Ok...so that is a bit dramatic.  But really, I am not exaggerating. If you have read my blog for any length of time, you have no doubt heard me talk about how much I love Calendar Math .  I mean, I have written about it more than any other single subject on my blog.  It is something I feel so strongly about that I preach it to anyone who will listen (especially you, my faithful blog readers :)) But, a second math component that I talk about occasionally, but really has just as much impact on my math teaching is my spiral math homework .  I literally could not live without it. Let me tell you why I love these two pieces of my math block puzzle.  You see, these both take care of those rote standards that I need my kids to know, yet they just don't seem to grasp from that one lesson I teach that one day of the school year.  Things like place value (have you ever tried to get the kids to remember to write expanded form in March????), plotting on number ......

Like myself, many of you learn best when you actually see it (which is why, I suspect, you follow blogs ;) ) So I thought I would show you the very first week of our Calendar Math pages in pictures.  I wrote about the process of how I set up the first week of Calendar here , but I think that actually SHOWING you may be a bit more effective :)  If you aren't sure what Calendar Math is, read this first .  Then come back :) So here we go. The first day of school I had pre-printed the entire sheet, with only a few boxes left open for the students to complete.  You can see that these are fairly *easy* things for the kids to do.  They should have some background knowledge in them.  This first day is simply to lay the foundation of working independently and trying your hardest to complete the task. On Day 2, I crossed out a few less items.  These were things that I had showed them how to do when reviewing on Day 1.  I really didn't expect ......

OK....so I have been working for the past few weeks on something that I am soooooo excited to bring to you.  As you all know, I LOOOVVVEEE Calendar Math.  It is the one single subject that I have written more about on my blog than any other because it is just that good.  I credit Calendar with my students' success in math and I really cannot imagine teaching without it.  I literally move mountains in my schedule to get it in (even if it means doing a bit less direct teaching of the math lesson for the day.)  I never skip it and my students soar in math because of it. So....what have I done? It ended up being 300+!!!!!! Well, I know that starting the process of Calendar (figuring out what numbers to use, how to set it up, visualizing how it will fit in your classroom) is a daunting task.  So I have tried to take that looming doom away from you.  I have created a Starter Kit for 5th grade (don't worry....4th and 3rd...possibly 6th....is on the......

As most of you know, I am all about getting the most "bang for my buck" when it comes to teaching.  I really want the kids to be doing most of the work, while I just "impart the knowledge".  So when I plan, I try to use every resource I have that will enable me to do as much as I possibly can with them. And, as most of you also know, when it comes to math I SWEAR by Calendar Math and Math Homework .  Using my time to do the computation stuff in a spiral way really, truly frees me up to do more math thinking in class (which really, isn't that what math is???)  I can honestly say that after implementing these two programs in my room, I never, ever, ever worry about math instruction.  Ever.  I don't worry that I won't get to everything before the state test.  I don't worry that the kids won't "get it". Because, you know what?  They always do.  I really can't shout this from the rooftops enough.  Calendar and HW have saved my sani......

Over the past (almost) year, I have written about Calendar Math more than any other single topic.  I really feel like it is such a worthwhile endeavor in class...worth every.single.second that it takes out of my math block.  The time that I spend on it actually does pay off in the end (even if that means I have a little less time to do my actual math lesson for the day) I have gotten numerous emails asking me to show you exactly what the STUDENTS are doing on the worksheet each day.  You know what I fill in ( as I showed you here ), you know what we do when we go over it ( you can see the video here ), you know the boards , and the routine ...but what EXACTLY are the students doing??? Well, here are some pictures that I hope will explain it and give you a better idea of just what the students are doing during the work period.  I actually wrote these but this is what I expect (and receive) from the students.  What the students will produce is in red (except ......

One of the toughest parts to Calendar Math is keeping ALL of the kids engaged throughout the year.  I mean, with 36 students it can be a challenge to do just about anything!  So in order to keep the students focused, and really benefiting from Calendar, I have done a few things that I think have been successful and I thought I would share them with you. 1.  Hand Motions.  I shared this video with you earlier....but I am going to post it again for those of you who are new or might have missed it.  This is the number one thing that keeps my kids interested.  Because I am asking them to follow along and participate with me, they are all.....well...following along!  The motions serve a second purpose in that they help the students kinesthetically remember some of the more mundane mathematical vocabulary.  Each one of them can tell you how to find the median, mode, range, mean, and outlier in a data set because of the motions we use.  They know ......

There are so many math standards that we need to teach each year, that at times, my head is spinning.  As you all know, I am a firm believer in the power of Calendar Math and I really try to get most of the power standards into it.  Every few years or so, I have a class in which graphing (both creating and reading them) is something that is really needed.  So, in keeping with the calendar theme, I usually have them use the weather for the day as the catalyst to create the graphs.  Now, when I did the graphs, I was in 3rd and 4th grade....so we focused mostly on Bar and Line graphs.  Now, in 5th, I would probably add on a pie graph somehow (though I would have to think about that for sure!)  I would ask the kids to look out the window and tell me what type of weather they were seeing.  Pretty straight forward.  We would then add that to the Bar Graph .  As days went on, we would discuss how this graph is informing us, what we could tel......

I am asked about my Calendar Math more than anything else I blog about.  Because of that, I thought I would put together an FAQ section for you all...just in case you had some similar questions. How do you choose the numbers for the calendar? I ALWAYS use the date, or some combination of it.  I feel like that keeps it consistent and within the concept of "calendar math".  I do manipulate the numbers a bit so that the students aren't always using the same.exact.numbers each day, but I don't ever pull in numbers that don't appear in the date in some way.  Here are a few examples from the pages I already started to write for next year. This is the geometry/area and perimeter sheet.  At the beginning of the year, it is area and perimeter.  You can see that I use the numbers of the date in some way here.  I do NOT make it to scale.  The kids just get used to that.  As the year progresses, it becomes the "Geometry" sheet because I put triangl......

One of the things I love about Calendar Math is how engaging and interactive it is.  We don't just sit down and review the answers, rather, the kids are moving, talking, and interacting with the board the entire review.  To better illustrate this for you, I created a video of myself modeling all of the motions and gestures the students do during Calendar Math review. Now, I know this would be SO much better if the kids were in the video...but they were at recess, so you will have to bear with me alone.  It still gives you a pretty good idea of what is going on while the review is taking place. Please ignore the fact that the video is only in the middle of the box.  I took it on my iPhone, and am not quite sure how everything on it works yet.  OY! So there you have it!  I know many of you are actually doing Calendar Math in your room already.  How is it going?  Anything you are doing that is successful and you want to share?  (I am alw......

Here are a few pictures I took today of Calendar.  It will give you an idea of what each piece looks like when completed. Here is the entire calendar board. This is the actual date. The students recite this.  I have it written up here, as the kids tend to forget ;) We move on to the School Day Fraction.  You can see that we simplify the fraction, as well as find the equivalent decimal. The division and multiplication sentences come from some form of the date. The entire second half of the calendar board. More of the big number work. Some of the bigger number work.  So there you have it.  Calendar in pictures :) You can find all of the documents here You can read about the routine here You can read about the first week of implementation here...

So, this is all fine and dandy once you are going for a while, but the most frequent question I get is, "How do you start on day 1?  The kids can't possibly know all of this information, so where do you begin??" I begin, like most things, with the easiest concepts for the kids. Day 1 ~ Coming to me in 5th grade, they know some of the basic concepts I have on calendar (like Odd/Even and How Many Ways) so I start there.  On the first day of school, I have all of the other sections, except Odd/Even and How Many Ways crossed off the Calendar worksheet.  The students are instructed to work on that portion of the sheet, alone, for 5 minutes.  After the 5 minutes is done, using my ELMO, I project the worksheet up.  I DO NOT USE MY CALENDAR BOARDS YET!  I want the students to know the correct way to fill in the worksheet, so for the first week of school I use the sheet to review Calendar. Once we have gone over those two sections, I briefly show the studen......

Now that you have the Calendar set up , the next step is to figure out how you are going to teach it to your class.  Below is the basic procedure that I follow with my students. Here is the "script" I use when running through Calendar.  Click on it to download. Each day begins with me asking the kids, "What is today?"   They then respond with "Today is December 19, 2011.  Also written 12/19/11.  It is the 56th day of school."    I find this is a good focal point for the kids, gets them interacting right away, and starts off the Calendar in a nice way.  I then go through the pieces of the Calendar in this order: School Day Fraction Odd/Even Today's Arrays Factors Prime or Composite Prime Factorization How Many Ways to Make ___ Big Number -- Standard, Expanded, Word Forms Place Value Rounding Daily Multiplication and Division Geometry for Today Today's M&Ms Number Line Some days, this order changes, depending upon ......

When setting up your Calendar, the first thing you will need to do is look at your state standards.  Ask yourself, what are those key standards, that I teach once or twice, and the kids just don't seem to get it?  For me, things like place value, prime and composite numbers, factors, and multiplication and division of larger numbers and fractions came to mind.  Those were the things I wanted to put on my Calendar.  I go through my standard (which, at this point are Common Core Standards) and check off the really "big" ones.  Those are MUST HAVES on the Calendar Math page. I try to pick things that I know the kids won't struggle too much with, but will also find rigorous enough to constitute new learning.  I want them to practice, not guess at answers, so I don't put finding percentages on the first level.  That would be WAY too far over their heads.  I do put simplifying fractions though, because, even though they haven't learned it formally yet......