we're baaaaack!!!

Hello friends!!
Can you say, "It's been a while"?!!!! I just realized that our last blog post was back in FEBRUARY!!! Well, needless to say the school year was super hectic for all of us.  Changes in evaluations and teaching standards had us revamping so many of our lessons and kept us super busy.  Things are still crazy and expectations are HIGH! for both teachers AND students!   Here in NJ, teachers are trying to prep for the PARCC exam and meet all the common core standards in classrooms to really prepare the kiddos.  Sometimes we've found that our math textbooks don't quite reach the goals of the standard.  So while we are continuing to give the "chapter tests", we are also trying assessments directed at the standard.  This way, we can see if the students really do understand the standard and if THEY know what they are expected to know.  It's a quick, to the point assessment with a writing to explain, too!! Here is an assessment for 5th grade OA.A.1.

5.OA.A.1

Check it out, let us know what you think. (it's FREE!!!!) and please give us some feedback?  Would you use something like this for each standard in your classroom?  Would you like to see this for other grades?


In the meantime, its back to lesson planning for K & N…for J - I'm back to working on assessments and working on being a new mommy!! Just look at this peanut!

Snow? What snow?! **GIVEAWAY**

Well, hello there! Boy, has it been a while!  Today is President's Day and our 4 day weekend turned into a 5 day weekend because of……can you guess???…..SNOW!  

We are covered in many inches of snow and have used up 5 of our snow days already.  I feel like we haven't had a full week of teaching in all of 2014!! Here we are wanting to teach and needing to get our little crew ready for state testing in MAY (so much closer than you think!) and it seems like we can't get started.  Of course, we start working hard in September but once January comes around we're asking ourselves: What have we not gotten to yet?  But we just haven't been able to get there! Even our beaches are snow covered - check out me and Mr. B going for a stroll on the beach - what made me think it could be warmer there?! (aaah wishful thinking)

even our furry friends are seeking comfort and warmth in our jackets!!!!

Anyway!!! with all our snow days we've been able to create our latest: SNOW DAY MULTIPLICATION for 4th grade!

You'll find word problems and task cards that ask students to estimate, use arrays, use area models, and solve using both the expanded algorithm and the standard algorithm!!! perfect for when we get back to school after snow!! Can you believe we are supposed to get MORE SNOW tomorrow?! If we have another snow day, the KNJ teachers are going to go CRAZYYYYY!!!!

Are you interested in winning our Snow Day Multiplication pack?  There are 80 problems in the whole pack!  If we have at least 10 entries, we will give it away to a lucky winner.  But please share with us - have YOU had snow? or are you somewhere warm…and sunny…with palm trees…driving with open windows…oh, summer - where art thou?!