January 2014

Have you ever read Two of Everything by Lili Toy Hong?

It is a Chinese folktale about a little old woman and a little old man who find a magic pot that doubles anything you put inside - including the little old man and woman!

And it is a terrific resource for teaching the doubles strategy in math. Whatever goes in the pot gets doubled when it comes out!

Today we put a set of cubes into our magic pots

and we pulled out double!

I found these cute little 'cauldrons' after Halloween last year and snapped up a handful of them - they were perfect for this!

This was a such a quick and easy activity! No prep, no copies - we just recorded what we did in our math journals. And you gotta love easy peasy on the first day back after winter break:)

Monday is staring me down.
Back to my classroom full of first graders. Who have been out of school for 16 straight days.
Over two weeks of no structure, no expectations, no school rules!

So I'm going in like it's Day 1. We're going to go over routines and procedures just like we did in September. I may take up a bit of time that first week back, but it will pay off in the long run:)

Here's how I teach procedures:

Model

Never assume they know anything. Model exactly the behavior you want.

Observe and Share

I ask the kids the watch what I do and be ready to share what they noticed. I model the procedure exactly how I want the kids to do it and let the kids tell what they saw. They will tell all (or most) of the important components of the procedure. It is so much more meaningful when they discover it for themselves instead of listening to the teacher tell them how.

I model it again and name each step while I do it.

Practice

Now I ask a couple of volunteers to show the class the procedure. Again, I ask the kids to watch and notice. The kids will share what they saw.

This time I ask a group of kids to model the procedure. Repeat the noticings and sharings. I do this until everyone has had a chance to model and share.

Now the whole class will practice the procedure and debrief with what they did correctly and where there were shortcomings.

I am also going to use some anchor charts, journal prompts, and a mini book I made to help kids write and draw about our classroom procedures. Here are some sample pages: