Flipping Kindergarten

Hi friends! Well,  I am back from a wonderful month of vacation and I am super excited about school starting up soon!  I have been into my room and have the furniture out and arranged. (Actually, I made my teenage sons arrange it!  heehee)  Now I am thinking about where and how to go from here.  Over the past year, I have really been contemplating the idea of flipped classrooms.  I am really jazzed about the idea and have been trying to think of ways to accomplish that goal in kindergarten.  Last year, I assigned reading homework via edmodo.  This year,  I think I am going to try some at home letter/sound instruction videos. Every year my team sends home handwriting homework and asks the kids to find/think of things for a particular letter and draw a picture.  We also always have questions from parents asking about the "No More Letter of the Week" letter sound poems. It is difficult to explain the poems to the parents without giving a mini-workshop so, with that said,  I decided that if they could see me demonstrate, it might help. Basically, I just used my webcam to record the video and then uploaded it to you tube.  I know it is not the most technologically advanced production and it is really weird and embarrassing to see myself on the video but if it helps the digital natives...I will get over it!  I have uploaded one letter video as an example and I hope you enjoy it.  If you have any other ideas for flipping K,  I would love to hear about them!

Ellen

Pet Peeve! I don't have that book!

One of the biggest pet peeves that I have during the school year is finding a great lesson from a colleague or a resource and  then not having the book that goes with it. I have an extensive classroom library (I think I am up to about 800 books) but somehow I don't always have the book that I want or need.  Sure,  I borrow some from our school library but sometimes it is already checked out or they don't have it.  I also spend a ton of money each year buying books to "complete" my collection.    I have used some sites in the past like discovery education and storylineonline.  Sometimes, I have time to scan books and I have also used my elmo to project books that I do have up onto my smartboard.  This year, over the summer, I have decided to look for some of my needed books on internet video.  I started by making a you tube playlist for each workshop.  I wanted to share my reader's workshop and writer's workshop playlists for the first grading period.  Hope you enjoy!

Ellen

Subitizing Freebee!

I love the pace of summer time! It gives me time to slow down and really get into some of the projects/creations that I do not have time to do during the school year.  One of my goals for the summer was to recreate my subitizing flash cards in a smart notebook file.  Last year, since I got a wonderful wall mounted smartboard,  I switched to doing calendar on the smartboard exclusively.  One of my calendar activities was some quick subitizing "flash card" drill.  This year, I want to have a notebook file that can be imbedded in my calendar notebook and played independently in math stations.  I have made a quick version and uploaded my very first creation on Teacher pay Teachers.  Hop on over and get a free download.

; ?>

Solving Exemplars: Low tech + High tech

This year I really  wanted to embrace using math exemplars with my kinder kiddos.  I was also lucky enough to have great new technology in my room like my smartboard.  Trying to integrate this technology with the hands on, manipulative learning that my kids need has been and continues to be a goal of mine.  This week I wanted to share how we used our math exemplars along with manipulatives, the smartboard, and our journals to do some amazing problem solving and recording!

The first thing that I did was to post the exemplar problem on the smartboard.  I have math first thing in the morning, so the kids came into the room, unpacked and then began to decode the problem.  They are allowed to help each other decode the problem while I help students finish coming in.  Here is the problem.

Dylan has a box of craft sticks.  Dylan needs 100 craft sticks to make a toy boat. Dylan puts his sticks into groups of 10.  Dylan has eight groups. Does Dylan have enough sticks to make a toy boat?  Show and tell how you know.

After everyone is unpacked and has had a chance to decode the problem. We met together as a whole group.  We used shared reading to decode the problem together. We then used the colored pens to mark the information that we thought would be helpful in solving the problem. I used to do this on chart paper but it is so much fun to do it on the smartboard now!)  I use name sticks to call on students to come up and highlight/circle the information.  We always start by circling the question in green.  We always want to know what is the problem asking us to do, first. We also write down what type of answer we will be finding.  In this case it was a "yes" or "no".

Next, we continued our "highlighting" by marking the words that gave us data/information.  We look for number words and words that tell us what is happening.

After we circled and reviewed this information as a whole group,  math partners went and got out their designated math tub for the day.  There is a chart in my room that tells the partners which manipulative tub is their choice.  They took those tubs to a work space on the floor and used their manipulatives to solve the problem.  At this point,  I walk around and listen to their "math talk".  I do not offer solutions.  I stop and ask them to explain their thinking.  This particular problem really let me know who needed help in grouping by 10's!  I also use this opportunity to record their learning with my camera.  I then upload the pictures to evernote to keep as a record of their learning.  For the sake of time,  I will post a picture of one group's solution.

After each group has come up with a solution, we do a gallery walk of everyone's solutions.  We then meet back together on the carpet to discuss our solutions.  We debate over what is right and wrong.  We discuss why certain solutions are right or wrong.  If necessary, I can put the pictures of the solutions up onto the smartboard to compare.  Here is a screen shot of our analysis of the solution above.

After this, we decide on a solution statement and I used modeled writing this time to record it on the smartboard.

The last thing that we do is to record our thinking in our journals. I love having the documentation up on the smartboard so that we have a record to refer back to!  The kids love to see their work being displayed as a solution.  This is also helpful when we have to do our journal recording at a later time.

So there you have it...  Solving math exemplars with both hands-on  manipulatives and smartboard technology.  Hope you enjoy it!

Google Docs... Wow!

Wow!  I have been gone for a while and I have been having quite the month.  Several unfortunate events have happened to our family back to back and it has really taken up alot of my time.  What I will say is that I have come to love my Google Docs!  A while ago, I transferred my school documents to Google Docs and boy, did it come in handy this last week.  While I was sitting in the Emergency Room,  (my husband needed emergency gallbladder sugery)  I needed to send my sub plans to my team leader.  Of course,  the only device that I had with me at the time was my phone.  I wasn't sure that it would work but I was more than pleasantly surprised that I could locate, update, and send my sub plans from Google Docs to my team leader with just my android phone!  What a great resource!

Teacher organization part 2

One of the things that I dread every year is organizing parent volunteers.  There are so many events to coordinate throughout the year and there are many many parents who would love to give up their valuable time to come up and help.  Field trips, science lab, carnival, class parties, parent readers, parent teacher conferences...  you get the picture.  In the past,  I have given some of the sign up jobs to my homeroom mom and sometimes I have done them all.  Very often, I became overwhelmed with keeping track of all the dates.  This year I decided to try sign up genius.  Wow!  Can I say how much I love this?  I created sign ups for all my different needs and then asked the parents to sign up for what they wanted.  I sent the link out by emails and I posted the links to my website.  Gotta love technology that makes life a little easier!

http://www.signupgenius.com/

Ahhhh! End of the Year Chaos!

Wow!  It has been a couple of weeks since I have posted!  We were sorting out a family emergency and it has sure been a whirlwind couple of weeks.  It is a crazy time of year.  As the year is winding down, i am always overwhelmed by the amount of paperwork and meetings and other things that come up at the end of a school year.  I have decided that I am going to spend the next couple of posts talking about technology that helps me try to stay on top of all this craziness! I am by no means an expert and I would also love to hear from others about what they use to help manage their chaos. :)

This week I want to talk about Evernote.  I just started using this program a couple months ago and I absolutely LOVE it.  I have it downloaded on my home computer,  my android phone, and on my school computer (YES.... it wasn't blocked by our filter!)  With evernote,  I am able to create all sorts of notes and categorize them.  For example... I have created folders for each subject at school.  I also have created tags for each student.  Let's say that Joey has done poorly on an addition math recording sheet in math stations.  He was supposed to use manipulatives to act out a subtraction problem then he was supposed to draw a picture of his manipulatives and record the subtraction number sentence that describes picture.  Instead,  Joey recorded an addition number sentence rather than subtraction.  Clearly Joey needs some small group or one on one reteaching.  In the past,  I would have either kept his recording sheet OR I would have to run to the copy machine, make a copy, send the original home, blah,blah, blah...  Not now!  with evernote, I take out my phone, snap a picture of the recording sheet, create a note, tag it with Joey's name and file it in the math folder.  Now I can search on any device that I have evernote on and my note with pictures and annotations will be available.  I can also add the reteaching evidence to the note when I am finished!  Super easy and convenient for paper phobic people like me!  I have used evernote to bring evidence to ARDs, planning meetings, and to make to do lists!  I absolutely love it and I hope to become more and more paperless.

www.evernote.com