Holy cow, I have so much to write with two hungry kiddos running around. If this seems short and choppy, I apologize in advance!!
I have been working feverishly to finish several products before the school year begins. Right now I am going to focus JUST on math. I have so much more to post later!!!
My latest two products actually go together. Kinda like peanut butter and jelly, but much less tasty if you bite into them. But if you find easy organization delicious, then you definitely will want to sink you teeth into these!
I wanted to create a WHOLE system that went together with math workshop. I wanted to create math review pages that constantly review what we had already taught and could also be used as assessments. I blogged about my first attempt at this here.
I have kind of refined the product and my thinking. Before I graded the student on the work for the week. I began to think of the Monday through Thursday pages as practice pages and pulled kids to discuss their work on these pages. If they did not understand I was able to remediate right then and there and the student could practice with a similar problem the next day as well. Then on Friday’s students completed the last page (which was an assessment page) that had similar questions from the week and the same format.
Then I assessed with the rubric. This system works WONDERFULLY for schools with standards based reporting because there is a score for each standard (watch box on the review sheet is a different standard). Although the box may not cover the ENTIRE standard, it does cover part of the standard and it will increase in difficulty over time.
I made the packet for August for second grade and I intend to make one for each month of the school year (August- May). I may or may not do third grade. I haven’t committed myself to this totally yet! The packet is 55 pages long and is only $6 in my store.
If you are not sure if this is something you can use in your classroom, I also created a sample. The sample is the first week of August (or it can be used any week you start school). It includes a progression chart to show how each of the standard boxes increase in difficulty for the month as well as the answer keys and assessment rubric. Click on the picture below to snag your copy!
Click here for this great pack of FREE math centers, plus get tips and updates from me!
Mandy Gregory is a 2007 and 2012 Teacher of the Year. She has taught Kindergarten- 4th grades in both the general education and inclusion settings. She is currently a 1st grade Special Education teacher. She is the owner and creator of Mandy’s Tips for Teachers website (www.mandystipsforteachers.com) and has over 13 years of teaching experience. She is married with two beautiful children.
Thank you for providing the sample. It looks amazing! I can't imagine how much work must have gone into this! I will go check out the centers too. I have one question about the rubric and how you use it–are you just scoring the final sheet, or thinking about how the student did the entire week and how much remediation they needed? For example, how would you decide between a score of 1 or 2 if the student got the place value or measurement problem wrong? (Sorry if this seems obvious–I swear I have a license and everything!) 🙂
Hey Amy!
Thank you so much! It is not obvious at all! In fact I have done it BOTH ways! I think it really decides on you and how your classroom runs.
I didn't actually keep a grade book to average the scores so it wasn't as imperative to make sure it was a 1 or 2. We had to grade how students did at the END of the nine weeks.
The district felt that to score a child and average all these scores punished kids because it graded RATE of learning rather than the learning itself. Basically a kid that learned "faster" got higher scores that kids that learned "slower" even if they both had the skill by the end of the grading period. I only kept the scores to let me know who needed help and also to check for RETNETION of skills by the end of the grading period.
So, you could do it either way. By the end on the nine weeks I did tend to grade according to how much remediation the student needed throughout the week.
I hope this isn’t too wishy washy!!!
Thanks!
Mandy
Thank you for replying so quickly! That makes a lot of sense and the distinction between the rate of learning and the actual mastery of the skill is really important. Thanks again!