Five for Fraturday 10-3-15

It has been a while since I have been able to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday, and I am so glad that I can share today. I don't know if you are like me, but I always have these great ideas to blog about while I am teaching, and then I either don't have time or forget them by the time I get home. Which leads me to...

Feeling grateful this week. I am always so busy and our house is always on the verge of being a mess (or an actual mess), but I am really trying to focus on the good stuff that this means. For example, I am always busy because I have a job that I love that I want to give 100% to. I also have a wonderful family with kids who are healthy and happy. Who would complain about either of these two things? And my house is a lot of work to take care of, but I have a house. We all (my family) has a safe and cozy place to come home to every night. That is definitely not worth complaining about.

We have had some stress at school lately, kids are moving around - two teachers had to switch grade levels. It was easy to get caught up in the chaos. I really had to work to remind myself that everything was going to be okay. This was not a tragedy. The kids being moved would become a part of their new classroom communities, and the teachers being moved would figure things out too. I am finding that there isn't really very much that we should be getting stressed about in our lives. Trust me, I still feel plenty of stress, but I am trying to cut back. :)

At school this week we started learning about the distributive property of multiplication using Engage NY Grade 3, Module 1. Last year I made a mess of this for my students. It was so weird to me that I was fumbling my way through it with them. As a result, I didn't feel like my students understood it the way they should have. This year, we are taking our time. We will be working on models and the distributive property all next week. I have going to be busy this weekend making worksheets and activities to help them become distributive property masters.

On Friday my class was able to do a really fun art project. Last year my mom traveled to southern India. While she was there she saw women decorating the dirt in front of their homes with amazing designs using chalk. She bought some stencils for the patterns and loose chalk and gave them to my kids when she got back. My kids loved making the designs.

Since our third grade team teaches cultures around the world I thought it would be a perfect activity for a Friday. My students loved it, and our principal even told the school about it over morning announcements. We had kids admiring our work all day. As you can see, it wasn't perfect (and it was definitely messy!), but we got to do some true learning. Next week, when I give them a reading passage about Kolam (the art we did), I know that all of my students will have the necessary background knowledge to understand it.

This was the first week that my husband and I have had a date night courtesy of my wonderful mother-in-law. She has offered to come over every Thursday evening, so Chris and I can go out alone. It was amazing to sit and have a conversation - that doesn't happen very often with four kids running around. We ate delicious Mexican food, had drinks, and really enjoyed ourselves.

Do you use learning targets in your school? My guess is yes. Our school is all about learning targets. This summer I read something I found really interesting about learning targets in Why Kids Don't Like School. The author wrote that giving kids the "I can" statement is kind of like giving them an unwrapped gift. You still get the good thing that you want, but the reason we wrap gifts is the surprise of it. That is what makes getting gifts fun. 

So, instead of writing an "I can" statement, the book recommends posing a question. For example, instead of "I can use the distributive property to solve multiplication problems." I write "What is the distributive property, and how can I use it to solve multiplication problems?" If you are like me your brain wakes up at the question. It is like a puzzle that my brain wants to solve. I immediately start making guesses about what we are going to be doing. 

I have been writing questions instead of statements all year, and I really think that it is helping to build a curious culture in my classroom. I highly recommend you try it.

Also, as a bonus #6, make sure you look at my post on sharpening colored pencils. If you have a classroom, I am betting this has been a issue for you. I have found something that works for me, and it is so simple!

Have a great week everyone!