Meaningful Homework

Amy here! As I sit here finishing up my "homework" to prepare for the week (lesson plans, prepping for Parent Night, etc.) while watching Bill Maher and enjoying my favorite treat in the world, Diet Coke, I realize that there are several reasons I assign homework to my students. It teaches time management and responsibility, as well as providing important practice and it keeps parents informed of what their child is working on and the progress they are making on those skills.

Unfortunately, those important purposes for assigning homework often get lost and forgotten when gathering homework materials. All too often, homework is sent home and parents and students sit at the kitchen table (for way too long) struggling over completing work that the student is not ready to practice and therefore, parents are forced to reteach skills and battle their child to complete their work.

This is a vision Mollie and I try to keep in mind when we assign homework. We do not want our kiddos or our parents spending the better part of their night battling over homework, and we certainly do not want parents to be forced to reteach material in order to complete the homework. We feel good about what we are currently assigning and we work hard to constantly reevaluate what we are sending home and why we are sending it.

READING HOMEWORK:
We ask that our students read every night and we encourage them to talk or write about what they read. Providing parents with some prompts or questions that can help get the conversation started is a great way to encourage talking about books.

We are currently using this WONDERFUL resource from Forkin4th:

It gives students a week worth of activities surrounding a provided text. The activities are relevant and interesting and it includes a piece to get parents involved by asking them to listen to their child read.

MATH HOMEWORK:
Our math homework asks students to complete a limited number of problems surrounding one skill, as well as to reflect on how they are understanding the concept using a rubric. Here is an example of what we send home:

This allows us to share with parents what we are learning, give students some practice, gather feedback from students on how they feel they are progressing in learning a certain skill, and all of this can be done without frustrating or overwhelming our kiddos or their parents!

We would love to hear about what meaningful homework you are sending home with your students! Leave comments and links below!

Whew... Made It!!!

Amy here! We made it through our first week back to school. We introduced our students to our new classroom set-up (we PROMISE pics are coming!!!), talked about what "smart" REALLY is, organized supplies, introduced our students to their Word Study Notebooks, started our first science unit, took our first Math in Focus pretest, and had our first Publishing Party! Just typing all that makes me tired. I imagine our kiddos slept well last night!

Here are some links and details to learn more information about our New Year Kick-Off activities in case you are looking for some activities for your own kiddos!

We always begin our year by sharing with kids that being "smart" is all about growth. It's not about the things we can do well the first time, it is about the things we have to work at and areas we can grow in. I love the look on their faces as they start to hear what I am saying: "We should all care more about how far we have come rather than the final outcome!!" We used our "8 Kinds of Smart" posters as a PowerPoint to share with kids the idea that we all possess different strengths that we can use to our advantage when learning new information. If you would like to share this information with your kiddos, check out the our Multiple Intelligences freebie!!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Multiple-Intelligences-Kid-Friendly-Posters-1331093

We kicked off our Word Study Notebooks right away this year. Our kids enjoyed them so much last year that we wanted to be sure to start them as soon as possible. These notebooks help students to study prefixes, suffixes and root words in order to spell and read unknown words. We are so excited that we had all of our Word Study lessons/materials planned out for the year. We even sacrificed a summer day (okay, it was a horribly stormy, rainy day) to copy everything we would need for the year!! Now our Word Study block includes stress free, prepared teachers and engaged, motivated students. Check out the year long plan at our TPT store! You can buy the year long bundle, or try out an individual month!

Our pacing guide for Math has us going 100 miles per hour from now til the end of the year. This means we needed to start ASAP! We gave our kiddos their first pretest this week and learned a lot about their test taking habits and behaviors as well as each student's place value understanding. We will begin sending homework home next week. We are so glad we have worthwhile (and not overwhelming) homework that is standard specific and allows our kiddos to think about where their understanding level is so they are aware of the growth they make over the course of the unit. If you are looking for some relevant and useful homework for your students, check this out:

We always start our writing off with a fun activity. We ask students to bring in an artifact that represents their summer. They then use their artifact to write a piece that shares a story from their summer vacation. After giving students two days to prepare their piece, we introduce them to a Publishing Party. This is a celebration of the work students have put into a writing piece. We hold Publishing Parties when we are concluding a unit and students have a finished piece. We place students in groups of four and they take turns reading their pieces. This week they shared their artifact and their story. All of this while enjoying cookies and juice. Our hope is that each Publishing Party helps to give students a purpose in their writing with a specific audience in mind. It also shows students how much we value the time and effort they put into writing each piece. Finally, it gives students an opportunity to hear the author's craft elements that their peers are putting in their writing. Our kids love Publishing Parties and we LOVE watching them take pride in the work they do!

Whew, long post but so much fun stuff to share. We are so grateful to be in the classroom again this year with a new group of kids that are ready and eager to learn. It is going to be an awesome year! We hope your year is off to a great start too!

Oodles of Freebies!!

Mollie and I are so excited to share with you an awesome set of resources offered by a HUGE group of TPT sellers. Some of our dear friends worked tirelessly to put together several ebooks that share back-to-school tips and freebies from your favorite TPT stores. It is a convenient and fast way to get connected with resources you need for the perfect price... FREE!!!

Here is a link to the 3rd-5th grade Language Arts book. We are very honored to be included in this book with such amazing teacher resource creators. At the bottom of the TPT listing you will find links to the other ebooks, check them all out, you will be so glad you did!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Grades-3-5-English-Language-Arts-Back-to-School-E-Book-2014-2015-1376922

Happy Reading!!!

Hurry! TPT Sale Ends Tonight!!

Only a few hours left for the Teachers Pay Teachers Back-to-School Sale. Everything in our store is 20% off and TPT will give you an additional 10% off when you enter the BTS14 code at checkout. Looking for a great deal? Take a look at our year-long Word Study pack that includes everything you need for your students to create an interactive notebook while working with and learning key affixes.

Take some time to browse your wish-listed items to see if there is anything you just can't live without! Happy shopping!!!

Blast Off Back to School Sale!!!

Hi, all! Mollie here :) The back to school sale on TPT starts in about 15 minutes!! Last minute product uploads have consumed our weekend and we are definitely okay with that.

Having this sale has really caused me to get in gear and realize that the upcoming school year is not far off! It's time to buckle down on the summer fun and get preparing for the little munchkins that we will be teaching in just one month!

We just finished our a measurement product that we are very excited about! It is called Converting Measurements with the Common Core. The measurement standards in the upper elementary grades are so specific and detailed that we wanted to make something that could practice each part of the very loaded Common Core standard 4.MD.1. We taught this unit in May this year and LOVED it! Click the picture below to see what it's all about!

Happy sale everyone! Until next time :)

8 Kinds of Smart

Amy here! I can't believe how fast the summer is going. Unfortunately my to-do list seems longer than ever and I am no where near tired of the pool yet, but past experience tells me that before I know it, I will be standing in front of my new group of kiddos talking about the year ahead of us.

For several years now, an important element to the start of our school year has been talking with students about the idea of "smart". I think all of us can remember our school experience and those in our class that we considered "smart". It was always the kid who got the great test scores and picked up concepts very quickly. I love the dialogue that has been happening in the education field recently about what true "smart" is because it gives us the opportunity to celebrate all students and these celebrations fuel more accomplishments to celebrate! (What an awesome cycle right?!?)

We work very hard throughout the year (especially in the first few weeks of school) to help our students understand that demonstrating how smart you are comes in the amount of growth you make, not in the final outcome. We help students to become self-reflective about their learning and we encourage them to get excited about the process of learning and the growth they are able to demonstrate through hard work.

One way that we accomplish this is by teaching Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences. We talk at great length about the eight kinds of smart and how we are all our own combinations of smart. We all have strengths and we all have areas that are more challenging. After sharing the eight kinds of smart with students we take them (and their parents) through a variety of activities to help them identify the smarts they are strongest in. Throughout the year we share with students how they can utilize their strengths to help support their learning. It is amazing to see how empowered students feel when they know that they can use skills they already possess to help them learn something new.

We will share more the activities, surveys, and checklists we do with kids and their parents to help them identify their strengths in future posts 8 Kinds of Smart Posters. To get you started, below you will find a link to a set of *FREEBIE* posters that use kid friendly terms to explain the 8 Kinds of Smart. You can print them and hang them in the room as a reminder or you can use them with your interactive whiteboard to present them to students. Continue to check back for more resources on the 8 Kinds of Smart. ENJOY!!!

8 Kinds of Smart Posters 

The start of something new...

Thank you Megan Favre at Birds in Hand Design for our beautiful new blog design!!! If you're looking for someone to design your blog, we can't recommend Megan enough. After 31 emails and Megan's immense amount of patience with two beyond nutty teachers, we have a design that exceeds all expectations. Thanks, Megan!! If you would like to visit Megan's website, click here.

To kick off our new blog, we will be writing a series of posts sharing our classroom redesign adventure. Our goal in this journey is to create a classroom environment that encourages the way the 21-century student learns. Follow us to share in our quest for a new classroom design that engages and inspires our classroom communities.