End of the School Year: A Time To Regain Teacher Sanity

The last day of school is now 9 school days away (May 24th). That's right, summer is almost here! This time of year is very relieving, and a little sad, for many in the teaching profession. If you've had a great year, it's melancholy  If you've had a terrible year, it's joyous, but either way, you're tired, and you're ready for a break.

But, whether you teach kindergarten or 5th grade or senior English, the end of the year can be a whirlwind. You'll undoubtedly have a checkout list to go through, depending upon your school site and district. If they're going to work on the floors or carpets in your room over the summer, you'll be moving out, or at least getting things ready. If you're like me, and you've been in the same room for awhile (I'm finishing up my third consecutive year in the same room, I've been in three different rooms total in my career, all of which I've taught at one school), you might be lucky and only have to put things away for safe keeping, and possibly just put everything up against the walls so that the floor can be cleaned.

Yes, I'm one of the lucky ones. But, I still have a lot to do, you will too. Take it from me new teachers, use your students, they love helping anyways. Have them help put away books, clean bulletin boards and walls, and help you box up things like your desk and closet. If you're changing assignments, you'll have a lot of work to do. Anytime I've been asked to change rooms, it's a TON of work. I can't imagine the work in changing buildings, but I don't plan on going anywhere else anytime soon, so I'm not too worried.

The end of the year is exciting, but there really is so much to accomplish in those final days. Just keep your head up, because a chance to regain your sanity is closing in quickly!

Depth of Knowledge in the Elementary Classroom

A new buzz phrase is out there, and it's called Depth of Knowledge. It's not exactly new, but it's Common Core ready, and I for one welcome this shift in thinking.

The days of the lazy teacher are rapidly coming to a close. Being able to sit back, have your students sift through worksheets or textbooks, and grimly move from year to failing year are no longer going to cut it. The Common Core seeks to deal with that by upping the level of accountability and rigor.

Now, over to the conversation of rigor in the classroom. I'm a firm believer that an education should be hard. Students are not there for self esteem, to feel good about themselves with little to no effort. Students are at school to learn, and learning should be hard. Rigor is one of the keys to a high growth classroom (which I can confidently say I had this year). As many teachers know, one of the most important aspects to a successful education is a strong, above average, demanding teacher. It goes without saying that the opposite of that, a weak, non caring, apathetic, BAD teacher, would have the opposite effect.

Of course, you're not here because you're one of the bad ones. You're here, seeking to learn more, seeking out resources, trying to stretch your own knowledge, because you want to grow as a teacher and demand more of your students.

Just remember, students are capable. If you believe they can do it, they WILL step up to meet that challenge.

With that being said, let's take a look at Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DOK), and how it fits with what many of us are already aware of (Bloom Taxonomy, see my post on it HERE). DOK does not seek to remove or replace Blooms, but instead seeks to simplify it, to give it a new flavor (this is my opinion).

Depth of Knowledge is built around rigor. Now, the purpose of today's post isn't to define DOK (you could do much better somewhere else), but simply to give a few visuals that help you make sense of it all. My district, like many around the country, is demanding more, more rigor, and more from teachers, and rightly so. DOK and Blooms Taxonomy are great guides, and it's important to have an open mind when approaching new methodologies.

Without further delay, here are a few resources to help you wrap your mind around all of this. None of these works are my own:

• Webb's Depth of Knowledge Guide: A great pdf book that lays it all out there in somewhat academic language. It's a good starting place if you're new to it.
• Depth of Knowledge Resources Pinterest Results Page: If you're not on Pinterest, as a teacher, you're missing out big time. There's great stuff here, and for anything you are doing in your classroom.
• Depth of Knowledge Levels: A one page pdf document that really simplifies the whole thing with some verbs and suggested activities at the four levels. 
• Blooms to DOK: A great pdf that draws the link from old Blooms to new Blooms to DOK. Must see.

Using Mail Merge To Automatically Add Names to Documents, Certificates, Etc.

Mail Merge is a great tool... well the only tool, that exists in Microsoft Word that gives you the power to automatically add fields to documents that you will be printing multiple times. In business, this could include form letters, address fields, salutations, etc. In education, 9 times out of 10, we're talking about letters home or certificates.

I do a lot of certificates for the 5th graders at the end of the school year, and it gets really difficult and time consuming when you have to fill out hundreds of these things by hand. Mail merge only asks that you have their names in columns on an Excel document, and that's it. It's great.

I really hate filling out certificate after certificate, so mail merge has been a life saver. What mail merge does is it links up a field from your document (either Word or Publisher in this case) to data from an Excel document. It's fairly easy, especially once you've done it a few times.

What I have here are examples of how to do this in a few different formats.

How To Mail Merge in Microsoft Word / Publisher 97   PDF DOCUMENT

How to Mail Merge in Microsoft Word 2010 PDF DOCUMENT

How to Mail Merge Video:

Bowling With Math: A Great Order of Operations (PEMDAS) Practice Activity

Awhile back I posted a simple document called "Bowling With Math" without a lot of explanation in a post titled Order of Operations Game: Bowling With Math. Well, I am going to revisit that document, and expand on it a little bit today.

The Bowling With Math activity page ( you can download in .doc or .pdf format) has 10 "frames," just like in a regular bowling game. This activity is great because it can be varied in difficulty. The point here is that the teacher either chooses a few numbers (or rolls dice like I do), and students have to manipulate those numbers to equal the 10 different "pins" in the "frame," marking that number out each time they do so.

In my classroom (5th grade), I roll three dice. So let's say I roll a 5, 4, and 1. Students have to manipulate those three numbers using the order of operations (PEMDAS) to equal each pin number.

For example, I can do the following:

5+4+1 = 10
(5-4) x 1 = 1
(5-4) + 1 = 2
5+4-1 = 8
1x4+5 = 9

So let's say that's all I came up with, so I'd mark out the pins for 1, 2, 8, 9, and 10 and I would score 5 points for that frame.

In my class, I would do two frames per day, with students keeping their score on the score card each day. At the end of each week, students add their scores and keep a running total. This is a great activity that, when done consistently, teacher the order of operations in a very meaningful, engaging, and differentiated way. You can do as little as two numbers, or as many as you'd like. You can also change the rolls. Some weeks I'd roll five numbers and tell students to choose any three. Other weeks I'd roll six and tell them they could use no more than 3, etc. You can do whatever you want.

For convenience, I've added all the files, as well as a poster if you want to make a bulletin board for this activity, all in this convenient pdf file: PEMDAS BOWLING WITH MATH PACKET

Enjoy!

It's Your Zoo: Critical Thinking Exercise

One of my colleagues has been holding onto a resource for years called "It's My Zoo." This activity, from Teacher Created Resources, is a great time killer / critical thinking activity that students enjoy doing. The activity asks students to design the layout of a zoo following certain pre-set rules. The students can do these zoos either on a sheet of butcher paper, or in 3D using boxes, scraps, etc. I am sorry to say that I neglected to photograph my students finished zoos, but they did come out great and I was excited with the work they produced.

To sum all this up, I decided that the document we've been copying from was getting pretty rough. It was a copy of a copy of a copy or something like that, and was showing its age. So I updated it.

You can download this activity here:

IT'S YOUR ZOO (pdf)

The activity comes with an instruction sheet, a teacher scoring rubric, and animals cards. Enjoy!