Back in a creative state of mind...

Crazy doesn't begin to describe how things have been lately, but I'm not going into that tonight.  I'm tired of thinking about it, I know you probably don't want to read about it, and venting doesn't help, so on with some positive vibes...

Making Meaning has gone well in my classroom.  This is the new comprehension curriculum that my school has implemented.  There have been the usual new kinks to work out with this program and meshing it with our current pacing guide, but it's a kink I'm willing to work out. I love how it puts responsibility of learning more on the students' shoulders.  And the social aspect of having to retell what your partner shared with you, not what YOU thought... you should hear some of the conversations we've had.  

The first time I asked a child to tell what his partner shared.... what, wait... you don't want to know what I thought???  That look was worth a mil, I tell you!

This week we are working on making connections, mainly text to self connections.  We read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (which has been a fitting match to how this year has started...but again, POSITIVE VIBES!) and they were all instantly, oh we read this before!  I love this book!  Yay, my 1st grade teacher read it and I can't wait to hear it again...etc.  

Not to mention, I love this book.

Well today, they had to make a connection to a bad day they had, draw a picture and write a sentence.  Here's what some wrote:

"My mom told me don't spill purple jucie on the carpet and I did."

"I filt bad when my sirster got a toy."

"I had a bad day when we could not go out side yesterday."

"My brother got a toy but I did not got a toy then I spil my milk."

I have a wide range of ability in my class... I have a GAT student who is reading independently on a 5th grade level... and then I have my student who I blogged about the other week who is reading between Readiness and Preprimer levels... I really like that the Making Meaning program allows for a brief (or extended!) whole group lesson before I break into small groups, and the lessons are for any level and also emphasize social relations as well!

It's been awhile since I've been able to sit down and work on units for my TPT store, especially since I don't have Publisher at home :(  boo.  I needed some more good place value stations for my math rotations which I'm starting next week (yay!!) and guided math groups (yay!!) so I'm really excited to see how these turn out.  

Ta-da!  New unit uploaded to my store!!  It's called Picking Place Value and the main goal of the unit is to match the four different ways to write or show a number:  word form, standard form, expanded form, and a pictorial model.  Students will also have a recording sheet to record their answers.  My kiddos have had a hard time with expanded form so I made this to help them see, especially with the pictorial models.  Check it out at my TPT store!  Hope you can use it!  I'll post pics of my kids using it sometime very soon!

        

Shhh...since you are awesome and read to the end of my post, I'll give away my new unit to the first three people who leave a comment with their email address!  Thanks for your awesomeness :)