Gingerbread Glyph Bulletin Board

We needed to have a little fun on Friday afternoon, so this was our Five Minute Fun activity! (And as we all know, things that normally take 5 minutes take a lot longer when holidays are near!) My students loved the scarecrows they made and wrote about in the fall, so I found a blank gingerbread person from Kidzone and used a glyph direction sheet from Teacher's Mailbox (but you can use this one.) We didn't have the time to cut and glue construction paper, buttons, or yarn, but they still loved it anyway!

Here's a blank gingerbread person:

Click to download.

 There are tons of other glyphs at Mathwire.com (awesome site, if you haven't already checked it out!) 

Concrete Poems

As part of our story Max's Words in our Journeys reading series, we had to create concrete poems, or poems that are written in the shape of their topic. They're perfect for any writer because they don't have to have any rhyme or rhythm and they can be any length! Here are some examples I used to show the kids.

Since we were very busy that week, we didn't create them until last week. I asked the children to pick a winter theme so we could use them for our winter bulletin boards. Here they are!

My favorite way of creating concrete poems is to use Tagzedo. Check out this penguin from the gallery!

Need more structure? Try your own woodland themed concrete poems here.

For more Max's Words activities, click here.

For more Journeys posts, click here.

Christmas Must-Haves / Must-Dos

Check out the Portable North Pole...Santa sent me a video with my name in it to show to my class! He even knew how old I was, where I lived, and what I wanted for Christmas!!! I posted some pictures here because they wanted to show their parents.

Watch the Video!

Santa said my name...and spelled it correctly! He said I was on the nice list!

He knew I asked for books for Christmas!

(I should have asked him for a house...but come on, it is New Jersey - even Santa can't afford a house here!)

He knew I had a new niece this year!

He knew I had a fabulous new class!

We saw the file he kept on me

and the machine that told him I was on the nice list!

We have been tracking Santa using the NORAD Santa Tracker. You have to wait until Christmas Eve to track him this year using Google Earth, but here's the video from last year!

Click on the Countdown to Track Santa picture to go there!

and you can play games while you wait for Christmas Eve!

Kids can also leave Santa a free Google voicemail by calling the number 1-855-34-SANTA (1-855-347-2682)!

or use Send a Call (this one's for adults only)

We are waiting for Santa to send us our Elf on a Shelf. We're hoping it won't take long...and maybe me switching schools caused a delay! We can't wait to find out if it's a boy or girl and see the DVD that it comes with!

Check out what some of the other Elves on Shelves have been up to!

Check out more Christmas / Winter ideas on Pinterest.

Test Prep Materials

I have finally come across some great NJ ASK test prep materials thanks to the before/after school tutoring program here at our school! There are still 5 months until the test, but you can never start preparing too early! I don't spend time cramming near the end, nor do I make testing a focus. I do, however, want my students to use test taking strategies throughout the year and to feel comfortable when they take the ASK the first time. I'm sure I'll be posting about this again as the test gets sooner, but for now here are some materials you may want to consider purchasing. (Keep in mind that I posted the NJ materials, and most of them also come aligned with other states' standardized tests too!)

Right now, we are using the following products by Triumph Learning:

New Jersey ASK Coach (Language Arts Literacy and Math Level C) for direct instruction

Ladders to Success Level C for math, reading, and language arts skills acquisition

ASK 3 Workout for Math and Reading review and extra practice

In the past, I have used Qworkbooks Explore series for language arts literacy and math.

Measuring Up to the NJCCCS

Just a disclaimer: we have now moved to common core standards, so there may be some changes coming to the NJ ASK...but since we did not receive Race to the Top funds, who knows?!

Click here to download NJ ASK released test samples!

Math

Language Arts Literacy

Do you have any materials or questions about the NJ ASK?

Place Value Math

Today's objective for my before school tutoring was using place value to strengthen number sense. It's usually our first topic of the year in math, so it was a great place to start.

 I have my students use dry-erase boards to write numbers in standard from (7,565) after giving them word form (seven thousand five hundred and sixty-five), or I ask them to write a number in expanded form (7,000+500+60+5) after being given the number in standard form. It really makes reading numbers, determining the value and place of each digit, and comparing numbers much easier!

A great website to use for place-value is the University of Utah's National Library of Virtual Manipulatives.  It has the following place value blocks interactives:

With the simple base blocks, you can model a number:

With base-blocks addition, you can add numbers up to 4 digits and show regrouping if necessary:

With base-blocks subtraction, you can subtract numbers up to 4 digits and show regrouping:

To compare numbers, check out my post on balance scale equalities and inequalities!

Check out my other math posts here.