The After-School Book Club That Worked For Me

I am delighted to write a guest blog post for a wonderful teacher and friend, Cynthia Khoury, over at TeacherBlogSpot and Ms. K. Math. In the post, I share how an after-school book club that I was asked to coach almost crashed and burned! Fortunately, I found some online help and was able to turn it into a winning experience for kids!
I hope you'll check out my story over at TeacherBlogSpot and let me know what you think. While you're there, grab this Basic Literary Genres Freebie!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Basic-Literature-Genres-FREEBIE-2552382

Growing Grade By Grade

0 Comments

Guest Blog Post: Clock Fractions!

I'm delighted to host my friend, Cynthia, from Ms. K Math! She focuses on concept-based, hands-on math lessons. She is sharing a fractions lesson with clocks. Read and enjoy!

Oh, my gosh!! I have wanted to post about this forever, but when I taught the lesson, I didn't think to take pictures. Well, here arose the opportunity when a 5th grade teacher wanted me to do this lesson with her class.

First it was all out WAR with the copy machine when I shrunk a larger clock face to smaller clocks to make this original. I wanted to have smaller faces so I could give them several and not waste paper. Plus I wanted to use colored paper. I shrunk the larger face to about 60% on the copier. Fifty percent was too small. I wanted the faces to be large enough for the kids to still be able to easily see the tiny marks around the sides of the clock.

I copied a class set of these on 3 different colors of paper.

First we discussed how many minutes were included in one hour on the clock face...Sixty of course. Then I had the kids tell me how many minutes were in half of a clock face or half an hour…too easy…30 minutes! Each time we found a fraction on the clock face, I had students label it with the fraction and with the amount of time.

Next, I asked them how many minutes were in a fourth of a clock face. To see what kids knew, I didn't allow them to raise their hand or blurt out. I really wanted to know what each child thought. I had them write the minutes they thought were in a fourth on the back of the clock face and then cover it with their hand--so no cheating ;). This gave me a quick assessment of the class. Before students drew lines on the clock face for fourths, we discussed where to draw these lines so there were equal pieces. Fifteen minutes are in ¼ so students drew a line from the center to the 12,3,6, and 9. Then they snip, snip, snipped on the lines to make pull apart fraction pieces.
FractionClockFourths

Now, for one that doesn't work out quite so nicely--thirds. How can you split up 60minutes into 3 even sections?Hmmm…students gave me answers ranging from 10 to 60 when they did secret answers on the back of the pink clock face. I wrote down the ranges of answers that students gave me on the board. We weeded out the wrong answers as a class by justifying why the wrong answers couldn't be right--this way the mathematical practices were involved. Several students, however, were easily able to tell me 20 minutes and reasoned that 3 sections of 20 minutes would be able to fit in the clock face. We discussed again where to cut the clock face so that the sections would be equal.

Below are all of the clock faces together….I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE colored paper.

Then I started posing problems to the kids, so they could use their clock pieces as manipulatives. The picture below shows what the kids had on their desk when I asked them to show me how many minutes 2/4 of an hour was--EASY 30 minutes.
FractionClockTwoFourths

How many minutes is ¾ of an hour? Just look at the clock pieces to see how many. Below is a simple sheet I gave students to do as guided practice to make sure they were following along while we discussed their clock faces.
FractionClockThreeFourths

Yes, I do quick smileys (although usually with a pen) on every single one students get right as I walk around the room. I do this for two reasons. 1. It gives students a boost if I ask them to fix something. They don't feel defeated because they got so many right and only a few were wrong. 2. This saves me time from grading papers later because I can tell which ones I have already checked.

To make students think outside the box, I also changed the size of the whole. For example, students had to find ⅔ of 45 minutes. This tripped up most students who were used to figuring out ⅔ of 60 minutes/the whole circle. Hmmm…if I think about 45 minutes in thirds, I can use three of the fourths pieces. Now these fourths pieces turn into thirds because three of them now make the whole of 45 minutes. If two of them are chosen then that makes ⅔.

Finally, students will tuck their fraction clock pieces away behind fraction notes in their journals for safe keeping. We taped envelopes down in journals for this. Most kids are able to do this on their own, however, some are not as self sufficient as one would hope in 5th grade.
FractionClocksJournal

A little more about this lesson… I gave each student a large white sheet with the three clocks (my original copy shown way above) for them to figure out other fractions of a clock such as twelfths or fifths. Students also did two word problems following the easy guided practice sheet.

I ended up just recently taking this lesson and perfecting the materials to sell. Here are the detailed lessons for sale on TPT . These include lesson plans, small printable clock faces, worksheet practice, and word problem practice.

Ms. K Math

Growing Grade By Grade

4 Comments

Growth Mindset Math Posters Freebie

      As a student who really struggled with math growing up, I would love to have these growth mindset concepts presented to me. If I had known and believed that you weren't just born "good at math", I wouldn't have felt so defeated right out of the gate. I would have felt far more confident in what I did know and more willing to take risks.

     As it was, not only was I struggling to understand the often confusing algorithms, and when to use them - and spare me from word problems! - I was always trying to hide the fact that I didn't know as much math as my classmates. I remember, as early as third grade, hearing students make math statements in class and thinking, "How do you KNOW that???" I have to accept some responsibility. If I had taken my nose out of my never-ending library books and actually listened during class, I might have had a clue, but who knows? During those years, teachers, parents, and students all believed what I did: you were either good at math or you weren't.

   These growth mindset learning concepts were presented during a professional development session many years ago, although they weren't called that then. I've used them as posters in my classroom almost non-stop. I think that struggling in math as a child gave me greater understanding and empathy for my own students over the years.

I love that these growth mindset posters give a message to students that we can grow and move on from where we are today. I've put my own spin on them and offer them to you for your classroom in hope that they will encourage your students to accept where they - and others - are on their learning journey. I'd love to hear how they work for your students. Enjoy!

Growing Grade By Grade

0 Comments

Constructed Responses: 3 Reasons They Are Great For Kids

The Common Core/State Standards Curriculum emphasizes that students be able to communicate higher-level thinking in all subject areas. Instead of only creating good test takers who can guess the correct answer from four choices, we want to train analytical thinkers who know that they can arrive at answers differently, critique others’ thinking, and who can clearly communicate their thought processes.

Constructed responses are a powerful tool in this journey. Responding to a task via a constructed response means that the student literally “builds”, or constructs, their answer through a complete explanation. Of course, we want any facts used to be correct, but we also want to know that students have mastered basic content concepts and developed complete schema.

In a good constructed response, information must be recalled, but it may be put together in a new way. Students may be asked to recall content, explain their thinking, tell why they chose that solution path, or explain another situation in which they might have to apply the same content knowledge.

Keep in mind that constructed responses are generally different from journal prompts in several ways. Journal prompts tend to ask about a student's opinion, their experience, or engage their creativity and imagination, so basically there is no wrong answer. Constructed responses are generally non-fiction in origin and are based in facts, and still engage students in higher-level thinking. The creativity comes from how the student puts together the information, how they solve the problem, or what direction they take in the solution. Below are some examples/non-examples.

*Constructed Response: "Spies are generally a part of war time. Tell what spies do and how they operated during The Civil War."

*NOT a Constructed Response: "Name a spy who worked during The Civil War"; or, "Would you have liked to be a spy during The Civil War? Why or why not?"

*Constructed Response: "Deer, rabbits, hawks, and snakes can all live in the same ecosystem. Explain how they can all survive while competing for the same resources."

*NOT a Constructed Response: "Tell about a time that you interacted with a deer, a rabbit, a hawk, or a snake."

*Constructed Response: Benjamin said, “Halves are larger than fifths so ½ is larger than 4/5.” Is he right or wrong? How can you tell?"
*NOT a Constructed Response: "Compare 1/2 to 4/5."

So, why are constructed response activities a useful experience for students?

1. Students must master content. Whether it is from independent reading, personal research, listening in class, or watching videos the student is responsible for owning the information.

2. Students have a great opportunity to use their creativity. They can explain their own solution to a problem or take a unique direction in their answer. They are not held to a "either you're right or you're wrong" test-type answer.

3. It's easy for a teacher to see if a student has really "gotten" the concepts. Guessing is not going to work here.

There seems to be a plethora of journal prompts for every topic imaginable. Just search "journal prompts for ______" and you'll see! Constructed responses can be a little harder to find. High stakes, end-of-grade testing has increased the need for students to have practice and assessment opportunities, so I've spent a good bit of time creating math, science, and social studies constructed responses. Consider checking out some of my products with the links below.