Friday, May 29, 2015

Water Is Water {Poetry Friday}










This week I received a package and it just screamed summer surprise, happy first week!  Water Is Water by Miranda Paul and Illustrated by Jason Chin was a book I preordered and let it slip my memory.  Poetry is used to share the various forms water can be by using rhyme, repetition, and onomatopoeia, and interesting line breaks.  I just found the phrases so fun to read aloud.  Here's an example to help you have fun too - 

Page 1              Glide.

                            Slide.

                         Put on the brakes!


                         Ice is ice unless...

Page 2              it forms flakes.

The text is carefully crafted to use just one or two words to describe the action needed to change the form of the current water state.  I found it interesting how the page layout works to help the reader think harder and predict the next state of water to be discussed.  The book begins with water as a liquid and follows the journeys as it becomes steam, fog, a cloud, rain, puddles, ice, flakes, snow, with spring it becomes mud, roots, apples, cider, a drink again.  As I have been discovering with informational poetry there is more information in the back of the book.  The reader first learns more about each form of water mentioned in the poem, explaining the science behind the water form a bit more.  More facts are in three sections; Water is ...everything!, Water is...everywhere!, and Water is...important!

As a reader, I'm always looking out for ways I can share with my students new things I learn by being a reader.  Today I learned "When plant roots absorb this water (seepage), it's called uptake."

I need to make some time to explore with gouache and watercolor on paper.  This is the medium combination used by Jason Chin for the illustrattions and they are just beautiful.  I found the warm, soft illustrations to enhance the poetry and make me wish I could join the children illustrated in the story to play with the different water forms.  

It's so fun to join and return to Poetry Friday.  Thank you to Margaret for hosting Poetry Friday at Reflections on the Teche.  

Monday, May 25, 2015

Math Monday - Spotting Intervals

Welcome and thank you for stopping by Math Monday, 
I hope you will consider joining the conversation.

It's summer time for me and Math Mondays might be light hearted at time, which seems very appropriate since it's summer!  As I worked in the yard this weekend, I noticed my favorite reading spot has intervals.  My first reaction was there were intervals on the back and the seat.  Then I realized the top half of my chairs are tricky because the width at the top of each board increases a smidge in size, which makes the intervals inconsistent in size.  Which leads me to a question and or a misconception I think students could have.  Do intervals vary in size? or Intervals can be of different sizes.  The bottom is consistent in size and a great interval example.

As you see intervals this summer remember to join #intervalchat on twitter.


Leave your link within a comment and 

don't forget to check out other blogs to see what they are thinking mathematically!


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Monday, May 18, 2015

Math Monday - Intervals


Welcome and thank you for stopping by Math Monday, 
I hope you will consider joining the conversation.


Today is our last week of school and I'm beginning to think about summer; projects around the house, hobbies to reconnect with, time with my girls and time to be.  This list doesn't include anything about teaching but I've been thinking of things to work on during the summer and I recently read a great post - Number Lines, Part 2 over at Becoming the Math Teacher You Wished You'd Had by Tracy Zager.  I found the work she shared around number lines fascinating and inspiring.  I had never thought about showing and modeling intervals in our lives for students.  

As I returned to second grade this year, I've been muddling through lots of new standards and trying to understand them.  Since reading Tracy's post one of my summer plans is to collect pictures of intervals to help make Measurement and Data Standard B.6 visual; Represent whole numbers as lengths form 0 on a number line diagram with equally spaced points corresponding to the numbers 0, 1, 2,... and represent-whole number sums and differences within 100 on a  number line diagram.

However, she inspired me to think about other math areas where intervals are integral; number lines, analog clocks, arrays, rulers, graphs, and measuring cups.  I was also inspired to think about places I see intervals or encounter them within my own life.  While cleaning my house blinds last night, I discovered intervals.

I'm so excited to join #intervalchat and make that part of our Math Monday posts.






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don't forget to check out other blogs to see what they are thinking mathematically!


To help build our community and support other bloggers, 
it would be nice for you comment on at least three other blogs before you. 
Also, if you tweet about your Math Monday post, don't forget to use #mathmonday!





Monday, May 11, 2015

Math Monday - Do You Share Math Mistakes?

Welcome and thank you for stopping by Math Monday, 
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Have you ever considered sharing real life math mistakes with your students?  I don't usually.  I talk about reading mistakes and writing mistakes.  I model those mistakes all the time.  Why don't I share math mistakes?  I'm thinking it's important to share math mistakes.  It shows our students reasons for thinking mathematically in our lives.  It gives math a purpose for learning.  It models the application of math in our daily living.

When I think about making math mistakes, I'm not thinking about calculation errors.  That's easy and they will probably catch on to those.  I'm talking about real life applications of math where my stomach is grumbling 24 hours later because I didn't spend my money wisely and my garden is a few plants less.  

I was at  a local hodge lodge of a store yesterday where grocery store meets hardware store meets Target all rolled into one.  It's a unique store here in Central Ohio and I was thrilled to be in their garden center.  I was trying to carefully plan out my flower boxes that go around my deck handrail.  Last year I changed up my usual plan, increasing the different kinds of plants I wanted which increased the expense.  While I thought I was carefully planning out how many plants I exactly needed I over spent because I missed the flat price discount!  I could have spent four dollars less and had 12 more plants.  I actually found a spot for 12 more plants and have considered taking my receipt back and asking for forgiveness.

That might not work out for me but what will work out is sharing a small slice of my "numbers" life in hopes of inspiring my students to think about how they use math outside of the school day to avoid math mistakes.



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don't forget to check out other blogs to see what they are thinking mathematically!


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Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Slice of Life - Reading is Hard

Our bedtime read aloud is The Lightening Thief, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1 by Rick Riordan and I'm struggling a little bit.  I find myself asking is it fantasy?  Is it a myth?  Is it science fiction?  Is it adventure?  Either way, these genres are not in my comfort zone.  I've been working on reading fantasy because my girls like fantasy.  You could say it's my personal reading goal.

I actually feel okay about my comprehension.  I have to pay attention and ask questions to confirm my character connections.  A little who is who with my daughter.  I've also learned I pay attention better if I am doing the reading but when she is reading I follow along as she goes to help me stay focused.  These probably don't feel like big struggles and as I write about them I realize I have figured out strategies to help me be a more successful reader. 

However, my real struggle that continues each night is my decoding of character specific terms and names.  I don't know who many times I can attempt satyr to only have my "parrot" repeat the correct pronunciation in my ear.  Each time my helpful "parrot" rescues me I just want to cringe and then I start a grumbling feeling where I might not like this book.  However, this book is my youngest daughter's favorite book so I will persevere and overcome my struggles with decoding.  Together can overcomes  struggles and I need to remember this when student's need a little support and also be a little bit more gentle with those "parrot" reminders.


Thank you Two Writing Teachers for hosting and fostering this writing community.

Monday, May 4, 2015

Math Monday - Summer Math?

Welcome and thank you for stopping by Math Monday, 
I hope you will consider joining the conversation.

In my feedly reader and twitter there's a lot of buzz about helping students stay engaged with books and reading during the upcoming summer months.  That got me wondering, I've never heard the phrase Summer Math.  That got me pondering, what would I recommend on a summer math list for families.  This is my initial thinking and I hope you will add some ideas in the comments to extend this list and then I will re-share our combined efforts in a future post.


Summer Math Ideas

1.  Replay Family Math games. 

2.  Make recipes together in the kitchen.

3.  Suggest board games involving strategies.

4.  Suggest board games to reinforce fact fluency.

5.  Play with measuring cups and spoons in the sandbox or pool.

6.  While at the grocery store, discuss all kinds of possible buying scenarios.

7.  Look for arrays in the environment/shopping opportunities.

8.  Build structures with pattern blocks or wooden blocks.

9.  Measure plants growing.

10.  Figure out elapsed time for different summer events.

11.  Skip count when jumping rope.

12.  Make paper airplanes and measure how far they can travel.

13.  Have a lemonade aid stand.



I've purposefully left technology off this list to hopefully provide opportunities for creativity and engagement with others.  I hope you will share your ideas with me and we can grow this list together.

Leave your link within a comment and 
don't forget to check out other blogs to see what they are thinking mathematically!


To help build our community and support other bloggers, 
it would be nice for you comment on at least three other blogs before you. 
Also, if you tweet about your Math Monday post, don't forget to use #mathmonday!