Class Antics – Inside Elementary Education

Dear readers,

Exciting news!  ClassAntics.com has been nominated for the 2012 Fascination Awards honoring the Internet’s most fascinating blogs in the category of Elementary Teacher Blogs.  It’s an honor just to be nominated, but actually it would be even better to win. 

You can help: please click a Google +1 image to vote for ClassAntics.  Voting runs May 14 through May 21.

The Fascinator Awards editorial team chooses the nominees.  ClassAntics caught their attention with FREE Leap Year Worksheets Part 3.  Special thanks to Kumie and Ramona, whose positive comments impressed the editorial team.

Thank you to the tens thousand readers who visit ClassAntics each month.  Please vote for our blog and have a happy end of the school year!

Sincerely,
Corey Green
P.S. For a ClassAntics Sampler, visit these popular posts.

Classroom Management
All for One and One for All: Whole-Class Incentives
A typical elementary schoolday schedule
A Sample First Day of School Letter Home
Chill Music for the Classroom
Best Practices for Professional Learning Communities (Part 2)
Make your classroom a tattle-free zone

 Literacy
AR Report: What Kids are Reading
Teaching Kids to Write Complete Sentences
Figurative Language with Taylor Swift: You Belong with Me

Resources and Worksheets
Dad’s Worksheets: my favorite math resource for parents and teachers
FREE Equinox Worksheet and More Equinox Teaching Resources
Beat Summer Slide: Where to Buy Workbooks

Civil Rights
Red Tails: The Tuskegee Airmen (Part 1)
Coretta Scott King Book Awards 2012
Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, Part 1
Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, Part 2
Ballad of Birmingham
Ruby Bridges

Academics
New Orleans Halloween
Think Inside the Box
How to Ace Standardized Tests

Idiom-challenged maid Amelia Bedelia has delighted children since 1963.  Who can resist a maid who doesn’t understand how to draw the drapes or put out the lights?  Amelia Bedelia’s good intentions and delicious desserts carry her through.

Interestingly enough, I have noticed that most children don’t enjoy the humor of Amelia Bedelia unless they are taught how to appreciate it.  Like Amelia Bedelia, children are very literal and they just don’t get the jokes.   I think kids enjoy Amelia Bedelia books best if they hear several of them read aloud.  That way, the students can help each other explain the idioms.  If you are lucky, one or two kids will get each joke, and they can explain them to the class.  Once the students understand Amelia Bedelia books, rereading them makes for good fluency practice.

Amelia Bedelia books are time-honored vehicles for teaching children about idioms.  This is especially helpful to English Language Learners (ELL students).  Idioms are hard to pick up—notice I used an idiom to explain the quandary.   ELL kids might like to know that Amelia Bedelia has ELL and international roots.  Author Peggy Parish based Amelia on a maid in Cameroon, Africa, where Peggy spent some time as a child. The maid was known for her vast and beautiful hat collection.  The illustrations of Amelia pay homage to this woman.

In addition to the classic Amelia Bedelia books, your students will enjoy reading Herman Parish’s books about young Amelia Bedelia and her first experiences at school.  The books are charming and will make your students feel like seasoned vets as they chuckle over how confusing school is to young Amelia.  You can read a sample here at the Harper Collins website.

Tip for standardized test prep: it’s tough to answer a question about explaining the idiom if you don’t know what an idiom is.  Your students will face this problem unless you periodically review the meaning of words like “idiom.”  It’s easy to lose sight of vocabulary basics in fun lessons, so remember to bring the kids back to the definition.

Resources for Amelia Bedelia and Idioms

• Your class will enjoy Amelia Bedelia games during computer lab time.
• ABC Teach has a nice collection of Amelia Bedelia worksheets.
• PowerPoint presentations about Amelia Bedelia and Peggy Parish
• Worksheets about idioms
• The idiom site explains common sayings

List of Amelia Bedelia books
Available at Amazon.com

Amelia Bedelia (1963) – Wiki link
Thank You, Amelia Bedelia (1964)
Amelia Bedelia and the Surprise Shower (1966)
Come Back, Amelia Bedelia (1971)
Play Ball, Amelia Bedelia (1972)
Good Work, Amelia Bedelia (1976)
Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia (1977)
Amelia Bedelia Helps Out (1979)
Amelia Bedelia and the Baby (1981)
Amelia Bedelia Goes Camping (1985)
Merry Christmas, Amelia Bedelia (1986)
Amelia Bedelia’s Family Album (1988)
Good Driving, Amelia Bedelia (1995)
Bravo, Amelia Bedelia! (1997)
Amelia Bedelia 4 Mayor (1999)
Calling Doctor Amelia Bedelia (2002)
Amelia Bedelia and the Christmas List (2003)
Amelia Bedelia, Bookworm (2003)
Happy Haunting, Amelia Bedelia (2004)
Amelia Bedelia Goes Back to School (2004)
Be My Valentine, Amelia Bedelia (2004)
Amelia Bedelia, Rocket Scientist? (2005)
Amelia Bedelia’s Masterpiece (2007)
Amelia Bedelia Under Construction (2007)
Amelia Meets Emilie Castro (2007)
Amelia Bedelia and the Cat (2008)
Amelia Bedelia’s First Day of School (2009)
Amelia Bedelia’s First Valentine (2009)
Amelia Bedelia Makes a Friend (2011)

An occasional series with sample pages from the Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!

My publisher is running a limited-time-coupon for $10 off Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! to help your class prepare for standardized testing.  Use Coupon Code NGUTA5C6 and click here to order.  The offer expires April 15, 2012.

More than just a workbook, Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! is a comprehensive curriculum that makes learning multiplication easy, enjoyable and relevant to real-life situations. Written by a master teacher, it addresses how kids really learn.

> Multiplication facts: scaffolded, comprehensive approach helps kids memorize their facts and cement their learning.

> Word problems (lots of them!) help students see the relevance of multiplication. There are word problems for each times table, level of multiplication, themed word problems, and long-multiplication word problems.

> Standardized testing content boosts students’ confidence and courage as they face the stresses of the standardized testing environment; answers teach strategies for getting it right!

> FUN! Friendly animals guide kids through the lessons. Certificates acknowledge achievements. Real-life word problems show how multiplication helps in sports, movie making and beyond!

The FREE standardized test prep worksheets never expire. This sample is Part 2 of an occasional series with sample pages from the Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!

Tip # 2: Determine what must be in the ones place

This is a really simple trick that lets you quickly eliminate wrong answers. Check just the ones digit of the problem. Multiply quickly in your head, and you will know what the ones digit must be in the correct answer. This trick works when you multiply by 2 or 3 digit numbers (and even bigger numbers) because the when you do your hugs and kisses, you never put any new numbers in the ones place.

Example A: 48 x 3: since 3 x 8 is 24, you know 4 must be in the ones place. Eliminate all answers with a different digit in the ones place.

Example B: 246 x 316: 6 x 6 is 36, so you know 6 will be in the ones place. Eliminate all answers with a different digit in the ones place.

Click here for FREE worksheets about this skill, straight from the Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!

Great news!  My newest math learning product, Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! won two awards for 2011:  Dr. Toy’s Top 100 products and Dr. Toy’s Top 10 Educational Products.

“This innovative math workbook is useful for home or school, when multiplication is introduced or for remedial work in other grades. This workbook focuses on how kids think, how they learn, and how they have fun learning new material.”

Click here to learn more about the workbook and the FREE software you can download for addition and times tables practice.

Who is Dr. Toy?  Stevanne Auerbach, PhD, is one of the nation’s and world’s leading experts on play, toys, and children’s products.  Dr. Toy started her career as a teaching and reading specialist, helped establish the first childcare centers for federal employees, and founded the San Francisco International Toy Museum.  You have to love her for this: Dr. Auerbach was responsible for approving the first Department of Education grant to Sesame Street!

With 30 years of specialized experience, Dr. Auerbach evaluates educationally oriented, developmental and skill building products from the best large and small companies in four annual awards programs.  Parents, teachers and toy buyers rely on Dr. Toy’s guidance in selecting products for children.

Dr. Toy’s motto is “Let’s play!”  Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! perfectly fits Dr. Toy’s philosophy that play is educational, and education can be fun.  I totally agree with Dr. Toy that one of the best teaching techniques (EVER!) is helping kids discover that learning is fun!

Thank you, Dr. Toy!

It’s the time of year when standardized tests take center stage in schools.  My students (third grade) took a high-stakes standardized test; for most, it’s the first time in their young lives in the testing environment.  I wrote about this challenge last year:

How kids take standardized testsHow to make State Achievement Test week AWESOME (for teachers)

Dos and Don’ts for the State Writing Test

Links for parents looking for information on how to help their students: 

Disney Family Website Article: What Every Parent Should Know About Standardized Testing  “Thirty years ago, American school children spent two or three days a year bubbling in answers on standardized tests. Today, children in some school districts spend as much as 18 days per 180-day school year on standardized testing.”

 Testing Our Schools: A Guide for Parents  “This guide will answer some of your questions and give you information about testing. Use the guide to help you understand more about school testing, define your questions and concerns, and help your child prepare for taking tests.”

There’s an entire section of my new book, Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!  that deals with standardized test taking strategies.  Most students take standardized tests for the first time in third grade, and third grade is when the curriculum emphasizes developing multiplication skills.  My workbook deconstructs word problems and strategies to identify the correct answer to multiple choice questions, skills that apply to far more than just getting multiplication problems right.

This post is part of a series of tips and strategies for taking standardized tests.

Analysis of a standardized test word problem using the Given/Find method:

 José is happy to have 3 pledges for his school’s Read-a-thon.  Person A gives José a $20 bill. Person B pledges $3 for each book José reads.  Person C pledges $1 for each chapter José reads.   José read 5 books with a total of 27 chapters. Who will pay José the most money?

a. Person A
b. Person B
c. Person C
d. $25.00

Analysis: for simplicity, underline the facts in the problem if you are allowed to write on the test

Given:
3 pledges
Person A – $20
Person B – $3 per book
Person C – $1 per chapter
5 books
27 chapters

Find: Who pays the most?

Solution: Notice that answer d) cannot be correct because the question asks WHO will pay the most.  Cross it off!

Person A: $20
Person B: $3 x 5 = $15
Person C: $1 x 27 = $27

Person C pays the most, so the correct answer is c.

Example taken from my new workbook: Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!

This continues my series of posts on standardized test prep.

The Given/Find Method

First, write down all the numbers in the problem.  This is the given information.

Next, write down what you are trying to find—and what unit will be used to measure it. Tip: to help you remember, underline what you are trying to find.

Finally, figure out which operations you need (add, subtract, multiply, divide) to determine the correct answer.

Often, the multiple choice answers include one answer that clearly is incorrect.  Cross it off!  Some choices are way too big or way too small. You can estimate and cross off these incorrect answers. Other answers often come from steps you take to answer the question.  These answers are there to fool you. 

Be sure to finish the problem and find the answer to the question that was asked.

There! That wasn’t so hard.  I’ll deconstruct a typical multiple choice question in a future post.

Here’s a simple way to keep track of your estimates, guesses and solutions: Cross off the wrong answers!

 Review the answers before you solve the problem. Often, you can eliminate obviously wrong answers.

 * Cross off answers you can identify as wrong even before you start solving the problem. 

* Cross off answers that you can identify as wrong or incomplete as you work.

 * Cross off answers that correctly compute part of the solution when multiple operations are needed to solve the problem.

* If the word problem requires a person, place or thing in the answer, cross off answers that only have numbers.  This is especially important when the number you cross off is the correct answer to the word problem.  

* When you check your answer, be sure you answered the question that was asked! Remember even with math tests, the right answer might not be a number: it might be a person, place or thing!

Newly released: Best Multiplication Workbook EVER!
Order now!
Also available from Amazon.com.

I’m blowing my own horn: Best Multiplication Workbook EVER! is a great resource for teachers, parents, tutors and students.

This book is divided into levels, and everything is taught systematically.  The workbook pages are fun for kids to do, and the organizational system helps teachers, tutors and parents know how to guide kids.  If a child is having difficulty with a concept, the parent or teacher will know to go back a level and remediate before proceeding.

> Teachers can use the book for whole-class lessons or to teach small groups.  The scaffolded, leveled system makes it easy to manage many students working on different skills.
> Parents can buy the workbook for use at home.  Kids can do most of the work on their own.  The leveled system makes it easy for a parent or tutor to review a lesson—or teach the next step in acquiring new skills.
> Tutors can use the book to identify gaps in a child’s learning.  Simply proceed through the levels and slow down when a concept seems difficult.  The book lays out a great tutoring program for helping elementary school students.
> Home school parents will appreciate the comprehensive nature of the book, the word problems, and the scaffolded approach to learning.

The workbook contains 260 pages filled with worksheets for skill development, word problems, long multiplication mastery, standardized test practice questions and strategies — everything needed to succeed in learning to multiply. 

A student who masters multiplication is ready to take on all the other mathematics challenges in elementary school!

The Math Worksheet Generator (math-aids.com) is an awesome FREE site!  Parents and teachers should know about it.  It’s beyond awesome.  It’s great that you can generate worksheets for basic facts practice…but the awesomeness extends far beyond that.

I will definitely be telling my fifth and sixth grade colleagues about the PEMDAS worksheets.  I didn’t learn about the order of operations until junior high (in an advanced class), but now the Department of Education thinks that 10 year olds can do it.  Now we teach fifth-graders how to do PEMDAS: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction.  As you can imagine, the kids need tons of practice.  Once they understand the concept, they can’t get enough PEMDAS worksheets!  It’s really fun to do big kid math.

The math worksheet generator has a great section on rounding.  Rounding is an extremely difficult concept for children.  Many students struggle with it all through elementary school.  Kids can’t get enough rounding practice.  Teachers will be glad to have great worksheets that provide this practice.

The kindergarten section is wonderful.  It can be tricky to find good practice for kindergartners, and this site certainly delivers.  At home, the kindergarten worksheets would be great for older siblings to use when they’re playing school with younger siblings.

I could go on and on about the sections on money, graphing, time, measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode), exponents, ratios, fractions, and more…but I think it’s really time you stop listening to me and go visit the Math Worksheet Generator!

Teachers, students, parents—you can download a FREE* computer program, Best Addition Practice EVER!  to help kids study their basic addition facts.  (*Free for non-commercial use — it was designed for home and classroom use; it’s available for PC only,  Windows XP or newer.)  Click here to look at screenshots and detailed descriptions about the program.

Best Addition Practice EVER!  really is the best.  The program is simple and easy to use.  It’s customizable, letting kids teach themselves addition facts, practice, and test themselves.

Teaching Tips, a button on the screen, explains how you can show your students to use the program to teach themselves, then test their progress.

For example, beginning students can practice with adding 0 and 1 to the numbers 0-12.  Students could also choose to practice adding only 0 through 5.  Students who think they really know their addition can select all numbers and test themselves on all 169 facts.

Students can practice with facts that give them trouble.  Many students struggle with adding 9.   Students can start by adding 9 to 0, 1 and 10.  Then they can add an additional fact, while constantly reviewing what they already know.

My dad wrote a version of this program for my younger brother and sister years ago.   I have used it in my classroom for several years.  Students from my class—and others—love to use it for practice.  It works like magic!

Best Addition Practice EVER! complements my new CD, Best Multiplication Songs EVER!   It features simple lyrics and tunes you know.  The songs help kids learn their times tables quickly and permanently.

Give them a listen!

Best Multiplication Songs EVER!  is available for purchase at Abligio.com.  If your school is interested in buying multiple copies, contact Abligio Books for a special school rate.

I hope that Best Addition Practice EVER! and Best Multiplication Songs EVER!  help your students as much as they have helped mine.

Many states require that all educational posters in the classroom be removed or covered during testing week.  Removing all the posters makes for a bare, depressing room.  If you use dark paper to cover your educational posters, you will be amazed at how much light is sucked from the room.

Instead, make AWESOME posters to cover your educational posters and charts!

Have students use construction paper or butcher paper to create inspirational signs.  They might say “Rock the Test” or “Go, Us!”  After school, hang the posters up.  This way, kids are excited for testing day because they get to see how AWESOME the room looks!  During the test, students will remember the fun they had creating the signs and feel a little better.

I like to use pink paper because the color pink is calming.  Explain to your students that they can look at the pink if they feel test anxiety.  Pink has the added bonus of reflecting the light and casting a warm glow over the room.

Make testing week even more AWESOME by creating a theme.  I like Rocky Balboa.  My kids make posters that say “Go the distance” and “Eye of the Tiger.”  On test day, we get revved up with Eye Of The Tiger and dance a little.  Then we  calm down with Gonna Fly Now (Theme From Rocky).  The theme songs stick in kids’ heads, giving them a comforting thought during the test.