Holy moly - it's been a while since I've been on here!  It's been a crazy few months...and it doesn't look like things are going to slow down any time soon...but such is life!

I have had a few minutes lately to catch up on some of my blog reading.  I've just added some of the blogs that I follow on the side bar.  Recently, it seems, I've been adding more health & fitness blogs :) but I'll stick to education here.

So, what have I been finding?

PINTEREST!!  More & more teachers are joining and there are some great boards and pinners to follow.  My favorite is Megan (Luv2teach).  She has close to 40 different boards just about education.  Many of her pins are geared toward the primary grades, but there are plenty that would work in any classroom!

A new blog I've started following...and loving...is www.freetech4teachers.com.  Richard Byrne is the author and posts multiple times a day.  Many of his posts are applicable to the elementary level...some are not.  Today he posted this great video about creativity...and the fact that you have to STRUGGLE before you can be creative.  Of course my brain went straight to the whole issue of problem solving and how kids have to STRUGGLE in order to be better problem solvers...the two go hand in hand.  Anyhow...here's a link to that post!

Finally, through a blog (I don't even know how I got to this one...sorry...I wish I could give credit) I found out about Adora Svitak...she's a child prodigy in the area of writing.  And she's not a bad speaker either.  Anyhow, this blog post is a great one that uses Adora's story as inspiration for ways that we can better teach students to write.  Trust me when I say that you'll enjoy her TED Talk, if nothing else.

Hopefully I'll post more frequently again.  I've found some great math resources lately...about our favorite subject of FRACTIONS!  I'll post them soon!

Kristen

A Brilliant TED Talk!

Karen Justl, one of our district's technology coordinators, sent me a link to this TED talk by Dan Meyer.  Mr. Meyer is a high school math teacher, but what he has to say in this talk applies to math from Kindergarten through 12th grade. It's well worth 11 minutes of your time...trust me!

I am a big fan of Love & Logic for discipline.  I was fortunate enough to learn about it way back when I was student teaching.  I used in it my classroom and I use in now as a parent.  One of the central themes of Love & Logic is that we, as adults, need to have a "silent smile" when kids mess up.  As uncomfortable as it is to watch your child make a bad choice...the beauty of that bad choice is that it becomes an opportunity to learn something.  The same could be said of problem solving...we have to give children the opportunity to struggle, make choices, make bad choices, and learn from those mistakes.  It is in those mistakes that learning...real learning...can occur.

There's another tenet of Love & Logic where I see a huge connection to problem solving...it has to be real. With Love & Logic, kids have opportunities to make decisions in the real world & then they have to live with the natural consequences (good or bad) of their decisions.  I love the examples that Mr. Meyer gave about how to take a textbook problem & make it real.  That's what math is about - real life!!  When you're trying to figure out something mathematically there's nothing there to break the problem down into steps for you...there isn't a "math expert" standing right beside you to help you solve the problem (usually!).  Regardless of the grade we teach, we could all take a word problem from the textbook and tweak it just a bit so that is becomes real...meaningful...to the students.

Ask fewer & shorter questions...and be less helpful. It's the most helpful thing you can do!

A Little Better

The latest version of the proposed Mathematics TEKS can be found by clicking HERE.

Check them out...they are slightly more reasonable than the last version...and a little easier to read and understand!

What the State Board of Education decides to do with these is anyone's guess...they met yesterday to discuss this latest version.  I got to watch part of their discussion via a live webcast.  It was quite interesting...they were very concerned about making sure that there was alignment between Math & Science and some board members felt like it would be wise to slow this process down a bit & give the educator committee time to reconvene and make any final changes they felt were necessary.  I am not quite sure what the final outcome of that discussion will be...I guess we will have to wait and see!  And rest assured...in the mean time we have more than enough to worry about with STAAR.

:)

Word Dynamo

Today I discovered a cool new tool thanks to a blog post over at iLearn Technology!  It's called Word Dynamo & it's a part of Dictionary.com.

With Word Dynamo you can do several different things:

• Take a 10 word "quiz" & get an estimate of how many words you know.  You choose the level to use (elementary, middle school, etc.).  Once you're done, you can do a variety of activities designed to increase your vocabulary.  Totally random words...but I bet kids would enjoy seeing their estimated vocabulary increase!
• As a teacher you can create a word list for students to use...they can take quizzes, type the word given the definition, etc.  You can select a definition from their list (not kid-friendly) or write your own definition.
• Search for lists already created by others & use those.

There are MANY ways this could be used in any subject...have FUN!

Kristen

A Fun Math Website

Looking for a new way to have your students practice some mathematical thinking?

Check out Hooda Math!

I found this website today while surfing around on Edmodo in the Math community.  What a great find for elementary age students - lots of great games!  I especially liked some of the logic games...could have played Factory Balls 4 forever!  This will be one you definitely want to add to you list of websites for centers!

A New Favorite App!

If you are a fourth or fifth grade teacher you have GOT to check out Factor Samurai!  Oh.My.Goodness!!!  It is loads of fun.  Many of your students will be familiar with Fruit Ninja...this is similar but with a twist of math, of course.  I found it to be super addicting!!!

To play, you have to swipe the composite numbers...and that includes factors that are composite.  For example, if 24 floats across the screen, you would swipe it.  But then you also have to swipe the 4 & 6 that appear because they, too, are composite.  And kudos to the developers of this app...you lose points for incorrect swipes...which means that students will be less likely to just start swiping whatever is on their screen (a.k.a. guessing).

At the moment, this app is FREE and it's available for both the iTouch and the iPad.  Go...quickly...and grab it!

Time to Catch Up!

Wow!  It's been a while since I've visited my little blog here.  Life...it happens...at least we hope that it does!

I thought I'd share with you some of my recent favorite finds.

First, Steve Jobs has, of course, been in the news lateley.  I'm sure you've seen or read his commencement speech to the Stanford class of 2005.  If you haven't, you can view both the text & the video here.
But these are my favorite two paragraphs:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Second, and related to the first, is the iPad!  I found this great list of resources related to the iPad.  From lists of apps for various groups of students to digital storytelling to free books to a really fun video of an iPad band...you'll find it at this LINK!

Third, YouTube recently released YouTube for Teachers!  You can find a nice little introduction to this new resources HERE.  Create your own channel  with playlists and favorite content for easy access for students!  You might even want to try out a FLIPPED LEARNING EXPERIENCE!!

Finally, the New York Times recently featured a really interesting article titled What if the Secret to Success is Failure?  I will warn you that it is quite lengthy...but it is well worth your time.  The author delves into some recent research about character traits that help students be successful and the efforts of leaders at two very different schools in New York to help students develop these character traits.  No math...no technology...but some excellent food for thought none-the-less!

Enjoy...and let me know what you think!
Kristen