Collecting Work

I'm not sure why, but I thought I had posted something about how I collect classwork. But when a follower posted a comment as to how I do this I searched through old posts and found nothing. So thank you for bringing it to my attention.

It's pretty simple, yet very effective. I don't know why it took me 4yrs into my teaching career to figure it out...but it is the one procedure that I never change!

Okay so this is how it is set up in my classroom, you can find the file folder pocket charts at any school supply store. I use regular file folders, as pictured below. You can find the printable here as well as the printable for my weekly behavior chart that I staple inside of the folder, Behavior Management Plan

On the tab of each (after laminating) I put each student's name on them as well as their number. I usually have to place two to three folders in each pocket (on the left side, complete). I also put their numbers on laminated cards or di-cuts and staple them to the pocket chart where their folder belongs. So for example the first pocket will have 1-2 stapled to the side (just to keep their folders in order and where they belong).

All of the folders start in the complete side. As the week progresses and classwork assignments are given the students have two options: if they complete their work they put it in their folder and keep it on the complete side, however, if they are still working on it and we are moving on they then put their assignment in their folder and move the folder to the not complete side. Again keeping their folder in the correct order. During the day/week when they finish something early or we have a few free minutes they go over to their folder and grab that unfinished assignment to complete. Once they finish their assignment they can move their folder back to the complete side.

This procedure helps with MANY things. First is that NOTHING ends up in their desk. Now I am not saying this NEVER happens (just desk dumped one of my student's desks this week as a matter of fact, and found an ENTIRE box of used, yes used, tissues as well as 5 missing assignments and numerous other homework and group work papers...it was horrible). But for the most part the students are really great about putting their work in the folders.

The next thing this helps with is when I am ready to grade/collect work I simply grab all of the folders in number order. Then I go through each folder and sort out their work. As I do this I am able to see who is finished and who is not, if there is still time for the students to complete the work I leave the assignment in the folder, if it is close to the end of the week or they need to be in study hall I take the assignment out and make a separate pile for study hall. As I am sorting because the folders are already in number order...after I grade...well entering them into the gradebook is quick!!!! Then even one step further, they are still in order when I go to file them for their Friday Folders!

Also to bring a little SPRING into your day...here is a pic of my most recent bucket, don't forget to stop by and "like" us at Quite a Pear!

Hope this helps!
~Jessica

What other job...

...would find its employee in her office at 5:45am, sitting at her computer, wearing an over sized sweatshirt and ball cap (large Micky D's sweet tea for energy) writing plans for someone to come in, take her place for the day because her child was up at 3am throwing up? I'm sure you have all heard/felt it before...I swear teachers are the only ones that have to do this! Of course my child gets sick on the week that my husband is actually on OUR schedule and in training (therefore can't take off), and I leave my work laptop at school the night before!

To top it off...she is perfectly fine today, no fever, not throwing up, nothing...of course. But I would not have felt comfortable taking my child to day care the next day when she was up at 3am puking.

Well you guys are the lucky ones because I have been up since 3am and checking things off my "to do" list. I am sure I'll crash any minute now, but until then I have pictures and links of my March Madness Tubs.

So a teacher friend found this blog: Teaching in Room 6 she posted (which is in the link to her blog) how she does Test Prep Stations (you may want to read the post first, to then read how I adapted it). I took it and RAN with it! My students are already familiar with Guided Reading and Guided Math, so transitioning them to stations/centers was not difficult. They actually liked the idea of being able to choose their own station and that they had most of the time to work on whatever activity they chose.

The thing I loved the MOST from Teaching in Room 6 post was the task cards(unseen001)!!! I already do something similar in both Guided Math and Guided Reading as a center but had used A TON of 3rd Grade Gridiron's "packets" LOVE her stuff on TPT. So finding these task cards was like hitting the lottery! I will admit it is a little hard to navigate, I felt like I kept having to click, then click this link again, and so on. But it is worth it. You also have to sign up (for free) with ProTeacher, but again so much stuff in these little task cards!

So here is how I set my March Madness Tubs up (I sort of took the usual Guided Math set up and "tweaked" it a little)

 

Tubs on the left are Math and the ones on the right are LA. I used a di-cut circle and vinyl numbers (went ahead and made 6 of them for each subject). 

 Close up of the tubs

This week I chose to only use 4 tubs (stations). 

They are as follows:

Math

• Tub 1: Measurement Task Cards (found on TPT..a little while ago)
• Tub 2: Coach Books (CRCT prep books)
• Tub 3: Measurement, Geometry, and Patterns packets from 3rd Grade Gridiron
• Tub 4: Elapsed Time and Word Problem Task Cards (from the ProTeacher link)

LA

• Tub 1: Kidsville Newspaper WS (made and posted in previous post, by me)
• Tub 2: Two sets of Reading Comprehension Task Cards (ProTeacher again)
• Tub 3: Coach Books (CRCT prep books)
• Tub 4: Vocabulary Building and Author's Purpose Task Cards (ProTeacher)

My students get to sign up, using a simple chart/table. They can choose one tub a day and then on Friday I will let me work on completing things they may need to complete. They have to work the entire time, if they finish early they may read or work on unfinished work, but may not go to another tub. If they don't finish I have put an envelope in each tub that says: I'm still working (pics following). If they finish they turn it in to their complete folders (regular classroom management procedure). During this time I am also seeing one or two small groups (just call them over) and working on weak skills that have been identified through our tons of benchmarking.

I chose to use the task cards by dividing them up into sets. That way more than one student can be working on the same task cards at one time and I'm not having to make doubles (double the work). I made a simple worksheet for each group of task cards, they are just divided into sets and numbered so the kids can write their answers down. This also helps for when they start with Set 2 of the cards and the first number card may be 11, they know where to write the answer. I am sure there are many many different ways you can use these cards.

Here are a few more close ups of my tubs

 

I'll post my sign up sheet, envelope label for still working, and an example of my WS where they record their answers soon...they are saved on my hard drive at school (of course). I hope I was able to give you a few ideas and maybe will help break up some of that mundane test prep.

ENJOY!
~Jessica

Tornadoes, Toddler, Testing, and so much more!

Okay so last week was a ridiculous blur! Starting the work week with conferences, yep Monday and Tuesday. Whoever thought that was such a great idea, seriously!?!? The rest of the week seemed to take FOREVER! To add to the craziness...let's throw in Dr. Seuss week, Benchmark testing (county mandated...again), and add tornado weather on the top. My daughter was not too thrilled with the weather so the sleeping or lets say the lack there of made for an exhausted weekend. Saturday she was up at 3AM and didn't nap until 1PM. I on the other hand was a walking zombie and absolutely worthless.

Now, I play catch up on a few things I wanted to share with you. We are in FULL March Madness mode in my room. Using the massive amounts of data we have and this AMAZING blog with tons of links (teasing you now, because I am wanting to add pictures and "close-ups" of my system)...we have begun the March to the CRCT (oooh I should so use that saying some how!).

The first thing I started in LA was reviewing our Greek and Latin. I have already introduced, taught, and quizzed them on most of our required prefixes, suffixes, and "root" words. So I am trying to make the review a little more interesting. BRING ON THE ORGANIZERS.

The first was for a prefix...the kids thought this was pretty neat.

 

As you can see we folded the paper "hot dog" (length wise), then folded it "hamburger" (width wise) twice. So if you opened the entire page you would have 8 boxes. We kept it folded in half length wise cutting one layer in order to make four flaps. the first flap we kept "normal" added our prefix and under the flap wrote the meaning. The other three flaps we folded up to make a crease marking the half way point of each flap. We then cut the one layer of the flap in half. Each student chose three words using that prefix. We wrote the words on the top flap (large), then cut the word at the break of the prefix and root word. Under the prefix they wrote the definition, then wrote the definition of the root/base word (I know I know those two are not interchangeable but I did it). Underneath the word they illustrated the word and wrote a sentence using the word (they were allowed to change the tense of the word. I am thinking you can only use this organizer for prefixes and suffixes. It seems complicated, but the kids really got it...connected with it, and understood it all better. 

Now that I have baffled your mind...here is the simple one:

Pretty simple...in the middle they drew a picture. I did have a student example, but it ended up weathered. :)

Next, a little find that I fell in LOVE with and just had to have them. Saw them in the Kirkland magazine and picked them up immediately (just so happen to pass one on the way home from work). They were even cuter in person!!

I will hopefully blog a little more this week and have a few links and ideas to break up that March Madness you have going on in your classroom!

~Jessica

Oh THANKS so much for the award, hopefully I'll get on that one soon as well.

Teaching Channel Mention!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my goodness! My pizza pan math groups were mentioned on the Teaching Channel (thanks Misty, thinkwonderteach.blogspot.com, for letting me know). I couldn't believe it. I'm pretty honored.

Check out the link below:
https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2012/02/24/top-4-differentiation/

As Promised

Here is the February Kidsville Newspaper Worksheet I created. This edition has a lot of good articles to share with your class. You can actually view the newspaper in it's entirety though this link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/title/6730

Click the picture to retrive the worksheet:

Craft Time

I made it! I was so excited to try and make this jewelry hanger from pinterest...and shockingly it was soooo easy! (disclaimer on the pictures, sorry they are not that great we are between cameras so I am using a 10yr old point and shoot...boo!)

Here is what you need.

Sorry blogger is flipping my photos again! UGH. Your supplies are: a canvas (you choose your size), 1/2 yard of fabric, staple gun, tape measure or ruler, and cup hooks (I found mine at Target in the one hardware aisle, I really liked the rustic finish on these).

I then measured out the distance of where I wanted to hooks. I went ahead and screwed them in (very very easy) to make the holes, this way they were pre-spaced and I didn't have to mark up my fabric

 

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I then trimmed my fabric, leaving approx. an inch on each side. Folded the fabric and pulling it tightly as I stapled it to the canvas.

 

Thanks to having my holes already done, I simply felt as to where they were and screwed the hooks into the frame again.

 

Hang and DONE!!!!!

 I used my cricut to cut out vinyl letters...so easy!!!!!!!

The End of the LONG Weekend

I think I managed to get to about 90% of what I wanted to accomplish this weekend. I think that is pretty good considering I was useless the first two days of our little break. Unfortunately I didn't get to my craft, but it is on the books for tomorrow night (fingers crossed). Thanks to my hubby, who kept my little one busy this evening, I got some of the "boring" things done. This is what my workspace looked like, I'm sure you are pretty familiar with it!

Oh yeah don't be jealous of my stacks :) The HUGE binder (I am going to have to get a second one) contains all my student's information: DRA/Rigby, Fluency report, Writings w/ rubric, Reading/Writing Communication Reports, and so on. To me it's a little easier to have everything at my fingers...instead of in a file. This way if I have a SST, Kid Talk or whatever you want to call it, even a conference I just grab my HUGE binder. Did I mention I LOVE binders, and sheet protectors!??!?!?!

I almost forgot...I have made this worksheet, that goes with a free newpaper we receive in Gwinnett County. BUT you can access the issue on their website!!! ( http://www.kidsvillenews.com/articles/201201/) You can even project the articles if you would like. So here is a little freebie for you. ENJOY. Keep an eye out, I am working on this month's edition, I'll post it as soon as I can, along with the link.