Monday, January 28, 2013

Free Rubrics for Guided Reading and Daily 5... And a Pending Giveaway?

First of all, I'm home today with the FLU. Yuck. Double yuck. All last week, I had no fewer than 4 kiddos gone each day. I Lysoled, I Cloroxed, I Purelled... But I, too, have been attacked by the flu bug.

I'm hoping a little R&R will let me be back in the classroom tomorrow!

I thought this would be a good chance for me to post a couple freebies that hopefully will help some of you all with assessments (particularly as we reach the end of second quarter - and grading/comments loom overhead)!

First, this freebie is a guided reading rubric to assess your students on a range of key skills and behaviors.


And here's a freebie rubric to assess your kiddos as they use the Daily 5.


You can click on either image to download from Google Drive, or hit up my Teachers Pay Teachers store by clicking {here}.

I am currently at 79 followers - just 21 more till the big 100! I plan to do a big giveaway here when I hit that mark, so if you or anyone you know might be interested in donating a product for the giveaway, please let me know by clicking {here}.

I'm linking up with Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies!

Classroom Freebies Manic Monday

Happy Monday!

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Getting Guided Math Up and Running

One of my goals this year was to revamp how I teach math and move toward guided math. I LOVE (with a huge heart!) guided reading, so why not do the same thing in math? I have tried to do guided math groups before, and feel like it always flopped. I'd try to teach the mini-lesson to my more advanced, average, and struggling kids in three separate mini-lessons, but that seemed like I was just repeating myself over and over (and over). I tried some pretty elaborate grouping, which then fell apart when kids finished early or needed independent work. So I thought about it and I think I have something that will work.

Note I said "will."

My firsties came to me doing SO GREAT in reading, but not-so-great in math. I noticed even my more advanced students struggled with lots of basic concepts, so I have spent the year thus far getting some basic skills and strategies in place, like counting on a number grid, number recognition, addition and subtraction strategies... The list goes on and on.

As soon as we returned from winter break, I gave all my students a guided math assessment to check what they knew. Now, this isn't exactly Common Core aligned... We use Everyday Math, and a lot of the key skills we've learned so far don't necessarily show up in the CCSS. So, it's more so aligned to the first four units in first grade Everyday Math.

(Click the pic to go to Google Docs and download the PDF)

Then, I created this spreadsheet (it's a PDF... Leaving it in word messed up formatting bigtime) to track how students did on each component.

Then, I looked at my students' scores, and created a readiness group (in my case, kids who had fewer than 8 points) and an enrichment group (kids with 8 or more points).  Within each group, I have groups of four students, or math teams, and each team has a leader. I'll describe these groups more in a later post, as well as what we'll be doing in our groups for mini-lessons, independent work, and math centers.

Hope these documents help! :)

Sunday, January 6, 2013

January Currently

Keeping it simple tonight, folks!


I'm linking up with Oh' Boy 4th Grade!

I'll be back later this week with freebies, info, and pictures of guided math done my way! Good night!

Friday, January 4, 2013

FREEBIE for the New Year, a Giveaway, and My First Craftivity!

I've been on winter break for three glorious weeks (!), and sadly, it is coming to an end. Back to the real world on Monday.

One thing I'm going to be doing with my students on Monday is.... drum roll please... my very first craftivity! I've wanted to make one for some time, and I finally got to it! It is a dinosaur-themed craftivity with two dinosaur tracers (triceratops and T. rex) and lined response paper, along with a few graphic organizers to support research about dinosaurs.



To tie it in to our return after New Year's, I've created a {freebie} that can be used in conjunction with this craft!
I plan to use this to have students record New Year's resolutions, but it could also be used at the beginning of a new school year. Click the picture above to grab your freebie!

If you're interested in the dinosaur craftivity, just click the image below to grab your copy!


I'll give a free copy of this craftivity to the first two people to comment on this post with their email addresses.

And best of all, to help all of you transitioning back to school this week and next, I'm putting my entire TpT store on sale! Get 20% off all the items in my store today through Sunday!

Happy Friday!!!
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