Teaching Order of Operations: No-fail Strategies that Really Work!

Order of operations can be frustrating to teach, but it doesn't have to be. There's no question that this is an extremely challenging topic for elementary students. Fortunately, there are loads of strategies for teaching order of operations that are both fun and effective.

One reason kids struggle with this concept is that there are so many rules to learn and follow. Even worse, rules that appear to be simple often prove to be deceptively complex.

For example, most kids can easily remember that multiplication and division are always performed before addition and subtraction, especially after they learn to follow the order described by "PEMDAS."

However, they tend to get stuck when an equation includes both multiplication AND division. Most kids automatically multiply before dividing, but order of operations tells us to perform the operation that comes first when reading the problem from left to right. No wonder kids find order of operations to be super confusing!

Another reason kids struggle is that even when they understand how to use order of operations correctly, they don't apply the rules systematically. Because the problems look easy, students try to rely on mental math alone to solve them. This may work with the easy problems, but mental math isn't effective with more complex problems that include multiple operations, parentheses, exponents.

After watching my students struggle with order of operations, I developed a simple lesson that worked every time. As a result, my students actually remembered the rules and could easily apply them to any problem. I'd like to share these no-fail strategies with you, along with two free order of operations printables you can use to help your students grasp these concepts.

Chinese New Year: Free Teaching Resources

Celebrating the Chinese New Year is a terrific way to introduce kids to the concept of holidays around the world. Your students may not realize that people in other countries often celebrate completely different holidays, or they may celebrate the same holidays but have different holiday traditions.

For example, most countries celebrate the new year on the first day of January, but the Chinese New Year can fall anywhere between January 20th and February 20th. In 2017, the Chinese New Year begins on January 28th. New Years celebrations in most countries include festive events like parades and fireworks, but there are also many differences in New Year's Day traditions.

I'd like to share two activities I developed to help students explore the similarities and differences between the Chinese New Year and New Year traditions in the United States. The first activity consists of a Venn diagram and facts to sort about the Chinese and American New Years. The second activity is a guided discussion based on the book Sam and the Lucky Money.

Both of these activities are in my February Activities pack, which is free for my newsletter subscribers. If you aren't on my mailing list, click here to sign up for Candler's Classroom Connections, and I'll send you this free 26-page February Activities pack.

Comparing Chinese and American New Years
A Venn diagram is a great tool for exploring the similarities and differences between the Chinese New Year and New Year celebrations in other countries. Here's a lesson outline you can use with upper elementary students, but feel free to modify it as needed with your own students.

1. Prior Knowledge Sorting Activity 
Before you begin, assign partners and ask students to sit with their partners. Tell the class that they will be learning about the Chinese New Year, and ask them to talk with their partners about anything they may have learned in the past about this holiday is similar to or different from the American New Year.

Next, give each pair one copy of the American and Chinese Facts printable and have them cut apart the fact slips. Then give them the Venn diagram printable or have them draw a Venn diagram with the two circles labeled Chinese New Year and American New Year. Tell them that you'd like them to guess where each fact goes on the Venn diagram. To do this, have them to shuffle the slips of paper, stack them face down, and take turns flipping over the facts. As each fact is revealed, the students talk over where they think it should be placed on the Venn diagram, and they place the slip of paper accordingly.

2. Reading and Researching the Facts

Leave the slips of paper in place for the next part of the activity, but cover the Venn diagram with a sheet of paper. Or use a digital device to take a snapshot of each Venn diagram if you aren't able to complete the lesson in one sitting.

Read aloud aloud a children's book like Chinese New Year for Kids or an informational text article about the Chinese New Year. As you read, ask your students to think about where they placed the slips of paper representing the facts about Chinese and American New Years. When you finish reading, ask students to uncover their Venn diagrams and move any slips they feel need to be changed. Before moving any of the fact slips, they need to discuss those changes with their partners.

If there are any fact slips that were not mentioned in the book or article, allow time for students to research those facts online or in the school media center. An answer key is provided in the freebie.

If your students discover other Chinese or American New Year traditions that are not described on the slips of paper, ask them to write the new facts directly on the Venn diagram.

3. Interview Family Members About New Years Traditions
For homework, ask students to interview a parent, grandparent, or other family member to find out what they know about New Year traditions in their own country. They should also ask if their families have any special New Year customs or traditions of their own. When students return to school the next day, provide time for them to share what they learned and add any relevant details to their Venn diagrams.

4. Lesson Wrap Up: Read Sam and the Lucky Money
For a final look at Chinese New Year traditions, read and discuss the favorite children's book, Sam and the Lucky Money. This story is based on the tradition of giving money in red envelopes on special occasions. In this touching story, a young boy named Sam learns what it means to be lucky. You can use these discussion cards to lead a whole class discussion, or use the cards with one of the cooperative learning discussion strategies I described in my post, Task Card Talk: 6 Strategies to Boost Learning.

Discover More Freebies in the February Activities Pack
Are you wondering why this activity is in my February Activities pack when the Chinese New Year is in January? As you might have guessed, this freebie is one I created several years ago, and the Chinese New Year was in February the year I developed the activity. So that's where it's stayed, despite the fact that sometimes the holiday is in January. In addition to these activities, you'll find loads of other printables and lessons for February, including resources for winter, Black History Month, International Friendship Month, and Valentine's Day. Enjoy!

Halloween Word Play - Seek & Spell Fun!

How much time do you spend each week on spelling instruction? If you’re an upper elementary teacher, the answer is probably “not enough.” While you might recognize the importance of phonemic awareness and phonics lessons, there’s just not enough time for true spelling instruction in the upper grades. This is unfortunate because upper elementary students still need lots of practice with spelling word patterns and the basic building blocks of large words, like roots, prefixes, and suffixes.

Fortunately, there’s a fun activity for building spelling skills that your kids will love so much they won’t even realize it's a spelling assignment! In fact, they will BEG to play it!

Remember the word game where players try to make small words from the letters of a long word? It’s really simple, and most people can easily find a handful of words with very little effort. But in order to find a lot of words, you have to dig deeper and look for word patterns, word families, root words, verb forms, prefixes, suffixes, and so on. The more you play the game, the better you become at identifying these basic building blocks of language.

A few years ago I introduced this word game to my class as a fun holiday-themed activity. I created seasonal printables similar to the Halloween Seek & Spell freebie shown above, and each printable had the letters of a seasonal word or phrase printed in block letters along the bottom edge of the page. The directions required the students to cut out the letters and physically move them around to try to form new words. Students worked for about 10 minutes on their own, and then I asked them to pair up with a partner to check each other’s spelling and look for more words. Just for fun, I added a scoring system where students could earn points for correctly-spelled words. To prevent guessing, I also deducted points for words that were misspelled. Because I knew they would be able to find far more words than they could spell correctly, I encouraged them to use a spell-checker or dictionary look up any word they weren’t sure how to spell.

Click HERE to find out where to get this Halloween Seek & Spell freebie!

Making Connections with Pumpkin Seed Multiplication

When kids first learn about multiplication, it's an alien concept. The best way to help them understand what multiplication means is to use manipulatives, and to introduce multiplication as a shortcut for repeated addition.

Pumpkin Seed Multiplication is a fun, seasonal partner activity that uses unshelled pumpkin seeds to help kids make the connection between addition and multiplication. There are no Halloween images, so it's appropriate any time of the year, and especially during the fall.

You don't have to use actual pumpkin seeds for the activity; any small manipulatives will work, like dried beans, bingo chips, paper clips or base ten units. If you decide to use pumpkin seeds, you can purchase unshelled seeds at the grocery store or save the seeds from the pumpkin you carve for your Halloween jack-o-lantern. Wash them gently to remove the gooey strings and then dry them for a few days before using them in the activity.

Pumpkin Seed Multiplication includes directions for the teacher as well as student directions, the game board, and the number sentence cards. To introduce the game, pair each student with a partner and demonstrate how the activity works. Be sure to point out the connections between addition and multiplication as you demonstrate that the addition number sentences and the multiplication facts are two ways of representing the number of seeds on the pumpkins. After you model the activity with the whole class, you can use it in small groups or math centers.

You can download this Pumpkin Seed Multiplication freebie from my TpT store or from Seasonal page on Teaching Resources during October. For more free multiplication activities and resources, visit the Multiplication page in my math online file cabinet.

By the way, Pumpkin Seed Multiplication is a variation of the Fishbowl Multiplication lesson in my book Mastering Math Facts: Multiplication and Division. That activity is similar to this one, but it doesn't have a seasonal theme. Fishbowl Multiplication is just one of the many multiplication games and lessons in the book that will help your students develop a conceptual understanding of multiplication while also building speed and fluency with math facts. Fishbowl Multiplication is included in the free 43-page printable sampler of that book; visit the Mastering Math Facts page on Teaching Resources to download the entire packet!

Teaching Fire Safety: Free Resources to Spark Learning

This post is sponsored by the National Fire Protection Association and Sparky.org.

October is National Fire Prevention Month, and Fire Prevention Week starts on October 9th which is right around the corner. What lessons and activities do you have planned for this very important week?

If you’re a K-2 teacher, you probably won't have any trouble answering that question. You might even have your week completely mapped out, with fire safety activities scheduled every day.

But if you teach older kids, you might be thinking, “Fire safety? That’s not in my curriculum. Fire prevention is taught in the early grades. Where would I even get fire safety resources for my grade level?"

As a former 5th grade teacher, I understand where you’re coming from. Upper elementary teachers are expected to cover an incredible amount of academic content, and there's not much time left over for anything else.

However, teaching older kids about fire safety and prevention is important, too. Kids are fascinated with fire, and older kids are more likely to take risks, test the limits, and try things they know they probably shouldn't do. All kids need to be reminded of the dire consequences of playing with fire, and the fact that even a small fire can easily get out of control.

The problem is that older kids need different types of resources than their younger peers, and games and activities that are fun for Kindergarten students just don't appeal to older kids. It's definitely a challenge to find lessons and activities that will capture the interest of older kids. Fortunately, I know where you can find an awesome collection of resources that are sure to "spark" learning!

Free Sparky Fire Safety Resources 
Have you visited Sparky.org or SparkySchoolHouse.org? Sparky the Fire Dog® is the official mascot of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and these two Sparky websites are part of their ongoing public education campaign. Sparky.org is the website for kids with fun games, activities, and interactive resources about fire safety. Sparky School House is the companion site for educators where you can find links dozens of free fire-prevention resources like videos, ebooks, apps, and lesson plans.

The NFPA was founded back in 1896, fifteen years after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and for 120 years this non-profit organization has been on a mission to eliminate fire-related deaths, injury, and damage to property. One of their public education campaigns is Fire Prevention Week, and this year's theme is “Don’t Wait – Check the Date! Replace Smoke Alarms Every 10 Years.” Right now is the perfect time to check out the wealth of resources on these two sites!

If you’re a K-2 teacher, you probably already know about Sparky.org and Sparky School House, and you've found them to be great resources for teaching fire safety. Your students have probably already played the games on Sparky.org, and maybe you’ve downloaded all of the free apps for kids onto your classroom mobile devices. If you're really on top of your game, you've downloaded the brand new Sparky's Firehouse app, too!

But if you're an upper elementary teacher like me, you might have done what I did when I first discovered the Sparky resources. 

I looked around for about 2 minutes, and then I left. No joke. 

To tell you the truth, I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of activities and resources that appeared to be on Sparky School House, and most of them seemed to be for little kids. Let’s be real. Fifth graders don’t want to listen to a person dressed up in a dog costume talking about fire safety, or a cartoon dog demonstrating how to stop, drop, and roll.

It's a shame that I didn’t spend more time on Sparky School House, because I would have discovered that this site DOES have fire safety resources for older kids! You just have to know where to find those resources and the lesson plans that accompany them.

Navigating Sparky School House
Now that I've explored the resources on Sparky School House, I want to teach you how to navigate so you can find everything, too. Click the image below and let me show you around!

After you land on the Sparky School House main page, start by clicking the red download button to access the brand new free 2016 Fire Prevention Week Teacher Guide where you'll find a lesson about the importance of smoke alarms. This guide also includes a take-home home letter for parents in both English and Spanish.

Use the links in the black navigation bar at the top to browse a huge collection of fire prevention videos, apps, ebooks, lesson plans, and resources. The Digital Backpack link is the quickest way to find the teacher lesson plans and printables that go with the resources for students. You can search for lesson plans by grade level or by the resource it accompanies. Each lesson is aligned with Common Core State Standards, too!

Be sure to check out the Learn Not to Burn resources, even if you teach older kids. They're designated as resources for Kindergarten and First Grade, but they have incredibly helpful information for upper elementary teachers, too. If your students lack basic fire safety and prevention knowledge, I recommend reading the Learn Not to Burn lesson plans to find relevant information and then adapt the lesson materials to your own grade level.

My Favorite Upper Elementary Resources
Don't make the mistake that I did of assuming that everything on the site is for little kids. You can adapt some of the lessons that were designed for younger students, and there are also several lessons that are perfect for upper elementary students just as they are. These three are my favorites!

1. Great Chicago Fire of 1871 (Video and Teacher Guide)
I loved this 7-minute, informative video! The subject of the video is an interview between Lauren Tarshis, author of I Survived the Great Chicago Fire, and Casey Grant from the National Fire Prevention Association. They discuss the causes and effects of this devastating fire, how the NFPA was founded, and why Fire Prevention Week always takes place in October. You can download a Common Core aligned lesson plan to go with the video that includes a printable vocabulary graphic organizer. Click the Music & Videos link to find the video, and look in the Lessons section for the related teacher resources.

2. Fire Fighting’s Weird History and Fascinating Future (Video and Lesson Plan)Your students will be delighted by some of the silly facts shared in this video, and they'll also be amazed to learn how much firefighting has changed in the last hundred years. Fire Fighting's Weird History and Fascinating Future uses a mix of cartoon-style drawings, photographs, and historical drawings to look at the past, present, and future of firefighting. You'll also find a Common Core aligned lesson plan to go with the video that includes a Know-Wonder-Learned graphic organizer. Click the Music & Videos link to find the video, and look in the Lessons section for the related teacher resources.  

3. Rescue Dogs, Firefighting Heroes, and Science Facts (Ebook and Curriculum Guide)

The third awesome resource I found for upper elementary is a 15-page ebook that includes four stories and a poem. It's available in several different formats, including a printable PDF, Amazon Kindle, Nook. I love the variety of texts in this resource and the way fire prevention information is integrated throughout the book. Each selection includes discussion questions and a writing prompt, too, which would make the book perfect for small guided reading groups. 

Jack the Superhero Alien Firefighter is a fictional story, The Black Pearl and Captain Ron is an informational text selection about a firefighter and his rescue dog, Three Ways Science Has Made the World a More Fire-Safe Place is an informational science article, and Learning from Tragedy is a historical fiction selection. The final text is a poem called Sparky the Fire Dog® Says “Stay Fire-Safe!”  To find this resource, click on the Read & Play link at the top of Sparky School House, and scroll all the way to the end of the page. You'll find all the links to the different book formats as well as a link to the Common Core aligned Curriculum Guide.

Fire Prevention Week Plans - Done!
Now that you know where to find awesome resources for teaching kids about Fire Prevention Week, your lesson plans for next week will be super easy to write! You can integrate fire safety into just about every subject area, and your lessons are sure to "spark" enthusiasm for learning about fire prevention!

But teaching kids about fire safety might actually have a far more important result. Who knows? You might even save a life!

Did you know that three out of five home fire deaths occurred in homes without a working smoke alarm? Sadly, when smoke alarms fail to operate, it's usually because batteries are missing, disconnected, or dead. Those grim statistics might be why the theme of Fire Prevention Week has been related to smoke alarm safety for the last three years.

Be sure to send home the parent letter that can be found in the 2016 Fire Prevention Week Guide, and follow up a few days later by asking your students what they learned about the condition of the smoke alarms in their homes. Don't forget to check the smoke alarms in your own home, too!

Math Problem Solving: Knowing Where to Begin

Teaching kids to how to solve math problems is a huge challenge, but often the biggest challenge is knowing where to begin instruction. Without administering some type of pretest, you risk boring your students with problems that are too easy or frustrating them with problems that may seem impossible.

Before you begin, you need to have some idea of their current problem solving skills. For example:

• How do they attack different types of problems? 
• What strategies do they use? 
• Are they functioning below grade level, at grade level, or above?
• If they struggle, is it due to poor computation skills, poor reading skills, or misconceptions about basic math concepts?  

The Problem with Problem Solving Pretests
Unfortunately, most math word problem pretests don't provide enough information to help us answer those questions, let alone know where to begin instruction. Many tests are so challenging that kids who've been out of school all summer are likely to give up after making a token effort to solve the first few problems. Also, most tests use a multiple choice format which makes them easy to grade, but not so easy to interpret. Students don't have a place next to each problem to show their work, so you're left guessing as to the reason they missed each incorrect answer.

The True Cost of Free Teaching Resources

Every so often someone posts a comment like this on my Teaching Resources Facebook page:

"I miss the days when teachers shared their resources for free in the spirit of collaboration. Now it seems like bloggers are just trying to make a buck off their fellow teachers. If they truly cared about helping other teachers and students, they would offer everything for free."

If you agree, I understand why you might feel that way. Really, I do. I used to feel that way, too, before I discovered the true cost of providing free resources.

Lately I've been seeing more comments like this than usual, probably because I’ve been enthusiastically promoting Angela Watson’s 40 Hour Teacher Workweek Club. I’m not sure why anyone would feel that a life-changing course with tools to help you shave hours off your workweek would be free, but apparently some do.

Yes, I could ignore those comments, but for every teacher who is bold enough to post something like that on my page, there are probably a hundred others who are thinking the same thing. It hurts to know that teachers feel this way, even though I recognize that they don't understand what goes on behind the scenes. I guess that’s why I’ve finally decided to open up about the costs associated with creating and sharing teacher resources.

Plickers 101 - Easy Digital Exit Tickets and More!

What do you get when you cross response clickers with QR codes?

Wait for it…. Plickers! 

Plickers is a free, totally innovative, web-based tool that combines the best of response clickers and QR codes. The program makes it easy for a teacher to get student feedback almost instantly, and the only technology needed is a single classroom computer and a single mobile device. Kids love it, too!

How Plickers Works
Plickers works somewhat like traditional handheld clicker systems. Students respond to multiple choice questions by clicking the letter of the correct answer, and the resulting data is immediately displayed for the teacher. But here's where Plickers is different. Plickers eliminates the need for expensive clickers by using paper clickers, or “Plickers,” that work like QR codes. Each student is assigned a Plickers card with a unique pattern, and he or she uses the same personal response card all year to answer questions posed by the teacher. After a question is presented, the students respond by holding up their cards, and the teacher scans the cards with a mobile device. The results appear instantly for the teacher to view.

To understand how it works, take a look at the sample Plickers card below. Think of the unique square pattern as a sort of “fingerprint” the Plickers software uses to identify each student when the cards are scanned. The number on each side is the number assigned to the student in the system. As you can see, each side displays a different letter of the alphabet (A-D), and these letters represent the multiple choice answers. Students respond to Plickers questions by holding up their cards and rotating them so that the correct answer is at the top. The teacher scans the cards all at once by pointing the camera on a mobile device towards the class and sweeping it around the room. As the system recognizes each card, the results are displayed instantly on the teacher's mobile device.

You can download a set of these cards for free from the Plickers website, but be forewarned that they take a lot of ink to print. Fortunately, you only need to print them once a year if you print them on cardstock and store them properly. Laminating them does help protect them, but you should laminate one and test it out in your classroom before you laminate all the cards. Sometimes the glare from the plastic can cause problems with scanning, especially in certain lighting conditions. One solution is to purchase a set of Plickers cards from Amazon.com which are printed on sturdy paper and are laminated with a non-glare film.

Plickers K-5 Facebook Group
I’m still new to Plickers, and I love exploring its features and uses! To get started, I set up an account at Plickers.com and watched the tutorial videos. The basics were fairly easy to master, but what I really wanted to know was how others were using it in their classrooms. I decided to create a Plickers Facebook group for elementary teachers who wanted to share strategies for using it, and the group has grown to over 400 members in just a few months! If you want to join, you can sign up here. (It’s free!) My group is for K-5 teachers, but Chris Kesler of Kesler Science moderates one for middle and secondary teachers (all subjects). You can find his group here.

Simple Ways to Start Using Plickers Now
I was impressed by the many ways teachers are using Plickers, but I decided not to share them all in this post. It's a bit much to take in when you're just getting started! For now, I'll stick to the three assessment strategies below, and I'll share additional strategies in a future post.

• Assessing Prior Knowledge – Use Plickers to find out what your students know about a topic or their proficiency with a particular skill before you introduce that lesson or unit. You can save a lot of instructional time by determining the appropriate level of instruction in advance.
• Ongoing Formative Assessment – Take time to assess student understanding at least three or four times during a lesson. If your students are not grasping the concepts, it’s far easier to backtrack and reteach those concepts on the spot than to attempt to correct misunderstandings the next day. 
• Easy Digital Exit Tickets – After completing a lesson, assess with a series of Plickers questions instead of paper exit tickets. You won't have to print new exit tickets each day, and you can choose the questions at the end of the lesson to be sure they fit the content and skills you covered. Furthermore, you won't have to take those exit tickets home to grade! You can view the results later as you plan the next day's lesson to make sure the level of instruction is appropriate. You'll also know who's going to need extra help. If you want to review the data before the students leave, you can base your homework assignments on the results. Allow students who get 100% of the answers correct to skip the homework for that night. 

Plickers Made Easy with Task Cards

Have I convinced you to try Plickers? It’s an amazing tool, but there is one BIG problem. As of right now, you have to manually enter all test questions and answers which can be time-consuming. Fortunately, the Plickers team recently added a feature that allows the user to upload an image into the area where you type each question. 

I love figuring out time-saving strategies for teachers, so when I discovered that feature, I immediately wondered if it was possible to upload images of task cards instead of having to enter written questions manually. Within a few minutes I was excited to find out that it works! Images of task cards can be used for questions, and if the cards have multiple choice answers, it only takes a few minutes to upload an entire set of images. In addition to saving you time, this feature is awesome because you can create assessments for topics like telling time with an analog clock or analyzing graphs that require an image. The example below shows one of my Time in Word Form Task Cards as it would appear in "Live View" for your students. As you can see, I didn't have to enter a written question nor any answer choices. I just uploaded the image and told the system which answer was correct. There's really no way I could have entered that assessment item without using an image.  

If this all sounds confusing, don’t worry. I created a step-by-step tutorial to explain exactly what to do. You can download it for free from my TpT store.  

Ready-to-Use Task Card Images

After I discovered how to use task card images with Plickers, I realized that it would be nice if teachers could purchase ready-to-use images of task cards to save the time. I’ve been testing this idea, and my two newest sets of task cards include Plickers-ready images in a bonus folder inside the product zip file. My Time in Work Form Task Cards are shown on the left, and Parts of the Water Cycle Task Cards are displayed on the right. If you would like me to create more task card sets with Plickers-ready images, comment on this post with your suggestions.

Using Task Cards for Whole Group Formative Assessment

Task cards are normally used in centers or in games like Scoot. But being able to use them with Plickers got me thinking about other ways to use task cards, like for whole group formative assessment. So I’m experimenting with adding task card and images to other products that didn’t previously include task cards, such as Sentence Go Round. If you’ve already purchased this product, you can click on the image below, log in to TpT, and download the new file which includes 10 task cards and images. You can use these task cards for assessing prior knowledge, for ongoing formative assessment, or at the end of the activity as a digital exit ticket.

Plickers 101 Wrap Up
As I create new products that include Plickers-ready images, I'll add them to my TpT store. Just click on the Plickers Resources custom category in the sidebar of my store to find them in one place.

My next article in this series will include additional creative ways to use Plickers in the classroom. If you want to be notified when that post is live, sign up for my mailing list.

If you haven't already been using Plickers, I'm sure you're eager to get started! But I'll bet you still have a lot of questions about what you can and can't do with Plickers. Some of those questions are answered on the Plickers site and in online tutorials, but many you'll have to discover through trial and error. Another great place to get answers questions is my Plickers K-5 Facebook group. Newbies are always welcome!

Disclosure Statement: I’m not affiliated with Plickers, and I wasn’t paid to write this post. I’m sharing about Plickers because I’m a strong believer in using formative assessment to drive instruction, and I enjoy figuring out ways to make interactive teaching methods easier to implement. I'm creating a series of products that include Plickers-ready images, and I hope you'll consider purchasing those that meet your needs. Your purchases make it possible for me to continue creating free resources like the Plickers Made Easy with Task Cards Tutorial. I've included an affiliate link to the Plickers cards on Amazon.com which means I earn a small percent of the sales of that product, too. Trust me when I say that I would never link to something that I didn't believe was a great product! Thanks for your support!

The Magic Solution to Missing Assignments

Fun Friday Works Like Magic!

One my biggest struggles as a 5th grade teacher was getting kids to do their homework. I'm guessing you can relate! I was never a fan of loading kids up with homework, but I did expect them to complete whatever was assigned. Most of my homework was finishing classwork, returning a signed paper, or reading for 20 to 30 minutes. Yet precious minutes of class time were wasted every day while kids looked for missing assignments or worse, wasted my time trying to explain why they didn’t have it.

Then I discovered the magic solution to missing homework... Fun Friday! I can’t take credit for the idea, but I can tell you that it works! It was definitely the most effective system I've ever used for dealing with the problem of missing assignments.

How Fun Friday Works

Fun Friday is a weekly event that 3 or 4 teachers organize and implement together. On Friday afternoon, each teacher hosts one activity in his or her classroom for 30 minutes. One or two teachers take a group of students out to play or organize indoor recess activities. Another teacher hosts a free time in the classroom where students play board games, draw on the Smartboard, use iPads or play with a class pet. Sometimes a teacher will offer a special arts and crafts activity.

At least one teacher supervises a “study hall.”Students who have not completed all homework for the week attend the Study Hall and use that time to make up missing work. Each week teachers rotate activities so that all share the responsibilities equally.

If there aren't 3 or 4 teachers at your school who want to participate in Fun Friday, you can implement the program with just two teachers. One will take students outside or provide indoor recess, and the other will split his or her room between a study hall and a quiet reading or game room.

Why Fun Friday Works
My students loved Fun Friday and looked forward to the chance to get together with friends in other classrooms. It was one of the few rewards that actually motivated them to complete every single assignment all week. I kept a homework chart where I checked off those who completed all assignments for the week, and I was pretty strict with my requirements for Fun Friday. If a student even had one missing or late assignment during the week, they went to Study Hall. If you think this is a bit extreme, let me say that after just a few weeks of implementing Fun Friday, most kids would earn it every week. I was amazed at the difference this program made and how much time it saved me from dealing with late and missing assignments.

Fun Friday Sign-up Freebie
One thing that helped make Fun Friday easy to implement was a sign up chart. Right after lunch on Friday, I allowed those who had completed all assignments to sign up for their preference of activities. I’ve created several variations for you to try that you can download for free from the Odds 'N Ends page on my Teaching Resources website.

Convincing Administrators
Over the years I did have a few principals who needed to be convinced that the 30 minutes we devoted to Fun Friday were not wasted. My rationale was that we easily made up this time by not having to deal with missing and late assignments all week. Also, everyone, teachers and students alike, are downright brain-dead by the time Friday afternoon rolls around! Have you ever seriously tried to teach a lesson on a Friday afternoon? Trust me, it’s a wasted effort. You’ll just have to reteach it on Monday!

Do you implement a similar program in your classroom? Have you found it to be effective? If you haven't tried it, I hope you'll test it out. I believe you'll discover the magic of Fun Friday, too!

Just a Dream to Save Our Planet

A few weeks ago I posted a question on Facebook asking teachers to tell me their favorite book to read aloud for Earth Day. Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg was the top recommendation, but I had not read it before. I always like his books, so I immediately ordered it from Amazon.com. It's a beautiful picture book about a boy named Walter who imagines an exciting future on Earth - until he has a dream with a series of episodes that take him on an unforgettable adventure. Walter sees what will happen to the Earth if we don't take better care of our planet.

What a great introduction to environmental issues and problems! Thanks to everyone who recommended it. It was written in 1990 so I'm not quite sure how I missed this treasure!

I had so much fun creating a set of activities based on the theme of this book!  Just a Dream to Save Our Planet starts with a quick Think-Pair-Share for students to discuss their visions of the future and is followed by a read-aloud session. After that, you can choose from several cooperative learning and writing activities.

You can download this free packet to go with Just a Dream from my TeachersPayTeachers store. Everything is explained in the teacher directions, but here's a quick list of what you'll find:

• 8 prepared discussion cards
• 4 blank discussion cards
• 9 cards describing the events
• A graphic organizer for sorting the event cards into categories
• Problem-Solution graphic organizers for the environmental issues   

Why am I giving this 15-page packet away for free? I guess because I think it's so important for all kids to explore environmental issues and discuss ways to protect our Earth. So it's my gift to you, and I hope you will make this lesson your gift to your students!

Boost Class Spirit with Tie-Dyed T-shirts!

Spring is here, and that means field days and field trips! As the weather turns sunny and warm, kids and teachers both want to get out of the classroom. But sometimes after everyone is outside, it's difficult to keep track of your students! That's why I started doing this easy tie-dye t-shirt project early in the spring. As you can see from this photo of my former class on a class trip to the zoo, when everyone is wearing the same color shirt, it's easy to locate them no matter where they are. It's also really helpful for your parent volunteers because they know exactly who's in your class. Therefore, they feel more comfortable speaking to any of your students who are acting a bit rambunctious. 

For years I had thought of doing a tie-dye project with my class, but the whole thing always seemed so messy. I remember walking by classrooms where kids were tying shirts and squirting dye onto them, and the project seemed like way more than I wanted to tackle. 

But one year my entire grade level decided to tie-dye shirts, with each class choosing a different color. They explained that it's easy when you have the kids tie up their shirts at school and you take them home to dye in your washer. Yes, I know! I thought the same thing! Whoa! I'm not putting purple dye into MY washing machine! However, they convinced me to give it a try saying that all it takes to clean the washer later is running a wash cycle with bleach and hot water. I followed their directions and it really was easy! My students loved tying their shirts and creating their own unique designs, and it was terrific to have the shirts ready to go for field day and for our spring field trip.

How to Download the Free Directions

Because I love this project so much and want others to try it, I've written detailed directions explaining exactly what to do. I also included sample parent letters requesting the t-shirts and money for the dye. You can download Tie-Dye T-shirts Made Easy from my Teaching Resources website on the Odds N Ends page.   

Making tie-dyed t-shirts was a great activity for boosting class spirit, and it proved to be an excellent classroom management tool as well - or maybe I should say, an excellent outdoor management tool! I hope your students enjoy the project as much as mine did!

Try This When Kids Are Absent!

Doesn't it drive you crazy when kids are absent for several days and you have to gather up a list of assignments they need to complete? Even though I know it's usually not their fault for being absent, it's one more management task to add to my already full load. Let's not even mention the times I've had to do this for students whose families take trips to Disney World in the middle of the school year!

I developed this assignment make up form to make my job a little easier when kids are absent. You can download it from the Classroom Management page on Teaching Resources. Here's how I used it:

1. Each day that a student was absent, I placed this form on his or her desk. 
2. I assigned a student in the same team to write down any classwork or homework assignments on the chart at the bottom. 
3. If I handed out a graphic organizer or worksheet to complete, I asked the student helper to paperclip it to the back of this form and write the title of the assignment on the front. 
4. When the absent student returned, he or she was given the packet of make-up work which included due dates. 
5. As each assignment was turned in, I checked it off and initialed that it was completed. I kept the final form for my own records.
6. If a student was particularly forgetful or irresponsible, I made a copy of this form before giving it to the child. In the event that the make-up work was not turned in on time, this form was my proof to the parent that I did provide the child with a list of assignments to complete.
7. If students were absent more than one day, I completed prepared a separate form for each day. In fact, I just kept a stack of these forms in my paper organizer because someone was absent almost every day. 

This system worked great for me because it was an easy way to make sure that I didn't accidentally overlook an assignment. It also helps to keep the student organized and parents love it. If a student does not complete the make-up work, they can't claim that I never told them about it because the proof is right on the form! 

What is your favorite system for making sure students complete work after they are absent?

Hands-on Water Cycle Fun!

Now that I'm retired, I often miss working with children; children are my inspiration and the classroom is my laboratory! Recently I accepted a position at a local school to work with kids during their year round intersession program, and I had the pleasure of teaching science to 5th graders for 3 days. I had a wonderful time teaching them about the water cycle and weather, especially since I was able to incorporate a hands-on activity and an exciting demonstration into our lessons.

One activity was adapted from a terrific idea shared with me by Pat Calfee, a former elementary teacher who is now an educational consultant. When Pat was teaching 2nd grade, she used plastic rotisserie chicken containers to have her students create mini water cycles.

Because 5th graders need to know the full water cycle including transpiration and run-off,  we modified our mini water cycles slightly. Each team set up their own mini water cycle by adding a rock to represent a mountain, grass for the vegetation, and a small pond made from aluminum foil and filled with water.

On a sunny day, the best way to power up the mini water cycle is to close the container and put it in the sun for several hours. As the water warms up, it evaporates and then condenses on the inside of the plastic lid. The water then "rains" on the environment inside the container and runs off to form little ponds. Unfortunately, the weather called for rain on the day we were doing this (Murphy's law!). So I brought a large lamp from home that gave off a lot of heat, and we put the containers under the lamp. Soon we were observing evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, and run-off!

Those containers were a super way to give students hands-on experience creating a water cycle. It was wonderful to be able to have something concrete to observe when discussing these concepts.

Another way to observe a water cycle in action is to create a Cloud in a Jar. This is a teacher demo since it involves boiling water and a lit match, but it's a fun way for students to observe how clouds form. You can find the directions for this activity in my Science File Cabinet on Teaching Resources. The directions include a set of follow-up questions to help students grasp the essential concepts.

A great way to help kids identify examples of condensation, evaporation, and precipitation in everyday life is with my Parts of the Water Cycle Task Cards shown below. I've even added images of all 32 task cards that you can upload to Plickers and use for assessment questions!

What are your favorite activities to teach the water cycle? Please share!

Daily Report Homework Solution

Do you have a few students who can't seem to complete assignments and turn them in on time? Yet when you talk to their parents, you hear the story, "But he said he finished all his homework!" Sadly, these students may feel they are telling the truth because they forgot they even HAD homework. The problem with this scenario is that the problem can't be solved without the parents and teacher working together closely for a few weeks to find out where the system is breaking down. Parents can't make sure kids are doing homework if they don't know about assignments until the end of each week or, worse, when mid-term reports come out.

I created this Daily Report to help me stay in touch with parents and to make sure that problems are caught right away. Each day the student writes his or her homework down in a notebook or planner and brings it to show me along with this Daily Report form. I complete the boxes by writing an S, N, or U to show how the student's day has gone, and the student takes it home his or her parents to sign. If parents will set up simple incentives, like allowing the child to stay up late on Friday for a certain number of Satisfactory ratings, this report works very well to stop problems in their tracks.

You can download this Daily Report by clicking on the image above or by going to my Odds N Ends page on Teaching Resources. It's not something you want to use all year, but it is quite effective for getting students back on track. I hope you find it to be useful!