Currently for the Month of July

It's summer, so my blog will be temporarily resuscitated (well, I hope so anyway). To kick things off, I am participating in the July Currently (hosted by Oh' Boy 4th Grade).

Listening - I am currently listening to the Jimmy Buffett station on Pandora. I am by no means a Parrothead, but Mr. Buffett's music has a very special place in my heart. My wife and I (back before we had 5 kids) had the privilege of traveling to Las Vegas on our honeymoon and to Orlando to celebrate a few of our anniversaries. At each of those places, we ate dinner at Margaritaville. It was a fantastic time and a great place to eat. So listening to Jimmy Buffett, Zac Brown, etc. reminds us of those trips. Needless to say, this station is on quite a bit.

Loving - Summer school started today! I know a lot of teachers really look forward to having summer vacation so they can relax at home, but I love teaching and I love being with students. Our county offers summer school most summers and I have taught in many of the sessions. This year I am in my own building, in my own classroom, so it feels awesome. I am looking forward to a great couple of weeks. Plus, as I mentioned, my wife and I have 5 kids, so the extra money goes a long way to help pay for new school clothes, shoes, and school supplies.

Thinking - I am thinking that I need to get started on my summer projects. I really want to make some new bow ties. I have two Teachers Pay Teachers activities that I need to make (fractions on a number line using mixed numbers and a set of graphing task cards for picture graphs). And, most importantly, I need to start making the videos for my flipped classroom idea. I have about 7 weeks, so I need to get cracking!

Wanting - I really want a MacBook Pro. I mean, I really want a MacBook Pro. There are so many cool features and apps on a MacBook that just aren't available on my current PC. I listened to a podcast on making iBooks. I need to make iBooks. I watched a video on using iMovie. I need to make movies on iMovie. One of my favorite YouTube channels is called Film Riot and they use a program called Final Cut. I need to use Final Cut. However...a MacBook Pro costs about $1,000, give or take. That is definitely not in the budget. My wife needs a new laptop and we need to replace the tile flooring in our kitchen. So, yeah, I guess I need to keep wanting. That is unless someone wants to bestow a wonderful gift upon me. (Either that or visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store and check out the awesome math products I have available.)

Needing - I need to get some motivation. We just got back from vacation last week. It was an awesome time, but I haven't really accomplished anything since we got home. It didn't help that it took nearly two hours to get home today because of all of the road construction, but I still need to get my butt in gear if I am going to accomplish all of the things I listed above.

All Star - I love the fact that my fellow teachers come to me to ask tech advice. I really love technology and look for ways to add technology to my lessons and teaching. I'm not the most technical person, but I do enjoy looking for new ideas and coming up with ways to make my lessons more engaging by implementing technology into them. I also love sharing those ideas and techniques with others. Our Technology Resource Teacher decided to pursue another adventure at the end of this school year. There were a lot of teachers who approached me to pursue the job. Sadly, I don't have a degree in technology or I might have considered it.

So that is where I'm at on this, the first day of July. Tomorrow is my wife's birthday and July 4 is my son's birthday. July 31 is our 11th anniversary. Life is good. And, to show you how good life is, I will leave you with some pictures from our vacation.

My Three Favorite Things - My Favorite Read Alouds

Even though I am a math/science teacher, I still love to read books to my students. Most of the time, I read books to my students that are related to a math concept or something associated with our current science unit. For example, when we were working through a unit on time, I read Game Time by Stuart Murphy.

However, sometimes I just like to read stories my students just because I love to read and I love to share my favorite stories with them. For this month's Favorite Things list, I want to share three of my favorite read alouds.

1. The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka. Jon Scieszka is a genius. I really can't think of another word to describe him. My first exposure to the writings of Mr. Scieszka was during my freshman speech class in college. My professor read the story of "The Stinky Cheese Man" and I was hooked. Each year, I read the same story to my students and it is always a highlight of the school year. If you are unfamiliar with the story, it is the adventures of a man made of stinky cheese. Sound familiar? This story, however, ends in a rather unique way. Give it a try. I promise you will love it. You can also try The True Story of the Three Little Pigs.
   
   
2. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. I have read this book at least 4 times and I am still discovering new elements of the story. For those of you who may not know the story, it is the tale of Miranda, a girl growing up in 1970s New York City and dealing with what it means to be a teenager. Add to this the homeless guy who lives on the corner, the peculiar boy from her school who punched her best friend for no apparent reason, and some rather strange notes that appear to be coming from the future and you have just a taste of the story When You Reach Me. This is seriously one of the most beautiful stories I have ever read. My students are on the edge of their seats the entire time we read the story and it is very difficult for me not to cry when we reach the climax of the story and the mystery is solved. I know exactly what is going to happen and I get choked up anyway. When you read it (see what I did there?), you will not be the least bit surprised that it was awarded the Newbery Award. If you like this book, Mrs. Stead's other novel, Liar and Spy is just as good. My wife and I listened to both books on our drive home from Disney Word a few years back.
   
   
3. Weslandia by Paul Fleischman. Weslandia is the story of a boy named Wesley who doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the people in his town, including his own parents. To solve this problem, Wesley creates his own civilization, including his own food, clothing, games, and written language. The civilization, called Weslandia, becomes quite popular and Wesley become the town hero.
   

   At the end of each year, after we have finished our state testing, our grade level does a project based on this book. The students are tasked with creating a civilization from scratch. They create a language, describe the foods, design the flag and government, and even describe the climate. It is a great review of all of the concepts taught throughout the school year. I am always amazed at the incredible projects that are produced by my students. If you are interested in finding out more about this project, called "My New Civilization," it can be purchased from my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

So, there you go, three of my favorite read alouds. I actually put together a longer list, so if you are interested, you can read "My Seven Favorite Read Aloud Books." What are your favorite books to read aloud to your students? Please leave your favorites in the comments below.

This post was part of the monthly Favorite Things link up, hosted by The Teaching Trio. Please check out what some other great teachers are sharing this month.

Pirate Math - Pirates vs. Ninjas!

One of the favorite activities in my classroom last year was a surprisingly simple game that I created to help my students practice comparing numbers. It was called "Pirates vs. Ninjas - The Epic Battle Continues!" The title is a play off of an internet activity where people argued about who would win in a battle, pirates or ninjas. I was amazed how many of my students knew about the activity and how sound their arguments were for each side. Then again, these were the kids who knew every character in Lord of the Rings and "Doctor Who."

The game came with two decks of cards, one for Pirates and one for Ninjas. Each card had either a 3-digit or 4-digit number. Two students played the game and each one had a deck. Each student would flip over a card from the deck and compare the number with that of his partner. The student with the largest number would collect both cards. After playing through the deck (about 24 cards), the student with the most cards was declared the winner.

To help promote accountability and to check for understanding of the skill, I provided the students with a recording sheet. The students were to write down their own numbers and the numbers of their partner. They would then use the inequality symbols (<, >, and =) to indicate if their own numbers were greater than, less than, or equal to the number of their partner. I would collect this sheet and look to see if the students had an understanding of the concept of comparing numbers. Obviously, every student page would be different from the next, but looking at the work turned in provided me with a glimpse of how well each of my students understood the concept.

"Pirates vs. Ninjas!" is really one of my favorite games. Even after we were finished with our place value unit, it was popular during Math Games and Math Centers. I get a lot of feedback on the game and many of the teachers tell me how excited they are to use this game with their boy students. I had girls who loved to play as well. You would do well to add this game to your math classroom.

"Pirates vs. Ninjas! - A Comparing Numbers Game is available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store for $3.00.

For some other great Pirate products, please visit Teaching Momster to see what other teachers are using in their classrooms.

Five For Friday - A Bunch of School Crafts, Comics, and Bow Ties

Another week has come and gone which means it is time for another Five For Friday. As always, I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching. Be sure to swing by there to see what some other awesome teacher-bloggers have been up to this week.

I think the fact that school is just around the corner has caused me to get a bit "crafty." I have a confession to make, however. I hate doing crafts and making projects. I shared this information with my wife and her response was, "And why are you an elementary school teacher?" That being said, I made a few things this week to get me ready for the upcoming school year. First off, I made some pencil cans. I took some old fruit cans and wrapped them in duck tape. I think I got the idea on Pinterest or somewhere like that. Here are the originals and the final product.

The second product I made was a multiplication math fact center. Again, I think I saw this on Pinterest (I really need to write these things down), so if this was your idea, I apologize for not being able to give appropriate credit. Anyway, the activity involves using an egg carton to create math facts. Inside the egg carton, I wrote the numbers 1-12. I put some duck tape across the openings and painted the tops and bottom. The students will put two markers inside the carton and shake it. After opening the egg carton, the student will multiply the two factors together. Here are the pictures I took:

Another thing that I worked on this week was finishing up some bow ties. I wear bow ties every day to school and a few months ago, I started sewing my own. I'm still learning to make them look good and some are better than others.

I'm probably the only one who cares about this, but about a week ago, I was able to get a month's subscription to Marvel Unlimited, an online comic book collection. I've spent a bunch of time going back and reading old Marvel Comics, especially a set of stories called "Planet Hulk" and the old Frank Miller Daredevil comics. Some of you may recognize the name Frank Miller as the director of the movie Sin City. I've never seen it, but I hear it's good.

The last thing is that this is the beginning of my last week of summer vacation. It is shaping up to be a busy one, beginning with a doctor's appointment. This appointment was rescheduled from an appointment I was supposed to have in April. My wife has been bugging me to go to the doctor for a check-up, especially now that we have five kids. I am very excited about the beginning of the school year. Each new year is a new adventure and I am ready to get this one started.

Thanks for checking in from another week. I hope you all ready for the fun to start. Those kids are coming soon, if they aren't with you already.

Guided Math in Action - Chapter 9

We have come to the last chapter in the book, Guided Math in Action by Dr. Nicki Newton. I hope that you have enjoyed reading my recaps and that I have convinced you to purchase a copy of the book for yourself. Seriously, it's a good one.

In this chapter of the book, Dr. Newton provides a day-by-day plan for how to introduce the guided math framework to students. She gives the topics for mini-lessons and provides a number of anchor chart examples to be used in the classroom. If I can be honest, these examples are worth the price of this book alone. She has has some really great stuff here, many of which I am going to be making for my own classroom.

The framework that Dr. Newtown provides covers 4 weeks, or 20 days. In the first week, the focus is on the structure of math workshop and the ways that mathematicians communicate with each other. The second week is for focusing on the routines and procedures for things like the daily calendar and how to work together in groups. Week three continues the focus on the routines and provides guidelines for using manipulatives and playing games together. In the fourth week, the students are taught what is expected of them at the end of math workshop, or "debrief."

I didn't feel the need to go into a huge recap of each day or week (you can read the book for more specific details.) If all of the information that needs to be covered in the first 20 days seems overwhelming, Dr. Newton has provided a rather specific chart at the end of the chapter to help you know what to cover and when. I will certainly be referencing it in the days and weeks to come.

Question 1: There are so many things that I need to prepare/finish up for the upcoming year. These include:

• Hot topic centers
• Anchor charts
• Take home bags (love this idea!)

There really are so many things that I learned in this book that I could attempt to make a part of my instruction. There is so much that it can be a little overwhelming. I think the best thing to do is choose a small part or parts, put it into practice, then implement another part and repeat.

Question 2: The things that I am going to continue include:

• My Problem of the Day
• My Number of the Day - very similar to Calendar Activities, but teaches numeracy

Again, the key is to take things slow and steady. I know that if I try to implement all of these awesome ideas at once, I will quit and that's not good for anyone.

Thank you for joining me as I worked this book this summer. I hope you have learned as much as I have and, if not, get a copy of the book!

An InLinkz Link-up

Guided Math in Action Book Study - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 is all about how to plan a Guided Math lesson. It was relatively short, but there was some really good stuff inside. I especially enjoyed the "peek in" of a Guided Math lesson.

Dr. Newton provides a framework for guided math that is broken into 3 sections. These sections include the mini-lesson, student practice, and share time.

• Mini-Lesson In the mini-lesson, it is our job as teachers to hook the students into that day's learning. We do this by making some kind of connection. I like to make the connection by telling a story. My students love to hear stories about my life or when I was a student in college and I always do my best to tie the story back to the lesson. After the hook, it is time to demonstrate the material.
• Student Practice After the teacher demonstration, it is time for the students to practice the skill being taught. This is the part of the lesson where the teacher and the student interact and discuss what they are doing as they work through the lesson. This would be a time for using whiteboards or playing games.
• Share Time The final part of the lesson is the share time, where students are asked questions about what they did during their practice time. Students can be interviewed one at a time or they can be asked to retell the main points of the lesson. The share time is then concluded by reinforcing the concepts one more time to clarify any confusion the students may have. The math centers are then explained and that group of students is released to go work.

The key take-away from this chapter is the need to plan out the lessons. Guided math is not something that can be done by the seat of your pants. It takes careful planning to be effective

Question 1: I have never been one to use a Guided Math lesson plan. Because of the way I build my small groups, I tend to do many of the same things each time I meet with a group. The key thing is that I already include all of the aspects of a guided math lesson when I meet with my small groups. We begin by reviewing the material. I show the students a couple of examples. The students are then given the opportunity to practice the lessons. Finally, we discuss what was done. I would like to become more conscientious about doing a more formal plan.

Question 2: When teaching from the concrete to the pictorial to the abstract, I always start with manipulatives. This can include base-10 blocks or coins or even cards. The students need something to hold in their hands. After they are used to moving the objects around, I show them how to draw pictures. A good example of this is showing the students how to draw arrays for multiplication. I also show the students how to use large squares, lines, and dots when using base-10 numbers. I have a blog post that I really need to write on how I teach my students to solve multiplication problems. I've been trying to write it for months.

---

It's hard to believe that we are almost finished with this book. Be sure to leave a comment about how you plan your guided math lessons or ways that you move from concrete to pictorial. I would love to hear some new ideas.

An InLinkz Link-up

Five For Friday - Five Things I am Thankful For

It's time once again for Five for Friday, hosted by Doodle Bugs Teaching.

This week, I think I am going to write about five things I am thankful for.

My beautiful family. If you recall from last week, my wife just had a baby. She is a beautiful little girl, a true answer to prayer. In addition to my daughter, my wife and I also have four boys and they are just as amazing as you can imagine. Yes, they can be a handful at times, but they are wonderful little boys and I couldn't ask for a better family. Right now, as I type this, I am sitting in the garage, watching them ride their bikes. I am beyond blessed. And, while I don't want you to leave my blog, here is a link to my wife's blog where she wrote about our daughter in a much more beautiful way.

My health insurance. If you turn on the news, you are probably aware that healthcare and health insurance are big news lately. I have no desire to make political statements here, but I do want to say that I am thankful for the health insurance that my family has. Right now, our daughter is dealing with jaundice. I know that's not a serious thing, but her levels have been slowly increasing each day. As a result, she has had to have daily blood tests at the hospital and has been wrapped in a blue light blanket almost every hour of the day (I'm not a doctor, so I don't know the name for all of these things). Anyway, without our health insurance, I can't imagine what the costs would be.

Our trip to Disney World. This is a strange one for me to be thankful for today, but hear me out. I love Disney. I love Disney World. My wife and I took our boys to Disney World in June 2013 and we had a blast. We rented a van and drove from West Virginia to Orlando. That was an adventure in itself. Right now, we are planning another trip in June 2015. Yes, I realize that it is a little less than a year away and that I have an entire school year to get through between now and then, but it is giving me something to look forward to. Having a goal (and a pretty heft one at that. Have you seen how much it costs to go to Disney recently?) is helping to push me into working harder and to be a little more frugal with our funds. My wife and I have a goal of paying off our credit card before the trip and my desire to get to Disney is causing me to work on that even more. If you are interested, I recently wrote a post on ways that I am saving for my Disney trip. It might help you start saving for a trip of your own.

Running. I have mentioned running in each of the three Five for Fridays that I have participated in so far. Today, I am thankful for running because I am able to do it without it hurting. Earlier this year, I developed a really, really nasty case of tendinitis in my lower left leg. It hurt to walk or even stand up sometimes. Do you know how difficult it is to be a third grade teacher and not be able to walk? I kept trying to run and had to wear fancy compression sleeves on my leg in order to help alleviate some of the pain. Fortunately, most of the pain is gone. I ran almost 4 miles today and don't feel any discomfort. It's a great feeling. Now, if I could just get a little faster and go a little farther.

My Teachers Pay Teachers store. I am incredibly thankful for my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Having this store has done two things for me. First, I think it has made me a better teacher. By creating materials for the store, I have really "upped my game" because I want to make certain that the materials I am posting of top quality. Everything that I make for my store is something that I use with my own students and I want them to have the very best. Second, the money that I have made has helped as we have been paying off our credit card and saving for different things as a family. I am incredibly humbled that there are teachers who spend their hard-earned money on products that I have made and trust me to make products for them to use in their classrooms. It has been and continues to be a wonderful experience.

---

So, another week is in the books. Hard to believe that a few more of these and we will be back in school. I hope you enjoyed reading about the things I am thankful for. I would love for you to share something you are thankful for as well. It reminds me of that song we used to sing in church. "Count your blessings, name them one by one..."

Guided Math in Action Book Study - Chapter 5

Our book study continues with Chapter 5: "Balanced Assessment - The Key to Grouping Students." This chapter was all about using different assessment to help group students for small group instruction. Dr. Newton discusses ways for pre-assessment, ongoing (or formative) assessment, and evaluative (or summative) assessment. This chapter was chock full of practical ideas, but there were some things that I was left wondering about. More on that in just a bit.

Now, on to the questions.

Question 1 - The way our math framework is set up at my school, we do a "pre-assessment" every day. In third grade, we call it the problem of the day. This consists of 3 questions. The first question is a question from the previous day's lesson. It helps us to determine who is still understanding the material from the day before. The second question covers the new material we are learning that day. The final question is of a cyclical nature and can be from any topic we have covered up to the point, usually place value, multiplication, or fractions. These questions help us to determine who will be working with us in which groups that day. This is a bit different from the way Dr. Newton describes her pre-assessment. I love many of the ideas that she shared, but the sad reality (at least in my context) is that I often cannot fit all of those pieces in.

For on-going assessments, I use many of the centers activities that the students complete, as well as the first section of the problem of the day. I also give several written quizzes throughout the unit. These activities are designed to help me understand how the students are progressing. Our county recently began adopting a collection of questions (for lack of a better term) that are collected online. This allows us to create quizzes and tests that can be taken online. However, adoption of this practice has been slow. I guess old habits (written tests) die hard.

The summative assessments tend to be your typical paper and pencil tests.

Throughout the year, usually three times, our entire school gives a test that helps us to determine where a student is according to a benchmark score. It is the same test each time and the students are expected to make growth on the test throughout the year. This test is not without weakness, but it does allow me to determine what students may be falling behind in particular areas. The two main weaknesses are that the test includes questions that are not covered by our learning standards and the test is timed. Some students just don't test well when under time pressure.

Question 2 - There were a number of great ideas in this chapter. First, I am going to have to find some time to make versions of the interview forms Dr. Newton has in the book. I am reading my copy of the book on my iPad, so the formatting is a bit different.

Second, I need to find out what Math Running Records are. If you know, can you please leave a comment and direct me to the right place.

Finally, I am interested in putting together student portfolios. I will be working with special education students next year and this data will be necessary for IEP meetings. As I mentioned before, Evernote will be perfect for working on this. There is a feature on the app that allows Post-It notes to be photographed and cataloged. Perfect for anecdotal records and portfolios.

---

This brings us to the end of another chapter. If you haven't heard, there is a Q&A with Dr. Newton happening at Guided Math Adventures. Head over there for all the details. Thanks for participating.

An InLinkz Link-up

Guided Math in Action Book Study - Chapter 3

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Today's post is supposed to be about Chapters 3 and 4 from Guided Math in Action by Dr. Nicki Newton (have I told you that you should probably own a copy of this book?) However, my family had a pretty dramatic event take place this week and I was only able to prepare my thoughts for Chapter 3.

What was the event you ask? Well, my wife gave birth to a little girl on Friday afternoon. Catherine "Kate" Alice Pearson is now a member of the family. Isn't she beautiful?

So, while my wife has been recovering the hospital and getting acquainted with our new little one and her eating and sleeping and pooping habits, I have been at home taking care of our other four children. My wife and I are the proud parents of 4 boys (ages 8, 6, 3, and 2). Needless to say, there has not been a lot of time for reading and writing over the past couple of days. With that in mind, I hope that you will allow me some leeway with this post.

---

Chapter 3 is all about setting up the Guided Math framework. Dr. Newton is big on Math Workshop, but, as I've said before, you can use whatever math framework works best in your particular context. Right from the start, Dr. Newton makes it abundantly clear that you have to start with the routines from the very beginning. Students thrive on routine. The sooner you can get your routine established, the easier it will be to have the students follow along.

Among the first things to establish are the rules, consequences, and rewards. Students need to know what is expected of them when they are working in math. We need to make sure that there are positive expectations for the students and that they are clearly posted so that there is no disagreement about what needs to be done. The consequences for breaking those rules must also be established and followed. Finally, the students need to know the rewards. The key that Dr. Newton pointed out was not to "bankrupt" the system. If the students earn the points, they need to know that those points aren't going to be lost.

The other key aspect of the chapter is to build a teacher's toolkit. A toolkit is supposed to be at your meeting area so that you are completely prepared when your groups come back to work. The toolkit should include folders that include examples of student work, materials for keeping anecdotal records on the students, papers, pencils, different supplies like scissors and glue, and manipulatives like cards, dice, and rubber bands.

Now to the questions:

Do you have a teacher's toolkit? At this point, I don't a specific "toolkit." Having read this, I am going to work on putting together the necessary items that would be included in a toolkit. My friend Sarah has a great post about what she includes in her toolkit. You may want to take a look at her post to get some more ideas about what to include in your own toolkit.

Do your students have toolkits? All of our materials are kept in a central location. I have a cubby cart that holds all of the number cards, dice, and math games that the students may need when working at centers. This cart also has the rulers and crayons, as well as extra pencils and glue sticks. I do need to figure out a better way to organize the pencils and the glue sticks because I honestly think my students were eating them. I have never gone through as many glue sticks as I did last year.

How do you establish routines/expectations? I make my expectations and routines known from the first day. My students are told the routines, they tell the routines to each other, and they repeat the routines back to me. After that we practice the routines and if they aren't done correctly (which they typically aren't), we do them again. It usually only takes a few times of doing it over for the students to get the idea of what is expected. Additionally, I also make signs to hang up so that the students will have a constant reminder of what they should be doing.

---

Well, that brings us to the end of another chapter. Please be sure to read the other blogs that are participating, especially since my post is missing Chapter 4. And, like most of have said, if you haven't gotten a copy of the book yet, you really should. Amazon.com has a pretty good price on it.

An InLinkz Link-up

A Very Special Five for Friday

It's been quite a week, so here's a very special Five for Friday (hosted by Doodle Bugs Teaching).

---

Running: In my post last week, I mentioned that I needed to be running more than I was. Well, I guess that was a bit of a motivator because I did quite a bit of running this week. I ran Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Thursday. I was pretty proud of myself on Thursday because I was able to break the 3-mile hump and ran 3.55 miles. Granted there was some walking in there because I was doing intervals, but I was pretty happy. Now I just need to continue increasing the size of the intervals. In time, in time.

Making Bow Ties: I am a bow tie guy. I wear bow ties almost every day at school. It is part of my "look" and students actually get upset with me if I don't have one on. Last year I got tired of wearing the same bow ties all the time, but they were too expensive for me to buy news ones. As a result, I started learning to make my own. This week I started on a new batch of ties. I finished one, but as you can see from the other pictures, I still have quite a mess in my work area (read: my wife's dining room). (The internet in the hospital room where I am currently working is too slow to handle Photobucket, so there is no picture of the mess). Most of them turn out fairly good. I just wish I had confidence enough in my abilities to offer them for sale.

It is probably cheating to make numbers 3-5 our new baby girl, but this whole week has been about preparing for her arrival. Tuesday morning my wife woke up at 4 am with pretty severe contractions. They continued to be strong and regular (every 10 minutes) for next couple of hours. We got up and got dressed, called the daycare parents to let them know my wife would not be taking any kids that day, and got our boys ready to go to grandma's house. Then the contractions stopped. We went to Hobby Lobby to walk around to see if we could get things going again. Nothing. No more contractions.

My wife had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday and that is when we got the news that she was going to be induced on Friday morning. So, as you are reading this and I am typing this, my wife is laying in a hospital bed receiving the necessary medicines to encourage our little girl to come out and play. It's kind of a surreal feeling. I have four boys already and I don't remember there being so much anticipation as there is with this baby. Maybe it's because it's a girl. A girl. I'm about to be the daddy to a little girl. Holy cow.

So that's my week in a nutshell. There will most likely be pictures in the near future, so please come back if you are interested. (Shameless self-promotion alert). You can follow me on Instagram at http://instagram.com/johnnyp5379 or on Facebook at http://facebook.com/mrpearsonteaches3rdgrade to see pictures there as well.

Guided Math in Action Book Study Kick-Off

One of my goals this summer was to read several professional books in an attempts to improve my teaching. So far, I haven't finished the first one (Guided Math by Laney Sammons.) However, I have the great privilege to team up with some other great teachers to participate in a book study on Guided Math in Action by Dr. Nicki Newton.

So, starting today and going through August 6, we will be reading through each chapter of the book and sharing our thoughts on the material. I am also going to be sharing how I plan to utilize the information in my classroom. I hope that you will come back each week and join the discussion.

Here is the schedule of posts:

If you are interested in reading along, you can purchase the book from Amazon.com or get a copy on your Kindle. I also hope that you will leave comments and share your thoughts. This should be fun!

An InLinkz Link-up

Five For Friday - My First One!

This is my first go at participating in a "Five for Friday" from Doodle Bugs Teaching. Let's Go!

#1 - The Lion King at the Kennedy Center. For my wife's birthday, I got us tickets to the Lion King at the Kennedy Center. It was pretty exciting because my parents came to stay with our boys and we were going to have a night away in a hotel. The only hiccup in the night was that my wife is 9 months pregnant and she started having contractions...every 10 minutes! I spent more time worrying about her than I did paying attention to the show. Turned out to be a false alarm, so no baby yet. My wife loved the show and I got to wear a new bow tie, so it was a good time after all.

#2 - Coffee. For Christmas, my wife got me this pretty cool contraption. It is a Cafejo My French Press. The French press comes with a K-Cup adapter, so I put my own coffee in and enjoy a delicious cup of coffee. Sometimes I use actual K-Cups (Coconut Mocha K-Cups are my favorite), but most of the time I buy bags of coffee from Target and fix my own cups. Good stuff!

#3 - Written Form Matching Cards. In preparation for the upcoming school year, I have been working on some games and activities for my class and to make available for purchase in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. This time I not only made a set of games, I created a sampler of the cards so that folks can try them out first. I also made a fancy pin to share about in on Pinterest. I would love for you to check it out and download the sampler to see if it is something you can use in your classroom. The full set is also available in my store.

#4 - Our new baby girl. As I mentioned in #1, my wife is nine months pregnant. It took forever to get to this point and now it seems like it will never end. Monday was a day of a lot of potential excitement...and a lot of disappointment. My wife had a doctor's appointment and they sent us to the hospital for a non-stress test because of her blood pressure. My wife is the only person who is more relaxed in the hospital than anywhere else. So after getting my hopes up that the baby might be coming this week, nothing happened. So no baby this week.

#5 - Running. I love to run, but I have not done any running at all since school got out. Maybe the summer is making me lazy or the heat is just too hot. Whatever my excuse is, it is a pretty bad one. Hopefully I will get my butt in gear again soon because I'm starting to look a little doughy again.

---

So, there you go. That's what's up for this week. Maybe I'll do another one next week...and some big news to share about the new baby! You never know!

I would love to hear from you. Please leave comments below and, if you haven't done so already, please follow me on Pinterest and Facebook.