WREATHS!!!!! & a Little Bit of Math Talk!

I've been working on making wreaths for a few weeks now...I've made two and I have a lot to learn! It is so much fun though!!! Before this, I made a ball ornament wreath for Christmas. I bought all the items for it, and sat at the table and stared at the stuff for a good while. I felt like I had no idea what to do- even though I watched like 20 You Tube tutorials! LOL. Finally my husband said..."What do you have to lose? Just do it!" So I started hot glueing like crazy and it turned out really cute!!!! I was super proud of myself! Here's a picture of that wreath!

My Christmas Ball Ornament Wreath

I bought a burlap wreath back in August to hang up on my classroom door and I LOVE it! So it inspired me to try making this type of wreath! So far, I've made two burlap wreaths and like before, I watched tutorial after tutorial and tried to learn all the tricks and errors beforehand! But I got the supplies and got going! It turned out to be very easy and I am too excited! I want to make more and get better! I started an ETSY store, but I know I need to get more products up before I can probably sell any! So I'm thinking of making a bunch of wreaths and putting them on there! We will see how that goes! 

Here's the two I created. One is for my front door at home, the dark green matches our house so perfectly! I love it! The other was made for a co-workers baby nursery! She picked the colors and I made it for her! :) 

Here's mine for my house! The pic is a little crooked b/c I was trying to get myself out of the pic!! 

Here's the one for my co-worker! She's going to write the baby's info after he/she is born on the chalkboard! :o)

I love the idea of my co-workers because they decided not to find out the sex of the baby, so we threw in some neutral colors- but the blue.....hmmmm I wonder if she has a hunch....! ;)


So, I can't wait to start making more! Maybe these will be great end of the year....or beginning of next year gifts for my teammates in our school colors! :) So fun! So here's my #mondaymadeit and my #teachertalk for this week! I can't wait to see what else I can come up with and if I can make this ETSY business go anywhere! I have many other things I am crafty with, so we shall see!



Now....Let's talk some teacher stuff! I have absolutely loved my year so far with my new school district. I have learned so many awesome teaching skills from this district and I couldn't be happier! One thing that I've really enjoyed is Math Review and Poster Method for math time.

Let's start with math review. Every day when we begin math, the students know the drill. They come in, take out their math review folders and get ready for me to put the review on the board. Every week I come up with 4 topics/ TEKS/standards I think my class needs help with or more practice with. For instance, this week my students have time, graphing, fractions and adding with 3digit numbers with and without regrouping! In the beginning of the year, I take topics from the grade my students are coming from).  Everyday, there is only 4 problems on the paper, one for each topic. I give the students 8 minutes to work out the problems. I set the timer, they flip over their papers and get started right away. The students can talk wit a partner if they need to. When a student is finished, he/she sits on the carpet. When the next student finishes, they partner up with that student who is already on the carpet.  (Eventually every student is on the carpet with a parter) They sit facing each other with their folder and paper in their lap. They must bring a pen with them to the carpet to show their corrections & mistakes. (When the timer goes off, every student must stop where they are and get on the carpet and join with a partner). While students are on the carpet, they are discussing their answers with their partner. This is the amazing part! I watch these students have amazing math talk conversations with each other! They understand how to help each other, explain why the other person is wrong or explain why they think their answer is right, and the students are accepting when they're wrong. They don't feel defeated or dumb- they enjoy being in this comfortable environment and learning from their peers. Me: I am either walking around listening to different conversations, sitting in my chair up front and listening, or sitting by my computer(which is next to the front of the room) and listening. I try to move around so I don't bother the students but I am always listening to how they're talking to each other. If students have been on the floor for a long time, they can tend to get off topic and start other conversations and that's usually my cue to start discussing the answers. But I love that the students talk with each other and reason with each other.
The next part is checking the answers and they love this part too. I project my typed up copy on the white board. I draw sticks for a student to answer number one. The student has to tell me their answer and fully explain how they got their answer. Example: If it's adding, the student tells me their answer, but they must walk me through the whole process starting from the ones place to how they ended up with that answer. This way, every student is seeing how this person got their answer. Sometimes students are wrong, and we have conversations about that too. The great thing is, these kids aren't ashamed of getting it wrong- I let them know it's ok, and we talk about other ways to get to the right answer.

After we have gone through all 4 problems, I start at the top and give my students checks or starts for putting things on their paper. Example: "Give yourself a check if you labeled your hour and minute hands. Give yourself a check if you showed me your skip counting by 5's on your clock. Give yourself a check if you got ____for your answer. " or "Give yourself a check if you circled your key on your graph. Give yourself a check if you labeled all the amounts on the graph. Give yourself a check if you circled how you knew to add or subtract from your graph." (Hope that makes since!)
So they get checks for all these steps they are doing, which are steps I want them doing when they're taking a test! In the end, I count up all of their checks and they can see how many they got wrong/right. They usually do some cheering if they are close and they ask me "Well, what if I got 7/12 , is that still good?" LOL. But I always tell them if they're trying and doing their best- then its great. At the end of their math review time, they have a few minutes to write on the bottom of their paper one thing they are great at. They can write I am awesome at adding or if they're struggling, they can write I am really good at labeling or even remembering to write my name!!! Anything that keeps it positive!! They love this part!

We do these 4 questions for 9 days (2 weeks) and then on that 10th day, a Friday, they have a quiz over the 4 topics. Each topic gets 2 questions and then there's 2 mental math questions on the end of the quiz totaling 10 questions for the quiz. It's a great way to see how your students are doing, who is still struggling with what topics. If everyone is getting it, you can move on, and if everyone is bombing it, you can put it back on your math review for the next week! I really enjoy math review. There's topics I put on my math review in the beginning of the year and I'm doing again currently just to make sure they aren't forgetting and they still got it! If anyone's interested, I can email you an example. Just leave a comment below!


I think that's enough math talk for now, I'll save poster method for my next post!!!