Five for Friday (a day late)!

Good morning!

I hope you have a great weekend plan with your idea of fun…mine right now includes a lot of relaxing. Hee hee!

I'm headed out later to watch my little kiddos play basketball. Several of the boys and girls in my class are playing "little league" and have been wanting me to come watch them. I can't wait! Reminds me of when my own kids were just little ones running around on the basketball court. 

But first I thought I'd pop in with some pictures from my week, so here goes…

Be sure to link up with Doodle Bugs!

First, I was finally brave enough to try writing on our table with dry-erase markers. I have seen this all over, but was always to afraid to try it. 

What if it didn't come off well and I ruined the table?

I tested a small area first because I'm cautious that way...

It made subtraction with regrouping so much more exciting and I was the "best teacher ever." Ha! 

And look:

Afterwards, a Clorox wipe and good as new! 

You should try it (if you haven't already) and then you can be the "best teacher ever" too.

Math problem types…I posted this last week, but didn't have the shading. Here's the problem types by grade level:

K - Green

1st - Orange

2nd - Blue

This definitely shows how much ground work is laid in the K-1 classroom. Thank you K-1 teachers (and I really love teaching 2nd)!

I am a dark chocolate kind of girl. I have a piece (or two) after lunch every day. I came upon this wrapper twice this week and it gave me a chuckle.

And finally, the reason that I don't post on Friday evenings. 

I am supposed to, you know. That is the deal during the school year. Kristi posts on Mondays. I post on Fridays Saturdays.

The green arrow is pointing to my son.

He is a freshman. Last night was the first time he got to suit up for varsity. He looked so short (even though he has outgrown me and nearly his dad too)! I love cheering on my kids…and I'm really glad they love to play basketball. It is my favorite sport.

My daughter has two more weeks playing in middle school, which means I have two more weeks coaching. I love to do it, but I am definitely ready to have more time on my hands. 

Speaking of basketball…Rock Chalk, Jayhawk! KU plays K-State today. I told my littles that I'd wear purple on Monday if we lost…hope the Jayhawks don't let me down! ;-)

Math Problem Types

Good morning! 

If I were to blog about anything personal this week, it would be one big whining post about how I am simply E X H A U S T E D! 

So instead I'm going to focus on our staff development from Monday, which seems like forever ago.

We had the opportunity to join in with some other schools for a staff development day that provided several different sessions. It was nice to get to choose what we wanted to go to (kind of goes with what they say about letting our students have some choices in their education).

Anyway, I spent two sessions on math. I didn't really choose this. My principal chose for me (Ha!), but I didn't mind. He thought it would be good for me to know what 3rd graders might be facing on assessments so I could better prepare my 2nd graders. As it turned out, there was actually a lot of good stuff for K-2 teachers too so it was a win-win.

One thing that I found the most helpful and easy to implement was these problem types:

These are addition/subtraction problem types for K-2.

Sorry, I realize now I should have cropped the screen shot…but hey, I even had to look up how to do one since I am now working on a Mac so give me a break!

We had a whole activity with sample problems that we had to sort using these problem types. My friend (3rd/4th math teacher) and I totally rocked it out. We even had to send a picture to the presenter to be her answer key because we were so speedy and correct (of course). 

We thought this deserved going to lunch early, but instead we got to be last and there was barely any chicken and no cheese left for my Chipotle bowl…

Anyway, then we had to team up and write some more problems. I was excited to snap a picture of them all because I'm always writing story problems for my Mission Possible Math slides. Here's the picture if you need some more ideas for story problems.

Have a great weekend!