Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching today for 5 for Friday from a busy, crazy week!

I started the week celebrating my wonderful hubby's birthday! I forgot to take a picture of my amazing burger at Rodeo Goat in Fort Worth - I highly recommend it if you're looking for a burger joint in Fort Worth!

Using toothpicks to create different types of lines and angles as part of a Geometry Menu Board

My first attempt making a mini book for my students was a success! They filled the inside with examples of quadrilaterals and triangles. 

We used the app "Geoboards" to create different 2-Dimensional figures. Much easier than pulling out all the rubber bands and actual geoboards! The kids loved it.

And now on a less fun note, I ended the week getting the room ready for our big state writing test next week. We have to cover everything that has writing on our walls - I hate the way the room looks! I also close the blinds so the sun isn't glaring on any students and they're not distracted staring out the window. Do you have to get your rooms covered for testing at your school?

Elapsed Time

We spent a couple of days this week on elapsed time - a skill that always proves to be tricky for students. I'm also noticing that my 4th graders aren't as good at telling time as they should be, but they never have to read analog clocks in real life! They get much less practice at telling time than my students used to.

As I've mentioned before in posts about math workshop, I use blendspace to organize the workshop activities for the kids. I also record the lessons and they watch it on their ipad at the beginning of workshop. This really helps with their attention and also gives me more time to pull small groups.

Feel free to check out the blendspace I created on elapsed time here

So their first tasks were to watch the videos. For this skill I made 2 videos, each one teaching a different strategy for elapsed time. Once they were done with the videos, they worked at their own pace through the different activities over the course of 2-3 days.

I had made some QR code task cards and put at a set in each table group's bucket. (Each table has a bucket where I put any supplies they will need for math workshop that day). I also put some clock manipulatives. I am fortunate to have a TON of hands-on math tools at my school, so I had enough for each student to get their own clock.

They solved the problem on the task cards using their clock, used the QR code to check their answer, and then took a picture of the problem and the clock showing the answer. When they were done, they put their pictures into pic collage.

I did this activity in small groups with students who I thought may struggle.

The QR task cards are part of my Elapsed Time Lesson Pack, available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store - check it out here.

After the QR task cards, they did versatiles. I had never heard of these until I came to  my current campus last year and they had a set in each room, but now I love them! Ours are a little out dated, but whenever I find a page that correlates with our current skill, I love to use them. Find out more about them here.

Then I had another set of task cards taped around the room that they answered. Some students were still using their clock to help them, while others were relying more on strategies such as t-charts or number lines. When they finished these task cards, they had to come check in with me before they could move on.

The last 2 activities were intended to be more of an extension - if you got to it, great! If not, no worries. One was to plan your dream day and to outline the schedule. They also had to write down how much time they spent on each activity.

The last activity in the blendspace was to do some practice problems on IXL. Our school doesn't have a membership, but kids can do 20 free problems in a day. I like the repetitiveness of IXL, so I typically include some type of this practice each week.

Stem-and-Leaf Plots

When we got our new curriculum this year, stem-and-leaf plots were one of the "scary" new additions. I mean, really, who uses a stem-and-leaf plot?! I was a little nervous about finding a meaningful way to teach these to my kids, but as always, the kids did great!

We were able to tie these lessons in with our science unit on the weather. Each table group was given a region of the US. Within the groups, students chose a city and looked up the 10 day weather forecast for that city.

They had to record the weather conditions and the high temperature for each day in the forecast. Then the students in each group combined their data.

They made a dot plot to represent the weather conditions and a stem-and-leaf plot to represent the high temperatures for their region.

It took us a couple of days and lots of mini-lessons and checking in with groups, but they turned out great!

When most of the groups were done with their plots, we worked on writing questions for them. I modeled some questions using the example plots I had made during mini-lessons. I also gave the class some question stems that they needed to include. For example:

How many...

What is the difference between...

How many more _____ than _____

Then each group wrote and answered at least 5 questions for their plots. Some questions went with the dot plot and some with the stem-and-leaf plot. When they were all done we wrote the questions and answers on paper and hung them in the hallway with their plots. I forgot to take a picture of this! I'll have to add it later.

Any other Texas teachers struggling with real-world connections for stem-and-leaf plots?

Five for Friday - my first linky party!

I'm making my first attempt at participating in a linky party! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Five for Friday (yes I know it's Monday...)

We finished up our unit on data analysis. At the beginning of the year this is what I was most nervous about teaching with our new math standards. It went great though! The kids made stem-and-leaf plots and dot plots using a 10 day weather forecast (which tied in great to our science unit on weather!)

We moved into our house last year. I finally got around to decorating the guest room/my office. I now have a lovely, motivating space to work. I love how it turned out!

We started off our measurement unit with perimeter and area. Here are a couple of glances into the notes we put in our math journals:

We got another snow day Thursday. It doesn't take much in Texas to get a snow day, but this was real fluffy snow - not the normal sleet we get down here. Of course my husband and I had to build a snowman. 

It's hard to believe that it's spring break! I'm looking forward to a week full of relaxation and catching up on things. My 2 kitties couldn't be happier to have me home for a week!

Solving Word Problems Part 2

This week in math we finished up our unit on the 4 operations. Again, we focused on word problems. We looked at some specific types of word problems that they will encounter.

We had a short week this week in math because we spent a couple of days on benchmark testing for the district.

Day 1
Monday we looked at interpreting remainders. This was a skill I noticed they needed from our work last week with different word problems. I used an anchor chart that I found on Pinterest to help me create one with my kids. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the source of the chart.

Here's what mine looked like:

We talked about 3 different types of remainder problems. Times when we ignore the remainder, times when we have to round up our answer to account for the remainder and times when the remainder is our answer.

Once we'd looked at these types of problems. We worked out some problems together, using the CUBES problem solving strategy, and discussed which type of problem it was.

Then I had the students work in pairs on some remainder word problems from our textbook. They were pretty challenging problems. Once they'd had time to work them out together, we went over them as a class.

Day 2
Tuesday, I explained to the kids that so far we'd been looking at a lot of 1-step problems where the main focus was on deciding the correct operation. However, in 4th grade, they're not going to see too many 1-step problems. So for today we were going to sort problems into 3 different categories: problems with extra information, one-step problems, and multi-step problems.

Together we looked at 6 different word problems and sorted them. We talked through how to solve each problem, but the main emphasis was on deciding which category the problem would fit in. (I tried to pick problems that clearly fit into one of the categories)

Then the kids got in pairs and had their own 6 problems to sort (You can see their directions in my picture above). Once most groups were done sorting, I had them choose 1 problem from each category to work through our problem solving paper on. They had to use the CUBES strategy, solve the problem, write their answer in a complete sentence, and justify their answer.

I had several groups who realized they had sorted a problem incorrectly once they began solving it. This just further reinforced the idea that using a problem solving strategy helps the kids read more critically.

Day 3
Wednesday was our last day of lessons for the week since we were benchmark testing Thursday & Friday. I was also out half the day for curriculum meetings so I needed something that could easily be taught by a substitute.

We completed a frayer model on estimation. I forgot to take a picture of mine at work, but you can find a great example at Math Workshop Adventures' blog.

Then the kids worked in pairs to complete some word problem task cards. I tried to choose a variety of word problems (1-step, multi-step, extra info, different operations, remainders, estimation, etc). I also did a mix of problems that gave answer choices & problems that didn't.


I used a lot of partner work and group work during our lessons on problem solving. I think that it is critical for kids to talk out the problems.

I haven't gotten the results of our benchmark yet, but I loved seeing their strategies on their papers. I even had a couple of students raise their hand to share with me that they noticed some important key words in the problems. Yay! : )

Solving Word Problems

This year we changed the pacing of our instruction a little bit. We spent a chunk of time teaching the 4 operations, with heavy emphasis on the skills. Once the students had learned all 4 of the operations, we set aside 2 weeks to focus on problem solving using all of the operations.

In the past we would teach a skill and then look at word problems using that skill. I noticed that I wasn't spending a lot of time explicitly teaching kids how to determine which operation to use. I also realized a lot of kids would catch on to the fact that the word problems were over the skill we were practicing. They didn't have to do a lot of analysis to figure that out.

So this week we spent all week looking at simple word problems. I wanted to spend time explicitly teaching kids strategies to help them solve different types of word problems.

Day 1:
On Monday we looked at example word problems for each operation. We did the same activity 3 different times. First I modeled it whole group, then they worked in small groups of 4, and finally they did it again on their own.

We took 4 problems (1 for each operation) and looked for key words that helped us decide on the operation. We highlighted those words. Then we wrote a sentence explaining how we knew which operation to use. Finally, we wrote a number sentence showing the solution to the problem.

Day 2:

On Tuesday, I wanted the kids to really focus on some of the big concepts for each operation. Looking back, I think it would have been better to flip the activities for Day 1 & Day 2. 

I wrote some simple 1-step word problems for each operation. I passed out different math manipulatives to each table. I displayed one problem at a time and had the students "act out" the problem with the manipulatives. Then we worked together to write a number sentence and discuss what words in the problem helped us know what to do. 

After about 15-20 minutes of acting out different word problems, I collected the manipulatives and passed out a recording sheet. The sheet had 4 sections with an operation symbol at the top of each section. We had a class discussion about the things we noticed for the different operations and recording these observations on the sheet. Some of the big things we talked about were that addition and multiplication give us a larger number and subtraction and division give us a smaller number. We also talked about the fact that multiplication and division have equal groups, while addition and subtraction don't need equal groups. 

Day 3:

 Wednesday, I introduced the kids to a problem solving strategy that I have used in the past. The acronym is CUBES:

Circle the numbers

Underline key words

[Bracket the question]

Eliminate extra info.

Solve the problem 

I explained that this strategy helps them focus in on the important parts of a problem. This will become more important when we start looking at more complex problems. 

Like Monday, we did the same activity 3 different times. I modeled the steps, they worked it out in pairs, and then did it individually. 

I had copied different word problems on a recording sheet. Their first step was to do CUBES to the problem. Then they had to write a number sentence showing how to solve the problem. Once they had the answer, they had to write the answer in a complete sentence (this was harder than you would think!). Finally, they had to justify their answer. We referred back to our chart from Tuesday to help us explain why our answer was reasonable. 

Day 4:

This year our math curriculum specifies that students need to be able to use strip diagrams to represent problems involving the 4 operations. I wanted to spend a day looking at different strip diagrams. The kids had seen these diagrams on our spiral review warm-ups and a lot of them had a difficult time with strip diagrams modeling multiplication or division.

There's a great website and app called Thinking Blocks. We used this to help the kids practice with different diagrams. I don't have a smart board in my room, but we have a "smart pen" that turns the regular board into an interactive board. We used that to practice some different diagrams together.

Then I let the kids spend time in pairs, or independently, playing on the app. We used the addition/subtraction and multiplication/division apps. They were begging for more!

Day 5:

Friday is our assessment day. I gave the kids 8 one-step word problems. They had to use the CUBES problem solving strategy and show their work for each problem. They did a great job! While, I still have some kids who are struggling with the skills, every student knew which operation to do on the different problems. Woohoo!!

Next week we are looking at interpreting remainders and multi-step problems (including problems with extra info.)

Engaging Your Students

5 Ways to Keep Your Students Engaged

Sometimes during the year my kids start to get into a rut with their work. It can be a struggle to keep them engaged. Here are my top 5 ways to keep students engaged with their work. 

#1 Provide choices

Kids love choosing what to do. I like to mix up the types of choices I give students. Sometimes I give them a choice in which activities to do. Other times I give them a choice in assessments. The variation keeps it from getting old and they love choosing what to do!

Check out this blog post on a geometry activity where the kids had choice in their activities:
Lines Task Cards

#2 Differentiate the work
My kids are currently working on a large unit over the 4 operations. I used a pre-test to determine what skills the kids already knew how to do. I found a huge range in ability. Some kids still struggled with 3rd grade skills while others (very few) had already mastered 5th grade skills. Yikes! So I went out of my comfort zone and have had kids working on different skills - focusing only on what they don't know how to do. It was a bit of a planning nightmare up front, but the rewards have been worth it. I love hearing from a student "this is what I've been wanting to learn how to do!". My high kids are able to be challenged while my low babies don't get quite as frustrated.

I'll be writing a post later about how I put this all together. 

#3 Make your delivery exciting

Sometimes I find our curriculum boring. I just have a hard time getting excited about certain topics. When this shows to the kids, they naturally have a hard time engaging in the work. When I present a lesson or a skill in a manner that shows the kids I love the topic - guess what - they love it too! (This probably only works in elementary school when they still think I'm cool...)

So when I'm planning a unit that I know can be extra challenging or boring, I try to plan fun activities or, at the very least, I act like I absolutely love that topic. My excitement typically rubs off on many of my students.

#4 Incorporate pop culture/students' interests

I read a blog post recently where a teacher had her kids "grade" a celebrity's work. I loved this idea and copied it in my classroom. My girls are all huge Taylor Swift fans (who isn't??). So during our unit on multiplication one of their assignments was to grade "Taylor Swift's multiplication page". They were all so excited to check her work. Not only did this get them multiplying, but they also had to apply some higher level thinking to find the mistakes.

#5 Use social media as a motivating factor
I recently heard a statement at a workshop that social media is the new refrigerator. Posting good work on the fridge at home is no longer enough - they want feedback from a global audience. I use this to my advantage by selecting high quality work to post on twitter or share online. This can be a great motivator for some students.

How do you keep your kids engaged as the year goes on?