There’s a beautiful vulnerability in presenting ideas. I think this year’s presentations really gave me further clarity about the direction I’d like to take going forward with what I share. This year, I had one session that was more along the lines of what I present here on my blog, and by far, it was the most transparent and passionately delivered session of the four.
There are times that I wonder if I’m in the right space to share these things. So much of the sharing that I see from bloggers within the Facebook/IG/TPT Blogger world is so different than what I present here on my blog. It is tempting to ‘otherize’ myself and think that the things I share here won’t be welcome in spaces dominated by what is prevalent on social media.
I feel a certain tension presenting on deeply challenging topics as race and equity, and then following that up with brightly color paper filled presentations on literacy or math. As if race and inequity is something I can just turn off and move on from. The intersectionality of discussing race and inequity through the lens of literacy or math would be more in line with what is organically me. I look forward to developing trainings that are reflective of that. I’ll keep you updated on what that will look like going forward!
As has been standard for me, I presented on four different topics.
Nutty for Numbers
This session was all about strategies for teaching number sense.
Lots of teachers asked me about the dot paper. Here’s what I used and shared with teachers at the conference.
Links to the videos are embedded in the document. The first game was just with one die. Students would roll a single die and then circle that amount of dots on the page. For a two player game, you could do it the same way…with students taking turns and just circling the one number…or you could do addition sentences. Check out the videos to see it in action!
I talked to teachers about how to help first grade students with subitizing, counting on, making ten, composing and decomposing numbers and comparing numbers. We looked at some hands on structures that teachers could use. I even brought in some pool noodles to talk about how we could use them in the classroom for teaching with base tens.
Here were a few of the strategies I shared with the teachers at my session. Feel free to click on the picture so that you can see my awesome kiddos at work!
There are a few resources that would be a great support for what I shared in my session. Click on the images below to be directed to them!
Keeping the Social in Social Studies
In this session, I talked about how I taught students to participate in a class meeting and how I did student government in the classroom.
In the middle, I talked a little bit about how teachers could tie in writing about the White House and the presidency.
I did a blog post about how I taught this. Click on the image to get more info on that.
A Culture of Yes
This session was all about how poverty impacts students and what are some practical ideas for how we work towards equity with students.
Over the last year, I’ve written several blog posts on behavior management specifically. I referenced many of the points made here in this session.
There were several teachers that asked me about books that would go with this topic, here are some Amazon links for you.
Keeping the COOL in Back to School
Here I talked about standards alignment for teaching apples and fire safety to first graders at the beginning of the year.
As always, I remained thankful that I get asked to participate in sharing through SDE. To be able to have my voice in this space has made me grow into a better teacher. The self-reflection that I have on my practice in preparation for teaching here is always constructive for me.
I trust what is here will be helpful to those of you who came to the presentations!
Wondering what I shared in previous years? Here are links to those posts!
Happy summer to you!
