Patterning-Math Stretches

Not too much to say today...report cards have tuckered me out these last few weeks. It seems like the holidays never even happened! But here are some pics of the patterning math stretches we have been doing lately. Enjoy.

The writing of report cards...

Today's plan.

Coffee. Lots!

Learning skills and anecdotal records.

Assessments and report card comments.

Planning? Hopefully.

Writing a Recount-Assessing Student Writing (Freebie)

My students and I have been working on writing recounts for awhile now. We first looked at examples of the text form, I modelled it in class, we practiced completing our planning organizers and have finally gotten to the final step of writing independent recounts! Whew. 

As I was marking my student's work in preparation for our first reports (yikes!) I thought that some of you might be interested in how I assess student writing. I am always looking for new ways to assess student work in order to provide feedback that will help my students improve their work. 

The first step in writing our recounts was to complete the graphic organizer that helps us to plan our ideas.

Click on the image above to download your FREEBIE recount plan. I always resize the page onto ledger (14" x 17") when I copy it for my students so they have enough room to write.

This is an example of a complete recount plan. Once the students have complete the plan to their satisfaction then we have a conference to discuss their plan and to ensure they understand the next steps.

During this unit we started working on looking for places to add extra details into our writing as we moved from a plan to written sentences/paragraphs. To help guide my students in this area I highlighted a few places on their plan where I wanted them to add more details. You can see the highlighted areas in the picture above. 

I know it's difficult to read...but keep going! 

I have a closeup further down in the post. 

Here is an example of my student's complete good copy. Once they had written their ideas out in sentences/paragraphs I gave them a highlighter and asked them to go back and highlight the areas where they added the extra details I asked for. 

This way they are able to see where they improved their work, I can see that they understand this skill and I can easily match up their plan and writing when assessing their work. 

The close-up! 

I asked this student to elaborate on their idea of opening presents and playing with them (obviously a recount about the recent winter break!). 

Here is the highlighted good copy. You can see where the student has added details about her own present, her brother and sister's presents and the time frame in which they played with them.

So impressed!

Now, how do I assess?

Last year I started assessing the majority of my student's work using the four achievement categories outlined in the Ontario Curriculum- Knowledge and Understanding (K), Communication (C), Application (A) and Thinking (T). 

I have found that this really enables me to know a lot of information about my student's abilities and provide a wide range of feedback. 

As I mark I keep quick anecdotal records of the areas of strengths and next steps for improvement. This way I have a record of my own feedback and am able to provide individual comments on my upcoming reports. 

As you can see above, I've left some feedback on my student's writing about what I would like them to work on next time. I also record this in my anecdotal records book. Not a great picture but you get the idea.

When I hand this work back to my students I am going to ask them to read carefully through my feedback and to make some goals for Term 2. In order to do this I am going to use the Glow and Grow strategy I learned about last year.

I first posted about it here.

Then the amazing Jen over at Runde's Room took the idea and just ran with it! I love what she came up with. 

Now that I am teaching Grade 3 (primary students in Ontario) I am going to adapt the strategy a little bit more. 

Here's what I plan to use with my students to have them reflect on their own work of writing a recount. 

And here is a blank one so that you can customize it for your own class/assignment! Click on either image to pick up this FREEBIE.

Well, I'm off to read and relax a little bit. Today was a long day spent marking, preparing for reports and dealing with a two-year old who I think is teething and refuses to nap! I am exhausted and I hear my book calling my name. 

Happy Monday tomorrow. 

P.S.- Like/Love my new Pinterst hover button? Me too! Go here to learn how to get your own. 

Yep, I'm still here!

Sorry for the long absence but I think I got into the groove of the winter break and couldn't seem to shake it off. My husband and I travelled to Mexico for the 2nd week of the holidays for a fellow teacher's wedding and had a great holiday. It was our first time away together since our honeymoon (5 years ago!) and it was the first time we have been away since our daughter was born. Greatly needed!

Speaking of my daughter it was also her 2nd birthday this week...such a big girl now so party plans and presents dominated the week. She is such a darling and we had a wonderful week of dinners with family members. Next week is my husband's birthday so the fun will just continue!

At school we have jumped full into the swing of things...busy, busy, busy. My sample report cards for Term 1 are due on Monday and then I will be writing the full class set of reports over the next few weeks. In order to be able to do all this I still need to finish teaching some things too. We have lots of stuff on the go and I am really hoping (fingers crossed) to be able to post about it soon. 

To give you a little preview, here's whats happening in Grade 3...

- We are full into our 40 Book Challenge with a lot of my students reading a tonne of books over the holidays. We are starting a media/drama project next week where my students will be creating "movie trailers" for various genres using iMovie on the iPad! They are over the moon with excitement.

- Our last Math strand for this term is patterning, just as soon as we finish up with Geometry. Cramming in all the math we can these days.

- In Science we will be starting to build marble mazes as the culminating task for our dual unit on forces and structures/stability.

There is so much on the go these days it's easy to get a little overwhelmed but I will try my best to be posting as often as possible.

I hope you all had a great holiday, a wonderful New Year and a fabulous start to 2013!

Happy Holidays

I hope you had a great holiday with your family. Here's my favourite gift.

Hands of Kindness for Newtown

I really wanted to take a moment and discuss the sad news from Friday with my class this morning but also wanted to do it in an age appropriate way for my Grade 3's. Here's what I came up with...

My students had some questions about the tragic events of Newtown, CN this morning when school started but some of them had not even heard of it happening. We discussed it very briefly. 

I first asked them what they already knew as I didn't want to go into any kind of unnecessary details. Naturally some of them very upset by the events and seemed a little shaken. 

To transition them into a more positive mode I read the book "Whoever You Are" by Mem Fox (love that book!). We talked about the author's message (gotta get a little curriculum in where you can) and they were bang on. I felt very proud.

I talked a little about how the events from Friday made the world feel a little less kind to some people and that many people felt very sad by the events. I explained that I thought we could help by putting more kindness back into the world and paying very close attention to our words and actions. Then we brainstormed as many words that had to do with kindness as possible. 

Look at this impressive list!

And then we made a craft I decided to call Hand of Kindness. I first saw this idea on Pinterest (of course) and adapted it for this important activity.

Here's a look at how some of them turned out...pretty powerful, I think.

I am so proud of my students today and the touching memorial they created for the students, teachers and families of Newton. 

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

Thoughts...

As I sit here on the couch listening to my small baby girl soothe herself to sleep with the lullabies on her glow worm, I am at a loss for what to do.

How do we begin to process this tragedy? How can I help now?
Who needs a hug?

I didn't want to leave my baby's room tonight. I wanted to stay there and hold her all night long. I couldn't bear to not be touching her all evening long, or to have her out of my sight.

I am sending my warmest thoughts to the families affected by this horrific event. I am so sorry for your loss and your pain.

Please, dear God. Let us learn from this. P

12 in 12

I am thinking about taking some time for me and enjoying the upcoming holiday season. For the first time my parents will be coming to MY house for the holidays (yeah!! no car trips with a baby and a dog), plus my husband and I will be travelling to Mexico for a colleague's wedding over New Years. Double fun.

As we lead up to the holidays, however, things have turned ugly here in Ontario, Canada. We have been fighting legislation by our government since the summer that removes teacher's (and many unions) right to strike, we have had a contract forced upon us by the provincial government with no opportunities to negotiate. The legislation itself has 2 clauses written in that put it above the law and make it illegal to appeal using any of our Human Rights or Labour Relations laws. Scary stuff.

So here we are, in December. My union is on work to rule which means that we are not participating in any voluntary activities at school outside of our contractual obligations to teach. No sports. No clubs. No meetings. No lots of stuff. There are also rotating strikes throughout the provinces for all of the different school boards.

And yes, it's still the holiday season.

So this may be my last post until 2013. Maybe.

I want to be positive. I want to create cute stuff. I want to share my ideas.

But it's hard to look forward with any sort of positive feelings right now. I know this will pass. I know it will get better. Or not. But it will end.

For right now though, looking back on 2012 seems like a lot more fun.

12. Favourite movie you watched:

So hard to say...I used to watch so many and now I watch so few.
I definitely loved The Hunger Games.

11. Favourite TV series:

Modern Family! Laugh out loud. Every time.

10. Favourite restaurant:

Hmmmmm...again that's a hard one. There's a great italian place here in my town that I've only been to once but it was great.

9. Favourite new thing you tried:

Running. I've lost a lot of inches, had to buy new clothes and feel great.

8. Favourite gift you got:

I will be getting an amazing purple leather purse for Christmas. It's that soft, buttery leather that smells soooo good.
I can't wait!

7. Favourite thing you pinned:

Anything to do with my knitting! I have more projects than I will ever be able to finish. 
That and crockpot oatmeal. It changed my life. 

6. Favourite blog post:

Interactive Reading Portfolio...the numbers on the post astound me. 

5. Best accomplishment:

Being a working mom. Running a 5k. Changing grades. Again.

4. Favourite picture:

3. Favourite memory:

Any moment I spent with my daughter.

2. Goal for 2013:

Baby #2?

1. One Little Word:
choose joy
(it's 2 words, but hey, it's my blog!)


Here's to a happy new year for all. 

More information on the situation in Ontario, for those who are interested:

The Letter I Can't Send to My Students

Battle with Government

Bill 115 Unsupportable

Attack on Civil Liberties

A Sleigh Full of Goodies- Day 12

Wow...Day 12 already! Thanks so much for visiting and blog hopping with us during the last 12 days. I hope you were able to find something useful, helpful or just fun for your class!

SOS Supply is back again for our last blog hop and what a fabulous post it is! 

I have some great stuff I have been working on as well. It's not winter-y or Christmas-y but I hope you like it anyway. 

My class and I have been working on learning about the different genres of books and are just about ready to start our 40 Book Challenge...actually, I will be introducing it to them tomorrow! I can't wait.

Click on each of the images below to pick up your own copy of this freebie.

This is a brief introduction and title page for my students. It's geared towards what I hope to do with my class so it may not work exactly for you, but it might be useful as an informational resource. 

This is tracking chart that my students will be using to track the books that they are reading throughout the challenge. I have made a certain number of the genres required reading but have also left a lot of room for their own choice. 

I am hoping to spend some time with my students talking about the books they are reading and teach them how to give and get recommendations for reading. The librarian and I are working on an integrated media/drama project where my students will be using iPads to create a short movie about choosing books based on genres and how to know what genre a book is. We started today by teaching them how to use Novelist to search for books based on their genre. 

Thanks again for dropping by through out the 12 days of goodies. Happy Holidays!!