Spark Student Motivation: *Magic Trash*

Things can get crazy at the end of the day. For us especially if one math class is let out late. The kids come hurrying into homeroom. Everyone is wanting/trying to hurry to do their last little bit of socializing and gathering their things.

 It looks as if a tornado hit your room. 

As much as we want students to take pride in how the room looks and feels, sometimes they just need a little extra motivation. 

Insert: *Magic Piece of Trash*

I discreetly pick 1 or 2 pieces of trash on the floor. Then I announce that there is a magic piece of trash. *Insert kids diving to the floor*

 They hustle around and usually every tiny little piece of anything on the floor is picked up. If it isn't trash, it gets put away. They also come show me what they picked up, just so I can make sure who got the *magic* piece. 

I don't say who picked it up until we are in our lines ready to head out the door, that way everything get picked up. The 'winners' usually get  a piece of candy…making sure the wrapper goes in the trash as well. However, you could use almost anything as a reward. I've even let a student pick the magic piece of trash before.

Viola! A clean floor in a matter of seconds. :)

Check out other motivations at

Thanks for stopping by! 

*Steph*

Random Problem Check: Spark Student Motivation

I used an awesome freebie this week in teaching metric system conversion! Another plus was that it made our first day back from Spring Break a happy, non-stressful day!

I'm also linking up with Joanne! 

(Yea, yea. I know it's not Saturday, but oh well!)

My coworker, with the advanced  group, said that her kids had a hard time with it for some reason. Because of that and the difficulty they had with multiplying and dividing by 10 at the beginning of the year, I looked at what I could use to pre teach before our program lesson. I planned to start with the metric video from Brainpop.com. Then I found this measure conversion chart by Too Tired to Teach and it helped drive my lesson.

There are a couple of different mnemonics used to remember the most commonly used metric prefixes, but my favorite is

King Henry Died Unexpectedly Drinking Chocolate Milk

This freebie is slightly different using By instead of Unexpectedly, but the kids went with it.

If I had been really thinking about it, I would have dressed in black and treated the beginning of the lesson as a funeral, complete with chocolate milk as a refreshment. :)

We reviewed what each letter stood for and what each prefix means. Then we went right into how to use the mnemonic to help them convert. The chart has a great example that we walked through together. I had found a worksheet site that quickly created some conversion worksheets for me. (I already forgot which one it was. Oops.) 

I would write the problem on the board that we were going over. I was also very specific as to what they should be doing. We put our finger on the label we were starting at. We then decided if we had to move right or left to get to the label we needed. They showed me this by pointing either right or left. 

After we knew which direction we were headed, we counted how many "jumps" it took to get from our starting point to ending point. Students showed me on their fingers how many jumps it would take.

The next part was showing their work. They put their pencil wherever the decimal in the the starting number was. That meant that if the number didn't show a decimal, it was after the last digit. They then had to "jump" as many digits as they had to "jump" on their chart with their finger in the direction we had decided. If they didn't have enough digits, they had to add 0's so they could make their jump. I was very specific that I must see these jumps on their worksheet, even if they thought they could do it in their head. Lastly, they rewrote their new number next to their new label.

I was so excited that there were only a few students that seemed utterly confused by this. I took the last 5 minutes and had students work on finishing the worksheet independently. I told them that after the 5 minutes, I would call out some random problems that could be worth some treats. I figured that most off the students should be able to finish easily. While they were working, I worked with the few that were confused. What I noticed was that they seemed to be the only students who didn't go through the problems with us actually showing their work. Once I had them do that, the lightbulbs clicked!

At the end of the 5 minutes, I chose 3 problems. If a student got it correct, they lined up with their worksheet and received a couple of M&Ms. I'm not sure if it was giving them a specific amount of work time with a countdown clock or the chocolate, but I really liked that they didn't know which problems I was going to check. It also proved a point to a few of the students who dilly-dallied and didn't finished due to their choices. 

Spark Student Motivation: Foam Dice

Two days in a row! Wow! I'm impressed with myself :)

I'm linking up with 

I don't have a great picture of it but this is what I have...

We don't have a Dollar Store/Dollar Tree here in AK. We have a couple of wannabe dollar stores but they are not even close to what I grew up with. It makes me sad. :(

Fortunately, I hit it up when I visit family on the Outside (lower 48). This last summer, I found some awesome large foam dice. I bought quite a few pairs and brought them home with me. 

We don't use them a lot, but the kids love when we do! 

It makes the dice "special" and a privilege to use. It also makes me happy because they are not easy to lose on the floor and they don't make noise when being rolled. :) 

The large foam dice are a *win*win* in my room!

*Steph*

5th Graders are Thankful for

There are a few things that we make sure to do as a 5th grade team, not matter which reading class we have. That way all kids feel included and it helps create community. 

This is a great activity because students have the opportunity to think creatively and express themselves. We begin with the normal THANKFUL acrostic poem. I challenged my intervention students to think about things that weren't tangible. If they wanted to say something tangible, they also had to explain why. 

 Then we looked at different autumn scenes, mainly pumpkin oriented, and the students created their own using crayons. When they were finished, I washed over them with black watercolor paint.

The finished product….

I'm linking up with Joanne from Head Over Heels For Teaching and her Spark Student Motivation Saturday linky because my students were completely engaged in this activity. Being able to express themselves and draw with crayons made them feel really good about themselves. Since we spent a decent amount of time noticing things about the autumn scenes, the artwork came out much better than on others that we didn't talk about. Also, they love being able to have their work out there as a grade level. It makes every one feel good. :) 

 Thanks for stopping by!

*Steph*

Five for Friday/Student Motivation: Quarterly Incentive

I am going to be linking up with both Doodle Bugs and Head over Heels!

As a fifth grade team, we came to the consensus to keep points for each students. At the end of each class period, we go around the room and the kids tell us how many points out of 3 they have earned.

1 for being prepared with EVERYTHING they need for class

1 for participating, not just sitting there like a bump on a log

1 for on task behavior that follows expectations

We, the teachers, can award an additional point to a student that we feel went above and beyond what was expected. That is few and far between. 

At the end of each 9 weeks, we calculate how many points they earned, what was possible accounting for days the student was absent, and then come up with a percentage.

Then we come together and take an average from their three classes (reading, math, & homeroom)

If they have an 85% overall, they qualify for the quarterly incentive. We do not tell them what it is before. It is a surprise! 

(If they don't have 85% then they go to a study hall room and have a packet of work to keep them busy.)

Our plan for this quarter was simple. We were going to watch Mr. Peabody & Sherman and have caramel apples. We found out about 20 mins before school that the movie was a no-go and all of us started thinking a million miles an hour. What were we going to do to fill an hour & a half with 60ish kids? Luckily we have our prep first thing in the morning and I hit Pinterest for "Halloween Crafts". I found a lot of idea but what could we do with whatever supplies we had in the school? 

After scrounging and begging from our fellow staff members: 

Ta Da!

The kids loved it and it turned out super cute!

This was probably the favorite of most kids…

They just got to be kids.

The grass was covered just enough with frost that they could slide down on their coats or shoes if they didn't have that great of traction.

I tried to take a picture with just a couple of kids… others noticed and wanted in on it too. 

Their yummy treat!

This wasn't part of the incentive. This has been a tradition as the advanced/on grade level reading classes use it to spring board into How To speeches. We decided to just make a day of the activities. 

Yes, his head is completely inside his pumpkin.

Most of the 5th grade team…missing one.

Hope you all have a fabulous Halloween week! I have conferences on Thursday and Friday so it's a short week. However, my school basically drips Halloween so I won't miss out on the chaos. 

Smiles!

*Steph*

A Possessed Scavenger Hunt

We needed to review possessive nouns and I knew that my kiddos would love to walk around the room. I decided find use some task cards. I ended up using Rachel Lynette's Possessive Nouns task cards. I placed the cards while my students were working on their Entry Work, this way they knew something was coming up. 

I introduced our Possessed Scavenger Hunt. Totally appropriate as Halloween is near.

Did a few examples using my document camera.

Gave my expectations.

Set the timer and let them go.

The students worked extremely well. It gave me a chance to observe them and to determine if they understood possessive nouns.

One student using a strategy of covering the "s" to see if it is part of the plural.

Thanks for stopping by!

*Steph*

Spark Student Motivation: Out of the Norm

Have you ever had one of those class periods where you are left speechless, in a good way?

 I had it after having my math students do an activity similar to "Scoot." 

We needed a day to step back, review, and do something out of the norm.

 I had run across The Primary Gal's decimal task cards and decided to try them out, totally intending to try out "Scoot." I decided too late in the evening to print out nice color copies so I used black and white for that day. (I now have nice color, card stock copies ready to laminate.) Before I get into what we actually did with the cards, I just need to express my adoration for her task cards! I now own quite a few of her sets and they all are super cute! The font is easy to read and the graphics are clean, in color or black and white. I also really like the sizes her cards come in. Some are the normal 4 to a page, but you'll see below that some are strips or even smaller. I like that I can use less paper and ink! I think the different sizes also help engage the kids. They don't see just another 4"x5# card.

I was all set to introduce Scoot to the kids when I remembered that I have a kiddo on crutches.

He could have worked it out, but I decided to try something new, ok not really new, but different than planned. I called it "Pass" for the lack of creativity in the moment. 

I walked the route that kids would pass and gave them these directions.

1. Turn your card right side up.

2. Solve and write the answer on your answer sheet, matching the box with your card number.

3. Turn your card back upside down.

4. Pass your card when the time goes off.

Making sure they knew where to pass, they pointed where they would pass to. 

I set the timer on my Promethean board for 28 secs, (totally weird number) clicked the repeat box, reminded them that if they chose to not follow expectations they would be choosing not to participate, and said "Go" hoping that this wasn't going to be a disaster. 

My math bunch is kind of a handful. 

I was speechless.

They moved quickly and set to work on their problem. They knew that it wouldn't be long until they had a new problem to solve.

You can see that some kids are done working and another is still working. I had them turn their cards upside down when finished. That way a kid couldn't look down the row and try to work ahead. 

I mixed the Adding & Subtracting cards even though they only used the Subtracting recording sheet. I just made sure that I only had one of each number so they could have a mixed practice of making sure they were doing the correct operation. 

I'm hoping to be able to incorporate activities like this a little more often, but for now, I'm just happy that something "out of the norm" engaged them for the review!

What have you done that's "out of the norm" of every day routine? 

*Steph*