Sunday, November 22, 2015

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally

The first snow is always so beautiful and I enjoy observing its soft white covering transforming everyday objects into pristine sparkling marshmallows.




 By the end of January this same snow fall will have lost its charm and I will be seriously considering a move to Florida. 
As I pull myself back from the window I refocus to school challenges.  Our district has mandated that 45 minutes of the school day is spent on math and reading  intervention.  Students are divided in small groups and rotate between centers where one center is teacher led.


This allows all children to have small group contact time with the teacher during intervention. 
My challenge has been developing centers with independent work and practice on the skills students have not yet mastered.  After searching and failing to find what I needed for a current math skill I had to roll up my sleeves and start creating!

We have finished "order of operations" and I still have a small group that needs to strengthen their skills on use of this strategy. 

I channeled my inner Aunt Sally to inspire me.



Yes, I know she looks like the old maid from the Old Maid card game!






I then started working on pre-assessments and a recording sheet to find out where my students were struggling.

My assessment checks on student understanding of exponents as well as order of operations.  Student assessment data is recorded to indicate where remediation was needed.




I have found interactive notebooks to be a very successful tool.  I introduced a variety of interactive notebook templates to review the strategies in order of operations with students in small group during intervention time.






After guided practice in interactive notebooks students worked in centers on task cards.   These strategies have been successful with my struggling students and I am observing improvement on "Order of Operations" I will be using the post-assessment to document students' progress and success.
Next, I think I better work on improving my Aunt Sally drawing... but that will be after I am done sledding with my 8 year old!

If you are interested in this math intervention tool check it out at:  https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Order-of-Operations-Interactive-Journal-and-Task-Cards-2160136

 

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