Class Antics – Inside Elementary Education

For years, I have read magazine interviews in which actress Eva Longoria* mentions that she makes the world’s best guacamole.  This month she was kind enough to share her recipe with Self magazine—just in time for the Super Bowl**!  Eva Longoria’s guacamole will go very well with chili.

 Try it and you’ll see: it really is the best ever!  I live in the Southwest, so I know a thing or two about guacamole.  Every year, students make guacamole and salsa for the class for their “How-to” presentations.

Best Guacamole EVER!

6 ripe avocados, diced
4 medium tomatoes, diced
1 large white onion, finely chopped
1 medium Serrano pepper, finely chopped
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro
½ cup fresh lemon juice
2 tsp kosher salt

Mix all ingredients.  That’s it!

If you like the recipe, check out Eva Longoria’s new cookbook, Eva’s Kitchen: Cooking with Love for Family and Friends

 *of Desperate Housewives fame.  I have seen some of Eva’s movies.  I really liked Over Her Dead Body—Eva is very funny as a bride who dies on her wedding day—and haunts her fiancé when he falls for a psychic.

**Funny story: one year I asked a routine question while teaching third grade math and a boy raised his hand.  Instead of answering, he blurted out, “Okay, who do you like: the Saints or the Colts?  It took me forever to calm the class down.  I asked the boy to write a paragraph about why you don’t poll the class about football during math.

Winter holidays often feature lavish feasts, and no matter how old you are, it’s hard to remember how formal place settings are designed.  Nothing causes tension at a formal meal quicker than anxiety over which drinking glass is yours …or your tablemate’s.

I learned a cool tip that helps kids with their table manners.  It’s called “b—d”. 

As you can see from the photo at right, you make a sort of “good job” gesture with each hand and your fingers form lowercase letters b and d. 

The b is for your bread plate.  The d is for your drink.

Your bread plate is on the left. Your drink is on the right.

See how helpful this can be at formal dinner parties?

It remains to be seen whether this tip will help children tell their b and d apart—or create “which bread plate is mine?” confusion for students who can’t tell the difference between b and d.

Many schools have a giant plastic “lunch bucket” for each class. After eating, students place their lunch boxes in the bucket before going outside to play. Two students are charged with transporting the lunch bucket back to class.

It’s not a pretty sight to watch students transport this bucket. They drag it down the halls and scuff up the linoleum. Lunch boxes fall out—and not all are retrieved. For the youngest students, moving the bucket is pretty much an impossible task.

…the lunch bucket system is just okay. Here’s how to make it great!

Get a lunch wagon! Ask your students’ families for a used wagon. You want a classic Red Flyer type wagon. It’s nice and strong and will last for the rest of your teaching career.

I was incredibly fortunate — one of my class families had a wagon, and when I sent out a call, they responded immediately. Then they took generosity to a new level and painted the Lunch Wagon green, in honor of our G3 classsroom brand.  We have an alcove just outside the door to our classroom where the G3 Lunch Wagon lives when it’s not in use.  We use a pretty green vinyl tablecloth to line the Lunch Wagon bed, so it’s always attractive (and easy to clean!).

I hope you and your class like the Lunch Wagon system. The Lunch Wagon is loads of fun and very useful!

Assessments abound at back to school time, and one test your child will face is the “Writing Sample.” Shortly after spending a summer goofing off, your child will be tasked with spending several hours (over a few days) to write an essay.

It’s pretty obvious to most teachers that many students never even hold a pencil during summer break. Imagine your child dealing with that on top of the stress of having to write an essay. The results aren’t pretty.

You can help your child by encouraging him to write something—even a paragraph—before school starts. It will make a difference. By the way, this is a good time to have the “what is a paragraph?” talk with your child. I can’t tell you how many children ask me that question during the writing sample. It’s a good thing that last year’s teacher can’t hear them.

Note: I don’t want to cause stress to you and your child about these back-to-school assessments. I merely want to show you how to help your child brush up skills so her work reflects their actual ability, not the results of summer slide.

How is your child at reading aloud? Did you know that this one skill is the main reading diagnostic test for many schools?*

As you prepare for back to school, I strongly suggest that you have your child practice reading aloud. This skill often takes a big hit during summer slide; nevertheless, students usually are evaluated on reading aloud within the first week of school. Have your child practice with appropriate grade-level books if you can, but use easier books if your child is not a strong reader. Check for fluency: a natural cadence, automatic word decoding, good pronunciation and accuracy.

Ten minutes a day is plenty for a child who already reads at grade level (or did at the end of last school year.) If your child was just barely making it last school year, this summer practice is essential and should be longer. You’ll probably want to break it into two fifteen minute chunks a day, more if the child is motivated. For struggling readers, you might want to read the material aloud before the child reads it. Another trick is to read aloud with your child, pulling him along. This is better than having the child stumble through the text.

*One common test is DIBELS, the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. It measures how many words your child accurately reads from a grade-level passage in a minute. Schools use this test to quickly identify struggling readers. Teachers often use it to form reading groups.

Note: I don’t want to cause stress to you and your child about these back-to-school assessments. I merely want to show you how to help your child brush up skills so her work reflects actual ability, not the effects of summer slide.

Many students have nervous jitters at back to school time. It helps to brush up on skills before returning to the classroom.

Ideally, you encouraged your child to read all summer. Regardless, reading a chapter book the week before school starts can make a difference. Besides the obvious benefits of improving skills, reading a chapter book puts your child back in an academic frame of mind. The experience of reading reawakens the child’s vocabulary, important for tests like Star Reading.

I think the most important benefit of reading a chapter book before school starts is extending the child’s attention span. Reading a chapter book (or listening to a parent read aloud) helps avoid this problem for your child.

I know a teacher who distributes a short chapter book to each entering sixth grader at Meet the Teacher Night, two days before school starts. Each child is given homework: finish the book and be ready to take an AR (Accelerated Reader) test on the first day of school. This exercise shows the students and families that sixth grade is serious and provides all the benefits I just described.

Note: I don’t want to cause stress to you and your child about these back-to-school assessments. I merely want to show you how to help your child brush up skills so her work reflects actual ability, not the effects of summer slide.

Kids and teachers know: back to school is the real New Year. Kids are full of nervous jitters at this exciting time. You can really help by reviewing key concepts before the first day of school.

Ideally, you followed some sort of program to combat summer slide, that significant decline in skills over the prolonged time off. Regardless, a concerted effort the week before school starts can make a difference.

Review basic math facts! I can’t stress this enough. Your child needs to get the same (correct) answer every time. Quick test: ask your child what 5+8 is. If your child doesn’t answer immediately, she needs to study. If your child was super-slow to solve 5+8, back up with easier problems like 3+2, and, last ditch, 3+1. The results might horrify surprise you.

Use flash cards, math games, drill worksheets from Dad’s Worksheets, or my free software: Best Times Tables Practice EVER! and Best Addition Practice EVER!

Students experience summer slide in every subject.  Here are some fun tips for helping your child with a difficult topic: estimating.

By estimating, I mean two different skills.  One is estimating measurements.  The other is using rounding to estimate an answer to a problem.  (526 +375 = about 900 if you round to the nearest hundred)

Fun with a tape measure*:  Simply give your kids a tape measure and challenge them to hone their estimating skills.  About how long is your kitchen?  How far to the sidewalk?  Is the length of your driveway closer to 10, 20 or 100 feet?  Should you measure the height of your cat in inches, feet or yards?  This is a pleasant way to spend a summer afternoon.

If your kids and their friends are enterprising, they could each make up their own challenges, writing little worksheets with measuring tasks.  It’s like playing school, but more active.

Fun with a scale: This is a lot like Fun with a Tape Measure, but with measurements of weight.  Your child can develop a sense of what things weigh.  How much does cereal weigh?  Dishes?  The family dog?  A book?

Shopping estimation: Running errands really does provide lots of ways to incorporate math.  Simply ask little word problems as you go.  If I buy this item for $2.95 and that item for $4.25, about how much will I spend?  Once your child is good at answering this type of question, challenge her to figure the rough amount of change from a nice round figure like $10.

*Fun with whatever—a tongue-in-cheek way to make any task fun.  Sort of.  It helps!   Read the blog post for classroom examples.

We all know that visits to the library are an easy way to combat summer reading slide.  Keeping math skills from sliding requires a little more effort.  I’ve taught many grades, and I can say that one skill most students haven’t mastered is ROUNDING!

Every grade I’ve taught has tackled rounding early in the school year.  I think it’s supposed to be quick-and-easy review.  Well, it isn’t.  It’s a math grade killer.

If a National Board Certified Teacher is constantly surprised that kids struggle with rounding, how is a parent supposed to know?  I really don’t see how you would, so this blog post serves as a public service announcement for Rounding Awareness.

Even now, having developed many ways to teach this skill, I still don’t understand what’s so hard about rounding.  I mean, take 53.  Is it closer to 50 or 60?  Closer to 50.  How hard is that?  Very, for most students.  Don’t get them started on rounding 50,453 to the nearest tens place.  They just fall apart.

As a parent, it really helps if you’re mindful of teaching rounding in daily life.

Examples:

1. This gum costs 63 cents.  Is that closer to 60 or 70 cents?
    
2. I want to buy 5 drinks at the fast food restaurant.  They’re each $1.19.  Is $1.19 closer to $1 or $2?  About how much will I spend?
    
3. This recipe calls for 1 2/3 cup of flour.  Is that closer to one cup or two?
    
4. Look, this movie made $83 million at the box office over the weekend.  What a blockbuster!  Is 83 closer to 80 or 90?
     
5. This meal costs $5.85.  Is $5.85 closer to $5 or $6?

A few rounding worksheets would be really helpful.  I recommend you print them from the rounding section on Dad’s Worksheets and/or Math-aids.com.  The worksheets help with something incidental real-world rounding doesn’t address: taking the same number and rounding it to the nearest tens, hundreds or thousands place.  For that skill, it really helps kids to see the number in black and white.

Your child can practice rounding on computer games.  Click here for a site with some fun games.  They are all good; my students love Rounding Sharks.

A visual technique for teaching rounding: The Rounding Hill.  As an example of rounding to the nearest 10,  this diagram shows why you round up when the ones digit is 5 or more.  Many kids think that 5 could go either way because they mistakenly believe 5 is exactly in the middle.  The Rounding Hill shows that there is no middle number, as there are 5 numbers on either side of the hill.  The Rounding Hill really helps most students, and I often see them drawing this diagram on their math tests to serve as a reference point.

Despite what you may hear, I still believe that worksheets are fun and educational.  They’re efficient and give a nice sense of accomplishment.  Doing worksheets for a student is kind of like doing calisthenics for a Marine.  It’s just something you do.  You know it’s beneficial, you enjoy it, and you don’t question it.

You know the great feeling of opening a brand-new box of crayons?  That’s how a lot of kids feel about a brand-new workbook.  You can hear the binding crack as you open it.  The pages smell like paper and ink and promise.  This workbook hasn’t been messed up yet, there are no doodles and ripped pages, and every sheet offers the promise of a nice fat A+.

Lots of kids really would welcome a summer workbook.  You can buy them at teaching stores like Lakeshore Learning, office stores, discount stores like Walmart and Target, dollar stores, grocery stores, book stores (Barnes & Noble has a large workbook section near kids’ books), club stores like Sam’s Club and Costco, and drugstores.  Once your eyes are opened, you’ll start seeing workbooks everywhere.

Here are some recommendations:

Spectrum series: they have a workbook for every subject and grade level.  The primary level Little Critter series are the most fun.  Click here to learn about the wonders of Little Critter Reading, a workbook so great that I won a grant to buy a copy for each of my students.

Evan-Moor also creates workbooks for every subject.  They have a great poetry series, and their fiction and nonfiction workbooks are both educational and interesting.  The science workbooks are fun because they teach nonfiction reading skills and science, a topic that is now taught mostly through activities, so kids don’t have much actual science knowledge like you’d get from a book.  Teachers love the Daily Math Practice and Daily Language Review books.  I also like Daily Paragraph Editing, but most kids have trouble with it since grammar isn’t taught explicitly anymore.

Brain Quest workbooks cover all subjects for one grade.  This is a good all-summer-long review/preview of everything.

Scholastic Success With…is similar to Brain Quest and covers all subjects for one grade.

Summer Bridge Activities is another good review/preview book and is available at teaching stores.

And, of course, Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! is great for all you math buffs.   It covers multiplication, from learning the facts to mastering long multiplication and word problems.

If you can keep your child’s reading and math skills sharp this summer, you’ll both reap the rewards for all of next school year—and every year to come.

Place value is a biggie in math education.  All other math concepts depend on it.  Most children have a hard time with place value.  They do all right with tens and ones, but start to crumple as the numbers get bigger.  Here are some fun computer games to help your youngster sharpen those place value skills.

Toon University: Answer the place value question, then play an old-style arcade game to celebrate correct answers.  3 levels. 

Base Ten Blocks: These are familiar teaching tools to your child, if not you.  Ironically enough, it’s really important to practice with them because this teaching tool, the base ten block, is now an assessment tool.  Standardized tests ask questions about them like you’re supposed to know what they are.  I always wonder what international students think of this.  Anyway, it’s a fun game, although I turn the sound off because I find the music stressful.

Shark Pool Place Value Game: You look at the number of blocks, then select the written number that matches.  If you guess incorrectly, a shark takes a bite out of your surfboard.  This game uses regular blocks, not place value blocks.  Your child will become more adept at quickly subtracting from 10—you see a line of 10 blocks and a line next to it with 2 fewer blocks—that’s 18.

Lots of cool games in one place: These are nice because a variety of numbers are represented.  Your child can practice with tens and ones or hundred thousands, depending on the game.  My class loves this site.

Mastering multiplication facts is a hard-won skill for most students, and they can easily lose it all over the summer.  Here are tips on how parents and kids can work together to keep those math skills sharp.  Everything on this list is quick and easy, and none of it interferes with summer fun.

1. Start with song: yes, they’re my own work, but the award-winning Best Multiplication Songs EVER! really are the best.  In just eight minutes a day, you can sing all your times tables with tunes you already know.  Slip them into your daily routine—play them in the car, while doing chores, or dance to them for a quick workout.
    
2. Flash card drill: stop by the Dollar Store (or any discount store, grocery store, or drugstore) and pick up a box of flash cards.  Then be smart with how you practice.  First, go through the stack and separate facts your child knows from facts your child needs to learn.  Review the “know them” facts daily.  Add about 3 new facts a day, always practicing the old ones.  By the end of summer, your youngster will know the facts cold.
    
3. FREE Computer Practice: I have an electronic version of the flash card drill—the FREE customizable Best Times Tables Practice EVER!  Download this program and let kids practice at their own pace: just the fives, just the tens, only the easy sevens, all the hard facts—you name it.
    
4. Math toys: visit Amazon.com or a local teaching store like Lakeshore Learning for fun multiplication toys.  Multiplication wrap-ups are eternally popular.  You can also find self-correcting multiplication games and board games like Multiplication Bingo.
    
5. Worksheets: Most of my students still need an old-fashioned worksheet to cement learning, and they like a worksheet’s inherent efficiency.  For no-frills practice, print worksheets from Dadsworksheets.com.  Use the Spaceship Math for leveled practice or print conventional one-times-table-at-a-time worksheets.

The best worksheets, of course, come from Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!  From memorizing that first fact to mastering 3 digit multiplication, it provides fun, quality, relevant practice.  Dozens and dozens of real-life word problems highlight the importance of multiplication in our daily lives.  There are certificates for every level, making it easy to track and reward progress.

Going to the library is like shopping without the buyer’s remorse. Wait, scratch that. The library can still offer buyer’s remorse if you check out too many books, the wrong books, or just plain lose stuff.

Here are my tips on organizing your library haul.

1. Keep a dedicated library basket (or bag) in the car and at home. The basket at home is so you don’t lose books. When you’re not reading the book, it goes in the basket. When you’re checking out dozens of books at a time, this becomes important. Keep a basket in the car for already-read books so you can drop them off whenever you’re nearby. If you wait for a scheduled trip to the library, you might end up with overdue books.
2. Teach your child how to select books. Librarians and teachers try, but it might mean more coming from you. Kids pick the strangest books. My third graders will show me their latest library picks and I’ll say things like,“Have you read the first five books in this series that is two grade levels above yours? No? So why did you pick this?” “This book is about the Russian Revolution. Do you have any interest in that? Then why did you pick it?”“This is a tender coming-of-age story about a girl and her horse. You like Transformers and anything about war. Why did you pick it?”Teach your child to really think about whether there is anything he can relate to—the cover, the title, the author, or the first page. If not, pass. Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it’s for you.
3. Use the five-finger method. At school, books are labeled with their AR levels. Not true at most public libraries. You can check on ARBookfind.com, or you can just use the five finger method. Encourage your child to read the first page aloud and hold up a finger for each word that’s too hard. If your child finds five too-hard words on the first page, the book is too hard. Put it down.
4. Ask the librarian for advice. Librarians read more than anyone and they know what kids like. You can trust them to help you choose. Just make sure your child understands that while he doesn’t have to read everything the librarian recommends, he has to read enough so as not to annoy her and make her not want to help him next time.
5. Feel free to take and check out the display books. Librarians set books out on display, like at a bookstore. You’re allowed to borrow these books. The librarian can always find something new to set out. (Hint: for picture books, sometimes it’s random. I’ve found some cool books by reading the random picture books librarians set out.)

The key to summer reading is access to books!  Not just any books.  My experience is that many kids self-select books that are too difficult for them, so my best advice to parents is to use AR levels to suggest books for your child. 

You can find the AR levels at ARbookfind.com.  You can build a virtual bookbag and take this list with you to the public library.  Alternatively, while you’re at the library, you could use a computer to log on to ARbookfind.com and check right then and there.

Other ways to help your child at the library this summer:
* Plan a reading list and get books from your library
* Schedule regular trips to the library
* Check out books to read aloud, too!

You might like to buy books at garage sales and thrift stores or organize a PTA book swap for summer reading.  Audio books are a great resource. 

Have older kids read aloud to younger siblings and friends.  Then turn the tables and let those younger siblings read the same story to Big Bro and Big Sis. (That’s a teaching strategy that really works!)

Don’t expect your child’s online reading to keep his skills honed.  Online reading usually is skimming—kids need to read deeper to develop and maintain skill levels for learning. 

Set a time each day for reading. When I was young, we had a “no electronics” rule every afternoon in the summer.  That worked, because we lived in Tampa, Florida—the lightning capital of the world where it rained every afternoon.  The “no electronics” rule applied to all our friends, too: we all hung out reading books together for a couple of hours (often determined by how long the rainstorm lasted).  It was a really popular daily event in our neighborhood!

Part Three: What if my child is taught by a non-NBCT?

In this series of posts about National Board Certified Teachers, I have extolled the benefits of certification for both teacher and student.

An inevitable and important question for parents: what if my child is taught by a non-NBCT?  Does that mean my child isn’t receiving the best education possible?

A National Board Certified Teacher has demonstrated excellence in teaching, but that does not mean that NBCTs have cornered the market on excellence.  Of course many excellent teachers are not Board Certified!

To be National Board Certified, a teacher must submit to a long, expensive, and voluntary process of evaluation.  NBCT pre-candidacy classes (that prepare teachers for the assessment process) caution that weddings, small children, cross-country moves, and family obligations are very real reasons to postpone an attempt at certification.  Additionally, some districts give incentives for teachers to pursue National Board Certification—and some districts don’t.  If there is no incentive or financial support for NBCTs in a district, teachers may choose to attain an advanced degree or do additional coursework in their field rather than pursue National Board Certification.

Be aware that your child’s teacher must achieve high standards simply to become certified in your state.  License requirements vary by state, but you know that a combination of bachelor’s degree in education, experience as a teaching intern, and qualifying scores on a statewide assessment figure into the mix.

There are other measures of teaching excellence: advanced degrees such as a M.Ed. (Master’s of Education), Ed.D (Doctor of Education) and Ph.D. in Education.  You might be surprised at the advanced degrees your child’s teacher holds.  I have known kindergarten and first grade teachers who held PhDs.

Many teachers enter the profession after a successful career in another field.  Teachers might be former lawyers, accountants, or business professionals.  Troops to Teachers helps eligible military personnel begin new careers as teachers.  Your child’s teacher—even if it is her first year of teaching—could be bringing an amazing wealth of experience to the classroom.

Often, teachers come from a long family tradition in education.  Many of my colleagues are second, third, fourth (or more) generation teachers.  They enter the profession with incredible ranges of experiences and perspectives in education.

Bottom line: teachers care about children.  Anyone who is that deeply committed achieves excellence as a matter of course.