Last Minute Lessons: Post Your Thoughts

Sometimes, the best laid plans happen on the fly. It happens for me quite a bit. I'm a spontaneous, just wingin' it, let it happen naturally kind of lesson planner. [wow, that sounds terrible!] BUT, I do plan. Don't get me wrong. I know what content I am covering and when. I know what I will expect my students to do. I know the rigor. But, I don't write scripts. I fit my lessons plans on post-its, for goodness sake. One post-it for a subject, and the whole week fits on a two-page spread. I don't list objectives or standards [I'm blessed not to have to!] I let God lead my teaching. He inspires me, He provides, HE has the BEST ideas!

So.. what does that all have to do with this post? Well, it's exactly what happened this morning and I' thought I'd share with you how it came about.

I was in the shower [the best thinking always happens there! right!?] and I was thinking about my science lessons. For a lot of the time, our lessons come straight from our science books that are a part of our school's curriculum. I find myself easily putting it off or skipping it some days because, well, it's boring. Don't get me wrong, the content is fantastic and we DO have fun with experiments sometimes (I'm working on that!) but our day-to-day lessons are just reading about it. It gets boring and let's face it.. if it's taught in a whole group, they aren't going to listen to me read it to them and Round Robin Reading isn't exactly a best practice. Just ask Jen Jones. So, in trying to solve my own problem and jazz up my teaching in content areas like science & health, I came up with a quick "Post Your Thoughts" informal assessment activity.

I quickly created a template for standard 3x3" sticky notes to fit on. I stuck them on the boxes [you can baarreelly see them in the pic up top, on the left] and labeled the post-its with my students' numbers [so they remained generally anonymous to their classmates when they posted their thoughts but I knew what their answers were] and assigned the reading.

They were to read a chunk from our science books on their own, at their own pace. Usually, we read things together in small groups or whole group, and we highlight important information that might be seen on a quiz or test. Since this was an independent study session, I laid out MY teacher copy and let them come over to look at it, if needed, where they could see the parts I had highlighted. After they got started and I explained how they would use the post-it notes, I let them start reading. After they were all engaged in reading, I then wrote the questions I had for them to find on the board. Why did I decide to wait? So they actually READ EVERYTHING, and didn't just skim in order to find the answers and be done.

So, each question was color-coded for a certain post-it [as you can see on the right]. When they found the answer, they wrote it on the corresponding sticky note and put it on the board right under the question.

As soon as everyone was finished, we talked about what we read, highlighted some important information, and answered those questions. My students read at their own pace, and I now have a small formative assessment piece to show their understanding. They did FANTASTIC! I was super proud of them, seeing as this was the first time we did something like this this school year.... and it's only the TENTH DAY! They loved it, and I definitely seeing us do this activity much more often!

So what do you think? Would you have your students "Post their Learning"? If so, you can grab my template for FREE >>>> right here!

Just print, copy, and cut in half to use! You could even laminate a set, and make them reusable year after year for just about any content area or reading assignment!

MATH groups: [T] Teacher Time

Okay, so I've talked to you about [M] - Math facts and [A] - At your seat time. Now for the third station.. [T] Teacher time.

This is the station that can take a good amount of time to prep (who am I kidding, they ALL take time to prep!) but is also where the bulk of student learning is going to occur because here is where you can teach the strategies they need for solving multiplication facts. This is also where you can differentiate and modify your how you group your students according to what you are teaching.

Here's a quick look at my lesson plan book and some of what I taught during this time:

As you can see above, I have used this time to each the following concepts:

Vocabulary terms: product, factor, multiply, equal groups, multiples
Strategies: equal groups, arrays, breaking apart a factor, fact families, skip counting
Word problems
Multiplying 3 numbers
Order of operations

I use my dry erase easel, manipulatives, and interactive notebook activities from Blair Turner to teach most of the lessons in a hands-on approach. It keeps my students engaged and gives us just enough time together to work through a new concept but not too much time where they become bored and lose interest.

This week, I used Friday as our RTI and enrichment time. Yesterday, I worked with my higher students on using input and output tables. They were the first group I worked with. Then, I called other groups back and asked them if there was anything they were struggling with, not fully understanding, or just wanted extra practice with. I think asking them was important because I made them really think through their comprehension, and assess & reflect on their work so far. Their responses were fantastic! A few students said they felt good so I allowed them to take some extra time to study flashcards or play a game to practice skills. But, I had two groups that had students wanting to work on their x4 facts and some who wanted help understanding the 9s finger trick again. I was happy to spend that time helping them overcome their struggles. I may not have worked on those skills specifically during RTI time and it would not have been very meaningful or helpful to them.

Here's a look at that RTI time.. it was the first time I had ever tried writing on our kidney table with a dry erase marker.... their minds were BLOWN! It was so much fun to see their engagement through the rest of the lesson all because we wrote on the table!

Here we worked more on the 9s trick using our fingers. I drew it out on the table to make it more visual and concrete for them before we worked through it in a more abstract way.

One entire group felt good about their skills and comprehension within all the studied concepts thus far, and I agreed, so I started working on my summative assessment for the unit which I administer interview style. That is what you see below. If you click the picture you can find them in TpT store.

I'll be back tomorrow with the rest of my MATH station set up with the [H] station!