Monday, June 29, 2015

AIMS Math

A few years back when I taught 5th grade, my principal had an AIMS rep fly out for a week to do some Professional Development with us.  Her focus was Science, since we had a Science EOG in 5th grade.  She spent the morning rotating between our 3 classes, teaching a different science lesson each time, and then we would meet with her in the afternoon to discuss the lessons and use some more activities.  The best part was definitely the HUGE Binder she made for each of us with a ton of lessons to go along with the standards, and a kit with manipulatives and tools for each of the lessons! My students enjoyed the lessons, and I enjoyed teaching them, as I felt they really broke down the information in a kid friendly way.

Fast forward to now: Our school gave each teacher $200 to spend at the end of the school year for the upcoming year.  I decided to purchase some AIMS activities for math.  I like the idea of using them in my classroom because they are so hands on and kids LOVE hands on.  But I also want to try Guided Math this upcoming year...I will have to try to balance both, and I'm sure I'll be able to once I play around with it, I'm just having a hard time picturing it in my head!

Have any of you used AIMS in your math classes? How did it go?

Monday, June 15, 2015

Change is in the AIR....

Change: It's a word that send mixed emotions.  Some people love tradition and hate change...others change all the time! Me...I'm not great with change, but I know it has to happen.  This change though, I'm A-OKAY with!

Two years ago, my administrators decided to departmentalize grades 3-5.  I volunteered to teach writing, because the other math teacher had been teaching for over 30 years, and I wasn't about to take his favorite away from him right before he retired! But then he retired, and my administrators moved a teacher down from 5th grade to take over math...which meant I was stuck with writing again.  Don't get me wrong, I like writing, but I LOVE MATH.  My brain just gets so excited when math problems are thrown at it...and I feel so excited about teaching when I am teaching math! So, my principal got transferred to another school for the upcoming year, and my AP is now our principal! And she gave me Math back! Did I mention I love her?!?

I haven't taught math since we started Common Core, so I will be stalking blogs like crazy for ideas! I am currently reading Guided Math, as I am hoping (fingers crossed) to implement it into my classroom for this coming year.  Please send me your success stories (and what wasn't successful)...I know a lot of you did a book study on this book a couple of years back, so I will probably go back and re-read those for some ideas!

Another change: Since I am now solely a math teacher, I changed the name of my blog to Everyday I'm Calculatin'....The blog will be getting an update soon! I'm so excited!

I don't even want to look at when the last time I blogged was! I would like to say it will get better, but no promises! With 2 kids, aged 2 and 1, it's going to be a busy summer! I am hoping to at least get some blogging done during nap time! That is if I can get them to take a nap at the same time :)