I've Got a Deal for You!

Are you as busy as I am working on curriculum 

or aligning your lessons with the CCSS?

I have a deal for you!

Become a follower by email

and I will send you one grade level checklist

of Common Core State Standards

for both English Language Arts and Mathematics.

This checklist is editable.  

Pass the Word,

Penny

Jump Start Thinking in Your Classroom

I've been reading two books simultaneously!   The first is Teaching Students to Read Like Detectives, by Fisher, Frey and Lapp and the second is Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding and Dependence for All Learners by Ritchhart, Church and Morrison.  They are my new favorites because they embody the essence of Common Core Standards and what our students can achieve. 

I love the idea of giving kids and teachers the tools/structures to meet the expectations of the CCSS.  I have attached a free foldable I adapted from a Thinking Visible routine called, Compass Points.  It's a popular routine that helps students explore various facets of a proposition or idea.  Ask students these questions and record their responses in the directions of a compass to provide a visual anchor.  More information can be found at www.pz.harvard.edu.

Compass Points (Free Foldable)

I envision strategically choosing a few of these thinking routines at a time to model in classrooms and share with teachers before the end of the year.  

Getting to the Core: Argument Writing

Argument writing is a key area of focus in the CCSS.  The CCSS routinely expects students to draw evidence from texts to produce clear and coherent writing that informs, explains, or makes an argument in various written forms (notes, summaries, short responses or formal essays).  I have created a foldable on TPT that is a great tool for instruction in the writing of a CEI paragraph: Claim, Evidence, Interpretation.  It's also a great follow-up tool for student's to practice the skill of argumentation.  When you make copies of the foldable, copy the foldable pattern on the front and lined paper on the back.  I have the students cut one “door” at a time.  After students complete their response under each door, they just need to open all the doors to see a completed Claim, Evidence, Interpretation paragraph.  

The 7Cs of Argumentation

Leibster Award!

I was very hesitant to open an email from Marianne at Teach to be Happy because I figured it was a spam or an April Fool's Day joke.  I'm happy to say that Marianne nominated me for a Leibster Award!  This is a recognition award for new bloggers that have less than 200 followers.  

So, here are the rules of being nominated:

1. You must post 11 random things about yourself.

2. Answer the questions that the nominator set for you.

3. Create 11 questions for the people you nominate.

4. Choose 11 other blogs with fewer than 200 followers to nominate and link them in your post.

5. You cannot "tag back" the other blog, but leave a comment on this post with the URL of your Liebster 

post so I can learn learn more about & see whom you nominate.

11 Random Things about ME!

1. I love to create materials for teachers to use in their classrooms.

2. I have been facilitating workshops for over 25 years.

3. Before retiring, I taught all grades K-5.

4. I love my job as a teacher coach.

5. I have been listening to Adele 21.  Love it!

6. I am loving a new book by Harvard researchers at Project Zero, Making Thinking Visible.

7. I have two grown children and a 4 year old granddaughter.

8. My husband is a saint for supporting me always.

9. I enjoy riding on the back of my husband's Harley!

10. I'm always on the search for a new recipe.  Today it's a Foodnetwork generic recipe that can be modified to make 5 different rolls.  I'm going to start with the Lemon Poppyseed rolls.

11. My goal is to make a quilt someday.

My Answers to Teach to be Happy

1. What is your favorite thing to do when you get home? My favorite thing to do when I get home is to check my emails and get everything done before I start thinking about my next project.

2. File cabinet or digital files?  My computer just crashed and I lost all my files that I created over Christmas break, but I still would say digital files.  I just back up better now. 

3. What inspired you to become a teacher?  I had a great music teacher in high school that inspired me but I also have always loved teaching.  As a teacher coach, now I get to teach teachers and model lessons for students.  

4. What is your funniest student story? I remember when I got a new student named Christopher.  The first thing he said to me was, "I beat up my last teacher!"  I replied, "I'll tell you what, Christopher.  If you hit me, we'll both be bloody when the police arrive."  He turned out to be one of my best students.  

5. If you could be a kid again, what would you play with?  I would love a pair of metal skates to hook onto my shoes so I could skate around the block on the sidewalk.  

6. What is your favorite spot in your school? My favorite spot in a school is the media center with the kids and the books.

7. What do you do with your class that others don't do with theirs? Everything I did with my class was pretty much hands-on.  It's the only way to learn.  

8. What is the secret to teaching success?  The secret to teaching success is to never stop growing and learning.

9. If you could redesign your classroom, what would you change?  I think every classroom needs working walls (anchor charts, vocabulary etc.) and different "areas" for learning like whole group, small group/hands-on work and individual quiet spaces.  

10. What is your favorite school lunch? I love soup and a baquette from Panera's.  The only problem is that I have to purchase it the night before.  

11.How much time do you spend on school things outside of the school day? I get up at 5:00 am and I go to bed around 9:30 pm.  Most of that is dedicating to working at school or working on school at home.  Thank goodness my husband is a saint that rides a Harley!

My Questions for You!

1.  How do you balance your life at school and your life at home?

2.  What do you like best about teaching?

3.  If you could change one thing about your job, what would it be?

4.  What are you focusing on now as a teacher?

5.  Who supports you in your journey as a teacher?

6.  Have you read any good books lately?

7.  Any hobbies?

8.  What is the secret to teaching success?

9.  How do you manage everything that needs to get done in one day?

10. How do you stay current with the research?

11. What do you think of the Common Core Standards?

My Nominated Blogs:

Themes for Classroom

Think Wonder Teach

Simply Skilled in Second

Sweet Thyme Pure Reason

Caffeine and Lesson Plans

Sanders 6th Grade

The Bomb Diggity Classroom

Active Readers and Writers

5th Grade Tom Foolery

Functional Academics

Exceptional Paradise

Getting to the Core: Accountable Talk

The Common Core Standards require students to engage in collaborative discussions, elaborate on the points of others and clearly explain their own ideas. The standards also want students to review key ideas and draw conclusions based on information from discussions. This is called collaborative argumentation or as the Institute of Learning at the University of PIttsburgh calls it, "Accountable Talk."  The Accountable Talk chart pictured below is available on Teachers Pay Teachers in both color and black and white.  The picture it enlarged to 139% on ledger paper and used as a placemat on student's desk during discussions.  

Accountable Talk Chart

Traditional lessons are characterized with a sequence of teacher-initiated questions for student response and teacher evaluation.  These questions simply test students' knowledge.  It constrains the participants from collaborating or building meaning from the text.  Discourse-based lessons focus on the quality of the teacher's questions and talk moves to generate effective reading comprehension lessons.  Accountable Talk consists of three levels of accountability: 

1. Accountable to the Learning Community - that discussions are on topic
2. Accountable to the Knowledge - to use accurate information
3. Accountable to Rigorous Thinking - to think deeply about what is being said.  

Within each level of accountability there are structures that need to be taught individually and then synthesized into an understanding of Accountable Talk.  

Getting to the Core: Annotating Text

On Thursday and Friday, I presented at the Superintendent’s Conference in Tinley Park, IL on Getting Your Daily Dose of the CCSS.  It was very exciting but I'm glad it's over.  I need to learn how to cut down on the prep time!  Over the next six posts, I will share the key resources from my presentation on the CCSS key shifts for ELA/Literacy instruction. 

The CCSS call for close reading and “reading with a pencil.”  Annotating, or marking up, text will help students develop confidence analyzing text.  This strategy can be applied in all content areas. Model the method with a short passage or article while students are acquiring the skill of annotation. Have students work in groups and gradually increase the text complexity of the texts you present while applying the gradual release of responsibility.  Eventually, students should be able to transfer the process to appropriate, self-selected texts.  To make this a formative assessment, score the annotated text.  

There is no right or wrong way to annotate a book.  Pick up a pencil, a pen or a post-it.  Write directly on the text (if it’s your property or a copy of a selection) or use post-its to mark your pages and thoughts.  Read everything at least twice.  The first time read quickly to get a sense of what the text is about.  Subsequent re-readings should  include close reading and annotating text.   

Begin to annotate:

A.      Circle, underline, or stick on a post-it for important ideas.

B.      Mark repetitions or rhetorical signals.

C.      Circle confusing words or phrases. 

D.      Note passages that seem inconsistent.

E.       Write questions where you made annotations.

Use your margin to decode the text, to help remind yourself what the author is saying 

and mark your thoughts as you read.   Marking in the margins involves the reader in:

• Writing brief summaries
• Listing or numbering multiple ideas
• Sketching pictures and charts to explain difficult concepts
• Predicting
• Noting puzzling or confusing ideas that need clarification
• Defining words to help remember them

    Check out my annotation bookmark on TPT!

Update on "What the heck is a rekenrek?"

On February 8th, I published a post on my experience with rekenreks.  I recently received a response from Jami Smith at the Math Learning Center that I wanted to share with you.  Also, you might want to check out the original post.  

Hi there! I appreciate that you think our rekenrek book is "amazing." :-) I just wanted to let you know that we now sell kits to make your own number racks. All the materials needed to build 10 kits for only 10 dollars.
http://catalog.mathlearningcenter.org/store/product-8557.htm