Our students took the day off and all Grovecenter teachers gathered in the Library Media Center to participate in two important trainings.  The first examined performance tasks for state testing in the hopes of helping us identify learning experiences that will help our student master grade-level standards.

It has been clear for years that these performance tasks are difficult.  However, if we can support students and change our instruction to build confidence, they can become more adept at completing these tasks.

The second half of the day was spent brushing up on mathematical discourse using Thinking Maps.  That means we are going to use our deep knowledge of mapping to help our students not only understand math terminology but think deeply about math concepts.

It was a great day of learning and collaborating.  If I want my students to get better, I must also get improve!

Today we used Legos to better understand the concept of division while practicing the algorithm to divide three digit numbers by one digit.

There was lots of excitement in the air when the Legos came out.  We put them in equal groups, took a break and worked through the algorithm.  We are making progress!

Making progress but far too many students are below grade level.  More work to do!

We jumped around number lines created with sidewalk chalk to learn about fractions on a number line.

This week our focus for new lessons has been on using Pear Deck to present math concepts.  Pear Deck is an add-on for Google Slides that increases student engagement by allowing students to write, type and draw as concepts are introduced.  It allows me to see their responses real time and give quick feedback.

Today we took the Topic Nine test online. I like that my students can see their results immediately.