Five for Friday: 11-15-13

Wow, has it been a week!  I've been waiting for Friday all week, but the unfortunately the weekend isn't going to bring much rest.  One of my teammates lost her son tragically this week and we have all been in mourning.  The funeral is tomorrow and it will probably be one of the hardest things I have ever had to be a part of.  Please keep their family in your thoughts and prayers.

Now, Praise the Lord that it's Friday and time for Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

I gave my little girl her first haircut this week!  She's not even one yet, but it was looking rough. She was born with a ton of hair that stuck straight up and has always had a little mullet action going on in the back.  Well I cut off the "rattail" and trimmed her bangs!  She's looks like such a big girl now!

My kids tackled long multiplication this week like champions!  I'm so proud of all of their strategies and how much their persevered through each problem I gave them!  Here they are doing a gallery walk analyzing their peers' strategies for the problem 15 x 8.

I love all the cocked heads as they are looking at the problems!

We did our first science experiment of the year this week!  It went great and the kids loved it! Skittles and science... who wouldn't love it???!!!!

 I wrote more about it here.

Kidblog is my new favorite tool to use in the classroom!

We have been blogging in class for the last three weeks and the kids are so engaged with it!  They get to practice their typing skills, writing skills, share their work with a broader audience, and they love to comment on each other's posts!  I wrote about Educreations on Tuesday, and we have been using Kidblog to share links to our problem solving solutions in Educreations!  They work great together and the kids love watching each other solve the same problem.

Wednesday I got to participate in a writing group with some other teachers.  My husband was part of the National Writing Project 4 years ago and still gets together with some of the other participants to write.  Over the past 2 years or so, I have joined him on occasion for the socialization and the chance to improve my writing.  I'm not a great writer, but blogging is really helping me find my voice.  My hubby came up with the prompt where we had to brainstorm 3 roads that had significance in our life and give a short discription of each.  Then we had to pick two of the roads and make them into one minor character and one major character in whatever piece you chose to write.  This was hard for me, but I got something down on paper.  It's nice to feel like a real person doing something fun with other educators that doesn't involve talking about standards or testing.

Science with Candy: Skittles Experiment

I'm absolutely loving this Intro to Science unit from Melissa over at More Time 2 Teach!

In Arkansas 20% of your science instruction is supposed to be hands on, otherwise known as experiments.  Yesterday and today my kiddos completed the Skittles Experiment from the Unit above.  The problem/question for the experiment is "In which liquid does the candy coating dissolve the fastest - soda, cold water, or hot water?" The kids hypothesized which liquid they thought would dissolve the candy coating the fastest, and then the experiment commenced!  

{Insert overload of pictures}

So with my first class yesterday to save time, we did all three cups at the same time.  I also forgot to have them measure the temperature of the water (oops!).  We used an online stopwatch on the smartboard because I didn't have enough stop watches for each group.

With my other class I actually followed all of the steps because we had more time today.  We actually measured the water temperature in each cup and timed them one at a time.  I think this way was quite a bit more accurate.  They were only watching one Skittle at a time instead of observing all the 3 at once.

Here are some close-ups of the what the Skittles looked like during the experiment.

You can see the S floating in this one!  So cool!

 When they finished with the experiment, I let them eat the candy if they divided the extra Skittles even among their group and gave the remainders to me!!!! Math during science!  Who would have guessed???

My kids LOVED this experiment and they were totally engaged the entire time!  After the experiment, they blogged about it explaining the procedures and results!  I'm excited to read what they wrote!

What science experiments do you do in your class?

Tried It Tuesday: Educreations

What a day it has been! One day I will get this whole blog planning thing under control, but until then I will wait until my daughter goes to bed to write about what's going on in my classroom!  It's Tuesday and that means it's time to link up with Holly over at Fourth Grade Flipper for

I'm super excited to share what I "tried" today my students!

I'm also linking up with Technology Tailgait for Techie Tuesday

I've written a few times about the math training that I have been attending for the past two years, Extending Children's Mathematics (CGI for grades 3-6).  One key when teaching using the CGI method is sharing strategies and using the kids strategies as the teaching models.  I was trying to figure out a way for my kids to all be able to share and to put our laptops to good use at the same time.  A fellow 21C grant participant told me about Educreations. Educreations is basically an online whiteboard that will record what you write and say as you write and say it.  

So after reading a little about the website, I went and set up an account - super easy! One important thing you need to make Educreations work for you is a set of headphones with a microphone so your voice gets recorded clearly.  I asked my principal really nicely at the beginning of the year if there was any money for headphones with microphones for my students to use with their laptops... and low and behold some money magically appeared!  I got a great deal for a class set of headphones and they work perfect with Educreations! They look like they are in some of kind of mission control!

The way I use Educreations is that I give my students a problem to solve.  Today's problem was "Mrs. Elliott travels a lot for work.  She traveled 1,266 miles each month for 4 months.  How many miles did Mrs. Elliott travel at the end of the 4 months?"  My students first solved this problem the old fashioned way on paper and pencil marker (so I can truly see all of their work).  

When they finish, then they log onto Educreations and recreate their work with their explanation of their thinking. They can erase and record as they need to until they are satisfied with their work.  

Here is a link to one of their recordings! We are working on trying to figure out a way to cut out all of the background noise!

We tried using it a couple of weeks ago and had a lot of issues with our recordings not saving.  It appears that Educreations and Google Chrome do not get along very well.  We used plain old Internet Explorer today and we had no issues!  The kids absolutely love it!  When they finished recording their strategy, they then went and created a new blog post with a link to their recording.  Their peers could then watch their strategy and comment on the post about what they thought, ask questions, or say "Hey, you solved this problem just like me!"  

My next plan is us this tool as a way to help parents understand how we are solving multiplication and division problems the "Common Core Way".  I'm hoping that doing so will answer a lot of the questions my parents have!

Peek at my Week 11-11-13

Well, I thought I could do it all, but obviously I can't!  It's been over a week since I last blogged!  I stayed home with a sick little girl this week and took her the dr. for a second time in one week's time! She is doing so much better so hopefully this week will be a little smoother. Needless it's been a little crazy around here!  Anyway... It's Sunday and that means it's time to link up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings for Peek at my Week.

Because we only teach science the second and 4th quarters, I had to start at the beginning last week.  I bought this

from Melissa at More Time 2 Teach.  Its a great resource and well worth the money!  I got basically 3 weeks of lesson plans from it! We read through the non-fiction articles and created a lapbook with the foldables.  This week we are going to complete the Skittles and M&Ms experiments in class.  These will be the first experiments we have done in class, so I'm anxious to see how they go!

We are working on 4.NBT.5 which means lots of multiplication!  I'm trying really hard to teach through problem solving.  I give a problem and my kids solve the problem however works for them.  I'm staying away from the standard algorithm as much as possible, but I do have some GT students who already know it.  We will be consolidating our strategies in a foldable in our math ISN.  

My math and science plans also include technology as always!  We are going to blog about our science experiments.  The kids love to blog and comment on each other's blogs!  I can't blame them, I feel the same way!!!  We will be using Educreations again to share our problem solving strategies and we will be posting them to our blog as well.  I also plan on trying something new this week if all goes as planned and I'm going to have my kids make a comic strip explaining their problem solving strategy.  We'll see how that goes!

What are you plans for the week?

November Currently

I can't believe that it's already November!  Where has this year gone!  Next month my baby is going to be ONE!!!  How did that happen???

Here is my currently for November.

Listening: I don't know about you, but the weekend is always our time to catch up on the housework that was neglected during the week.  I've also got quite a bit of laundry to do!

Loving: I'm so excited to sleep for an extra hour tonight!!!  I grew up in AZ where Daylight Savings doesn't exist.  It's still strange to me after 7 years, but I love to "fall back"!

Thinking/Wanting: These are both pretty much the same and make my heart just break!  My little girl picked up a stomach virus that has her bottom raw and on top of that she's teething!  All she wants to do is be held and she has cried all morning!  So not like!  I hope she gets better over the weekend so I don't have to stay home on Monday.

Needing: Another item perpetually on the weekend to do list - grade and lesson plan.  I have co-workers who stay late on Fridays so they don't have to take anything, but I just can't bring myself to do that!  I want to get out of there on Friday, so my work usually gets done on Sundays.  

Yummy Pin: Apple Turnovers

I made these for a potluck and they were a huge hit!  They are super easy to make and are the perfect size for a small dessert!

Five for Friday - 11-1-13

It's Friday and I can't believe it, but this is my 4th post of the week!  Maybe I can do it all {insert evil maniacal laugh here}!!!  It's time for Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

We tried using Educreations this week in class to share our problem solving strategies.

The kids loved using their headphone with microphones.  We had some technical difficulties, but we are working with one of the co-creators to fix our issues.

We bought a new sectional over Labor Day weekend and we finally got all the pieces this past week.  We were missing the wedge piece that was damaged and it arrived completing the sectional.  It's quite a bit bigger that what we used to have, but I love my chase lounge!

I had a fantastic birthday yesterday.  My kiddos were so sweet and I received a plethora of handmade cards! I got this awesome Scensty warmer that matches my room perfectly!

I also got some giftcards to go out to eat with my hubby from my whole class.  I have awesome homeroom moms!

Spirit Week mustache day was AMAZING!!!  I laughed all day and so did the kids.  Our theme for the day was, "I 'mustache' you not to do drugs!" We had awesome class participation!

We did our Trick-or-Treat on the square today.  It was super crazy but the kids had a great time!  2 days in a row of Halloween can make any teacher crazy!

 Boy, am I tired!!!  I'm off to see how everyone else's week was!