Your Classroom COMMON CORE: Victory Is Yours! Our activities will leave you feeling “rosy” about tackling the new standards. By Jennifer L. W. Fink Feeling anxious about imple- menting the Common Core State Standards? Fear not—it is easier than you might think. “Common Core pulls out the essential pieces so that you have fewer things to teach and a lon- ger period of time to dig into them,” explains Susan Riley, an arts integration specialist in Maryland who helps teach- ers implement the standards. “What we were required to teach previously was a mile wide and an inch deep.” Andrea Smith, a sixth-grade math teacher at E. L. Haynes charter school in Washington, D.C., says the guide- lines have made her life easier, not harder. They allow her students more time to explore things like fractions. “Now we spend at least two and a half weeks dividing fractions. At the end, my students have a much richer under- standing of fraction division because RD tThheayt ’ds otnh’et bjuesatu itnyv oefr tC aonmdm mounl tCipolrye.. ” O RAWF Not quite convinced? We get it—you RT C want more examples of how to do it in BE your classroom. On the next pages, we O R NS: break down important benchmarks and USTRATIO sith—oawn ydo luo vhionwg iot!ther teachers are doing ILL 23 SCHOLASTIC INSTRUCTOR BACK TO SCHOOL 2012 INS1•CommonCore.FINAL.indd 23 7/25/12 9:18 AM Grades K–2 UNIFIX QUEEN MATHEMATICAL PRACTICES: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. ACTIVITY: Don a cape and crown, grab your scepter (a stack of 10 or more Unifix cubes), and dub yourself the Queen (or King) of Ten. Allow some cubes to fall off your scepter. Ask your students how many fell. Then ask, “How do you know?” Shaw says: “When students MONSTER SHAPES explain their thinking, it helps them understand GEOMETRY: Reason with shapes and marks. They can also combine shapes that there are many ways their attributes. to form local buildings. Challenge to get to the answer.” them to create “Shape Monsters” ACTIVITY: Tamra Shaw, a master and write stories about them. HOW DOES THIS teacher at Horizon Community AFFECT YOUR TEACHING? Learning Center in Phoenix, has stu- HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR You’ll be focusing more dents make a community map, using TEACHING? You will emphasize the on problem solving. Rote construction-paper shapes (triangle, process of working with shapes, memorization is out; circle, etc.) to signify various land- rather than the final product. critical thinking is in. MORE ON THE CORE TIME BINGO • ACHIEVE THE CORE: The nonprofit has free resources, links to videos about the MEASUREMENT & DATA: Tell and write Common Core, and inspirational stories from teachers who are already using it. time using analog and digital clocks. achievethecore.org ACTIVITY: Start by creating a basic • MATH SOLUTIONS: From webinars to videos to school-based coaching, Marilyn awareness of time. Set a timer for Burns’s Math Solutions can help you make an easy transition to the new stan- five minutes so students can feel how dards. Check out the Common Core Quick Start Series and multiday institutes. long it is. Challenge them to see what mathsolutions.com they can accomplish in five minutes, • TEACHING CHANNEL: Another nonprofit with a storehouse of videos, the and then in 10 and 20 minutes. Play Teaching Channel breaks down effective teaching and serves as a forum for Telling Time Bingo with older students: teacher discussion on the Common Core, critical thinking, research methods, Create bingo cards with pictures of and more. teachingchannel.org analog clocks showing various times. INS1•CommonCore.FINAL.indd 24 7/25/12 9:18 AM COMMON CORE LOST AND FOUND WRITING: Use a combination of period of time. We might spend And usually at the end, they find drawing, dictating, and writing to three to five days reading aloud it and there’s some emotion. After narrate a single event or several several examples of that kind of several days of reading and discus- loosely linked events, tell about text,” says Jeff Williams, a reading sion, students create their own the events in the order in which recovery teacher and literacy coach lost-and-found story.” they occurred, and provide a at Solon City Schools in Ohio. reaction to what happened. “Then we start to name some of HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR the qualities: In a lost-and-found TEACHING? You’ll be doing more ACTIVITY: “We immerse kids in story, you have a character who writing projects, and in longer a particular kind of writing for a values something. They lose it. units. That’s a good thing! S-H-0-P KEEPER WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA? READING: Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, LITERATURE: Recount stories, and sounds (phonemes). including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and ACTIVITY: Wisconsin kindergarten teacher Paula Storck divides her determine their central mes- class into “shoppers” and “storekeepers.” Shoppers get a handful of sage, lesson, or moral. pennies; storekeepers sell objects represented by picture cards. If a shopper wants to buy a dog, “they have to figure out how many ACTIVITY: Talk about “big pennies they need by counting the sounds d-o-g,” Storck says. ideas” that are frequently “The clerk checks to make sure that’s correct.” seen in books and television shows, things like “Believe in HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR TEACHING? You’re emphasizing yourself” or “It’s good to help real-world applications and teaching across subjects. others.” Then read books with these themes over a period of several days. “We might read James Howe’s I Wish I Were a Butterfly, then Edward the Emu, by Sheena Knowles, the next day,” says Williams. “We talk about how they have a similar message, then ask, ‘What’s the big idea the author is trying to get across?’” Call out the time—6:30, for instance—or show the digital HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR version. Have students mark TEACHING? In the past, this the proper analog picture on type of unit wasn’t introduced their cards. until middle or high school. Your task is to help younger HOW DOES THIS AFFECT students grasp the “big ideas” YOUR TEACHING? You’re —which they’re fully capable linking abstract concepts of doing. to concrete examples, with an emphasis on direct application. 25 SCHOLASTIC INSTRUCTOR BACK TO SCHOOL 2012 INS1•CommonCore.FINAL.REV.indd 25 7/26/12 7:47 AM Grades 3–5 A PICTURE’S WORTH ... WRITING: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. ACTIVITY: Riley, the arts integration specialist, uses a website called Storybird (storybird.com) to help kids to create rich characterizations and narratives. “Storybird allows kids to write their own piece based on illustrations,” she says. First, students find an illustration they connect with and figure out what happened beforehand. How did a situation emerge and why? Then they consider what might happen next. Soon, full-fledged stories take shape. HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR TEACHING? Kids are great storytellers. A visual prompt helps them get past the blank page and unlocks their imaginations. INTERACTIVE WRITING WRITING: With guidance and support from TWO SIDES peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, LITERATURE: Describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach. point of view influences how events are described. ACTIVITY: Sims projects students’ writing ACTIVITY: Monica Sims, a fifth-grade teacher at John J. on the interactive whiteboard. “When the Pershing West Middle School in Chicago, has her students writing is on the big screen, they notice consider Scott O’Dell’s novel The Island of the Blue Dolphins things they miss on paper,” she says. “As they from two points of view: the Aleuts’ and the islanders’. read it aloud, and as they share with their “I’ll ask, ‘Who thinks the islanders are right—that it’s not peers, they’re able to see mistakes without fair for the Aleuts to come to the island, search for otters, my having to mention it.” Guide your young and not give anything in return?’” she says. “Then I’ll writers to ask their peers questions about ask, ‘Who thinks, Hey, it’s Mother Nature—the Aleuts can their work in progress, such as “Does this do what they want?’” She ties the discussion to current make sense?” news, such as gas prices and oil exploration. HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR TEACHING? HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR TEACHING? You’ll encour- Common Core emphasizes writing as age students to actively seek understanding of other communication. Push students to get feedback perspectives through critical and constructive analysis, from their peers so they’ll learn how to which will serve them well in a multicultural society. effectively communicate with an audience. 26 SCHOLASTIC INSTRUCTOR BACK TO SCHOOL 2012 INS1•CommonCore.FINAL.indd 26 7/25/12 9:18 AM COMMON CORE MIX IT UP DREAM HOME DESIGN NUMBERS & OPERATIONS—FRACTIONS: Develop MEASUREMENT & DATA: Geometric understanding of fractions as numbers. measurement: understand concepts of area and relate area to multiplication ACTIVITY: Riley uses music and color to help and to addition. students understand fractions. Introducing kids to whole notes, half notes, and quarter notes helps get ACTIVITY: Bring in real estate listings. across the idea that a fraction is a part of a whole, Point out the square footage. Then show she says. Mixing colors with colored water does, too. your students some home plans and blue- “I’ll ask students, ‘How much blue and yellow do I prints. Have them design their own dream need to make this shade of green?’” she says. Help homes. “I have students who want a movie your students figure out that a green composed of theater and a helicopter pad,” says Mechelle two parts blue and one part yellow is two-thirds Hardaway, a fifth-grade teacher in Georgia. blue and one-third yellow. “That’s fine, as long as they include the area of each room.” HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR TEACHING? Work to build on students’ prior knowledge. In other words, HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR TEACHING? don’t be afraid to use kindergarten concepts in You’ll be emphasizing understanding and fourth grade! application, rather than memorization. PRIICCEE IITT OOUUT NUMBERS & OPERATIONS: Perform operations with multi- digit whole numbers and with decimals to hundredths. ACTIVITY: “I get out some sales flyers and tell my students that they’re going to go shopping,” says Hardaway. Students tally up how much it would cost to buy a new outfit—or to completely furnish their dream home. Calculating sales tax provides them with extra practice in multiplying and adding decimals. HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR TEACHING? Take every opportunity to engage students in real-world concepts while teaching the basics. INS1•CommonCore.FINAL.REV.indd 27 7/27/12 7:19 AM Grades 6–8 TIPS FROM PERFECT PAIRS POWER OF POETRY CORE VETERANS READING—INFORMATIONAL TEXT: WRITING: Use technology, Determine the meaning of words and including the Internet, to What advice do you have for phrases as they are used in a text, produce and publish writ- your colleagues on teaching including figurative, connotative, and ing as well as to interact with the new Common Core technical meanings. and collaborate with others. standards? Take some classes offered by your ACTIVITY: “Get students interested in ACTIVITY: Generate excite- state teachers association. CTA a topic first,” advises Tiffany Choice, ment during poetry units [California Teachers Association] a sixth-grade teacher at Hybla Valley by letting kids experiment had a great workshop at our summer Elementary School in Virginia. Discuss with typography and institute. —Kathy K. what students know—and don’t know— design. “We use PowerPoint before reading an article. Then, after when we study figurative We have been receiving professional they read it, encourage them to use their language in poetry,” Choice development days to work as a previous knowledge to decipher any says, explaining that it team and to pick out textbooks and unfamiliar words or phrases. Discuss has the advantage of manipulatives and create tests and the article as a class, focusing on being easy to use, even for do research. —Kathryn R. students’ interpretations of words and computer novices. “Students phrases. Which fits best? Why? “Once can change the text and What I’ve done is link the standards students have that kind of background font and add pictures to to current curriculum or add some- knowledge, I introduce a fiction story illustrate the meanings of thing into the existing curriculum. on a similar topic,” Choice says. “The words and phrases.” Choice’s It takes time to analyze them, but background knowledge helps them make students also use online having a grasp ahead of time really connections and decipher meanings.” discussion boards to analyze helps. —Kim A. and debate literature. Other HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR teachers use tools such I’ve found that I will actually be TEACHING? By pairing fiction and as Google Docs to enable teaching fewer standards, just dig- nonfiction texts on the same topic, student collaboration. ging deeper on what truly matters. students use their reading skills across We have been working to implement the curriculum. HOW DOES THIS AFFECT them this year and my advice is to YOUR TEACHING? You’ll ask get started! It is not as bad as you students to write a variety might think!!! —Karen K. of texts in different formats, Being flexible and able to adapt then collaborate to enhance based on the needs of your students and improve their writing. is key. Also, allow for discussion and collaborative time with your grade members to share ideas and allow for feedback. —Lucy L. COOK’S MATH THE NUMBER SYSTEM: Apply and extend previous understandings of multipli- cation and division to divide fractions by fractions. ACTIVITY: To help her students dive deeper into fractions, Choice has them INS1•CommonCore.FINAL.REV.indd 28 7/26/12 7:47 AM COMMON CORE WHAT’S YOUR ARGUMENT? WRITING: Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence. ACTIVITY: Middle school students love to argue. Mary James, an eighth-grade English teacher in Alabama, uses that enthusiasm to teach them to support their opinions. “Students often say, ‘We don’t want to do this because it’s stupid,’” James says. “I teach them that if they can come up with better-formed arguments, with research to back them up, they’ll be more effective.” HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR TEACHING? Stress the importance of evidence to align with the Common Core. TASTY RATIOS RATIOS & PROPORTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS: Understand ratio concepts and use ratio reasoning to solve problems. CANINE CALCULATION ACTIVITY: “I have students use ratios to make chocolate EXPRESSIONS & EQUATIONS: Apply milk—say, two tablespoons chocolate mix to three cups milk,” and extend previous understandings of says Andrea Smith, the sixth-grade math teacher. “Then arithmetic to algebraic expressions. we’ll talk about equivalent ratios: four tablespoons chocolate to six cups milk. I ask, ‘Will it taste the same?’ They end up ACTIVITY: “We begin our algebraic discovering that both taste the same.” thinking unit with The Five-Dog Night, by Eileen Christelow,” says Smith. “It’s HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR TEACHING? Encourage about a man who doesn’t use blankets; experiential learning to help students understand when it gets really cold, he just increases mathematical concepts. the number of dogs who sleep with him. On a one-dog night, there’s six feet in the bed—four dog feet plus two human feet. On a two-dog night, there are ten feet in all. Eventually, the students see two as the constant, and that each night, the number increases by four. So when I make recipe books. “I pull dinner? How will you adjust introduce the idea of an equation—the out tons of recipes and the recipe?’” number of dogs for the night times have students choose some four plus two equals the number of favorites. Then I have them HOW DOES THIS AFFECT feet—and write it as 4X + 2 = F, they divide a recipe by half, or YOUR TEACHING? Rather know what I mean.” triple it or double it,” Choice than just talk about dividing says. “We also talk about, fractions, find a real-world HOW DOES THIS AFFECT YOUR ‘Okay, this recipe feeds 12 way (like recipes or science TEACHING? Use developmentally people. But what if only experiments) to make the appropriate, cross-curricular instruc- four people are coming to concept come alive. tion to teach complex concepts. 29 SCHOLASTIC INSTRUCTOR BACK TO SCHOOL 2012 INS1•CommonCore.FINAL.REV.indd 29 7/26/12 1:03 PM