Sarah Plum

K-5 Resources for Diverse Classrooms

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Five for Friday (And it’s actually Friday!)

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Y’all… can you believe I’m actually posting, and I’m posting a Five for Friday ON Friday no less?! The stars have aligned! Or I was gifted a “cold” day today. Either works as an explanation.

Henry, enjoying a bowl full of snow!

Many of you have been on winter break, which initially I was jealous about. Mother Nature apparently does not like to disappoint me, as she gave us enough snow and a cold front so that we only went to school for 4.5 hours this week! I love love love winter — but only when there is snow on the ground and I can curl up in front of the fire with my family. This week was especially a blessing because…

While I’m exhausted, I know he won’t want to snuggle me forever! *sniff sniff*
Our entire house has been a walking pharmacy for two weeks. It all started with William (my Kindergartener) and his second stomach bug in a month. THEN I started getting sick, which turned out to be double ear infections (apparently I need tubes) and a sinus infection. Then the littlest, Henry, started getting VERY sick with every symptom under the sun. We’re talking irritability, refusing food and drink, etc. Now he has an ear infection, hives, and he got Mr. Plum sick. So if it weren’t for Mother Nature, Mama would have no sick leave left and a lot less sanity! We are all on the mend now, PTL. Seriously.
Not my picture, but totally making my mouth water right now.
Despite the sickies invading every space in our house, I managed to have an AWESOME day yesterday. I’ve been teaching our PEP – Parents as Educational Partners class to about half a dozen Hispanic parents for the past two months. After school yesterday we held our graduation and had our feast! The parents were SO sweet and brought in some of my favorite foods, including pupusas! If you have never had pupusas you must find a reputable place to purchase them immediately. Do not forget the curtido on top, it’s the best part! (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out pupusas here.)
Right after our feast, several colleagues and I drove a half-hour north to the Kennedy Center. I know, right?! On a school night?! Well, luckily in mid-feast we were notified school was called off for today so we DEFINITELY got to enjoy ourselves! We saw Matthias Pintscher conduct the National Symphony Orchestra and perform the North American debut of his concerto, Mar’eh. It was incredible. Seriously, y’all, this was life-changing. It has inspired me BIG TIME to find ways to enrich my students’ lives even further with the arts — I can’t wait to share with you how I’m planning to do that!

Please don’t tell the Kennedy Center that I broke the rules and took a picture. 😛
Now that I’m feeling better I’m catching up on blog posts, e-mails, and my VERY long to-do list for products. I’ve been meaning to play catch-up and get my next word problem pack out LONG before the 1st of the month, so look for March’s “Word Problem for Success” sometime in the next few days… It’s going to be a SUPER fun one, with lots of leprechauns, rainbows, and LOTS of springtime things to get you ready to say bye-bye to old man winter! {You can download February’s sampler, which includes the above pictured visualizing mini-lesson for FREE! Still plenty of time left to celebrate Chinese New Year in your classroom!}

If you made it through ALL of that, I’d love for you to leave a comment with your favorite snow or “cold” day activity and your e-mail — I’ll pick a winner Sunday night to win my March Word Problems for Success pack. You’ll get it before I post it! 🙂

Getting Festive for Fall with Virginia Bloggers

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You know what my favorite thing is about Fall? It’s when I feel like I finally get back in the swing of things! September is so busy and such a transitional period that October — especially late October feels like a wonderful respite. The cool night air, changing leaves, and all things pumpkin doesn’t hurt, either!
We’ve been hard at work in Room 108 on lots of things! Most notably we’ve been hard at work on problem solving using the 4.5 Step Plan.

For students, word problems can be extremely challenging, especially if they already struggle with vocabulary development as many emerging-bilinguals (ELLs) do — but this is probably not news to you! Most students are able to identify and apply strategies we teach them when given number sentences, and yet many still struggle in identify operations within word problems.
That’s where visualization comes in. I use the strategy of visualizing to assist students in determining what information in the problem is important, and what action (operation) is occurring. This is an addition to Polya’s original 4-step process for problem solving.
Students read, and then re-read the problem in order to make a mental picture. They then sketch the action in the problem and begin thinking about the information that’s important — which is when students move to the “understand” step.
As students learn to really visualize they may need some support and plenty of practice, which is why I’m developing themed 4.5 step word problem packs to give 1st and 2nd grade students differentiated and scaffolded practice throughout the year.

Each of these packs will have five word problems to use in mini-lessons that come with a visualization poster, scaffolded pages for guided practice, and completed examples. There will additionally be 15 problems for independent practice.

I like using the visualization poster for think-alouds, checking student understanding, and supporting students that are struggling to grasp concepts.

I also like to use completed examples in a variety of ways — including hiding various steps, and asking students to brainstorm or consider what would precede or follow a given step. It also helps my more visual learners to “see” my think-aloud.

I’d love for you to check out and enjoy one of these mini-lessons. Let me know what you think, and thanks for stopping by and enjoy a Festive Fall resource with this Virginia blogger! And before you leave, please enter my giveaway for a copy of my 4.5 Step Plan pack as well as an item of your choice from my store!

Make the First Week a Rockin’ Success

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Going into my third year I feel MUCH more comfortable than I did my first two — but I still have those beginning of the year jitters much like any teacher does!

One thing that I felt was missing my first two years was cohesion that first week of school. There are so many tasks that need to be completed — paperwork, baseline assessments, learning routines, learning and practicing procedures, getting to know you activities, etc. — but there’s nothing that really binds it all together naturally!

Last year, at the end of the first week, I swore to myself that next year — next year there’d be a theme. Bear with me here, but I have #reasons. Here are my top two:

  1. Engagement. Thematic teaching — even of procedures — ENGAGES children. And that’s the most important thing, I feel, the first week. Hooking them into the power and awesomeness of your classroom and learning!
  2. A back-up plan. When you’ve got a theme, there is SO MUCH you can do with it to extend beyond what you’ve already structured or planned. Did those lunch-line procedures take a lot less time than you’d planned? Awesome, well it’s rockstar week, so let’s have a silent air-guitar contest!

I’ve been mulling over my first week of school theme ALL summer. I’ve been eyeing some clipart sets… and brainstorming… but nothing special was happening.

Then Krista Wallden {from Creative Clips} posted her Rockstar Kids. I literally GASPED in the middle of Target. I looked kind of like this:

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I posted a little about this on Tuesday, but believe it or not {and those of you that know me will BELIEVE it!}, I couldn’t stop thinking about this theme.

So I kept creating… and creating… and creating…

And now I am SO. STINKIN’. EXCITED. about the first week of school!

 

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So that’s my little dude. Modeling his own first day sign. That I added to the pack. {Let’s just ignore the fact he’s seriously going to Kindergarten.}

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I said to William, “Which bracelet do you want to model?” and without hesitation, “THE DUDE WITH THE GUITAR!” Alright then, son!

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Guys. Guys. I originally made this craftivity and made a sample, and then I thought to myself, “Self, why don’t you make one for you?” So I totally made my own as a goal-setting/tone-setting for the year and I can’t wait to share it with my team and my kiddos! Then. Then my husband showed me a video of kids reacting to technology and stuff from when I was a kid, and I had this brilliant idea:
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I’m just going to let you soak it in for a minute. Seriously, who remembers waiting for your favorite song to come on the radio and then scrambling to hit record?! Me. This girl. And that song was totally from New Kids on the Block. I cannot wait to explain what the heck that thing is, and what a mixtape is! {Also? I totally loved reflecting on what an awesome summer this has been!}

I also — in my #can’tstopcreating glory — added a few other gems:

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I’m lovin’ the editable note paper and important dates sheet! I’m already loading mine up for Meet the Teacher so that parents have it in hand LONG before Back-to-School night! {Also, how cool is it being a Tour Manager for a week? In my mind I’m in some cool European city!}
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I also cannot wait to have parents fill out little notes of “Fan Mail” for their kiddos during Meet the Teacher! Some kids, especially those that are new to the school, really need the extra encouragement and lovin’ that first week, and I am so excited for their families to be able to provide that!
Sound Check
Our first Social Studies unit is our district Code of Behavior/Citizenship — and one of the first assessments we do is a quick check of student understanding of our rules. This really gives me an idea of who is internalizing what we’ve talked about this first week, and where I need to do the most re-teaching and re-modeling! I also made posters. Because I can’t help myself and someone needs to take away my computer. Who’s going to volunteer?
Poster ExampleVIP Passes - Options
I’m going to leave you with the VIP passes I made for myself… I’m still deciding what color ribbon to attach it with. Thoughts?

 

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