Still Waiting but....Ready and Willing!!!! (And a freebie!)

Hey everyone!

How's it going for you on this loverly Sunday afternoon? The sun is shining bright here (not that I've been out in it yet!) and life is good. 

So, good news/bad news. Which do you want first? Bad news? I thought so! It's best to get it over with quick, doncha think? Just rip it off like a band aid!

Okay, bad news is that the strike is still on. There was a glimmer of hope on Friday when our union asked for binding arbitration (which would put an end to this strike) but then the government said "No!" I am beyond pissed about it. Here we are trying to figure out how to end this thing and we put something on the table that could go in our favour or against it. I mean, binding arbitration leaves it up to the middle man. We are willing to gamble and take what we get (good, bad or ugly) in terms of wages, benefits and prep time. This is a pretty big step seeing as how those three things are pretty important items to most teachers. So, we put ourselves out there and showed that we want this over. And what does our government do? They refuse!!!! They keep saying that they want this strike to end but, when asked to walk the walk, they just aren't doing it. I think my first word of the day when we get back in to school should be hypocrite with a big old picture of our premier and education minister beside it. AARGH!!!!!

Now for some good news...because anyone who knows me knows that I always try to see the glass half full (or totally full at times!)... I decided to just get on with getting on in terms of school stuff and spent the morning reworking my assessment pages for basic skills in grade 1 and 2. Now all I have to do is print them out, photocopy them and pop them into the portfolio duotangs waiting at school and I'll be ready to roll! So, I have something off my school To Do list! Yay me! 

Getting my basic skills assessments done may seem like a small thing in the grand scheme of things (and, really, it is) but I am going positively stir crazy not teaching. I can't believe I am saying this but I am actually tired of reading! Since the strike started in mid-June I have read 48 books. Yep, 48!!! Maybe I'll have to switch over to education texts. Hmmm....there's a thought!

So, anywho, not sure if my skills assessment would be useful to anyone else but thought I'd send it out there just in case someone could find a use for it. Help yourself! Remember that it is an assessment to be used all year. Some of the skills on it are what a student is expected to know at the END of the year in my district.

Oh, and, please leave me a comment if you download it. And if you think of anything I can do to tweak it. I'm sure I missed some things! Just click on the link below to go to it.

Grade 1 Basic Skills Assessment

Grade 2 Basic Skills Assessment

Cheers!

Olwyn

A Little About Assessing Students

I believe that what I am teaching and why I am teaching it should be as transparent as possible to both students and parents. I hold students accountable for the work they produce and the effort that goes into it. I tell them clearly what is expected of them and then mark accordingly. For my fairytale unit this year, I included a basic rubric for general expectations and a marking sheet in each student's folder. I am able to mark as we go, giving a comment when needed and the students can easily see where they are at and how their work holds up against the expectations.  

In our district we grade on a 4 point scale that looks like this:

N - Not meeting expectations
A - Approaching expectations
M - Meeting expectations
E - Exceeds expectations

Students aim to be at the M level on the scale. This scale works well for report cards as it clearly lets parents know where their child is in terms of learning outcomes and expectations. That said, the Meeting expectations can be a bit tricky as a student can be just meeting or fully meeting and still have the same mark on their report card.

Students rarely get Exceeds expectations overall for a subject as it means that a student is working well above the Meeting expectations level. A full year or more above. Probably the most common place to find an E in early primary is in reading. There are often a few students who have taken to reading like ducks to water and are reading well above grade level in grade 1 or 2. These students are given an E in reading for grade 1 or 2 but have that same mark drop down to an M by grade 2 or 3 when the other students have caught up. This can be confusing to some parents who expect an E to stay an E and end up in the next year's teacher's class asking why their child is no longer Exceeding. An E on a report card does not mean that a child will always be an E. It means that the child is exceeding expectations at that time.

If you stop and think about all the people you know in your life, probably most of them would not be exceeding expectations in all areas of their lives or for all of the time. Most of us go along in life meeting expectations for our jobs, families, co-workers etc. Meeting expectations is good. It is where you want to be. It means you are doing your job. Doing what is expected of you in an efficient and timely manner. Getting the job done. You can be counted on to do what you say you will do. This is good. This is a productive member of society. There will be times when one is moved to go above and beyond expectations and that is great. And society needs people to have passions, to have areas in their lives that they try to do more, be more. But chances are that those people who exceed expectations are not doing it in every single area of their lives all of the time.

When I stop to think about my daughter and her school years thus far, I realize how little many of the grades mean. Will it really matter if she got an A or a C in Math 8? No. What I have always looked at and counted as more important than the grade are her marks for work habits and effort. Does she try her best? Does she keep going when it is hard? Can she work independently asking for help when needed? These are the attributes that are going to make her a successful and productive member of our society. Not her marks in Math (which are consistently on the lower end of the scale and which is a subject she hates) or her marks in Social Studies (which are consistently on the high end of the scale because, wonder of wonders, she actually likes social studies!)

And, yes, I know what some of you are thinking.They need to have good grades to get into university. This is true. However, there are plenty of highly successful people who went to community college first and then transferred into a university or, for that matter, who went to different types of learning institutions altogether like technical colleges or trade school. Society needs a lot of different kinds of people with a lot of different kinds of skills to be successful. Many of the jobs that will be available when my daughter finishes her post-secondary education haven't even been invented yet! I believe that in the years to come, it won't matter so much what schooling anyone has so much as whether they are problem solvers, independent thinkers and capable of getting along with others.
 
In my blog hopping this morning I came across a teacher who has the students self assess after a lesson so that she can get a quick idea of where they are at and who will need immediate support to complete the lesson. And I thought, "What a great idea!" Her name is Alison Eber and her blog is called Eberopolis . In her district they grade students on a scale of 1-4. This corresponds nicely to our 4 point grading system in primary.

The scale in her district looks like this (picture taken from her website) :


with Novice being a 1 all the way to Expert being a 4. Expectations are that students are striving to be a Practitioner or a 3.



I am going to tumble this idea around in my head for a little and let it percolate. I know that it would be a great visual and really easy ways for students to quickly self assess and for me to get a quick count of students requiring immediate support after a lesson. It also really shows how learning is a continuum. Saying that someone is not meeting expectations does not necessarily send the message to that person that they will eventually meet the expectations with continued effort. If you think about any of the trades like woodworking, plumbing etc., where one starts as a novice and through effort, practice and hard work becomes an apprentice and then eventually a practitioner and (perhaps if one has a particular talent for that trade) an expert one day, you can see how through time and effort one can work through the levels to be at the meeting expectations level and how the language supports this transition from stage to stage.

Maybe I will try using this vocab with the plant unit we are just beginning and see how it works out. I mean, it makes total sense to me but will it make sense to a 7 year old? I think it is worth a test run. Will keep you posted on how it goes!

What do we do at Math Stations anyway?

We do Math Stations 3 mornings a week. I have the students in groups of 3 and they do 3 stations per day. The stations are in math tubs and each tub covers different prescribed learning outcomes (otherwise known as plo's). Some tubs involve games. I love that the students love playing the math games and don't even realize that they are practicing math skills! Others involve pencil and paper jobs. These are great because I can really differentiate activities and have a written sample of how they are doing.

Here is a sampling of what some of the tubs look like this week:

This is a game where we practice adding doubles. Being able to know that 4+5 is really only 4+4 plus 1 more is a great strategy for addition. Or that 4+3 is the same as one less than 4+4 for subtraction. It is played kind of like BINGO only there is no caller. Instead, you roll a dice, double the number rolled and try to get 5 in a row.

 Here we are playing Domino Parking Lot. Each player takes a domino from the tub and adds the two sides together. Then they place the domino in the correct "parking space" that has the sum. The objective is to fill your parking lot first.

Here is a 2-D shapes activity. Some cards come with the shapes in them and students have to rebuild the shape but other cards are more challenging with only the outline of the shape and a list of shapes needed to created the final product. Students are expected to work with the cards that challenge them. No easy, peasy, lemon squeezy choices allowed!!!!

This is a patterning job. It is not actually the one we are doing this week. It is from last week when students were making matching mittens that had to have a pattern of some sort. Other weeks this tub has different patterning and sorting activities. Students are expected to challenge themselves to create more complex patterns. For example, I expected the grade 2's to do more than just a simple ABAB pattern on their mittens. They had to have at least 3 colours and more things going on in their patterns.  

This tub has math fact practice booklets in it. Each student has a booklet for the level they are currently working on. Some only have addition. Others have addition and subtraction. One of our other paper and pencil tubs has printing practice and set making activity booklets.

Some days I work at a tub and teach each group a new game. This gives me a chance to watch each student and see where their strengths and weaknesses lie. (This helps me to form groups and activities for the next week) Other days I pull a group of students for a particular math activity like beginning addition with regrouping. The math groups change weekly. Sometimes I put 3 students together who are all working on the same skill. Sometimes I mix up the students so that they can better learn from each other. The activities and groups are always changing and evolving depending on the needs and abilities of the students.

So, there you have it. Math Stations 101! This is probably my favourite way to teach math (and, believe you me, I have tried more than a few!)  The students are independent workers, I get to work with small groups and there are a number of activities each day. In between the tubs we meet at the carpet for an Energy Blast (or 4) and then some Calendar pages on the Smartboard. I am able to introduce new concepts to the whole class through the Calendar before putting out games or activities using the concepts in the tubs.

Ms. Hughes

Some Guidelines on Reading Levels

As you are aware, teachers are currently involved in job action. This means that we are not doing any administrative duties including the writing of report cards. I know that as the Winter holiday approaches many of you have questions about how your child is doing in school.

I thought that today I would give you some general guidelines of what meeting looks like in the area of reading for this time of year. It is important to remember that all students learn to read at their own rate. It is entirely possible to be reading below the average at this time of year and end the year reading at grade level. I have seen it happen many times!

That said, I have assigned students to their RAZ kids levels based on the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessments) I did in early November. The students are expected to work their way through each level. Those students who are very proficient readers were all started on Level P because I want them to really focus on comprehension. I find that some of those reading chapter books read very quickly and do not retain much of what they have read!

At school, students use RAZ Kids during Language Arts and Computers times. I will be using RAZ Kids as part of our Home Reading Program this year. Due to my being ill for so much of November and with the holiday only two weeks away, I have decided to start the official Home Reading Program in January but all students would benefit from making time to read RAZ Kids at home on a daily basis from now on. I do check their progess on a regular basis to see who is reading and how they are doing on the multiple choice quizzes that test comprehension.

Generally speaking, by this time in grade 1 to be reading at "grade level" students would be reading from the RAZ Kids level D or E. This is the equivalent of a Level 6-8 in the DRA. The end of grade 1 goal for reading at grade level is Level 16-18 in the DRA (RAZ Kids I-J).

In grade 2 the "grade level" for this time of year is around a RAZ Kids level K-L.  This is the equivalent of a DRA 18-20. The end of year goal for grade 2 is to be reading at DRA level 28 (RAZ Kids P).

I hope that this will help to let you know where your child is in his/her reading. I will do my best to send home some samples of work with rubrics or grades on them so that you can get the general idea of how your child is faring in school and I will be posting on the blog some general guidelines for meeting expectations at this time in the school year.

Please do keep in mind that, with job action, as far as reporting goes "no news is good news." I have been assessing and monitoring each student's progress all term and will be in touch with you if I feel that your child is struggling or requires extra support in any subject area. I am able to do brief "check in" meetings (15 minutes or less) after school but longer meetings will need to be during school hours and it is difficult to get coverage for my class so that I can meet with you. I appreciate your patience as we find times to chat about student progress in the coming weeks.