Last Wednesday WOW-Teddy Bear Style

I hope you can link up with a WOW moment (professional or personal) from your week.  This will be my last Wednesday WOW for awhile.

Natalie and I have moved to the second part of our Teddy Bear Store story problems.  We have been working so hard to get our students to visualize the story problems and solve them in a way that makes sense to them.  It was now time for them to write their own.

First, we brainstormed all the types of Teddy Bear Store problems that we have encountered.  It was a long list.  But it included: subtraction, multiplication, division, addition, missing addend, and combinations.

Then, they started writing.

 It was such a WOW moment to watch our firsties write these story problems.   Actually the majority of the students that I work with wrote multiplication stories.  These were the same students that struggled to think of an addition problem at the beginning of the year.  Here are two examples:

"My mom had 8 kids.  She gave 3 bears to each kid.  How many bears does she need?"

"I walked into my bedroom and saw 16 bear ears under my bed.  How many bears are under my bed?"

These problems, among 65 others, will be shared at our first grade story problem celebration.  They are so excited and I look forward to sharing it with you :)

An InLinkz Link-up

 

Wednesday WOW-story problems

It is time for another Wednesday WOW moment.  I hope you have had a good moment this week (personal or professional) that you would like to share!

Story problems have been a lot of fun in our classroom this year.  February brought on a new theme: Bear Store.  Of course our firsties started cheering when they found it was time for story problems again.  WHAT?!? Cheering? Yep.

After a week of working out problems with our story problem bears, we gave a quick little assessment.  I was not too excited about the outcome (to put it lightly).  I was feeling rather defeated.

But today we went over the assessment and then started some new story problems.  I asked students to use white boards, instead of the bears today.  I wanted to observe their different methods of solving the problems.  It turned into my WOW moment for the week!

The above problem, which compares two numbers, has been challenging for my struggling mathematicians.  But as I read the story, they shouted out the answer!! YES!

After reading this problem, my struggling firsties worked out the answer on their boards.

This may seem like a small WOW moment.  But these students have come a very, very long way.  I left my group feeling very excited.

I found another linky with the same name!! Head over and link up with Coast to Coast Kinder. What was your WOW moment this week?

An InLinkz Link-up

Wednesday WOW-Nonsense Words

 Happy Wednesday!  I am so excited to share a WOW moment from this past week.   Hopefully you had some WOW moments (professionally or personally) that you can link up as well!

I actually cannot claim this to be my WOW moment, but when my teammate, Karen, shared it with me...I was mad that we had not thought of it years ago.  Something so simple....how did we not think of it before.

It starts with nonsense words.  Our firsties have been working on becoming fluent with reading nonsense words and from DAY 1 we have explained that these little words are inside big words.  So our students do understand the importance and have seen those nonsense words in some bigger words. 

So last week Karen came to school with these:

They are nonsense word flashcards...but that is not all...

They open up into the real words.  We want to show them that if they can just say the nonsense word, then they will be able to easily figure out the rest of the "bigger" word.

Our hope is that when they see these "bigger" words in text, they will know what to do and feel confident in the strategies that they have and know how to use.
Thanks Karen for this WOW moment!  I would NOT be the teacher that I am today if it was not for you!

An InLinkz Link-up

Wednesday WOW-Party Style

 

I hope you can link up with a WOW moment from your week (personally or professionally).  It is so great to hear about all the great things going on.

My WOW this week is personal (with some great learning involved).

About a month ago my five year old decided she we were going to have a dress up party.  Hmmm...I am pretty sure that means I would be inviting, cleaning, organizing, buying food.  No thanks!  But then I had a "teacher moment" and decided that she could host the party but she was in charge of everything (except cleaning the bathrooms!)  She took on the challenge.

First came her invitation:

 Next came the stations with signs (puzl, game, kulr, book, play):

On the day of the party she prepared the food (jelly sandwiches):

Then they arrived!  She greeted each guest at the door.  And they were all dressed up.

(We also had a witch, baker, auto mechanic, hockey player, wolverine, Wonder Woman, Suzy Snowflake, and an elf!)

The party starts!  The kids and adults played at the stations:

 

I wasn't sure how the party was going to turn out.  But WOW!  I was so proud of her.  She put her mind to it and it was a success.

What was your WOW this week?

An InLinkz Link-up

A Wednesday WOW Birthday

Another Wednesday is upon us!  I hope you can link up with a personal or professional WOW from your week so far.  All the positive posts keep us motivated throughout the rest of the week :)

I wanted to share a couple of WOWs from this week.  First up...I am another year older today.  Yikes!  Another year!  My little girls' lives seem to revolve around birthdays.  They seem to be planning their birthday parties all year long.  So they are excited that it is my birthday and kind of seem to revive that enthusiasm in me a little (a little!)

Recently, I pinned this photo:

 It is from Amanda and Aylin over at Learning to the Core.  The post is all about an app called ShowMe.  When my Ruby was struggling to read some sight words this weekend, I decided to try out this app.  Once I figured it out, I was SOLD!  Amanda and Aylin give a great description of how to use the app.  Basically what I found is that I can take an image (or just a blank page) and record myself drawing on and speaking about the image.
Well the ideas started flowing from there.  Here are a few (WOWs) that we came up with:

1. Maria posted a "story line"

Once sketched out, students could take a picture of their story line and use the ShowMe app to talk out their story.  Then they could listen to themselves and decide if it makes sense or refer back to it if they forget what they wanted to include in their story.

2. Retelling cards:
Our reading program has retelling cards.  After taking a picture of the cards in order, students could retell the story with the ShowMe app.  I thought they could listen to their retelling with a rubric and self-evaluate themselves.  Karen, the reading teacher, could then listen to the retelling and evaluate them.

3. Fluency:
Students could take a picture of a passage and record themselves reading it.  They could listen to the recording and self evaluate.

I am starting to think that the SKY is the limit with this app.  And can't wait to see it in action.

Has anyone else used this app?

I hope you can link up below with a WOW moment from your week!


 

An InLinkz Link-up

Wednesday WOW of Shapes

 It is Wednesday again and time to share another WOW moment (professional or personal) from your week.  We had a four day weekend because of MLK day and snow.  This winter has been quite crazy in Ohio!


Our firsties have been working on 2D shapes and we will be (once the snow blows away) working on 3D shapes.  I mentioned last week that I saw this photo (click on for original source):

 I really wanted to try making a snowman like this with our students to help them understand the defining versus non-defining attributes of a triangle.  We had all the pieces ready, handed them over to them, and look what happened:

 Every single one of them looked different. (I should have taken more pictures).  It was a lot of fun to watch them try the pieces out in different places.  We will keep working these attributes and they will get it!
What was your WOW moment?  Hope you can share it with us :)

Wednesday WOW--new literacy blog

The holidays have come and gone by so quickly.  And my brain is still on vacation, so sorry!  We have been enjoying lots of good (and much needed) family time!  But I did not want to miss out on my Wednesday WOW because I love to reflect on the great things that are going on.

The past few months I have had the privilege of meeting some great literacy experts.  I have learned a lot about reading instruction and also how to collaborate on blog hops, facebook frenzy, and guest posts.  This was all new learning to me and it has all happened in just the last few months!  That is a super big WOW to me!
On Monday, we will launch a collaborative blog to share different information on reading instruction.  We will kick it all off with a week of giveaways and freebies.  My Ben made the graphics for it!  I was super excited that he could offer his free services :)

I am so excited to be a part of this new blog and to share whatever I can about reading instruction!

I hope you can link up with your WOW!

Book Character Wednesday WOW!

 We decided this year to do a Spirit Week before we left for Winter Break. The theme this year: believe!
Here is what we came up with:

Monday-"I believe I'm a reader." --dress up like a book character
Tuesday-"I believe I'm a mathematician." --dress up as a "math-lete"
Wednesday- "I believe I'm a writer." --wear something with words
Thursday- "I believe I'm a scientist." --wear a "mad scientist" hair-do
Friday- "I believe in myself." --wear your best

My first WOW for this week came on Monday.  All the teachers came together and really did such an amazing job dressing up as book characters.  I hope they don't mind but I have to share...

Viola Swamp and Waldo

Dorothy, Laura Ingalls, Fancy Nancy, Pinkalicious, Give a Mouse a Cookie

Pirate, Camilla Cream

Mickey

Minnie

Tinkerbell, Rudolph

Sam I Am

Dorothy and the Wicked Witch (Maria's little one!)

I know I missed a few great characters!  Ugh! Sorry...the day just gets away from me.

So that is my WOW! for the week.  What a great school to be a part of!

Please link up below and share something great that is going on this week for you :)

Wednesday WOW

4:30 am...alarm sounds, I'm up.
5:00 am...my Ben is up, cleaning my car, making me eggs (thank you, thank you!)
5:30 am...I am driving on snowy roads to a PD.  Should take about 1 1/2 hours to get to.
7:30 am...get a text that school is closed.  Can't turn back now!
8:30 am...pulling into PD (3 hours later!)
8:40 am... listening to Tim Rasinski.

Yep.  The stressful drive was worth it!  So Tim Rasinski...you are my WOW for Wednesday WOW!

January marks the time when I really start to teach my students about what fluency is, looks like, sounds like.  Not to say that we have not talked about it already, modeled it, practiced it through all the efforts we have made to be more automatic readers. But in January, I really start to focus our attention.  After today....after the information...after the research was shared....after conversations (with my teammate) were had, my perspective is changing.  My ideas are formulating.  My mind is spinning.

It is very easy for me to beat myself up on all the things that I have done wrong and need to make right.  But instead of focusing my attention to that, I will wrap my head around my new learning.  Formulate this plan and implement!

Can't wait to share my plan and my learning!  But this brain must rest now :)