A Little of This and a Little of That

Busy, busy, busy just about sums up my winter so far.  A snow day here, another snow day there, too.  I took a bunch of pictures before I left my classroom today because upon looking up from my table I thought to myself, "There's a lot going on here!"  As a result, this post was born.

I'm really liking my new part of my dry erase board where I "post" my objectives.  Before, I had them typed out and would switch them out of clear pocket charts--a real pain.  They had to be refiled which means they were kept in a pile.  To fix this, I hung some letters with ribbon and clothespins.  I added a border and magnetic signs for each subject and viola.  I can erase and change my "We Can!" statements in just a few seconds.  Waaaaay easier.

We are well into our Lucy Calkins unit on Opinion Writing--I'm a big fan of her ideas, her language and her overall philosophy on how to teach writing.  The only problem I have, though, is that I have no more room to hang her anchor charts!  Completely out of room this afternoon, I had no choice but to hang a chart on my bookshelf--it's actually the perfect fit.  Don't you think?

  

On my writing bulletin board we are still enjoying our New Year's project of mine--"Ringing in the New Year."  Our resolutions are not only radiant.  They look pretty nice on display.  Check out this item by clicking HERE.

In science, we are studying matter.  In particular, we are learning about changing states.  We have two ongoing experiments with evaporation happening in our classroom.  Both are so easy and oh so interesting.  Today is day 73 of our evaporating orange water experiment.  All we did was fill an old snack jar with water and food coloring and made predictions on how many days it would take for the water to completely evaporate.  We have been marking its evaporation every so often.  Here's what we have so far.  Boy, this is taking much longer than I had expected.  You can see by my guess of 80 days.

We also started an evaporation race.  I put an equal amount of water in four different containers with four different sized openings.  I measured the water right in front of my young scientists.  We made predictions as to which container would cause the water to evaporate the quickest.  We are watching carefully for the winner.

Moments ago, I uploaded my newest item--  A Bloom's Taxonomy Jar.  I put color coded prompts for each of Bloom's level on large craft sticks in a spray-painted, recycled can (I added some fun accents).  I haven't used these yet, but I plan to send my students off with a prompt to write about after a guided reading lesson.  We will see how this works.  You may get this item by visiting my TpT store or by clicking HERE.  It also comes with a ladder visual to use in explicit instruction regarding the levels of questioning.

Well that's all my pictures.  I hope you have been able to be inspired!  

Diary of My Mathematics Center Makeover

An itch for spring cleaning combined with the new Common Core State Standards for Mathematics put me to work throughout the month of February.  My goal was to give my Mathematics Center a makeover consisting of the following.

               1.  Updated Content:  The Common Core requires that I teach some new terminology and concepts such as the associative property of addition, and that students utilize a 120 Grid as opposed to a Hundred Grid, for example.  Also, some concepts are now deemed no longer appropriate for the first grade.

               2.  Less Clutter:  My bulletin board in my center-- although colorful and rich in appropriate content-- was very busy.  I found that my students rarely used the visuals without me prompting that helpful content was up on the board.  Furthermore, the table had hardly any room for the students to write on it or use it for centers.

               3.  Better Storage:  I wanted to be able to house more manipulatives in an organized, uniform way that was easy to identify where each manipulative was located.  I wanted a clean look.

               4.  More Usage:  I wished for there to be a way for my students to access the information on the bulletin board other than trying to see it from their desks or getting up and down, and up again, to find what they were seeking.

The results are finished!  Check out these two before pics.  I loved the center as is but wanted it to be even better.  Notice the busy bulletin board and crowded table.

Mathematics Center Before

Table Before

Here is my Mathematics Center after...drumroll please...

New and Improved Mathematics Center

One of the things that you may notice is how I tossed the mix and match bins and bought matching bins.  This made the same amount of "stuff" look less cluttered.  Here you see my find at a local Big Lots.  Gotta love those closeouts!  By creating labels for the bins, everything has a spot and everything is easy to locate.

Each of the posters you see on my bulletin board is now copied and laminated multiple times and stored in our Math Tool Box.  This way if someone wants a money or greater than and less than poster, they can just take the visual and bring it to their seats.  In the Tool Box are my new colorful 120 Grids, too.

I also updated my Estimation Station which includes a jar, a binder to record past estimates (for students to use for strategy purposes), record sheets for student estimates and a bin in which students place their completed estimates.

I also made a banner for the Math Center and used colorful clothespins and ribbon to hang it.

All the posters, labels, banner, 120 grids, estimation materials and more are featured in my newest item.   I cleverly titled it Common Core All in One Math Center.  You can click here to get it.  Now that my Mathematics Center has had it's makeover, I'm off to tackle the supply cart--the Mathematics Center's neighbor.  Wish me luck.