Wednesday

I have no pictures, so no Wordless Wednesday for me.

And Curious Firsties hasn't has a Wednesday Wow in a while.

What's a girl to do?

You'll get a Wow...

I think I am a good teacher. I am learning to differentiate my instruction. I am working on using informal formative assessments to guide my lessons. I read blogs, and books about teaching/ideas and get loads of ideas to try (often the next day--who can wait until next year?). I hash over many subjects, strategies, and situations with my fabulous team of teachers.

But still.

I do not do well with creating HOW I'm going to teach something, unless I can piggyback off of some other awesome teacher, or have a guide of someone's idea (aka: a basal) and do another piggyback.

Moving on.

Place value. My students struggled so much with this last year. Because I didn't have a good way of teaching it.

Not this year!!

So happy to have found Engage New York. My teamie and I have been using the lessons (that are free and CC aligned) and have seen such a dramatic difference of what our students can do this year.

Time out for a Happy Dance. Go ahead--it is fun.

Module 4 has so many good lessons for teaching place value and comparing numbers. 

On Monday I had a list of 11 kids that raised their hands, that they just aren't sure they "got" our lesson. Today those same kids were shouting during our guided practice--"I GET IT!"

No kidding. Shouting. And I didn't stop them. I just handed out "roller coaster whoooos" like they were smiles.

I totally cannot wait to build on this tomorrow.

Wow, place value does not have to suck.