Curriculum Planning

With our new math implementation we are fortunate enough to have some full planning days to put together our Carnegie units.  The planning days definitely help and are greatly appreciated, but we still spend hours upon hours putting everything together on top of what we are able to accomplish in an eight hour planning day and during our PLC meetings.

This coming Monday is a planning day where another 7th grade math teacher (who is absolutely awesome getting all our assessments and assignments together) will out as much as we can for our next five chapters (we need to get through two chapters for sure).  Our math interventionist will be working with us in the afternoon so I am excited to have her on board to help us create some interventions in advance, rather than after the fact, like we tend to do.

We are lucky that we have Carnegie Learning a common core aligned math curriculum so we definitely have an overabundance of resources available.  As I am sure many of you will agree, teachers rarely are able to use the assignments and assessments as they are, that text companies provide.  This creates a lot of extra planning time to put everything together the way it works best for our students.  Again, I am quite lucky in that my colleague Bill, does almost all of that.  Our biggest task, is pulling together the best of what Carnegie has offered us for teaching the CCSS to our 7th graders.

I thought I would share with you the items that I list on our Google Doc as we do our Module Unit Planning so we can keep track of what everyone is responsible for and by what date they need to have it completed (well in a perfect world anyway).


Module Unit Planning:  A Module consists of two to three chapters

• Chapter Quiz Review/AK (Answer Key)
• Chapter Quiz/AK
• Chapter Quiz Retake/AK
• Chapter Quiz Correctives (students complete after the quiz)/AK
• Module Test Review/AK (This covers 2-3 Chapters)
• Module Test/AK
• Module Test Retake/AK
• Module Test Correctives (students complete after the test)/AK
• Assignments/AK
• Mathia Pacing/Assessment Guide
• Mathia Small Group Lesson
• Mathia Notes/Study Guides
• Warm-Ups/AK
• Exit Slips/AK
• Mini Lessons/Small Group Instruction from exit slip information
• Learning Goals/Assessment Correlation
• Cross-Referencing Assessment Questions to Lessons
• Lesson Plans
• Lessons on SMARTboard software
• Answers Keys to project on SMARTBoard
• Word Wall Vocabulary 
• Math Focus Wall Posters
• Foldables/Notesheets
• Anchor Charts
• Core Plus Activities
• Learning Stations Activities
• Tech Enrichment/Learning Support

Its easy to see why unit planning feels overwhelming when there are so many different items that need to be either created completely by a teacher or modified.  That does not even include having to work through the lessons ourselves and do all the problems.  That also takes quite a bit of time and we do not even spend any of our planning time doing that.  We all do that on our own time.

We also have two components to our curriculum: collaborative classrooms lessons out of the text and Mathia personalized learning software.  We are definitely focusing much more on planning for the collaborative classroom this first year.  

The items highlighted in green are the things we have been doing and planning all year.  Those are the things we always try to accomplish on our planning days.  The items listed in pink are things that we have done at least a few times throughout the year, but need to be more consistent with them.  The other 7th grade math teachers have their own versions of word walls and math focus walls so those two items I really put on the list to remind myself to keep up with planning them in advance.

I have found a few foldables online that I have used with my students and shared with my colleagues.  I would really like to increase my use of foldables and start using anchor charts in my classroom.  I know my students would benefit greatly from both.  I just always seem to run out of time to do this justice as I would like.

We have a 45 min class every other day called Core Plus and this quarter I have Enrichment on A Days and Intervention on B Days.  I would like to be more purposeful in creating lessons to use on my Intervention day so there will perhaps be less need for retakes, a girl can dream, right?!  I also would like to create some fun and engaging learning stations to use on both my CP Enrichment and Intervention days.  I have some great resources for that.  I just need to find the time to put the stations together.

I have a laptop cart always available to me because the students work on Mathia software 1-2 days a week (as well as during CP or Homebase at the end of the day).  I would like to start using the technology more on my non Mathia days.  Maybe doing some exit slips on a Google Form or trying out Socrative.  Please share your favorite ideas of how you would use laptops in your classroom, if you have unlimited access.  I would love to try some engaging technology because right not they really just do Mathia.

One thing that I feel is a non-negotiable going forward is using exit slips (or whatever formative assessment preferred) to get instant feedback on students that can be used for targeted small group remediation or instruction.  I did that last week and considered it a huge success.  I just have to make the time to create the exit slips and mini-lessons that go with them.

How do you go about planning your math units?  Isn't it crazy how much more is involved these days than just opening up the book and teaching a lesson and then giving homework and a quiz or test?  Next year our district is going to Standards Based Grading so that will again really change the way we do things.  I tend to think it will end up being easier in the long run as we focus more on Power Standards.  I feel right now we are trying to assess nearly everything we teach and it becomes overwhelming for both us and the students.  I would love to hear any ideas or suggestions you have for anything relating to unit planning (how you are able to do it all), luckily I am on a team so we are able to split up the work.

Currently February

I cannot believe January has come and gone and I did not take the time blog.  It was a super crazy busy month for many reasons.

• My oldest had a sick day, my youngest had a sick day, I had a sick day for fluid behind my ears
• The transmission went out on our 2001 Odyssey and we suddenly had to buy an new van.  Not in the plans, but now that I have a 2013 with all the bells and whistles I am in love with the new van.  Our youngest is only 7 so we still need a minivan.  Spent 6 hours on a Saturday getting the best deal possible.
• Lots and lots of meeting for school.  One of my students asked why I always have meetings in the morning.  I told him because I am so important!  LOL  He seemed to feel that was enough of an answer.  ;)
• Days of never ending test corrections and retakes, every possible spare minute for our Module test prior to the end of the quarter.  I'm not sure I've ever been so happy for a quarter to end!
• Chauffeuring our three boys to LAX, Basketball, and Baseball practice (to be honest my dear husband does most of the driving, but sometime we are triple booked and I have to lend a hand).
• Plugging away at our new math program Carnegie Learning.
• Gearing up with two friends to co-facilitate lesson study next week.

I am linking up with Farley for February Currently.  Join in the fun.

January 2013 Goals

I decided that my word of 2013 is commit.  I need to commit myself to make the changes in my life that I desire.  Sometimes I get so busy with teaching and the busy life of a mom of three that I feel like I am on autopilot.  I don't always feel like I devote the time to the things that are most important to me as I just try to keep up with the day to day tasks that keep the wheels of the machine turning.

2013 is going to be a year where I commit to focus on what's really important to me in both my personal and professional life.  At school I have felt so bogged down and under pressure with the new curriculum implementation that I feel like I am not having as much fun "teaching"this year.  I plan to change that.  I am feeling more comfortable with our curriculum, but the demands of the common core are really intense.  I need to get back to the "art" of teaching which is what I love the most about my job.  I also want to try and have more fun with my students despite the rigor and fast pace of trying to fulfill the demands of the common core.

Did you choose a word for 2013?  I would love to hear what it is and why you chose it.  Please feel free to leave a comment about your goals for January, or if you blogged about it, leave a link to your blog.  I would love to check it out.  I know my goals are not written as SMART goals, I figure I do enough of that at school.  Happy 2013 everyone!

Currently January

I cannot believe that a new year is just around the corner.  I am joining  the linky party over at Farley's blog Oh Boy 4th Grade.  I am wishing all my followers a very blessed and hopeful 2013.  May peace, love, and joy be yours in the new year.

First 12 in the Last of 12 Linky Party

I am joining this fun linky party that looks back at my first twelve posts of 2012:  First 12 in the Last of 12 Linky Party.  Please feel free to create a post of your own and join in.

1)  2012 New Year Resolutions  1/2/12  

2)  After School Routine Checklist  1/5/12  This is my most viewed post having been viewed over 75,000 times!  It was repinned over 1300 times from one pinterest user that pinned it.  I have no idea how that happened, but I get visitors to my blog every day looking at that post.

3)  Finally Posting my Vista Print Order  1/7/12  This post was all about the goodies I created over Christmas break last year.  I spent hours creating everything seen there including the first five minutes and last two minutes of class posters.

4)  Currently January  1/9/12  

5)  A Day in My Life School Edition  1/17/12  This was a fun link party to look at what a day in the life entailed.  It was so fun to read everyone's posts and see how different things were run in different schools.

6)  Teacher Workday  1/21/12

7)  Formative Assessment In Class √ Ups  1/28/12

8)  Help!  1/30/12  This post was about was soliciting advice for opening a teacher store and maybe now a year later I will finally get around to it.  YIKES!  I did get a new MacBook Air for Christmas so I have absolutely no more excuses (other than lack of time).

9)  February Goal Setting  2/1/12

10)  Homework Linky Party  2/5/12

11)  Currently February  2/6/12

12)  Tag I'm It  2/9/12

Math Focus Wall Photos-Updated

I wanted to share some recent photos I took of my Math Focus Wall.  I apologize for not posting these photos sooner as I feel I have been promising to post them since school started, but it really has been a busy year thus far.  Thank goodness for break and some time for me to blog!

The evolution of my Math Focus Wall has been a work in progress from my creative thought process and planning last school year to the background design seen in this post:  The First Sneak Peek  and the original design seen here: Take 1.

TA DA!  I think I am finally happy with it

After a few months of school and actually using the wall with my students I realized that I needed to have two separate sides to reflect the two different courses I teach.  On the left is the board for my accelerated math 7 class and the right side is for the three sections of math 7 I teach.  

Accelerated Math 7

Math 7

I also changed up some things to make the board work for our class needs.  It specifies the CC 

standards, lesson, topic, and student objectives for each day, as well as, the Mathia pacing expectation for that week (that is what unit students should be on in our computer program).  The poster on the top left of the board is the Mathematical Practice Standards and as you can see I still need to get my Problem Solving Strategies Posters on the top right.

You can see Math Vocabulary to the left of the Focus Wall

Creating a Math Focus Wall was a major goal of mine for the 2012-2013 school year and I am very happy with and proud of how it turned out.  It was a lot of working putting the wall up this summer.  I am also finding it very time consuming to have to create all the posters that go up and can change daily.  I use sentence strips for the goals and lesson topics, but it is easier to print out the common core standards and lesson information.  

Of course this will all be done for next year, but this year it is a ton of work.  I try to create everything in advance for the chapter so it is all ready to go.  I like to make sure the focus wall is done for the next day so I don't have to worry about it in the morning when I get to school.  I did not realize how labor intensive this all would be because we can do three to five different lessons per week and when the lesson changes so does the focus wall.  I do feel it is worth the effort to have this information prominently displayed for students around the SMARTBoard which we use daily.

What it looked like on a different day

I would be happy to answer any questions you may have about the math focus wall.  #made4math

We had a very Merry Christmas and hope you did too!

We were in school through last Friday and being that we are close to Milwaukee, we did not see the snowfall that other communities did on Thursday/Friday that caused a wave of school cancellations in SE WI.  I did not mind though, I always hate to have a snow day right before break, and I had students finishing up tests and quiz corrections, so being in school was easier for me than not being in school.

Sunday night was our family of five Christmas celebration.  We had reservations at PF Chang's for dinner and then a couple last minute gift purchases at the mall before heading home to open presents.  I went with a color scheme of red, white, and silver for gift wrapping and loved how it turned out!  I also made sure to put ribbon or a bow on every gift I wrapped.  I really enjoyed wrapping things up and Cooper (my 7 yo) commented more than once how pretty I wrapped everything.  Thankfully my boys appreciate these extra touches.

The boys could not wait to open their presents

The boys were spoiled as always.  I got a new Citizen watch with a pink face that I absolutely love!  I also got some mercury glass trays and containers from Pottery Barn that will hopefully help me organize some things in the master bath.  I was completed blown away by the surprise gift my awesome husband got me.

This baby is light as a feather 

A MacBook Air!  I was so stunned that I think my first words were, "You did not get me a MacBook" when I opened the box it was in.  I have really been wanting my own because I am tired of lugging my school MacBook Pro home every night (and it is getting soooo slow).  I also now will not have to reinstall fonts every summer after they reconfigure my computer at school.  I can also now finally hook up my Silhouette that I got LAST YEAR and have never used because I was not able to download the software on my school computer and I just loathe using our Dell desktop.  So as you can see, a new laptop was something I was definitely desiring, but completely shocked to receive.  I now definitely plan on getting my butt in gear and opening a TN or TPT store.  So many ideas of lessons to create and now no excuse to not create them.

Christmas Eve we met my parents for church for the 5 PM service.  The boys and I had been out to lunch and the burger and bloody mary I had were delicious, but did not set well with me at all.  I was not feeling good about an hour before church so we ended up being a bit late for the service, but I toughed it out and felt OK the rest of the night.  We had a nice supper of tenderloin or turkey sandwiches.  It was just my oldest brother, my parents and us for the evening as my other two brothers were celebrating with their inlaws.

Christmas Day the boys slept in until 6:30 AM, very surprising because Cooper was up at 4AM the night St Nick came.  The boys got the WiiU and some games for it (our Wii has been out of commission for a few months) among some other gifts.  They were not expecting it at all (not sure they really had even heard much about it).

Family photo

We had a wonderful Christmas Day with my side of the family.  My niece turned two in November and  it is so fun to have a little one again (Cooper is the next youngest).  Also it's lots of fun for me to have a little girl around.  As you all know boys rule my life!

The boys with Nana and Papa

My mom made a delicious ham dinner and we all overindulged.  She also is a master baker and makes dozens and dozens of delicious and cute cookies.  The woman is talented!  The grandkids opened their gifts after lunch and then the adults opened theirs.  I got lots of wonderful presents, but spending time as a family is of course the greatest gift of all.

We headed home around 8 PM and Greg got the Wii U set up for the boys.  Since then we have all been chilling out and relaxing.  We all watched Marley and Me (love that movie) this morning and I watched The Family Stone last night.  Got both those DVDs from St Nick.  They are two movies I can watch over and over.  I also read a Fern Michaels Christmas book.  

This afternoon Greg and I ran to Target to do some Christmas clearance shopping for next year.  We got some new lights and gift wrapping supplies.  I have to say there was not too much left, unlike last year where I really loaded up on gift wrap.  Tonight Greg and I are doing a little early NYE adult only celebration at my favorite restaurant Bacchus.

I hope you are all enjoying your break, spending time with loved ones and relaxing, as well as recharging, because lord knows we teachers need to!