Teaching with Jennifer Findley
Upper Elementary Teaching Blog
"Your students are not engaged with the texts they are reading." I will never forget when my administration said that to me after an observation my first year teaching. I remember thinking "They were reading the text. That is enough, right?" However, it wasn't and my students' comprehension suffered because they were not actively engaged with the texts they were … [Read more...] about Reading Strategies: “Work” the Text
Well, I don't know about your students, but every year, it seems that interpreting remainders is a struggle for my students. It is really a struggle for students who have difficulty understanding word problems or that have no conceptual understanding of what division is. This post will share some of the activities we did and a free anchor chart with sample word problems … [Read more...] about Interpreting Remainders {Anchor Charts, Ideas, and Activities}
We have been working very hard on long division these past few weeks. My students have huge gaps in their number sense, so this has been somewhat of a struggle for some. We have been working very diligently getting them to understand the partial quotients method of division in a conceptual way. Read more about how I teach partial quotients by clicking here. We have been … [Read more...] about Division Fun and a Tropical Christmas Freebie
Once a week, I do a cognitively demanding math task lesson to expose my students to rigorous word problems and allow them to learn from each other. I do this with the skill we are working on (if most of the students have mastered it) a review skill, or even to introduce a new skill. 90% of the problems are word problems so the students have a context to deal with and not … [Read more...] about Teaching Math Through Cognitively Demanding Tasks
You guys, I got super smart this year and tied some of our Halloween Math with some extra constructed response practice. The kids never knew they were preparing for an assessment with these fun problems! This year, our district is having students take constructed response assessments on a few of the fraction common core standards (multiplying fractions by a whole, … [Read more...] about Halloween Math Constructed Response Practice
I just found out today that our Math night is a nacho theme. It is called Nacho Ordinary Math Night. I thought that was the cutest idea! So, I made this cute nacho themed free fraction center using these fun nacho graphics from Ashley Hughes (LOVE her work). On another note, the heat was running full blast in my room this morning. It reminded me of that … [Read more...] about Free Fraction Center {Nacho Math}
Confession- I love reading, but I don't love reading poems for young adults or adults. For some reason, I can never get the message or theme just right. Luckily, I do enjoy teaching poetry to my 5th graders, mainly because I use a reader's workshop format for teaching reading. Also, the poems used in 5th grade are definitely more interesting and reader-friendly. This post … [Read more...] about Teaching Poetry in Reader’s Workshop
Do you find that your struggling readers often need a little extra push to help them apply reading strategies while they are reading at home? I often find that my below grade level readers don't naturally apply the different reading strategies that have been taught while they are reading. To help, I created this free Reading Take Home Book specifically to help my students … [Read more...] about Struggling Readers Take Home Book for Reading Strategies
I use a lot of my review printables and resources from my TeachersPayTeachers store throughout the year. However in the beginning of the year, I like to use resources specifically created based on the standards I have taught so far that year. This builds the students' confidence and makes the review truly a review and independent. To be honest, when I try to use 4th … [Read more...] about Morning Work Freebies to Start the Year
If you are considering implementing reading stations in your 4th or 5th grade reading classroom, Daily 3 or Daily 5 reading stations are a great option. If you are not familiar with Daily 3 reading, it is a variation of the Daily 5 reading which you can read more about here. Daily 3 reading is how I structure my literacy block to allow my students to complete daily … [Read more...] about Daily Three Reading Stations
I am so excited about our spelling program this year. We are using Fountas and Pinnell principles to generate words that follow that principle (with the students' help). But, the best part, we are using the students misspelled words to generate personal word lists. We plan to do a week of principle words and a week of personal words. Here is an example: Week 1: … [Read more...] about Personal Word Collector for the Teacher
When we moved to the Common Core Standards, volume was a new skill for my 5th graders. Also, since there were three standards that addressed some aspect of volume, it was assessed more frequently than the other standards. I knew I needed to find or create some quality and engaging resources for teaching volume. This post shares my go-to activities, video, and resource for … [Read more...] about Teaching Volume – (Free Volume Hands-on Activity and Posters)
