We Are Anchored in Excellence!

As August sets sail and September emerges, the teachers and students at Lenora B. Smith Elementary are Anchored in Excellence for the 2016-2017 school year.  We are a "C" school and the mathematics department is expecting great achievements this year.  Are you ready?

A Model Day

I was very excited that I had the chance to model a lesson with our 3rd graders. We will spend two days on estimating and the break apart strategy to add 3 digit numbers.  During today's lesson we reviewed rounding strategies and watched a Brain Pop Jr. video on the topic.  The children then had the chance to make their own meaning of the break apart strategy in cooperative learning groups using Base-10 Blocks and dry ease boards and makers. We then set sail on the day's objective in the TLC.  Days like this are truly some of the most enjoyable days of coaching, I love teaching! 

Math Lab @ LBS

Charting New Waters

As the first week of school comes to a close, I am very excited to see our Math Department on course for a successful school year.  On the first day of school our wonderful 5th grade teacher math and science teacher, Ms. Esposito made a huge splash with her students; as she led the students in a lesson on laptops, provided by Miami-Dade County Public Schools. 

DAY...

Well, I had to really put the petal to the metal and get the lab to a good place before the teachers came back.  Here's what I came up with so far... more work will be done later.

Day 3...

PROGRESS!

It may not look like much, but I made GREAT progress today! Really, I did, I promise:)

Soon, I will have new cabinets to store our materials. 

Day 2 :)

I was pleased with the progress I made on my first "unoffical" day back.  I was able to change all of the boards giving them a fresh start and take out lots of staples too :D.   My goal for day 2 was to get started with the details...take a look at what I came up with:)

After a little research on Pinterest, some outlinng done in my pad folio and shopping at a few stores, I gathered my supplies start the work of Day 2. 

 Since our school's theme is 'Sailing into "A" Bright Future," I decided that I wanted the Math Department's focus to be "anchored" in a few ideals. The letters are unfinished wood for about $1.30 each and the paint was $0.50 from a local hardware store (it's Oops Paint).

Here's the finished product. I'll show you what I did with this in a later post. :D

I added some sail boats and anchors as accents to the boards. 

I really liked this sailboat, so I couldn't leave the store without it. It's most likely going to be near my desk. 

And just in case anyone was wondering what L.B.S.'s destination is...we are headed for SUCCESS! 

Time to get to work.

This year I've decided to get a head start and set up my room.  Since our theme has changed I wanted to make some changes in the math lab as well.  I'll be blogging about the setup and the grand re-opening of the lab.   

 This is my desk area before I started removing the construction themed decor. 

 

It's great to start with a clean slate. 

I didn't take a before picture before I started taking things down. 

The fadeless butcher colored paper is the backdrop for all of the bulletin boards. The boards are trimmed in blue and white chevron pattern/ waves with sailboats and anchors as accents. 

My plan is to rearrange this area. I'm going to need a little help.