School and the City

This year, I'm working as a math interventionist. I love teaching math all day long and getting to work with different grade levels. Throughout the years, I've developed favorites, of course. If I had to pick my top five must-have supplies for teaching math, these would be them. You can find all of these on Amazon for easy shopping! Double Dice Double dice are perfect for math facts: find the sum, find the difference, or find the product! These make great gifts for students, too. They love the novelty and always promise they will practice their math facts - ha! I have these 10-sided dice in dice . My kids love them - even those in the upper elementary grades! The same company also makes 6-sided dice in dice and jumbo dice in dice . Magnetic Base Ten Blocks I taught way too long without magnetic base ten blocks . Now I can't imagine teaching math without them! Base ten blocks have always been a must-have for me, but magnets are a gam...

You may already know how and why to use choice boards in your classroom, but let’s talk specifically about math.  3rd grade math choice boards Math is my favorite subject to teach, but I absolutely hated it as a student. Why? In elementary school, it was all skill and drill. Think: multiplication facts and timed tests. In middle school, I had to complete math packets for homework each week. In high school, I took notes during lectures and struggled to get my homework finished before the late bell rang each morning. (Evens only though, because the odd answers were in the back of the book, right?) I think my disdain for math as a student is what has motivated me to make it an entirely different experience for my own students. I also had wonderful teacher education professors in college and even grad school that taught me how to truly explore mathematics and to improve my practice as a math teacher.  4th grade math choice boards In order to increase intrinsic mot...

No matter what type of class we teach, we always have a range of levels that requires many levels of differentiation. I know. It's a challenge that all teachers face. However, I'm facing a new challenge this year: a split-level math class. For me, that means half of my class is starting at the beginning of the third grade curriculum (place value and rounding), while the other half is starting halfway through the third grade curriculum (area and perimeter) and will begin fourth grade curriculum in January. YIKES. I know the gradual release model to scaffold students towards independence. I know how to differentiate to meet the needs of different abilities and learning styles. I know how to pull small groups for remediation and enrichment. But teaching a class two totally different, practically unrelated content units? This is new for me. I stressed about it all summer, asking WHY and then WHY ME? Well, I've been in the trenches for two weeks. I've fai...

I dropped a new beat recently... My sweet students REQUESTED a song to the tune of Stiches.  Ahem. I didn't know I was adding DJ  and songwriter to my job title, but it's cool. Click  here  to download a PDF of the lyrics. Click  here  for the music I use (on YouTube).  Click here for a video of my class singing the full song.  Are you looking for some point of view resources? If so, I've got some for you right here ! Think anchor charts, interactive notebook pages, and quick assessments... plus printable song lyrics. Enjoy... Pin me!

My students want me to be a full-time songwriter now. This one was a much bigger hit than the last!  Click  here  to download a PDF of the lyrics. Click  here  for the music I use (on YouTube).  A post shared by School and the City (Kristin) (@schoolandthecity) on Feb 23, 2017 at 6:18pm PST Click here to see the Instagram video. We've been practicing our 2D shape skills with these task cards , which include shape identification, angles, and symmetry.  We also made these fun plane shape robots : After a week full of learning about 2D shapes, students got to wear a bracelet to help them show what they know. The bracelet has a QR code on it that says "Scan for a surprise!" The QR code leads to this Have Fun Teaching video (via SafeShare). They loved it!  Enjoy! Pin this post for later:

Inspired by Bethany, from  Teaching and So Fourth , and Hope King ,  I decided to write a song for my students to get them pumped up about one of the hardest second grade math standards: REGROUPING! Click here to download the lyrics. Click here for the music I use (on YouTube).  Enjoy!

Do you ever have a light bulb moment and try to throw an activity together at the last minute? I do. All the time.  Sometimes I kick myself for it, but sometimes it works out wonderfully, like this one did. I present to you...One ODD Turkey. I had the idea that students could create a turkey that has all odd numbers of body parts.  (1 leg, 3 eyes, 5 feathers, 3 wattles, and so on.) Even and odd is a second grade standard that we practice throughout the year. Then I decided to take it a step further and create a classroom store so students could "buy" the materials they wanted to complete their projects. All second graders need practice counting coins and making change.  If I had thought of this farther in advance, I would have asked a parent or two to come help me. Instead, I did it all myself. In addition to all of the usual hats that teachers wear, I was also "cashier" and photographer. However chaotic, it was a BLAST! First, students ...