Another highlight from our crazy, busy week last week was a visit from some very important people from Nipher Middle School! Mrs. Johnson (the counselor), Mr. Taylor and some current 6th graders came to share with us about what we should expect for next year.
Nipher friends answered some of our most pressing questions, and also shared information about what classes will be like, what they like best, how much time they have between classes, etc. I was excited to have my old friends Joe and Molly there to share their knowledge. What leaders they’ve become!
After the Q & A, they got into groups for the next activity–match your colored strip with the others to find your new group!
These groups worked together to answer Nipher trivia–with prizes!
What a great afternoon! We’re excited to head to middle school! This time they came to us, and we get to go there for a visit in May! 🙂
Last week were AMAZED as Lisa Campbell Ernst came to share her writing life with us. But on Wednesday we were DOUBLE AMAZED when she agreed to Skype with us to celebrate World Read-Aloud Day 2013. We’re kind of spoiled around here. 🙂
As I mentioned in my original post, I was trying not to be a groupie, but was forward enough to ask her to help with us with our WRAD plans. Surprisingly, she said yes, and so I began thinking about what we could do together.
I knew my friends were dying to ask her many more things about her writing life, and specifically to see more of what her writing studio looked like. And because it was read aloud day, we hoped she would read to us, too!
When she was here, she had told us all about the process of writing The Gingerbread Girl. She also told us about how she got the idea for the sequel to it: The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers. As I remembered this detail, I knew that was the book I wanted her to read!
So we settled in for our Skype call with her, and has 40 or so kindergarteners join us for the experience! I invited my son, Riley’s, class to come up and hear the story (partly because I knew they’d love the book, but selfishly because I knew HE would love it–we are always talking about books and authors at home!). Then Ms. Weidinger shared it with Ms. Heifner and they came along, too! WOW–what a great bunch of kiddos gathered to share such a great day!
Look at all those kiddos! It’s really cool that little kids and big kids alike can share an experience like this one!
First she read to us. Here’s a little snippet (although now I’m a little sad I didn’t record the whole story!):
Man, it must be crazy cool (and a little bit weird) to be able to read a REAL book that YOU wrote to other people. I’m a little jealous.
After we enjoyed her sharing her story with us (which is a MUST READ in our opinion!), our little friends left and we settled in to chat with our new best author friend! We had some great questions left over from our time with her last week: Will you ever write an autobiography? Do you like writing fiction or nonfiction better? Can we see more of your office?
Then Peter asked how she made up the little rhymes she used in her Gingerbread Girl books. Her answer, which made sense, was that a lot of it was just trial and error. But she also shared with us a handy-dandy tool that we now know no writer should be without:
What an amazing visit with an amazing lady! I, for one, was inspired to get myself published, and I know my students were inspired as well! What a treat! THANK YOU LISA!
How did you celebrate World Read Aloud Day? Who is your favorite author? Have you every Skyped with an author? If so, who? Tell us about it!
I’m starting to feel like there’s not really such a thing as a “normal” week; every Friday I say something about how this past week hasn’t been. So–this week was another “unnormal” week. Here are our warm-ups:
Monday
I was out Monday with a sick little girl, and somehow forgot to get a picture of that warm-up. This one is practice with both place value and decimals.
Tuesday
After reading the note from my Monday sub, I knew we needed to review what to do with the decimal point in this multiplication problem. Then, as in a stroke of genius, we made a connection to our fraction unit where we used fraction bars to help us visualize what the numbers were doing.
Wednesday
After we stumbled upon fraction bars again Tuesday, I gave them a problem where I had them use that strategy again (on purpose!). For many it was the visual they needed to help it click. But, for some others it just made them more confused! 😦 We had a great discussion about figuring out which strategy or model works for you and making sure you use that one well.
Close-up of the marking on the fraction bar: we took 1/4 out of each one of the 1/10, which made 6/24. Eventually we were able to simplify our answer all the way back to something that we could turn back into a decimal (1.5/10 or .150).
Thursday and Friday
Remember that “unnormal” part of this week? On Thursday we were only at school for about 20 minutes before we left to head to the middle school for the dress rehearsal of their Spring production of Guys and Dolls Jr. (which was FABULOUS, by the way!), so we didn’t have math this day. We had the discussion over this warm-up today. Because many people got thrown off by both 1) the exponents in this problem and 2) the “backwards” nature of how I did expanded form, we did another example problem first (the number at the bottom). This problem is a great example of how the warm-up is often a response of something that happens in our math rotations–as we were studying the rubric for the standard of Reading and Writing Decimals, we realized that we needed more practice with expanded form. So that group requested we do more with it in our morning work. Great idea, friends!
What are you thinking about our math warm-ups lately? Do you have a suggestion for a decimal problem we could do? Feel free to share it and we’ll try it, then leave you the answer! We’re always ready to try something new!
20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher 