Conference form

As I'm starting to think about the start of school, I'm revisiting some of my classroom forms that I use with students and their parents. I have forms my students use to request test retakes, "think sheets" for behavior, and of course, several beginning of the year forms to send and receive information from parents. I also LOVE my parent conference planning form that I started using a few years ago.

I remember my parent conferences during my first few years of teaching, and I'd like to think I've come a long way from those days. I remember sitting blankly across from parents, not always completely sure what I wanted to say to them about their child. There were the standard reminders about my homework policies and reporting to them what their child's current grades were in my class, but I never really felt like I had it "together," if you know what I mean.

When I started using this form to plan what I wanted to communicate to each parent, I immediately felt like my conferences became much more intentional and meaningful. It's such a simple thing, but it's one that nobody told me about in college, and as I sat unprepared in that first round or two of conferences, I really wished they had.

I've made a few changes to last year's version of the form, along with adding a couple of other planning/organizing pages that I'll be using this year. Last year I had other teachers walk into 3 of my conferences, so this year I will be using a "conference in progress" sign on the door to keep that from being an issue again. It's nothing fancy, but hopefully it'll be enough to give us some privacy. :-)

I'm also trying something new this year. I always find that some of my conferences run over because of parent concerns that I didn't anticipate. Every year, the other parents who are waiting are so patient, but I always feel bad that their appointments get pushed back. To prevent this (hopefully) this year, I'm going to ask parents to fill out and return a form before the conference so that I can plan accordingly. I'm hoping this cuts down on their wait time.

This packet is available in my TpT store, and it includes the pages shown above, parent letters and reminders, and my sign for the door. You can click on the cover page picture above to go directly to this packet, if you would like. While you're there, don't forget to check out my 1st nine weeks's spiral math review set. These will be a part of my homework for the first 9 weeks, and it feels GREAT to already have that planned!

Another year over and a new one just begun

Well, not quite yet. Soon, though, we will be going back. AAHHHH! Where do the summers go?!

I've spent this one at home working on some projects around the house. I've been trying to learn to play the piano, doing lots of cleaning, and trying to get organized so that (hopefully) I don't feel so frantic this coming school year. I would have never guessed that one little person who weighs less than 25 lbs. can SO COMPLETELY turn your world upside down. Sigh. I know I'll miss these days, though, so I'm just trying to soak in all the toddler hugs and sticky fingerprints while they last.

Anyway, school... I'm just finishing up my postcards to my students and hoping to get those mailed out by the weekend.

Do you do postcards or a welcome letter to your kids? This is the first time I've done them, but I really like the idea, even if it is a little bit time consuming. I would have loved getting something from my teachers-to-be when I was growing up.

I've also been working a little bit on some new task card sets to use with my students this year. I'm sharing one today that I actually used last year with my kids, but I didn't have it ready to post until this summer. (Remember how I said that toddler was keeping me busy?)

This set is a mixed multiplication and division review with word problems. I've found that one of our struggles every year seems to be actually reading and thinking about what the word problem is asking for. My students see two numbers and either multiply or divide, but don't always read to find out whether the operation they're using makes sense. Do yours do that too? Please tell me I'm not alone!

This task card set is all word problems, and the division problems may or may not have remainders. I did this because I teach my students to think about what to do with the remainder. We have a discussion and make a chart as a class to help remind them that sometimes the remainder can be ignored, but sometimes we have to round up, even if the remainder is less than 1/2. We talk about problems where they have to split numbers of people into groups, and we have a discussion over how you can't cut a person up.

As always, there are two versions of the cards included - one with a background and one without (to save ink) - and a recording sheet and answer key. Click on the picture above to see it in my TpT store. And while you're there, check out my 1st nine weeks math reviews, which are 50% off until August 1!

I'm Back!

The test is over. Unfortunately, after all of that, I didn't even get to take it! I had to reschedule because I didn't realize that our system was doing benchmark testing the same days that I was signed up for the test. Boo!

I did get some studying in for it, though, so I do feel better about taking it sometime this summer. Since I will be back in my same position next year, though, I don't feel like it's really worth it to take any more time to get ready for the test until after school is out for the summer. Instead, I'm going to spend my time on three great hobbies. Well, 2 hobbies (making resources for my students and bead making) and the loves of my life :-)

Since I had some time to post tonight, I wanted to share my latest upload to my TpT store. The first set of the math reviews is finished and available in my store. I'm splitting it into 4 sets, and I've posted the first one this afternoon. I'll be adding the others soon. You can click the image below to find the set in my TpT store.

Each set will include 9 weeks of review, with one week on a single sheet of paper to conserve copies. These are designed so that you can make a single copy per student for the entire week OR display one day worth of problems as a starter when your class enters the room. They would also make great homework. Students will need to work the problems on notebook paper, but depending on how you've given the assignment, they may need to circle their answer in their work or record it on the worksheet for easy grading.

There is also a blank sheet included, which could be used as a recording sheet or as a template to create your own weekly reviews.

As I said, this is the set for the first nine weeks, but my students will be doing it as a review from the first part of the year. Other sets will follow soon, and those will follow the same format. I hope you find these useful!

I'm off to get some sleep now!

Where's Waldo?

Um... or Sarah?

I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth. I promise. We've been out most of this week for snow (again) and have now officially used up our last built-in snow day. Anything after tomorrow will have to be made up :-(

At least this time we have enough to do something with. It's also nice that we're not the laughing stock of the whole country this time around.

You would think I would have spent this time knocking out the last bits of some projects to share, getting ahead on lesson plans, or even studying for the high school math gace that I signed up to take early next month. No... I did none of that.

I spent a ton of time with my little angel, and did some much needed de-stressing.

I'll go ahead and say in advance, though, that I won't be around much before March 4 (my test date) because I'll probably be spending every spare chance I get studying for that. I love math, and I've always had an aptitude for it, but I graduated in 2006, and the last time I saw some of this math was two years before that! I was a physics major at the time, so I can obviously handle it, but that's a long time to forget a lot of stuff! It'll be worth it in the end, though, because high school math is actually what I wanted to teach when I first changed my major, and it'll be great to finally see that dream eventually fulfilled.

I've already accepted a position for 5th grade math again next year, and I honestly have no desire to leave my kiddos yet. I love my 5th graders, and it's such a transitional period for a lot of kids that I love being able to watch and hopefully help guide them through that. Still, everyone who knows me has seen for a while that I will eventually feel like I need to move up to middle or high school. Hopefully with this test out of the way, when I feel ready, I'll be able to find something.

So with that said, I'll be taking a temporary hiatus from blogging until I have that test behind me and can return to making great things to use in my classroom (and share)!

Snow Day!!

The weather outside is frightful... but the electric fireplace is so delightful! Lol.

Ahh... Tennessee winter weather. You do love to surprise even the best of weathermen, don't you.

I love this picture from one of the local news sites.

I also love that, since my husband is also a teacher, my whole family got out of school early today! Thank goodness that we both had a safe drive and the two of us and our little one are all piled up in the warmth of our living room.

And what's better than early dismissal? A snow day? Or even better, two?! Don't mind if we do!

So I'm taking the time off to work on a few major projects for school that have been halfway done for weeks now. The last couple of projects I've started have been major ones that I've been doing a little bit at a time as I needed them, but hopefully these snow days will let me get them finished up. My favorite (and the one I'm spending a chunk of time on today) is a weekly spiral math review homework set. I'm super excited about this one because I'm hoping it'll let me squeeze in some extra review of some skills from earlier this year that we've forgotten. Here's a sneak peek:

 And rumor has it that we're going to be out the rest of the week! I should be able to finish up these reviews while my little one is napping so that they're ready for the rest of the year!

Division with Unit Fractions Task Card Mini-Kit

Ah, January... You have this weird way of making teachers wish time would both speed up and slow down at the same time. Summer seems so far away, but those tests... they're so close now.

We have our first big assessment early next month. We're all a little bit worried this year about this year's writing test because this will be the first year our students have taken it on a computer. That brings a whole new element of stress with it. At the same time, we're scrambling to be ready in all of the other subjects.

How are your kids doing with division with fractions?

Mine have struggled. They're doing great with just working a problem. They're able to divide a whole number by a unit fraction or reverse it, but if I give them a word problem and ask them to write the problem themselves, that's a whole other issue. And number lines? Forget it!

Before our test last week, I decided to take a day to do some reteaching over these two skills. I created a task card mini-kit that we used to help review and practice after the lesson. Overall, it went well. I know I'm a little bit behind here, but I am loving the task cards, and so are my kiddos!

Since this is a mini-kit, there are only 8 cards, which meant that every kid solved every problem during the class period before we checked them. Below you can see one page of the cards.

I also created an answer sheet for this. I've found that if I tell my students to show their work on notebook paper, it's either very disorganized (we're working on this one!) or missing steps or an explanation. An answer sheet with places designated for these parts seems to solve that problem every time.

We took the test the day after this review, and I think it really helped some of my friends who were struggline quite a bit. To download this mini-kit from my TpT store, click on the cover photo above.

Monday Made It

This week's Monday Made It is a freebie. Trying to get ready for the new semester, I wanted to have my kids revisit the ideas of goal setting. Somehow, everything always seems to go so much smoother with a graphic organizer, don't you think? 

This is nothing fancy, but it did seem to help my kiddos organize their thoughts and think of reaching their goals in terms of steps along the way that would help them get there. 

You can download this freebie from my TPT store at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Aim-for-the-Stars-Goal-Setting-Freebie-1052282.

And if you have any suggestions for creating links from an iPad, and especially for creating them from images, I'd be your best friend if you share :-)