First Annual Art Show

My co-worker Natalka and I gathered our art projects from the past year and set up the gym for our First Annual Art show. Natalka teaches art to the English kiddos from grades 4-8 and I teach the French Immersion art from grades 3-8. We organized the gym by Elements of Design (Line, Shape, Texture, Space, Colour, Value), labelled the work and invited parents and students to enjoy the artwork. We were so pleased as to how it all turned out and had fantastic feedback.



The majority of my ideas came from my schooled: art pinboard or projects that I did myself in elementary or high school or for fun. We used pencils, markers, pastels, crayons, glue, magazines, paint chips, gesso, wire, pantyhose, charcoal, found items, recycled items, paint, foil, sticks, pop cans, exacto knives and clay to create our projects. Some students created Facebook profile pages of famous artists and created art like them. My class created a giant colour wheel of found objects.

We also created a collaborative installation, where each student illustrated a pair of eyes. We compiled them together with the title "If these walls had eyes" - representing the eyes of aboriginal students of residential schools.



I am so fortunate to teach visual arts. It is definitely one of my passions. I am excited for more projects next year. I am also excited to add more of a social justice inquiry twist to the intermediate projects, start sketchbook projects with my juniors, give kiddos a greater choice of materials and create more collaborative projects within and between classes.

Report Cards of the past.

Report cards are due to the office next week, and I've been inputting marks and comments like a mad-lady. When I was home for my dad's birthday party, my sister and I were going through some old pictures and came across his old report cards from elementary school. I both laughed and cried.

Let us first start with the noticeable differences between then and now. The 60s report cards were actual report "cards". One piece of card stock folded in half kept for all 3 terms. Some marks for penmanship and arithmetic and spelling and a couple of handwritten generic comments. The 2013 Ontario Report Card is 4 pages long each term. The front page is school information, Religion* and Learning Skills marks and comments. Page two is Language (English and French, and Native Language if applicable), Math and Science marks and comments. Page 3 is Social Studies, Phys Ed, Health and the Arts (Drama, Dance, Visual, Music) and student goal-setting. Page 4 is grading information and parent goal-setting. All of that writing and I still feel bad that I left spaces in some comment boxes. We get the report cards sent back to us if they aren't done "properly", they need to be personalized and have to include strengths and next steps for the students. There are check boxes for immersion and IEPs, and guidelines as to how many strands you have to report on each term.  You also can't give less than a D or you get red-flagged by the computer system. You are supposed to comment on what they can do and what they've completed, so if a student rarely completes assignments, that can't really be "counted" against them. If they slack off in math, or don't put in any effort, you are supposed to comment on that in the Learning Skills section, not the Math section. Heck, there is a whole policy document about how to write them.



Can you imagine writing reports cards like my dad's teachers? One small card for all three terms with a sentence or two handwritten general comments? One even says "completed to 18." What does that even mean?  Seriously, that sort of  report card writing would take no time at all. Talk about stress-free! I wonder if the principals even had to proof-read them? Likely not. One of the report cards we found of my dad's had a comment that wasn't at all related to school, it talked about how my dad had terrible taste in hockey teams. What?!

Here are two quotes that were typed on the front of many of the old report cards we found that I liked...

"Our schools are endeavouring to provide an environment where your child may grow naturally in intellect, in social co-operation and in moral responsibility. Parents help by ensuring for the child proper rest, well-balanced diet, prompt and regular attendance at school. Feel free to contact the school on any problem concerning your child's progress. Calls at 8:45 am or during noon hour disturb the school routine at least. Appointments can be conveniently arranged."

"All children have not the same ability to learn in school. Comparison of reports, therefore, is apt to be unreliable and unfair. The school exacts the same standards of obedience, honesty, cleanliness, application to studies, interest, regularity and punctuality that should be practiced by all citizens as they form the basis of a happy family life at home or school."

I am not complaining about writing report cards, I've become quite efficient, and I nerdily love the curriculum that we get to teach and report upon (so pumped about the new immersion document!). I also appreciate the PD day we are given to write them (well, to at least get a crack at them). These report cards are definitely more packed with details than those of the past, but are they really helpful to parents?

I spend a lot of time deciphering comments on report cards during interviews. For example, a comment reading "With teacher assistance, Benny can add 3-digit numbers with some effectiveness." really means, "Benny can't add very well." - but doesn't it sound nicer? I also spend a lot of time explaining that a B actually means "meeting grade-level expectations" and is more similar to an A of the past, and a C isn't the end of the world, it just means that they haven't solidified the expectation, but they are progressing.

I also wonder how many parents read all of the words that teachers spend hours typing up in "parent-friendly language" (whatever that is supposed to mean) or do they just look at the letter grade? Also, if parents don't know what the curriculum says in the first place, then they won't realize that "Shan writes very simple texts using one or two forms. She generates some clear ideas with supporting details and is beginning to use paragraphs in her writing." is not at grade 5 level, and is much lower than the grade 5 expectations his/her peers are reaching, which are "Penny writes longer and more complex texts using a variety of forms. She identifies and orders main ideas and supporting details and groups them into several developed linked paragraphs. She determines whether her ideas and information are relevant, appropriate, and adequate for her purpose, and does more research if necessary."

Does anyone care to guess how many page 4s I get back from parents?

On that note, I need to go finish writing my Learning Skills (which in my opinion, are the most important part of the Report Card.)

MATH WORD PROBLEMS at home

Closed- & Open-Ended Problem Solving

What’s the difference?

Close-ended: Many of the questions we traditionally ask students call for a single number, figure, or mathematical object. These kinds of questions are closed-ended because the expected answers are predetermined and specific. There are many examples of closed-ended problems online. These can be very valuable practice, and excellent homework support.

Examples of closed-ended questions:

1) Jennie wanted to buy some flowers for her mom. Each flower costs $3. If Jennie buys 15 flowers, how much money will she have spent?

2) The total number of people at Monday’s football game was
50,000 + 9,000 + 300 + 1. What is this number, written in standard form?

In contrast, Open-ended questions allow a variety of correct responses and elicit a different kind of student thinking. The open-ended nature of the question allows students to demonstrate their own ways of solving the problem.

Examples of open-ended questions:

Type 1: Ask Students to Explain Who Is Correct and Why: These types of items present two or more views of some mathematical concept or principle and the student has to decide which of the positions is correct and why. Example: Ian says that when you find the sum, you have a lot of choices for a common denominator. Frank says there is only one choice for the common denominator. Who is correct and why?

Type 2: Ask Students to Create a Situation or an Example That Satisfies Certain Conditions Questions of this type require students to recognize the defining characteristics of the underlying concept. Students must take what they know about a concept and apply it to create an example. Example: At Friday’s game, there were more people than there were at Monday’s game and fewer people than at Saturday’s game. How many people could have been at Friday’s game? Explain how you know your answer is right.

I’d like some more sample problems!

There are many math problems online - and many are close-ended. You can easily convert a close-ended problem into an open ended problem (and visa versa). Both are excellent practice, and we use both open- and close-ended problems in our math classroom.

Original Closed-Ended Item	Revised Open-Ended Item
Find the Lowest Common Multiple of 18 and 24.	Why can't 48 be the LCM of 18 and 24?
What are the next three numbers in the following sequence? 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, ___, ____, ____	Consider the following sequence: 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, ... . Is 100 a member of this sequence? Explain your reasoning.
Round 37.67 to the nearest 10th.	Generate three different numbers that when rounded to the nearest 10th give 37.7.

The following sites have great close-ended word problems organized by grade or strand

http://ca.ixl.com/math/grade-4 http://math.about.com/od/wordproblem1/Worksheets_for_Word_Problems_Various_grades.htm

http://www.dadsworksheets.com/v1/Worksheets/Word%20Problems.html

http://www.mathplayground.com/wpdatabase/wpindex.html

Some open-ended (others closed):

http://math.wiki.cvsd.k12.pa.us/Open-Ended+Questions

Pinterest drives my instruction: Math games

Some of the newest math games in my classroom. Inspired by this user and this user (and upon further inspection from that nutty and amazing Teacher Tipster.)



I altered a Guess Who? game. I replaced all of the heads with 3 or 4 or 5 digit numbers. The rules are the same, as kiddos are trying to guess their opponent's number. Is it s 3-digit number? Is it greater than ___? Does it have a 5 in it's tens column? Is it an odd number?



I altered a Jenga game with multiplication facts. The tower gets set up (like in normal Jenga), and as kids take out a Jenga block (and it doesn't fall) they have to answer the multiplication fact. If they get it right, they are safe. If not, they have to pull another block.



DOMO. (So the game is really called SNAKE, but I teach French Immersion and our class pet is my stuffed DOMO-kun, so we renamed the game DOMO.) This is a whole-class game. Each kid draws a tableau on some scrap paper with each column a letter in the word you are spelling (DOMO). Round 1 is round D. All students stand up and I roll two dice. Once I roll I ask if they want to stay in the game. If they stay, they write down the total of the dice on their table and I move on. I roll the dice again, and before i tell them the total, I ask if they are in or out. If they are out, they keep all the points that they've accumulated so far. If they stay in, they are facing risky business. You see, if I roll  a 1, they lose all the points. If I roll a double 1 (snake eyes) they lose all points from the current round and any round before. Once I roll a 1, students add all the points from column D and we move on to Round 2:Round O and all kids stand up again. They love it. We also have a (first to 100) bébé DOMO version that kids play in pairs.

**More games to come soon. Also I want to share the crazy-ness that is my triple-grade numeracy block! Until then - try some of these games.

*Note: Pinterest doesn't really drive my instruction. The data (is the roadmap that) drives my instruction and student interests, but there are so many amazing resources for teachers waiting to be pinned. And since I have over 200 pins on my schooled board (that I am actually doing!) I thought I should share them with the world.

mathy valentines.

Today we wrote some math (thomas) valentines. Here are some of my favourites translated. These kids are hilarious.

"Dear Area - You fill my heart with love and make me feel all warm and cozy inside. Love, Rectangle"
"Dear Mode - You are beautiful and smart. You'll always be my favourite. Love, a data set."
"Dear 536 - Things are not working out. We need to break up and go our own ways. I've found someone new. From, Division"
"Dear numbers, I love you in my life. Our love keeps growing and growing. Love, ascending pattern."
"Dear addition - We belong together and will be together forever. You are my match. Love, subtraction."



These valentines were part of some voice trait learning. We've been talking about adding voice to our writing with some quick-write mini lessons. One of the ways we can add voice is to change the point of view of the author.  Above is a picture of my hallway bulletin board devoted to the voice trait. Included with the valentines are some "Show, don't tell" paragraphs and some voice-embedded opinion grocery lists. I also put some self-portrait collages - because if they aren't full of voice, I don't know what is.

Pinterest Drives my Instruction: Twitter Board

Someone somewhere (on Pinterest) made a twitter board. Then someone else copied. Then I thought it was cool - being an "on-and-off" tweeter myself, so I copied too.

It's been up since September. Each kid has a username (mine is @madammie) and I usually write something like "What is your favourite genre of book? Why?" or "What is your opinion about finding the perimeter of polygons?" or "How are you feeling today?" under my name, and throughout the day (or week) students add their tweets. I'm a bit too nerdy for my own good.



You might also recognize the kids flying with the balloons which have their "hopes and dreams" for the year from Pinterest. Come on in... let's learn about things!