It's Official !

Happy Friday Blogging Friends ! 

We have some exciting news to share ... The Math GNOMe and Common Core 4 has now been officially published. Thank you to Creative Teaching Press, our humble little teacher resource has been turned into 6 books! You can now purchase The Math Gnome and Common Core Four specifically for grades K - 5.  We have really set out to present a user friendly Common Core Standard Based resource for teachers by TEACHERS.
PS: it's also available as an eBook! Instant gratification :) 

Here's the link - Check it out!!!! EEEEEEeee can you tell we are excited??? 

Creative Teaching Press - Math GNOMe Resource Books and Management Sets

Side note: As a result of this exciting news - Our products related to the Math Gnome will no longer be available on Amazon or Teachers Pay Teachers. However, you can still visit our Teachers Pay Teachers store for other teaching resources and tools that we have created! 

  

New Videos!

Here are some of our newest videos! 

This first video is of a 1st grade GNOMe lesson. The lesson skills comes straight from the Common Core domain for Geometry. Students here are working on Partitioning Circles and Rectangles. Following this clip we have posted a quick video showing students checking in for Common Core 4 directly after the GNOMe mini lesson.  

* A special thank you to my student teacher for conducting the mini lesson and check in. 

This last video we have a panning of 2 classrooms while students are hard at work on Common Core 4. Notice that everyone is working on Math, talking about Math (if there is even any talking) and thinking about Math. Aahhh makes for a calm and focused teaching/learning environment. 

*These are 1st and 2nd grade students using Common Core 4 

What The Kids Are Saying...

Here are a few of our 1st , 2nd  and 3rd grade students talking about Common Core 4.

Checking In

This post is all about student choice.
You will see Mrs. Taylor’s (one of the Work Wives) 2nd grade classroom “checking in” for Common Core 4. Mrs. Taylor’s student teacher is in charge of the check in. Here each student chooses which of the 4 independent practices they would like to work on. As a reminder the Common Core 4 independent practices include math facts, technology time, math games, and mathematical practice or what some call paper practice. When the teacher calls on each student they not only say the activity they will be working on but they also state the GNOMe strategy that they are currently focusing on. As another side note, the checking in process does not look much different at the other grade levels. As they get more comfortable with Common Core 4 you can allow the students to check their peers in. This is nice because you can choose the first student to conference with and gain an extra few minutes with individual students. In this video you do not see the teacher keeping track of the students Common Core 4 choice. However, we do keep a check in recording sheet. If we find that a student is doing flash cards too often or technology too often we guide them to make another choice. We love this process because it really allows the students to take ownership of their learning.

What is Common Core 4?

While teaching and exposing our students to the Common Core Standards we felt it important for our students to work independently and take ownership for their own learning. While students are working independent to reinforce their CCSS skills we are then able to conference with kiddos individually or even in small groups. We have come up with the name Common Core 4 which refers to the 4 independent practice activities our students work on within our math block. Each of our 4 independent practices relate to what the Common Core State Standards would like to see students mastering.

What types of independent practice you we have? 

1. Flash Cards (for fact fluency)
2. Mathematical Practice (pencil / paper work) 
3. Technology Time (working on math with calculators , computers , i pads etc..)
4. Games (math games from your series or that supplement and correlate with the Common Core State Standards) 

How does Common Core 4 fit in my math block?
Think about it like this... if you have a math block of 60 minutes this is how we break it down

15- 20 minutes : Start Class with a mini lesson
15 minutes: Then, a round of independent practice (Common Core 4)
10 - 15 minutes: Another mini lesson
15 minutes: round 2 of Common Core 4
 5 minutes: Wrap up and review concepts from the day as well as how the independent practice went

 Of course this does not mean that EVERY day you will have the time to do 2 full rounds of Common Core 4. We know this first hand. Things come up, lessons need to be longer but for the most part 2 rounds should be an expectation for your day. This way you have enough time to meet with students individually and students are able to have quality time with their math learning.
Here are 2 quick videos of what Common Core 4 looks like in our classroom. The first video has Kelly's 3rd grade students hard at work. The second is of Diane's 2nd grade students working on Common Core 4.