Using a Map for an Inquiry Based Learning Pre-Assessment: Natural Disasters

Our weather unit has been so much fun with a ton of hands on inquiry labs.  I wanted to share an activity that I used as we began our unit.  This is easy to complete in your classroom and tons of fun for your students.  What I really like about it is that you can use the activity as a pre-assessment of their basic knowledge without using a test.  Although I think graphic organizers like K-W-L charts are great activities, this map activity was different, and I saw a lot of engagement in my students.

Disaster Maps
A few days before I began our study of natural disasters I had students format a natural disaster map.  I divided my students into groups and gave each group a large world map and dot stickers.  I asked them to place stickers on the map to represent where they thought tornadoes, hurricanes and snow storms might be located.

We also placed a smaller version of this map in our interactive science notebooks and color coded it with colored pencils.  It was amazing to listen to the discussion and conversations my students had.  Their reasoning for placement is what I was really interested in listening to. It gave me a great idea of what misconceptions we might have going into the unit.  I gave my students about 15 minutes to place their dots, and prepare their justifications.  Each group was able to present their thinking, and we had a discussion about what we agreed and disagreed about.

Being on the Gulf Coast it was amazing to see that there were some groups who didn't place hurricane dots in our city or the Gulf of Mexico, some even had tornadoes placed in the Northeast, which rarely sees them.  This activity is a perfect pre-assessment for concepts!!  I had a really clear path as we moved forward, and was able to hone in on some key concept ideas that my students were lacking.

I would love to hear about other pre-assessment or inquiry based tools that you use in your classroom.  Thanks for stopping by to visit today!

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Graphing on the Coordinate Grid-- Interactive Candy Style {Mid-Week Math Motivation}

My students and I had the best time practicing quadrants and ordered pairs with this candy graphing game!  It was easy to set up, my students LOVED playing-- giving up their break time for extra chances, and I had almost 100% mastery on this section of my assessment!  I'd call that a Win-Win in any situation!

The Set Up:
Find a space in your school or classroom where you can set up a grid.  I used a wall in our cafeteria because the blocks were already marked, but you could use a classroom wall, playground or sidewalk.  I was originally planning to draw a grid outside, but we've been experiencing some cold weather, so I had to make a change in plans.  Using the cafeteria actually worked out well.  Other classes were really intrigued by what we were doing.  I had a lot of students wish they were sixth graders!  Our custodian even gave me the roll of painters tape!

The goal is to make the grid 6x6.  You could use a single quadrant, or make all four quadrants.  You need to use a 6x6 grid because students will roll dice to find their ordered pair.  Once I had the grid set up, I taped candy bags to coordinates.  I wanted to make the game pretty enticing so I put several candies in a bag, and used a lot of them.  But you could tape individual pieces up if you wanted.  I would do this if I was setting the grid up on my classroom wall.  It would be perfect in a math centers rotation.  Use small candies like lollipops, or fruit snacks etc.  If your school doesn't allow candy treats as prizes, try pencils, homework passess, extra book raffle tickets, etc.  

I also use four giant dice.  Two of them are designated as negative and the other two for positive numbers.  Here is an example from Amazon: (Link is the picture)

(These are listed at 5.99 and you get a set of 2)

 

Playing the Game:
The basic purpose of the game is to get students to practice finding ordered pairs and identifying quadrants on the coordinate grid.  Students decide which candy bag they would like to go for.  They must identify the ordered pair where it lies, and then I had the rest of the class tell the quadrant.  My students then rolled the die.  If the first number wasn't correct, they got to decide the chance they have of getting candy on another ordered pair with the same x- integer.. bringing in statistics and ratios!  WOOT WOOT!

This lesson was also great for error analysis.  I put a couple of candy bags directly onto the y-axis. The ordered pair would be something like (3,0).  This would be an impossible roll for my students to make because of course there is no zero on the die.  But I didn't tell them this!  I waited for someone to figure it out, or chose a candy bag on the y-axis.  Of course it happens, and it was an AMAZING way to discuss how and why this could not be a choice!

I gave my students who didn't win a few other chances, but not everyone walked away a winner.  That is another great life lesson!  This was a perfect way to work through so many different sections of our integers unit.  It was interactive, engaging, and fun.. I mean who doesn't love candy prizes!
Thanks for joining me for a little Mid-Week Math Motivation!

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Mardi Gras Celebrations in the Classroom

We had a such a fun day celebrating Mardi Gras!  I love when the whole city is excited to celebrate.

I started out the day by giving all of my students several beads to wear.  As they entered my classroom I had fun Zydeco music playing from Pandora.  My students could tell we were in for a great day of fun and learning.  This year I only had a half day with them, we had PD in the afternoon, but I wanted to keep them active and learning, and celebrating!

I set up three different centers to rotate through.  At thirty minutes per station this was a perfect amount.  I also had library and PE, and brunch before leaving.

Center #1:  Mardi Gras Float Board Game:  We have been studying integers, and I wanted my students to practice positive and negative integer phrases.  Students chose a card from the pile, read it out loud, and the group declared if it was a positive or negative integer. All of the cards have a Mardi Gras theme, and the kids loved moving their parade floats to the finish line.  I used bingo chips for markers, but I think I'll be on the look out for tiny cars or Mardi Gras themed hats or masks for future play.  One great thing about this game is that you don't HAVE to use it for integers.  You could just play the game reading the cards.  We happen to be studying integers, so it was perfect for us!

One of the other activities I love with these cards is a sorting task.  Several of my students had a lot of fun just sorting the task cards into positive and negative integers.  They were so proud to put these together!

Center #2:  Number Sense Mardi Gras themed Mental Math Computation:  Our next center was also math related.  I need my students practicing as much mental math computation as possible.  These differentiated task cards give students 4-6 directions to solve a computation problem.  The first set is just addition and subtraction related.  I use a lot of different words for these operations so it is perfect vocabulary practice as well.  The second set includes all four operations, and the last 10 cards include all four operations as well as exponents or questions that include statements similar to "go to the sum of the digits."  

Students can use a hundreds board for help if they need to, as well as a dry erase board.  They love to challenge each other with the more difficult cards, and my more capable students timed each other to see who could get the correct answer the fastest. 

I also love keeping these cards handy for when we have a few extra minutes before heading to a special class, lunch or buses.  When I use them with my whole class they are perfect to practice listening skills as well!

Center #3: The History of Mardi Gras:  Of course I had to sneak in a little reading lesson as well in during the center rotation!  I found a great FREE article from Fourth Grade Shenanigans about the History of Mardi Gras {HERE}. I printed it multiple sheets to a page and added a cover from clipart that I had to make a booklet.  My students did a close read activity with my student teacher, completing a cold read to make connections and practice internal comprehension, then they discussed text structure and historical evidence.  

I had them write down 9 interesting facts on round circles to represent Mardi Gras beads, and we cut them out and created necklaces on construction paper.  I loved their small group interaction with my student teacher.  She will begin teaching lessons soon, and this was a perfect opportunity for her to get to know my students better.

I also had a few students who could not attend PE, so I gave them an added bonus center to complete.  This one was Mardi Gras Float Fractions.  It practiced finding equivalent fractions and percentages by answering 10 questions.  When the questions were answered my students had to draw and color a parade float with the correct information included.  Here is an example:

I think this was one of their favorites, and I had several students who asked me for copies to take home over the weekend!  YAY.. they WANTED to do math!!

Our Mardi Gras Celebration wouldn't be complete without MOON PIES!  I had gotten a TON of them over the weekend at a Mardi Gras parade my family had gone to, so of course they had to come into school for my Smarties.  We had enough for everyone to have 2 moon pies, and they were so funny about flavors.  Banana was definitely the favorite.  I considered doing a graphing activity, but knew I wouldn't have time, so I added my idea to my planning list for next year.

Do you celebrate Mardi Gras in your classroom?  I would love to hear the ways you celebrate.  If you are interested, the above mentioned MATH GAMES are bundled together in my store.  They are ON SALE through Fat Tuesday if you want to start the week with a little celebration!

Laissez les bons temps rouler!--- 

Let the good times roll!

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Equivalent Fractions with a Freebie {Mid-Week Math Motivation}

Hello friends!  One of my goals for 2016 is to get back into blogging more consistently.  I'm going to try and create a post mid-week (Wednesday or Thursday) that shares something I've found in math that has been helpful. My goal is to do this at least twice per month.  If I end up with 3 or even <gasp> FOUR times, awesome.. pat me on the back!  But twice is a good way for me to start.  The post  might be about a website, book, video, product, freebie or idea that I found useful, and I want to pass it on to you!

This week I've been reviewing Equivalent Fractions with my Smarties.  I have a little more work to do to wrap up dividing fractions before moving into decimals, but my kids are struggling with creating equal fractions when we review.  I always like to start my fractions unit by creating equal fractions out of construction paper.  You can read a blog post I wrote about this {HERE}.  This year I was really pressed for time before break, and I skipped over having students create posters of equal fractions.  BOY DO I REGRET THIS!  My kids can not think of equal fractions at all!  So here I am back at equal fractions, picking up the pieces of where I should have started the unit.

We began again with making anchor charts of equivalent fractions-- what is equal to  one and one half, one whole, one half, one fourth, and one third.

I divided my students up into groups of 5-6 and had them complete a gallery walk around my classroom.  They had about a minute at each poster.  They had to keep writing as many equal fractions as they could think of, but they could not duplicate any fractions that had already been written.

I did let them take their interactive notebooks with them because our fraction bars are glued in there, and I have many visual learners.  I love listening to their group conversations as they pass work at each chart.  Many started to notice mistakes.... I mean hello?  2/3 is equal to 4/12? This  was AMAZING because that was where I was headed next!
After we did the gallery walk through each poster I sent them back through again with a two minute time limit.  They had to find any mistakes on the poster and complete an error analysis telling what was incorrect, and then correcting the fraction.

This is what I think the best part of the lesson it, most definitely!

I finished this activity by giving my students a sheet with equivalent fraction cards.  They had to match the equivalent fractions and glue them into their interactive notebooks.

If you don't use interactive notebooks have students do them on a large sheet of paper and show you the results.

I let my students work together in pairs to complete this activity.  Fractions are always less scary with a buddy!  This activity gave me a great way to do a quick formative assessment of equivalent fractions and keeping them in an interactive notebook is a great reference tool.  Hang up a large sheet in your classroom as an anchor chart if you need a quick reference. If you want to use this activity with your students, feel free to download it {HERE}

Have a great week!

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2015: A Year in Review

Happy New Year's Eve my friends!  Did you sleep in today so you can be wide awake at midnight and celebrating the start of 2016?  I always love this time of year because it gives me an opportunity to reflect and think about my life in general.  I always like a new beginning, and in education we seem to get two of them.  One in August or September when the new school year starts, and one in January with the new year!  I've spent some time thinking about 2015, which has brought some tremendous changes in my life.  I wanted to share a few moments with you.  Some are personal, some are educational, well... that's just me.

2105 was a year of Travel:
I spent most of the summer traveling with my daughter and her softball team.  They had an opportunity to play is Louisiana, Disney's ESPN Wide World of Sports, Atlanta, Montgomery, and Tennessee.  As a result, we stayed in a few amazing places, met up with wonderful friends that we hadn't seen in a few years, and explored the TN mountains.

I'm sure this summer will bring even more travel.  I hope that some of it will be back in the Northeast!


2015 was a year of Science Mastery:
I spent two weeks of my summer delving a little more deeply into my science curriculum.  I worked with my teammate and read over/ completed several labs that I'm looking forward to doing with my students this spring.

Going to Tennessee and walking through several of the caves gave me great motivation to work on my Rocks and Minerals unit.  We have been working on incorporating reading across our curriculum, and creating informative articles and interactive notebook activities for my science units has really helped me become a better science teacher.  My students have enjoyed science MUCH more this year too.  We loved mining for minerals and finding tons of gems!

2015 was a year of Math PLT:
I am the PLT at my school for sixth grade math.  I've really enjoyed meeting with other teachers across our county to learn how they are teaching certain curriculum sections in their classrooms, and to share what I am finding works with my students as well.  Lately I've really been trying to use my small group time as much as possible to meet with students who are missing small individual skills. We've been playing a lot of games like this interactive fraction review game

 and using our Scoot and Compute cards.  

I like these because I can differentiate them easily.  My high kids can work on skills that are challenging in groups on their own, while my other lower groups can work on easier numbers, and I can gradually increase their computation and math language skills.

I also spent time talking to my PLT about increasing math language.  I shared these Conversation Cards with them.  They are FREE in my TpT store if you would like to use them in your classroom.

2015 was a year of Friendships:
I loved being able to meet up with many of my BBBs this year at the TpT Conference, and with my softball travels.  These people really inspire me to be a better teacher and friend.  I have had moments where their positive energy and support has really been what has gotten me through some tough situations, and I am forever grateful that I took the chance and began blogging.

Thank you to my readers whom I have not met!  I appreciate that you stop by with your Coffee Cup to sip and read!  One of my goals is to become more consistent with blogging in 2016.  I hope you will continue on this journey with me.  Happy New Year!!

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Using Interactive Games for Whole and Small Group Fraction Work

The main focus of our Fraction unit is to teach students how to interpret and compute quotients of fractions and solve word problems involving the division of word problems {isn't that a MOUTHFUL!} These Smarties have to understand how to read and draw models that represent their work.  In order to be successful at drawing division models, students need to be successful at understanding equivalent fractions.  Recently, I wrote a post about creating your own fraction bar kits and using them to find equivalent fractions.  You can go {HERE} and check it out.  This type of work is really important in getting your students to understand the need for finding equal fractions and common denominators.  In order to maintain the solid grasp of these concepts as we moved into model division drawing, we play Fraction Pop Ups.  I had a few emails asking me to share a little more about this interactive game, so I've written this post.  Hopefully, it will help you out!

First I play this game as an entire class.  I project one set of cards onto my smart board, and students use dry erase boards and markers to work the problem, talking in pairs as they go.

I love the organization that my students have.  I think it is really important to play interactive center games with students first before setting them free in groups.  They get an audio version of the directions, I can clarify any misconceptions, and they have a chance to see what my expectations are for the game.  As we play the game together, I always point out when I see a student who has organized their work in a meaningful way.  It helps my students who seem to always have organization issues get an idea of how to manage their white boards.

Fraction Pop Ups helps students reduce fractions to lowest terms, so it reviews GCF, and then students must solve several addition and subtraction problems using a common denominator.  This helps me out when I ask them to create equivalent fractions in model drawing.

Once we have played the game together as a class, I set it up as a center during my small group time.  Finally, I have students complete a pencil and paper set as a formative assessment.  You could also use this as a bulletin board display, or as another center.

This game can also be played in teams.  Sometimes I break students into groups and line them up with their white boards.  The first person starts and must answer the first question, then he/she passes their answer to person 2 who must use the answer to finish their question, and so on.  The team that finishes first with all the correct answers is the winner.

Interactive Games always provide lots of options for play.  They keep students moving, and more importantly TALKING to each other about MATH.  If you are interested, I have several interactive games you can check out:
Fraction Pop Ups
S'more work with Combining Like Terms
Algebra Cool Down
Hoppin Round the Hundreds Board

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