Classroom Close Up: 3rd Grade Math: Planning Full Days & Practicing Fast Facts with Jennifer Saul

[01:00:07;00]
Jennifer: Our day is very full.

"We are going to do Math Journal."

"And, up for Math Meeting, please."

"You did such a great job this morning, exploring polygons."

"I'm going to put the number of the day on the board."

As their classroom teacher, I'm responsible for moving them along in every subject, so our day has to be planned down to the minute. And, it literally is. We spend four minutes on this, and we spend eight minutes on this, and that's why I do use my timer a lot.

I pretty much choreograph my day, and I really think about the flow of them to the carpet, back to their desks, now in groups.

Student "Three jumps of ten."

Jennifer: I try to keep students moving. You can really tell when it's been too long.

"OK. Why don't you stand up real quick."

I usually keep it to about 20 minutes before we would transition or have some type of a break before we go right back to work.

"Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands. Circle and tell me whether it's even or odd."

So, my recommendation to someone new who's just starting, would be to start with something simple like just getting the bell schedule. You know, what are the things that are out of your control, like students have to be at lunch at a certain time? This is their recess time. Putting those things in place, and then seeing what type of blocks you have. And, then determining what would fit well in those blocks, whether you want to do Math in the mornings, or that's where you'd rather have them doing their Language Arts because maybe they're second language learners and their brains need to be fresher for that. And, then try it, and remember you're not tied into it. Everyone can play with their schedule, until they find something that seems to work for them.

Daily Fast Facts Review is one of our instructional guidelines, so we do it everyday, and we're working on committing them to memory.

All: (Singing) 4-8-12-16-20-24-28-32-36-40.

5-10-15-20-25-30-35-40-45-50.

Jennifer: I have always been able to commit things to memory if I could sing.

All: (Singing) 7-14-21-28-35-42

Jennifer: And for students, it really works.

All: (Singing) 49-56... and 63...

Jennifer: After our skip counting songs, each student has their own individual daily practice drill.

"And...go!"

Each student has their individual fast facts folder in their desks and inside there's a page protector that can just be changed out, whether they're on their two's, their three's or four's, their five's. And, I they also have their own set of flash cards. So, today they were working on 25 facts, and they have a minute and fifteen seconds to complete them.

And, when the timer goes off, if they've completed all 25 facts, they lift their folder up immediately, and I collect those for my grading. If they haven't completed the page, they erase it, and just put it back inside their desks, so that they can re-take it the next day.

"Whew! Wow! Do we work hard everyday?"

All: "YEAH!"

Jennifer: "Are your brains feeling a little tired?"

All: "YEAH!"

Jennifer: "That is good."

Well, I hope at the end of the day that my students, their brains do feel really tired. And I want them to feel good about that because that means they've been putting a lot of effort into our studies.

So, it's the effort that helps them take ownership for their own learning.

"Learning positions."

I feel like it's our tendency to just tell students "You're really smart." But, at the times when things are difficult, they start to feel like "Well, maybe I'm not smart." So, instead I take the approach of "You are a very hard worker, and you think hard everyday. And, because of how hard you work and think and apply yourself, that's why you have success. It's not something you are either born with or without. It's..it's the effort that's put in throughout the day that helps you achieve the success at the end. And, you always have that as a resource. You can always keep trying, and you can always keep working, and you can always think more."