How I figured out Wonders....

This year our district decided to adopt a new literacy program. After evaluating and piloting several different programs, they chose Wonders, by McGraw-Hill. Ever since I started teaching, I haven't had a good literacy program to go off.  I had to put my own literacy curriculum map together, and frankly, it wasn't anything to brag about. 

When I first heard about the Wonders program, I was skeptical. Could a basal reading program really be that beneficial to my students? And then, when we received all the materials a month before school was out, I was overwhelmed. There was SO. MUCH. STUFF! And there was even more stuff online! I didn't even know where to begin!

Fortunately, my school gave us 4 collaboration days after the kids were gone to really delve into Wonders (and Mastery Connect as well...but that's a different story).  So after setting up shop in the faculty room, the investigation into Wonders and what it would look like in my classroom began.

The first thing I noticed (besides the amount of stuff) were the teaching manuals. There are 6 units that go throughout the year. Our principal has asked that we teach the first unit with fidelity, so I really took a look at the teacher's edition of the first unit. 

I noticed that each week there were certain things that we covered like

• An essential question (different from an essential standard)
• Genre
• Comprehension Strategy
• Comprehension Skill
• Vocabulary Strategy
• Phonics/Word Study/Fluency/Spelling Focus
• Writing Trait 
• Grammar Emphasis

I decided to go through each week, and just type up exactly what we would teach in each week. It ended up looking something like this:

This ended up being really helpful for me, because I went through each week of each unit to figure out what I was supposed to be teaching. I physically turned each of the pages to see what they looked like. As I did that, I realized that although there was still a lot of stuff in this program, it could actually be beneficial to my students. There were plenty of different stories to teach all of the different skills and strategies that my kids needed to learn.

Now, what I typed up was basically the unit overview found at the beginning of each teacher's manual. But I have a deeper understanding of the program now, because I took the time to create ownership of it for me. We do this with our students all the time! We can either give them a multiplication chart and hope they learn what 7x8 is, or they can create the chart for themselves, and have a better chance of learning for themselves what 7x8 is. 

I shared what I had done with my colleagues, but the advice I gave them was to go through the manuals for themselves. I can do the work for them, but it won't mean as much to them. 

Once I went through each page and saw what/how we were teaching, I was then able to start figuring out what I wanted this to look like in my classroom. I decided I wanted to have one of my bulletin boards dedicated to the strategies and skills we would be learning each week. I even created a paper for each of the essential questions. I'm going to print these off and switch them out each week. These will help remind my students what we are focusing on for the week.

Once I get my classroom set up, I'll post more picture about how I use Wonders in my classroom. I know it can be overwhelming, but if your school has adopted this program, I really recommend taking the time to map out what you are expected to teach, and how you want to do it. 

Because it still your classroom. :)

Happy teaching!

Movin' on Up!

Well, my journey in 4th grade is over...and I'm heading up to 6th! Of course, that means I had to move my classroom...uish.  One day I'll stay in the same classroom for more than one year! For now, this is what I get to work with:

My attempts to start cleaning everything up and putting everything away.  Stay tuned for before, during, and after photos

#halfwaythere

The last week has been crazy.  Between trying to squeeze in a division test, a water cycle test, a spelling test, a Christmas party, a Christmas drama skit, Christmas sing, and a bajillion other things, I am more than ready for break.  However, when my kids leave me little notes on the board, I can't help but remember that I really do have the best job ever. #beststudents

Sally has HOW many jellybeans???

One thing I didn't know until I became an education major was there are different kinds of story problems!! I had no idea that teachers could write story problems in different ways to make them easier or more difficult for students to solve!  Who would have thought?? Now that I'm a teacher though, I wanted to see how my students responded to various story problems.  Let me show you what I'm talking about.  For this, I'll use examples from my Addition Scoot game (click HERE for the link) to show the different types of problems.

Easiest: Joint Result Unknown (JRU)
This is the most standard type of addition story problem.  You have both parts of the puzzle, and you just have to join them together, without knowing what the result is.

Medium Difficulty: Part-Part-Whole, Result Unknown (PPW)
This is partially down the spectrum.  You know what the two parts of the whole are, and are looking for the result.

More Difficult: Separate Start Unknown (SSU)
In these problems, the number at the start is not given.  We are given the second number, or the change, as well as the result.  Instinctively, we would think subtraction at first.  In order to solve this, addition is arguably a more efficient way to find the answer.

More Difficult: Compare-Quantity Unknown (CQU)
These questions involve thinking about who has what, and how those numbers compare to each other.  In the problem below, we know how many athletes China sent, and we know how many more than China the USA sent, but we do not know how many the USA sent.

There are other types of story problems, especially when you get into subtraction, multiplication and division.  These are the types of problems that use addition to help compute the answer.  If you have any questions, leave me a comment and I'll do my best to help clarify!

Thanks!

How to Talk to Girls

One of my boys checked this book out during our library time last Tuesday.  It then made its way around to some of his friends in our class.  I'm not quite sure that 4th graders need to worry about this yet, but it cracked me up!

Scoot Over!

After a rather long hiatus from blogging (during my internship), I'm back! I'm excited to be able to share more ideas about what is going on in my classroom as well as learning more from you!

One of my favorite activities to practice math skills is Scoot. This gives my students a chance to practice individually while still having the chance to move. My kids really enjoy this activity! So far, I have 2 Scoot games available in my TPT shop.  Follow me, and I will let you know when I have more products available!

I tried to create these Scoots with differentiation in mind.  My students are at all different levels.  In some task cards, there will be 3 different options.  This allows students to choose which number set they want to use to solve the problem.  This has worked really well with all of my students!

The first one I created was based on division.  This game does have some factors and multiples questions, but the majority are division problems.

Click HERE for Division Scoot.

This Scoot focuses solely on factors & multiples.  There are a few story problems, but the majority are straight math problems.

Click HERE to access this Scoot.

Thanks for stopping by!  I'm just getting into this whole blogging/teaching world, so if you follow me, let me know! I would love to return the favor!

My Major is Better than Your Major

At least that's my opinion.  But you know, I really feel like being a teacher is what I'm supposed to do. 

In my teacher education program, there are classes I love and classes that I don't...quite....love.  It is interesting, because the classes that I love are the classes that keep me engaged.  We play with play dough, we paint, we dance, we make connections to the world around us.  Our teachers and professors know us, they love us, and they want us to succeed.  They are enthusiastic and excited to teach us.  The classes that I don't quite love, well, it's a lot of listening to lecture.  Which I find kind of ironic because that's exactly what they tell us NOT to do as teachers...  

After spending time in the schools doing practicum/student teaching work, I've seen good teachers and not-so-good teachers.  It just motivates me even more to want to be the best teacher I can be, and to never stop trying to improve myself.  

And just to show you just what we've been working on in my Early Childhood Education Methods class (one of the classes I love!), here are a couple of pictures! :)

We learned how to draw/paint flowers!  Now, I don't really consider myself an artist per se, but I think these turned out pretty well!  It's amazing what a little scaffolding can help you accomplish. 

And of course, what better place to put my amazing painting of flowers than on my fridge, where all of my roommates can see!  Really, I do have the best major!