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Here we are on week 4 of our Whole Brain Teaching Book Study.   This week we are talking about chapters 11-14 which certainly cover a lot of big ideas.  I enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts on last week's post.  It is not to late to join in!  If you want to catch up, just grab a copy of the book and pick up where we are or go back and comment on past posts.  Here is the posting schedule. September 3 First Words, Chapters 1-3 September 10 Chapters 4-7 September 17 Chapters 8-10 September 24 Chapters 11-14 October 1 Chapters 15-18 October 8 Chapters 19-22 October 15 Chapters 23-26 October 22 Chapters 27-29 October 29 Bonus Chapters 30-32 Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids (and the rest of your class, too!) Chapter 11: Scoreboard (Level 1)      This chapter is all about using the scoreboard in the classroom.  What first might seem like a deceptively simple idea seems to really work with kids of all ages.  I have worked with a teache...

I love teaching fractions!  I know they are a subject many struggle with in elementary school and beyond but there is just something about them that make them super fun to teach.  Over the years, I have read some great books and learned a lot from my colleagues and students about making fraction instruction effective. One of my goals for last year was to find more computer and iPad based games to add to my collection of practice materials for fractions.  Today I want to share with you one of the games my students and I really enjoyed for practicing comparing fractions. Fraction Feud This game is from NCTM''s Calculation Nation .  If you haven't checked out this website you really should!  Don't be put off by the "log in now" to play page you will see.  You can quickly and easily create a log in for free.  If you don't want to go to the trouble of creating a log in, just click on guest pass and you will be ready to play.   Once you have clicked gu...

Here we are on week 3 of our Whole Brain Teaching Book Study.   This week we are talking about chapters 8-10 which are all about Teach-Okay.  I enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts on last week's post.  It is not to late to join in!  If you want to catch up, just grab a copy of the book and pick up where we are or go back and comment on past posts.  Here is the posting schedule. September 3 First Words, Chapters 1-3 September 10 Chapters 4-7 September 17 Chapters 8-10 September 24 Chapters 11-14 October 1 Chapters 15-18 October 8 Chapters 19-22 October 15 Chapters 23-26 October 22 Chapters 27-29 October 29 Bonus Chapters 30-32 Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids (and the rest of your class, too!) Chapters 8-10 Teach Okay      My first thoughts as I read the first few pages of chapter 8 were not very positive.  It seemed like a routine for teachers who teach in a skill and drill method which goes against my ideas about teaching constructi...

Today I want to share with you a new teacher resource that I purchased this summer and will be using with students this fall.  I feel like a huge part of my responsibility as a parent and a teacher is to make sure when I am talking about math, I am talking about the real world applications for learning this.  One area where I feel like schools in general and myself in particular need to do better at is helping kids be financially savvy.  I know when I got out of high school and went to college, I had no idea how to handle finances, pay bills or deal with not having enough money.  This is not what I want for my students.  I know our curriculum is already packed and there is not currently a way for us to offer a personal finance class in every high school so I have been looking for ways to talk more with kids about finances during my regular math classes.  I was very excited to see this book and have read most of it already.   Why Can't I Have Everything...

If you teach kids in grades 3-8, you should know about YUMMY MATH !  I first discovered this amazing website last fall and was immediately hooked.  It is a great place to access real world math problems that will engage your students and show them how important math is.   Yummy Math is a collection of problems written by teachers on a huge range of topics including sports, holidays, cooking, art, shopping and more.  " We’ve created Yummy Math to provide teachers with an easy way to bring real-life into their math classrooms. It is our belief that when math is explored in contexts that are familiar and of interest to students, students will be more engaged to do math, reason, think critically, question and communicate.  Our activities are written to correspond with the NCTM Process Standards and the CCSS Standards for Mathematical Practice." I have used these problems multiple times in whole class situations and have had some great engagement.  When I have t...

Welcome to the second installation of our new book study on Whole Brain Teaching For Challenging Kids.   I enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts on last week's post.  It is not to late to join in!  If you want to catch up, just grab a copy of the book and pick up where we are or go back and comment on past posts.  Here is the posting schedule. September 3 First Words, Chapters 1-3 September 10 Chapters 4-7 September 17 Chapters 8-10 September 24 Chapters 11-14 October 1 Chapters 15-18 October 8 Chapters 19-22 October 15 Chapters 23-26 October 22 Chapters 27-29 October 29 Bonus Chapters 30-32 Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids (and the rest of your class, too!) Chapter 4: Charting Progress     Mrs. Maestra sounds like a genius!  I love the idea of a teacher working on her own management by giving herself a grade!  What a fantastic idea.  By focusing on her own behavior she can chart her progress and evaluate how she is doing separate from...

Happy weekend everyone!  Hope back to school time is going well for all of you.  I wanted to take the time to share with you a fun idea that is great for this time of year in Kindergarten and first grade. I have written several times about the importance of 10 frames  but this is a fun way to get kids lots of practice with the structure of 10 frames in a fun and engaging way. All you need is some table space and a roll of painting tape .  The roll I used is Scotch 2 inch tape.  Thinner tape would work just as well if not better!  I have had this roll for various projects at home and school for at least 5 years.  The reason for using painting tape is that it will not peal the finish of your surface or leave a sticky mess behind.   I like to get this set up and let the kids play with it before addressing it as a whole group.  I put the cars or animals or other themed thing nearby and let them try it out.  It is a great way to tie in a clas...

I use many computer games with my grades 4-6 students.  I have shown you a few factoring games , games for practicing basic facts , and games from the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives .  There are many other games I use with this age group and today I want to tell you about one of my favorite games to use during our geometry unit. Alien angles is a game from math playground that is quick to play but gives kids some great experience with angles.  I want kids to have a good sense of the reasonableness of their answer when measuring angles and this game really helps develop this idea.   Students are given a target angle and try to set that angle without the aid of a protractor.  When I introduce this game on the SMART board or projector, we talk about benchmark angles such as 0, 45. 90, 135 and 180 and how they can help us estimate other angles.   Students are given an angle to make When you launch the game you will be given an angle to make.  C...

Today I am linking up with  A monthly REAL WORLD math blog link-up hosted by   4mulaFun ,  The Teacher Studio ,  Teaching to Inspire in 5th , AND  MissMathDork , I see math wherever I go and I like when my students experience the same thing.  I want them to see math all around them.  Now that I have finally found a smart phone with good coverage and a decent camera, my students will be seeing more and more pictures that I snap of math in my life.  I am hoping this will lead to them seeing more math in their world and maybe even taking a picture of it to show me! Several weeks ago, I was at the fair as it started to get dark.  The lights on the Ferris Wheel were on and it got me thinking about all kinds of math ideas.  I shared this photo with some sixth graders and asked them, "Where is the math?"   Here are some of the responses I got - How many cars are on it? - How many people can ride it at one time? - How long do you get to rid...

Welcome to our first day of a NEW book study on Whole Brain Teaching For Challenging Kids September 3 First Words, Chapters 1-3 September 10 Chapters 4-7 September 17 Chapters 8-10 September 24 Chapters 11-14 October 1 Chapters 15-18 October 8 Chapters 19-22 October 15 Chapters 23-26 October 22 Chapters 27-29 October 29 Bonus Chapters 30-32 Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids (and the rest of your class, too!) I always take it as a good sign when I am only a few pages into a book and already nodding my head along in agreement.  I have very much enjoyed reading the first few chapters of this book and already the wheels are turning about how to improve my own classroom management.   I find the origins of Whole Brain Teaching to be fascinating and I particularly like the fact that the author shares his struggles and his process for improving his teaching.  I think all teachers have been in a place before where they felt their classroom management was not adequate and t...

One of the first things I made sure first graders can do when we get back to school is count to 120.  It is a huge standard in Kindergarten and after a long summer, I always get a few kiddos who come back not counting to 120 fluently.  I like to spend some time in the first weeks of first grade reviewing the numbers to 100 and introducing some counting and estimating ideas that we will build on later.   I knew I wanted to connect literature to this lesson and I got this fantastic book last year that is full of flaps to lift.  I originally bought it for my nephew's birthday because he loves lift flap books but once I got it, I knew I needed one for my classroom too. David Carter's 100: Lift the Flaps and Learn to Count! This book is FULL of flaps to lift.  There are actually 100!   It is super fun for kids to read and a great way to review counting to 100.  Each flap is numbered so there is also practice with symbolic notation built right in.  You...