I Teach K! {Day 2}

Day 2 was almost just as exciting as day 1!  I saw 2 presenters I had seen in the past, and I met 2 new ones.

First up was Deanna Jump's Integrating Math, Reading and Writing. She gave lots of good books suggestions and ways to make any "cute" projects related to them academic and meaningful.  One of my favorite books that she shared (that I haven't read) was Dog's Colorful Day (link to Amazon).  Looking forward to reading it and doing some counting/color activities at the beginning of the year!  She shared some great color mixing activities that she said were on her blog.


Next up with an Interactive Notebook session with Matt Gomez.  He was a presenter who was new to me; now I have a new blog to follow!  I loved the idea of Interactive Notebooks, and I think it could be very valuable both to students as learners and me as I formatively assess learning.  It would be very interesting to see the different ways students interpret the same information.  I'm looking forward to giving these a try even on a small scale.  I'm thinking at least 3 entries per week.  He said he does 10-12 entries per week.  The most interesting part to me was the "teacher side" and the "learner side".  The teacher side is for parents to understand what we were learning about and to be used as a reference (spelling particularly) for the students.  This "teacher side" is always on the right side.  The left side is the "learner side" where students show their learning using pictures or words.  You can see some examples from his blog (click the link).


My first afternoon session was with LeAnna Wolkis Goldstein, who was someone I was also not familiar with.  In this "Make and Take" session, we made lots of different foldables that can be used.  I took some pictures of a few to share with you.

The first was this little person who holds the information inside on his body.

Here he is with his arms open.  We used math facts inside this example with a goal in the middle.  

The next was a pop-up which we used for sequencing how to build a snowman.  Never would have thought of that!

My favorite!  Students put a number (dice, domino, actual number, etc)  in each box.  They then determine greater than, less than or equal.  They can move those little guys in the middle to show their answer.  The red is cardstock (I'd laminate) and the pink was construction paper (I'd probably use cardstock and laminate as well).  Can't wait to put this on in my math center!

My last session for the day was with Heidi Butkus, aka HeidiSongs.  My kiddos L-O-V-E HeidiSongs, so seeing here again was a must. Do you have her DVDs or CDs?  If not, you should look into them. We have the sight words, 3 math ones and Phonics DVDs.  We use them daily.  I went to a session on Differentiation.  She shared ideas for differentiating within the whole group and the small group.  A simple change like choosing a name before a ask a question so I can tailor the question to that child's level will help differentiate full group.  Differentiation both full group and small group/independently are big in our new OTES evaluation so I was excited for little tips.

My students don't believe that I've met "Miss Heidi" so this is for them :).

Looking forward to tomorrow with 4 different presenters, 2 of which I have not seen before. Tomorrow night is also the Blogger Meet-Up!  Looking forward to meeting some new people.  I'll be back with another update soon!