First-rate and Flops: A Reflection of the Year

It's hard to believe the school year ended already! My classroom is bare and empty, and 24 chairs will sit cold until 24 little bottoms warm them again in September.

I've already moved on to next year in my mind - and in my classroom! After a weekend to relax while camping, I was re-energized to get into my classroom this morning. I doled out last year's files to the 5th grade teachers and created new files for my incoming class.

Before I go any further down the road of preparation for next year, though, I'd like to take some time to reflect on the last year - what worked and what didn't.

Here's what worked:

Sock Snowmen

As a culmination to our fraction unit and a salute to the winter, we measured fractional amounts of rice to create these adorable sock snowmen! The kids cradled and loved them, PLUS they went home as decor for the holidays! This was a fun way to put our basic fraction learning to practice. I wrote all about it here.









C.I.A.

After reading The Read-Aloud Handbook, I was more convinced than ever of the importance of read-aloud for kids of any age! I was fortunate enough to come across a reading program that uses a shared reading of a novel to teach key CCSS reading AND writing standards! It's called the C.I.A. approach. You can read more about it on the C.I.A. website.

Anyway, I put this to the test and tried my first deep study of a read-aloud/shared read novel. Each kid followed along with a copy of the same book I was reading from. Together, we analyzed the main character's feeling, inferred his motivations, deduced the author's message, and summarized our findings. Complete with sentence stems and turn and talk partners, we were finally able to have intellectual conversations about a novel, and EVERY child had access to a grade-level text!

I am planning on doing two C.I.A. units next year.



My Favorite No
My colleague showed me how she did exit tickets. She calls it "My Favorite No." It's a quick way to sort your exit tickets and turn them into a learning opportunity for all. I wrote about it here. What's awesome is the kids were super engaged during this activity!

Calendar Math
I used Stephanie's 4th grade calendar math template this year and saw my kids master skills I couldn't have made happen otherwise! Factors, multiples, median, mode - easy peasy for these guys, thanks to Calendar Math!


Rolling our Numbers

We followed in the footsteps of Kipp Journey Academy and rolled our numbers routinely to help us memorize the multiples of the numbers 1 through 9. Again, this activity  had high engagement, which is half the battle! Also, it was great to see kids reciting the chants as they practiced their multiplication facts.

I felt empowered through these chants to help kids who struggled with basic facts move in the direction of memorizing them. I knew the chants had been successful when one such student declared, "oh, 4's are easy!"









Basic Facts Banana Splits

Speaking of multiplication facts, a huge motivator for my kids to master their facts was our basic facts banana split party!

As we studied each fact, students had the opportunity to test out of that fact. As they did, they earned their way to a banana split.

For their 0's, they earned a place mat. For their 1's they earned a bowl. For their 2's, they earned a banana...and so on until they earned an entire banana split!

This was culminated with an actual banana split party, where each kid got to enjoy what they had earned! This was the most motivating thing I have found for basic facts! Kids were practicing facts at home and requesting to stay in from recess so they could re-take a fact quiz!




Aaand, here's what flopped:

Writing entry task
I began the year with high hopes that my students would become writers! With this vision, I instituted a daily writing entry task! That's a great idea, you think! Yes, it is! So, why did it flop? Well, simply because I did not have enough time to grade and provide feedback on student work often enough to make it worthwhile. It's as simple as that.

Communication Journals
This was another step toward my vision of creating a classroom full of writers. Each kid had a journal they would write to me in once a week. And I would write back. Yeah. That's the catch. Once again, I just could not keep up with the pile of journals to respond to. However, I did LOVE interacting one-on-one with my students in this way. Our conversations allowed me to see into their lives in a beautiful way. I'm thinking I'll try this again next year on a more infrequent basis!

Team Tasks

As a GLAD-trained teacher, I went all-out and had teams work on open-ended tasks while I worked with a small group of students. The problem: poor quality. I WILL try this again next year, but perhaps with some more guidelines and/or sample products for the kids to follow.








I-Time Independents

Similarly, I needed something for the majority of my class to do while I met with a small reading group every day. So I came up with this GREAT idea - each kid had two weeks to complete 3 projects: a book report, a writing piece, and a poem recitation!

This was actually really fun and (I believe) has great potential. However, like with my other flops, the problem came down to not being able to provide guidance and/or prompt feedback. Imagine grading 3 projects for each of 10 kids in one day! That's insane!

So there you have it - the first-rate successes from the year, and the unfortunate flops.

Reflection is always motivating!

Already the wheels are turning... what will the coming school year hold?

Linking up with Stephanie at Teaching in Room 6!