Monster Math Freebie!

Ever wanted to try out my super cool Monster Math Battle tournaments...but weren't quite sure about it? Well, I made this little freebie just for you. This is a collection of three of my math battles so you can give it a try. 

Not sure what I'm talking about?! Well, you should definitely check these out. I've made several different tournaments where classic movie monster are dueling it out in a math battle! The kids love it, and don't even realize they are getting much needed practice. I also have a couple of different varieties of shorter Ninja vs. Samurai battles!

The tournaments are very reasonably priced, but whether you're ready to purchase a whole tournament or not, I hope you at least enjoy the freebie! 

Monday Made Its for October!

I chiming in with a couple things for Monday Made It again for the first time in a while! Check in with 4th Grade Frolics to see some more!

First up are these Conversation Journals! I'm super proud that I got to use my mitre saw again! I bought it for all the home renovation we've been doing to get the house ready for a baby, and once the renovation was done figured I'd never get a chance to use it again! But it was perfect for cutting these composition books in half. I made up some labels, and that was that.

The kids are going to write to me, and I'll write back to them. So, I have a confession... I made these for one kiddo who really likes to share at all the wrong times. But I didn't want just him to have one and stand out, so I'm introducing it as a new thing that we all do! I think it'll be a great way to get to know my kids better. 

Second is an upcycle, of sorts! Last year I bought myself a fancy Erin Condren Teacher Planner. It was cool, and I was definitely the envy of the faculty lounge...but I found that I never really used the planning pages that much because I plan in Google Docs, and the calendar annoyed me because I had to write in my own dates. So this year I went with a much cheaper calendar book from Target.

But I kept seeing my pretty EC planner sitting in my classroom, and I figured it was kind of a waste to let it just gather dust...and I didn't want to just throw it away... So I went through it page by page and salvaged all the quotes and empty note pages, etc. I put a sheet of colorful paper on the reverse side of the quotes and laminated them together with my home laminator. Now I've got a bunch of sturdy teacher-y bookmarks to share with friends. I laminated the full page quotes as well, and once trimmed I'll have a couple posters to hang in the hall outside my room. I felt much better throwing away the ravaged skeleton of my planner after turning it into some useful things!

And finally, I'm going to share a new TpT product I just added to my store. If you've seen my Monster Math Battles, then maybe you'll be interested to see these!

Now introducing Ninja vs. Samurai Math Battles! These are mini versions of my math battle concept, with 5 battles taking place in each mini-tournament. The battle's victor is determined by who wins the most rounds, with each round being decided by the answer to two math problems. Highest answer wins. 

My kids completed my Monster Math Battles last year, so when I walked to the front of the room at the beginning of math and put the big "Vs." on the board they actually started cheering! Haha. The kids LOVE doing these. They don't even realize that I'll be tricking them into doing 100 multi-digit multiplication problems and 50 long division problems by the time we're done. Each of the tournaments are available in my store for $2.50! Or, buy both tournaments together for $4.00 in a bundle!

And SPEAKING of bundles...if you haven't seen the amazing bundle my buddies put together to help support our adoption journey...check out my last post for lots of details, or head on over to my store and check out the preview! It's a great deal for a great cause!

A Day Our Way - See my schedule!

Hi all! Today I'm linking up with my BBB Amelia over at Where the Wild Things Learn for her A Day Our Way linky party. We're sharing our daily schedules! This is something that intrigues me a lot, so I hope a lot of people link up! I find it amazing how different things can be at different schools.

So, check out my schedule here, then I'll get into lots of detail below!

8:30 - 8:50 - This is when the kids are slowly working their way into the room. Kids eat breakfast in the classroom in my school, so during this time some kids are working on unfinished work, a couple are eating breakfast, some are turning in notes or lunch money. That kind of normal routine. The morning announcements come on around 8:45 and by the time they're done we're moving on to...

8:50 - 9:30 - Specials! My kids get a 40 minute special each day of the week. Monday is Computer lab, which is actually a laptop cart that we use in our classroom. Every teacher teaches their own computer class, so that means no planning period on Monday for me. :(  All of the other specials are taught by specialist, so I do end up with a planning period 4 days a week.

9:30 - 9:45 - I start my Writers' Workshop off with Mentor Sentences. This year I'm using Jivey's Mentor Sentences Pack. I have all three packs, amazon primed all the books, and so it's pretty much a year's worth of awesome activities. My kids love the books, and they especially love the revising and imitating days. The sentences they write are just plain amazing. 

My intern this year is doing her inquiry research study on what aspects of mentor sentences are translating to their writing in other areas. I predict she's going to find that all of it is. My kids are recognizing the parts of speech and using all kinds of vivid verbs and powerful adjectives.

9:45 - 10:25 - The rest of writing involves a mini-lesson and then time for kids to write and confer with teachers. Usually the mini-lesson relates to one of the strategies from my VOICES menu. I may do something like read a mentor text read aloud, model some writing, or teach kids how to use a certain graphic organizer. After the mini-lesson I send the kids off to write. While they write my intern and I usually circulate around the room and confer with the kiddos.

10:25 - 11:25 - We switch classes for math. I teach a multi-age 3rd and 4th grade class, but teaching two grades of math at once is REALLY HARD. (I did it for two years before we started switching) So now when we switch I only have 3rd graders. I send all of my 4ths down the hall, and several different teachers send me their 3rds. I teach a group that is made up of only high achieving, fast-paced learners. The trade off for that is that I have 28 math students. 

Teaching the 'high' group isn't all rainbows and ponies though! It definitely comes with its own set of challenges. These kids need constant challenges. A lesson that would usually take 20 minutes with another classes might take 3 or 4 with these kiddos. I pre-assess each unit of study, and often discover that I can skip entire sets of skills because the kids already know them. (I always spiral back to them to make sure.) 

I pretty much always have to have an ongoing project that the kids can work on whenever they finish the day's list of work. My If I had a Million Dollars and Math is Everywhere projects are my most recent!

I started the year off doing a standard Math Centers type rotation, where the students spent 15 minutes at each of four centers. I quickly learned with this group that they functioned better with more independence and less structure. So now we have a "daily list." Basically, I start the day off with a mini-lesson and then the kids have a list of activities they need to do. (Shhh...don't tell them but it's really just the things I would have had them do as centers, just no 15 minute time limit.)

Most often the list involves an independent practice activity (like IXL.com or a worksheet from their math book), a math game (like Multiplication Kaboom!), their Math Project (currently Math is Everywhere), and right now I also have them doing the Multiplication Monster Math Battles. (The kids LOVE this by the way.)

At any time during their independent work I may call them over to my table to work in small groups. This is great because it allows my groups to be completely flexible. If I need 7 minutes with one group and 20 with another then that's what I do. If I need the group members to be completely different each day then it's fine. 

11:25 - 11:36 - After math and before lunch the kids switch back to their homerooms. I turn the lights off and my kids come right in from math and take a seat on our class carpet in a circle. We spend this time working on centering and mindfulness. Basically, to make it simple, I walk the kids through a meditation. I'll be having a much more detailed post about what this like and what the effects have been later!

11:39 - 12:09 - Lunch! I take the kids to the cafeteria and then I usually go sit and chat in the staff room for about 25 minutes. Sometimes I take some stuff to work on. I usually don't eat lunch. 

12:15 - 12:30 - Right after lunch the kids come in and we begin our reading block. I start off by doing a focus strategy lesson from my "upgraded" CAFE menu. Most of the time I use our class chapter book as the vehicle for modeling the strategy. My kids love listening to read-alouds, and I love reading them. My favorite part of the day is probably reading from our current chapter book. 

12:30 - 1:30 - During this time students do the Daily 5 reading activities. We have three rotations a day. My kids do Read to Self and Word Work every day. I use Words their Way as my word work. I've talked before about what that looks like in my room. So if you're interested, go check it out! The third rotation changes throughout the week. Depending on the day of the week it is either reading response journals, listen to reading, or read to someone.

While the kids rotate through the daily 5 centers I will pull kids for small group strategy lessons or one-on-one conferences. 

1:30 - 2:00 - Recess! In my school all 7 intermediate (3rd and 4th) classes go out to recess at the same time. We have a large playground, but it still stresses me out keeping up with that many kids at once! Teachers in my school have recess duty daily, so we always go out with our own kids. Of course, if the temperature drops below 20 degrees we aren't allowed to go out, and have to have the dreaded indoor recess! Of course, my Book of Awesome Tasks helps out with that a lot!

2:00 - 2:45 - On Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays we have either Science or Social Studies. Our science and social studies units of study rotate each year between two sets of units. So what I teach this year in those subjects, I won't teach next year, but then I will teach the year after that. Right now we're studying Air and Weather in science, and Japan in social studies. To go along with our study of Japan I read the book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. While I was at it I wrote this cool novel unit for it! At $4 it's a steal!

Tuesdays are a little different. Three Tuesdays a month we have something called All School Gathering. This is where the entire school convenes in our gym and watches a presentation that is prepared and put on by the school's fifth graders. Other classes in the school prepare skits and presentations as part of the ASG. The fifth graders and other presenters get the experience of public speaking, and the messages they're giving to the students are usually related to citizenship skills. Sometimes it can get a little tough for the kids to sit for 40 minutes though...

The other Tuesday each month we meet with our Small School Gatherings. This is where my kids all go out to other teachers and a group of kids from around the school come to me. Each group is made up of 2-3 kids from each grade level from Kindergarten to 5th grade. Every teacher spends this time differently. Teaching a group that has every age in it can be a real challenge. Finding activities that are developmentally appropriate for that range of ages is tough. This is why I usually have my kids participate in some type of service learning project. Whether it's terracycling, pulling weeds in the school garden, making valentines to send to troops overseas, or writing thank you notes for something donated to the school, I try to make good use of this time. 

2:45 - 2:50 - We do a Status of the Class. This is when we might do a check-in for the Great Pencil Challenge (from Ladybug's Teaching Files) or do our class jobs before getting packed up. 

2:50 - Students are dismissed to their buses. We don't call the buses one at a time or anything. They pretty much just release the downstairs hallways first, and then the upstairs hallway. Every day after the mad rush of students, all of the teachers line up outside and wave goodbye to all of the buses.

3:00 - Meetings, planning, prepping, etc. usually ensues until at least 4:00, but more likely 5:00. Thats when I pack up my bag and go home to do the other 2 hours of work I have to do! Sheesh, it feels like it never ends sometimes! 

But it's worth it!

How is your schedule different? Check out the linky to see some other people's days!

I also wanted to share that Erin, who happens to run the budding blog Learning to be Awesome, is the winner of my recent Pin it to Win it contest! Congrats! I hope you like my Mandala Math Facts product!

Tried it Tuesday - Zoo Building!

Oh boy! I've become one of those slacker bloggers...sigh.  ;) Seriously though, I think I've fallen into the trap of working myself into temporary burn out. Sometimes I need to sit back and accept that not every cool idea needs to be done this year with my kiddos...

Speaking of traps, check out my class's Venus Fly
Trap! It's an attempt to cut down on our fruit fly
problem, which is caused by terracycling
juice pouches for the school.

Every time I've finally gotten myself to the point where I'm a good week ahead of the game in school, I notice all of the "home life" things I've been neglecting. It never ends, right?!

I definitely need to find that balance between working on school stuff, my personal life, and going to bed at 1 AM. Right now my time allotment is way out of whack leaning towards the teachery stuff. And I think it's time to come to terms with the fact that I'm not young enough to stay up til 1 o'clock every night anymore. I need to spend more time on "me things" too.

I'm so lucky to have such a great bunch of kids this year! They've made my transition into 3rd/4th a lot smoother than it could have been. One thing I love about the multi-age class is that I get to keep all of my 3rd graders next year as my new 4th graders!

But..on with the show:

I'm linking up with Holly for another Tried it Tuesday! This week we started regrouping for Math. I have taken on teaching the fast-paced, gifted learners group. We have a lot of those in my district, so my math class has 27 kiddos in it. That's a whole lot of kids that need constant challenge in order to be kept engaged. My plan is to do a lot of project based learning along the way. 

Matt over at Digital Divide and Conquer has a great project based product for teaching Area and Perimeter (and great practice for a bunch of other skills too!) that I am starting with this group. It basically tasks the kids with building a zoo and meeting multiple parameters while doing so. It comes with a lot of extension activities too, which I really like. There's also an entire set of the papers that allow a teacher to differentiate for a lower level group! We're also currently studying Africa, and this'll be a great way for me to hit some of that with the animals in the zoo. 

I love the fact that this product comes with everything ready to print and use, and that it can be done to different levels. For example, if a student finishes building the zoo, there are sheets to have the student "zoom in" on one of the animal enclosures, or write a quiz about their zoo. Definitely go check it out! At just $4.50 I'd say this is pretty much a steal. 

My mentor texts this week have included I Need My Monster (which goes along with Jivey's Mentor Sentences), Fake Mustache, and Galimoto.  We're a little more than halfway through Fake Mustache right now, which I use as our text to model our CAFE strategies. This week in reading we are focusing on recognizing character traits (personality and physical) and visualizing. Some of the activities in my Fake Mustache Unit have made planning for this week easy-peasy!

Galimoto was our writing mentor text, where we're focusing on having a bold beginning for our narratives. It also ties in well with the Africa unit I am teaching in social studies. It's the story of an African boy who goes along trying to find wire so he can build a "galimoto." The kids slowly discover what that is, so it's good for predicting and inferring as well. But we focused on the first page of the story, where the author begins by telling us the things this boy has in his possession. It makes you want to know why he has those things and what he's going to do with them. He wasn't introduced right away, and the setting wasn't discussed initially. It is a different way to begin a story, and it hooks the reader. I challenged the kids to write a piece with a bold beginning after we read the story.

I figured I'd throw in some of my favorite Halloween books too! Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich (and Takes the Cake) are both hilarious books full of rhyming short stories, comics, etc. I usually read a little each day to the kids just for fun starting a week before Halloween. Monster Museum is a funny book of poems about the different monsters. Vunce Upon a Time is the story of a vegetarian vampire who also likes candy, but has run out right before Halloween. I use these stories to reinforce the skills we've already introduced, but we read them mostly just for fun.  :)

And if you haven't already, it's not too late to start up some Monster Battles in Math! I recently finished my Multiplication Facts (tables 0-12) battle tournament. I also have multi-digit addition and money addition tournaments. The multiplication tournament has a totally different set of pairings and a different winner than the addition tournaments! Each tournament comes at the ridiculously low price of $5! We actually completed our tournament already and the kids LOVED IT. They want to do another one later this year!

In other news, my BBB Jess over at I Heart Recess is having a giveaway! I've donated my Roll and Draw a Monster activity! Go enter if you haven't already!

Monday Made It, June Currently and 100 Follower Giveaway Soon!

First, I'm linking up with 4th Grade Frolics' Monday Made It linky!

So my Monday Made It is actually something I've been working on for a while with the help of my brother, but I did finish it today. I'm a big fan of old movie monsters, and one night I was trying to fall asleep and I had a thought...why not have Monster Math Fights? So I came up with this:

 Basically, this is a bracketed tournament of "monster battles." Each day two movie monsters will do "battle" by solving math problems. There are 32 different monsters!

For this first tournament, each battle consists of 5 rounds of 2-digit addition problems (with and without regrouping). The monster with the highest sum for each round, wins that round. The monster with the most rounds won, moves on to the next battle!

There are 31 battles in the tournament, with 10 math problems on each battle worksheet. That's 31 days (310 problems) of fun math practice! 

These worksheets could be used as morning work, small independent math group work, or as a fun way to start off math each day.

Full color monster cards are included to post on your board so students know who will be doing battle that day. A blank bracket, and a tournament key bracket are included as well!

Students are really motivated by this activity, and have begged for more tournaments in the future! I'm planning to make more with different math skills.

This activity is Common Core aligned too!
CCSS.Math.Content.2.NBT.B.5
CCSS.Math.Content.2.NBT.B.6

Find the first of my Monster Battle sets here on my TpT store:

The Monster Clip Art I used is courtesy of Peter Reitz (my bro!) and can be found here:

Even though I'm late to the party, I figured I'd throw out my June Currently, from Oh'Boy 4th Grade! Click on my currently, to head over to Farley's blog to see the others!

Finally, I'm at 99 followers! Woohoo! I'm preparing for a 100 follower giveaway! If you're willing to donate something for the giveaway then head on over to my googledoc sign up sheet:

Click here to sign up to donate!

It has been a crazy busy week! This is our final full week of school, but we also have Field Day next Monday and then a half day next Tuesday! Meanwhile, I'm busy packing up my classroom and getting all of my other end of year stuff done! I'm hoping to be back later this week with an update on some of our fun activities...and maybe if one more lovely person out there stumbles this way, a 100 follower giveaway!