and snacks.

On the way out the door, one girl asked if she could bring Twister. I told her that she could, but not to expect me to play. My body doesn't contort like that anymore -- not that it ever did.

I know that some teachers are still teaching through mid or even ALL of next week. I feel for you, I really do. But hey, at least you will be out of school for longer than I am at the beginning of 2012.

Lastly, please be sure to check out Carol's latest Carnival of Education, where she's listed her 12 favorite bloggers. Look who scored the "Golden Rings" position! WOOT!!

Vote for a teacher!

2011-12-07T23:12:00.003-06:00

The good folks at Worth Ave. Group are sponsoring a contest to give away a few nice hefty technology grants to America's favorite teachers. Check out their Giveaway page, and see how you can vote for your favorite teacher (or even get yourself nominated!).

Sounds like a Plan

2011-12-05T18:56:00.002-06:00

We frequently do word problems in class. And the method that we enforce is called UPSC, which stands for Understand, Plan, Solve, and Check. (We actually say U-P-S-Check) Not that any of the kids will actually USE UPSC on a test, when I'm not physically in the room with them, but it's a pretty darn good solving model.

Today, I was midway through walking the kids through the solution of our word problem, when lunch time arrived. We had already filled out the Understand box, and we had reasoned out whether our initial Plan should be to add or subtract.

In the Plan box, I wrote "Add," followed by the usuals -- "Draw a picture," and "Number sentence." Then I wrote, "Go to lunch," as I announced it was time to eat.

Let's just hope none of the kids actually ever write "Go to lunch" as their plan during a test!

Lord, give me the length...

2011-11-28T18:32:00.004-06:00

Our focus for this week in science is strength and direction of forces.

This morning, when I asked my homeroom what "strength" meant, I was met with nothing but blank faces. Of course, I often encounter this even when I ask what "subtraction" means, as my homeroom tends to be a really lazy, really low, really apathetic group.

I prodded the group by asking, "Doesn't this word sound a little bit like 'length?'"

"Oh yeah!" they replied.

"And do we remember what 'length' means?" I asked, fully expecting for them NOT to, as they did NOT remember what congruent or symmetry meant earlier.

But a few did venture, "How long?"

So I tried to scaffold even further -- "So if Length means how Long, and they both start with the same letter... then maybe STRength means...?"

Almost all of the kids shouted, proudly even, "How long!!"

I'm gonna need to get me some extra long Tylenol for the rest of this year...

Christmas time is almost here!

2011-11-27T19:10:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone,

It's time to get your Christmas shopping done, so I'd like to make available a couple of ideas for your loved ones.

First, I still have a wide variety of T-shirts and such at the Spreadshirt store, including the phrases, "I teach, therefore I am... poor," "Houston, we have a word problem," and "You give math a bad name"

Secondly, I'd love to send you a signed copy of Learn Me Good or Learn Me Gooder! Just shoot me a comment or an email letting me know what you'd like, and I can get them in the mail in time to beat the holiday rush. You'd be getting the author's signature PLUS beating the Amazon price...

Happy week back to school!

The Girl with the Turkey Tattoo

2011-11-24T16:50:00.002-06:00

Hey all,

It's Thanksgiving Thursday, and I've been fighting off the turkey sweats and tryptophan coma, watching my fantasy football team get obliterated, and I've seen countless commercials for a certain movie, so my blog post title was chosen accordingly.

It sure has been nice having this whole week off, even if there isn't a whole lot to do at the in-laws'. But I figured it's a good time to reflect on what I'm thankful for, and share a few of those things here.

Things I am thankful for:

1) My (bratty) wife, who insisted she be number one on this list
2) My family
3) My little wingnut, arriving in May
4) My job (and by extension, my income)
5) My students (or to be completely honest, SOME of my students)
6) My friends
7) Learn Me Good Groupies (Both of you)
8) My house
9) My health, even when it's hidden under a hacking cough, watery eyes, and enough mucous to choke a walrus
10) Cheez-its
11) Sweet tea vodka
12) The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family
13) Duke basketball dominance

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! And to all a good night!

Extra information, begone

2011-11-16T18:15:00.002-06:00

Sometimes I cringe to think about the way I used to have the kids solve word problems. In our standard problem solving model, where the first "box" requires the kids to write down important information from the problems, I would have them start at the beginning of the story and write all of the numbers with their corresponding units. But this can lead to a really packed, overbogged-down first box...

Last week, I gave the kids this problem:

Mr. Teacher has 37 hats, 28 baseballs, 19 gloves, and $640.00. He bought 3 cookies for 50 cents each. How many more hats does he have than gloves?

With my OLD technique for problem solving, most of my kids probably would have bogged down on all of the extra information. But with the NEW way, nearly everyone in the class got the question correct.

Now, instead of starting at the beginning, I have the kids start at the end. They always write the QUESTION first, and then focus in on the unit that the question is asking them to count. In this case, it's only hats and gloves. The kids were able to ignore the baseballs, the dollars, and the cookies.

The few kids who DIDN'T get the question correct are the ones who still think "how many more" is a prompt to add instead of subtract.

I have a low group of kids this year, and they have trouble retaining concepts. But they are definitely getting better at problem solving, especially when the target the question and the important units first.

No bout a doubt it

2011-11-05T18:23:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Matthew at Look at My Happy Rainbow, I have a new top blog to check out on a regular basis.

He posted an excerpt on Facebook from Heidisongs Resources, the blog of Heidi Butkus. I have to share this excerpt as well, because it is fantastic. While Heidi (and Matthew) teaches kindergarten, and does NOT like to be told that teaching older kids (or adults) is the same -- I think we can safely apply much of what she says to all of elementary school.

This is her list of...

The Top Ten Signs You Work in Public School

1. The best person that can be found to teach K/1 teachers how to teach any subject is someone who has only taught high school.
2. If you were to add up the hours it takes to teach all of the required lessons in all of the teachers manuals in all of the subjects, they would total more than 22 hours of direct instruction per day.
3. Your current reading program is very similar to one that you have used before, way back two generations ago when the curricular pendulum swung the other direction. (I guess the advantage is that if you don’t like what you currently have, wait around for a couple of years and another curriculum or theory du jour will be in vogue to take its place!)
4. The curriculum that was chosen for you to use in Kindergarten was based on how well it works in some other grade level.
5. There is a teacher at your school that regularly calls in sick more days than she actually teaches, and somehow manages to hang on to her job.
6. You have had an LCD projector mounted on your ceiling for two years, but there is no money for a screen so you cannot use it. Or vise versa.
7. Three years after you have been given a new math program, they find the money to train you on how to use it.
8. Your legislature is thinking of increasing your hours but not your pay.
9. You know what your kids need to learn, but you don’t have time to do it because of all of the required programs.
10. The best way to make sure your kids learn (and therefore keep your job) is to close your door and do what you know works for your students!

Pardon the Interruption

2011-10-25T20:56:00.003-05:00

Lately, we've been having a lot of interruptions at my school. I'm not talking about the kind that involves little Billy bursting into tears because he's shoved a crayon up his nose, or rabid opossums wandering into the classroom and curling up in a basket of place value blocks.

No, these interruptions are coming from the front office. Throughout the day, there seems to be an endless stream of announcements over the PA.

"Time to pick up the kids."
"Send some kids to pick up fliers."
"We need this form filled out by noon today."
"Whoever left the severed head in the teacher's lounge refrigerator -- very funny."

Being in the full swing of a fantastic fantasy football season, I started thinking how it might be nice to apply some NFL rules to our school's front office.

NFL coaches get 3 challenge flags to use throughout a game. If they make a challenge in error, they lose one of their time-outs.

I propose that our administrators be allotted 3 announcements to use throughout a school WEEK. Any of those 3 PA announcements that is deemed by the faculty to be unnecessary or irrelevant will result in the loss of an after-school meeting.

**********

We were talking about simple machines in science class today. Actually, before I even mentioned simple machines, I tried to "engage" them by presenting a scenario. I said that we had a 200-lb box on the floor that we needed to put on the top of a shelf. I asked them to brainstorm with their group all of the possible ways that we could get that box up to the top of the shelf.

Most of the solutions involved lifting the box. Either 10-12 kids could lift the box at the same time, or Big Show of pro wrestling fame could come in and lift it for us.

But then a couple of kids suggested using a lever, and I was very impressed. They didn't use the WORD "lever," but what they were describing was most definitely a lever.

One boy's action plan was hilarious. He said, "Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna get a big board and put it on a rock like a see saw. Then we put the box on one side of the board. Then we drop a BIIIGGGG rock onto the other side, and the box gonna fly up to the shelf."

I started to thank him for his input, but he was lost in thought, stroking his chin, muttering, "... or maybe we have a really fat kid jump on the other side..."

FINALLY! The kids are starting to THINK in my class! Let no one interrupt them!!

Flintstones chewable ginseng

2011-10-20T18:13:00.003-05:00

Tutoring started this week, so now I get to answer the question, "Is today tutoring?" about 512 times every day. I would normally expect my kids to remember that Tuesday and Thursday are the tutoring days, but since I have proof that some of my kids cannot even remember how OLD they are, I have no aspirations that they will remember which days are tutoring days.

Seriously, I have at least one child who doesn't know how old she is. We went to the library to browse at the Book Fair yesterday after lunch, and this little girl brought a book to me. She asked if she could write down the price so that she could remember how much to bring the next day. I saw that it was $7.99, so I THOUGHT I could help her easily remember how much to bring. I asked her, "How old are you?" (thinking she would say 8) She replied, "I do not know. My mother never told me."

The librarian looked at me in horror, and I just sighed and said, "Yeah, that's my life this year."

Back to tutoring, I worked with a group of kids today that were also suffering from Youth Alzheimer's. I asked them to "find the sum" of two numbers -- something we have been doing all year long. They looked at me as if I had said, "Jibberjab the doohickey." In Russian.

After reminding them that "Sum" means the answer to an addition problem, I asked the point blank what "sum" meant. Dasvidaniya, all over again. And again, and again.

After tutoring, only 2 of the 4 tutoring buses were on time. Most of the teachers were herding the kids into two lines to wait for those two remaining buses. "Herding" is the perfect word for that, because these kids definitely have a herd mentality. After waiting for about 10 minutes in a line, they bolted wildly for the street as soon as they saw the bus pull up. Any semblance of a line was gone, and it was every kid for himself. Including my new friend, "Steven Segall," the 2nd grader who likes to chew on acorns and draw all over his own face with a magic marker.

As I hurried after the herd, I passed one of the buses that had been sitting there for a while, and as I glanced in, I saw a kid (who obviously did not see me) stand up and shout, "SHIT!!" Not in anger, not in pain, not in surprise -- he said it like he was taking it for a test drive.

Which made me wish that kids would try out new academic vocabulary with the fervor and frequency that they try out the forbidden vocabulary. I think I need to start using math words in the context of curse words to try to entice the kids to start saying them.

"Sum you!"
"Go estimate yourself!"
"Son of a difference!"

I came home today with a pounding headache. I am super thankful that tomorrow is Friday. Which, despite the confusion, is NOT a tutoring day.

Working for the weekend

2011-10-15T17:42:00.002-05:00

Man, is it nice to sleep in on Saturday (unlike my poor wife who had to get up and go to a math training today).

A few quick hits today.

First, speaking of my wife, we had an ultrasound done last Friday, and it was pretty spectacular to see our little 8-week-old wingnut, looking like a little spaceship from the old arcade game Defender. He's got a pretty huge head, and a really rapid heart beat. I'm guessing he'll be a ten-pounder at least, like his old man.

Next up, a friendly reminder and request to everyone who got a free copy of Learn Me Gooder a few weeks ago. Please don't forget to write a review online when you are finished. So far, only about 3 people have made good on that exchange. Thanks to those 3!!

I encourage everyone to check out the current Carnival of Education over at Bell Ringers. Carol is great about including posts from Learn Me Good, even when I forget to submit one! Thanks, Carol!

The Teachers Certification Degrees site has included Learn Me Good on its list of Top 50 Elementary Teacher Blogs. It's really just an honor to be nominated.

And finally, a few quick hits from the week at school:

-- The "Fruits and Vegetables" program has been upped to TWO days a week this year. So yesterday at around 2, we were asked by PA (it was either the 2nd or 3rd of about 5 announcements in the afternoon, but we're very "flexible" that way) to send a couple of kids to the cafeteria to get the veggies and then to let the kids eat them in class. This is because the kids have proven a tendency to use the veggies as projectiles when allowed to take them on the bus. My two gophers returned with buckets to broccoli and cauliflower. YUMMY!!
Oh, and the stuff was STILL all over the floor in the 5th grade hallway at the end of the day.

-- We practiced measuring, with a tape measure, this week. The kids enjoyed it. We measured body parts (get your mind out of the gutter) and then turned that data into bar graphs. In fact, I was in the process of demonstrating how to measure the circumference of one's thigh when the fruit and vegetable announcement came on. I now have proof that my thigh is bigger around than most kids' heads.

-- In my latest attempt to get my homeroom to actually participate in class, I made an appeal to the "excellent students" in the class. Without naming any names, and without visibly averting my eyes from kids I know NOT to be excellent students, I asked the "excellent students" in the class to please help me out by actively monitoring their partners while we did boardwork. I think this may have helped a bit. We'll see.

-- The kids SEEMED to grasp how to make change after we practiced, practiced, practiced nearly all day Monday and Tuesday, but on the quiz I gave yesterday, it became clear that most of them had forgotten again. In a scenario where two apples are being bought for 65 cents each, and a $5 bill is being produced to pay for them, a couple of kids STILL tried to add 65 + 2, many kids added the two apples but left that as their answer (not the change received), and a few still think you should subtract items you are buying. In this case, that means 65 - 65, resulting in the opinion that ONE apple costs you money, but buying TWO apples gets you both of them for free.
Is it any wonder our economy is in the toilet?

The money train has passed us by

2011-10-11T20:41:00.003-05:00

I've learned over the past few days that my kids have absolutely no working knowledge whatsoever of money. Sure, most of them can identify a penny and a dime, but how it works in the real world, they are clueless.

Or WERE, I should say (and I should hope), after two intense days of money boot camp. Monday, they were telling me that they would subtract to find the total amount spent at a store and add to find change. Today, some of them were still telling me the same, but many were starting to catch on. Tomorrow, I have no doubt that some of them will stick to their story (after all, Youth Alzheimers DOES seem to be rampant in my class this year), but hopefully most of them will have mastered it.

I put a menu up on the board today (coke -- $2, hot dog -- $4, massive headache -- priceless) and started assigning them tiny little projects based on that menu and piles of fake money on their desks. I gave them a certain amount of money and a food order (2 hot dogs, 4 cokes, 2 chips, and a cookie) and their group had to figure out how much change they would get back if they bought that order. It took a while, but they finally started to get it, for the most part.

I still did have a few kids trying to subtract 17-40 or trying to find change by subtracting their food total minus the price of one hot dog, but overall, by the third mini-challenge, most groups seemed to be getting it.

Though the actual USE of money still eludes some. One boy asked, "You can buy something with five dollars?" in a tone of voice that suggested that I was telling him that skunks provided the best floral-scented handsoap. I asked him, "Have you seriously never seen a commercial for Subway sandwiches?"

To which the other kids chimed in, "YEAH! 5... 5 dollar... 5 dollar footlongs!"

Of course, by the time I see them tomorrow, they will have slept (presumably), so it might have flown out the window. I did have one little girl who was absent Thursday take a make-up quiz on rounding this morning. The first question said, "Round 583 to the nearest hundred." This little girl started writing, "5 - odd; 8 - even; 3 - odd." When I pointed out the word "Round" and asked her to ROUND, she told me, "I do not remember rounding." This is something we did all last week, but she's completely forgotten the skill already.

I really do NOT have high hopes for the STAAR this year...

Night and Day differences

2011-10-04T18:47:00.002-05:00

Teaching two sections of 3rd grade, I've often commented on how the 2 classes seem like entirely different entities. But never so much as this year.

One of my classes gets into the lessons, almost everyone participates, they listen and remember, and they give me a standing ovation when I announce that I'm passing out homework.

The other class contains only about 3 kids who participate on a regular basis, they often forget things that we've discussed ten minutes prior, and they seem to be recess-resistant.

The second six weeks of school began yesterday, so my partner and I flip-flopped the order of classes. I now have HIS homeroom in the morning and MY homeroom in the afternoon.

The past two mornings have been wonderful. The kids have brought their completed homework, we've had plenty of time for science as well as math, and the kids can tell me that estimating means the same thing as rounding, and that both terms mean choosing a close number to make math easier.

Yesterday afternoon on the other hand was nearly fatal to me, and today was only slightly better. Only 6 kids out of 20 did last night's homework correctly and/or completely, we squandered yesterday's science time ENTIRELY because no one would admit to saying something (5 kids finally admitted it, after 15 minutes of stonewalling), and the kids tell me that estimating means the same thing as rounding, and both terms mean... estimating. Or rounding.

My homeroom is also the one that, when they DO participate, tell me random math words in the hopes that one of them will be the answer to my question.

Me: "What math word means the answer to a subtraction problem?"
Kid 1: "Expanded form!"
Kid 2: "Estimate!"
Kid 3: "In all!"
Kid 4: "Estimate!"

Last week, our Daily Depositor had two addends that ended with an 8. I asked the kids what we called it when we are adding the same number twice (having seen a SECOND grade friend whose kids all seemed to grasp doubles pretty firmly).

One little kid, A, raised his hand triumphantly and answered, "Regroup!"

Later, when we had just written a number in word form and I asked what form the original number was in (standard form), I saw several hands go up, including A's. I said, "And please don't say 'Total,' or 'Sum.'"

A's hand slowly went down as the most dejected look formed on his face. Poor kid.

Report cards come out next week, and 7 of my homeroom kids are failing math. And every day, on the drive home, I hear in my head the voice of the woman who gave a presentation on the new STAAR test -- "This test will really evaluate the LEVEL of your teaching!"

And every time I hear her say that in my head, it pisses me off just a little bit more. The level of my teaching isn't the full problem here, or (dare I say) even most of the problem. The level of attention and retention of many of my kids is the problem here.

Here's hoping that one day soon, I will stumble upon SOME motivation or incentive that will actually matter to these kids. I'm going through my bag of tricks pretty quick here...

October quick hits

2011-10-04T18:27:00.004-05:00

Catching up time here. I've either been too busy, despondent, or hungry to post much lately, and a little housekeeping is in order.

First of all, I have put the Kindle edition of Learn Me Gooder and the Nook edition of Learn Me Gooder on sale for only 99 cents through this coming Sunday, October 9. If you haven't snatched it up yet, please do so now, and tell all your friends that have an e-reader!

Secondly, a big thank you to those of you who have made good on your end of the free-book-for-a-review swap that I offered last week. I really appreciate it! And for anyone who is able, please copy your review onto Amazon.uk.co! Thanks!

Nextly, Carol of Bellringers was kind enough to include one of my posts in the latest Carnival of Education, so here's a little linky love for the Carnival.

Lastly, a big shout out to Paula at Dailycheapreads.com who featured Learn Me Gooder on her site today! If you have a Kindle, you HAVE to have dailycheapreads bookmarked!