THE END...of Research Methods. Thank goodness!

Today I am celebrating the end of what has proved to be a very difficult graduate school class: Research Methods. Have you ever taken that one? The material is so boring and dry. I just can't seem to make it fit into my little world. I am happy to say that I have survived the semester. Thank goodness! Here's what my kitchen table looked like today when I took my final.

 And this is the pile of papers that I will be burning tonight as a stress relief ritual....

Anchor Charts and more Anchor charts...

      Our county is serious about the use of anchor charts. We should have a ton of them. And, to be honest, after two years of giving them a good try, I can definitely see the benefit. So I thought today's blog would be dedicated to anchor charts. Here are a few that we have been working on in reading class recently.

For this chart, we were trying to focus on mood-the effect of a writer's words on the reader. My students struggle with the difference between mood and tone. So we did another chart the following day....

This one helped them to really "get" it. Although, we did decide that there are not specific vocabulary words that only belong to one of these topics. That was a tough concept for fourth graders.

And this one...well, I just love owls. They match my "theme". So, when I saw this one on Pinterest about point of view, I had to recreate it. I can't remember my life as a teacher before Pinterest.

We do anchor charts for math as well! Here is a decimal anchor chart that is currently in progress (incomplete). We are adding to it as we learn more about decimals each day.

My biggest goal for the rest of the year is to involve my students more in the creation of anchor charts. I want to let them help make them. This will be hard for me because, sad to say, I do have a little bit of a control issue. And, I like for things to be pretty. I need to get past that. Clearly.

My question for you is where do your inspirations for anchor charts? Is there some online site that is more awesome than Pinterest (I doubt it!)?

You have to start somewhere...

        Well, here it is...the first blog. My friends and loyal facebook followers have been asking for it for a while. It seems most logical that I will use this blog to share thoughts and happenings in my classroom with a small slice of the occasional personal interest story as well. Who am I? A very busy mother of two (J-6 and K-3), a graduate student (yikes for sure!), a happily married wife- yet a lousy housewife, a full time fourth grade teacher, and I guess now, a blogger.
         Today in class we began our unit on prime and composite numbers. I love, love, love anchor charts, so while I was planning the unit, I scoured Pinterest to find a cute anchor chart that would serve us well in this area. In order to understand prime and composite, my students need an understanding of factors and multiples. Remember when your third grade teacher told you that you HAD to memorize your times tables? She wasn't kidding! Here is a peek at what the anchor charts looked like.

       Does this look familiar? And, check out that ninja...he was certainly a challenge, but I am proud of how it turned out. I had my kids make the same charts in their math journal. I have mixed thoughts on that, but I did it today anyway. Here is hoping that they will have this image engrained in their memory for a while. Our biggest roadblock was that they STILL don't know their multiplication tables. We definitely have a lot of room for improvement in that area.