Setting the Foundation for Success with Beginning of Year Math Assessments

As educators, we know that a strong foundation is the key to success in any subject. When it comes to math, building upon the essential concepts from the previous grade level is crucial for students to thrive in their current grade level standards. That's why I'm so excited to present to you these Beginning of Year Math Assessments for Grades 2, 3, and 4.

These assessments not only provide teachers with an immediate baseline of their students' abilities but also serve as a valuable tool to reinforce essential skills while establishing rules, routines.

In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of using these assessments and shed light on the importance of focusing on foundational concepts and classroom dynamics at the start of the year.

Baseline Assessment:

Understanding where your students stand at the beginning of the year is vital for effective planning and instruction. These Beginning of Year Math Assessments serve as a comprehensive tool to evaluate your students' grasp of the previous grade level's Common Core Math Standards. By identifying areas of strength and weakness, you gain valuable insights into your students' needs, allowing you to tailor your teaching strategies accordingly.

Strengthening Foundational Concepts:

These Beginning of Year Assessments for Grades 2, 3, and 4 specifically target the essential skills and knowledge from the previous grade level. By revisiting and reinforcing the concepts that students struggle with, you can solidify your students' foundation in mathematics and make learning current grade level standards go quickly and smoothly. In my classroom, I like to use the first few weeks to review previous grade level content I know students need extra support with, build strong number sense, and strengthen classroom procedures and routines.
After administering the assessment, you're provided with Small Group Planning sheets that specifically target what extra support your students need based off the questions answered incorrectly. This is a great way to begin small group instruction in your classroom and building those routines and expectations.

Establishing Rules, Routines, and Procedures:

The beginning of the school year is an opportune time to establish a positive classroom environment and set clear expectations for your students. Focusing on rules, routines, and procedures lays the groundwork for a productive learning atmosphere for the rest of the year. Our Beginning of Year Math Assessments can be seamlessly integrated into your classroom routines, allowing you to incorporate essential review activities while emphasizing the importance of structure and discipline. By dedicating time to these foundational elements, you create a solid framework that will support your students' progress throughout the year.
Want to read more about routines and procedures? Check out this blog post.

Parent Collaboration:

Effective communication with parents is vital for student success. With our Beginning of Year Math Assessments, you can engage in proactive discussions with parents, providing insights into their child's strengths and areas that may require additional support. By sharing assessment results and highlighting specific skill areas, you enable parents to be active partners in their child's education. This collaborative approach fosters a strong home-school connection, setting the stage for continued support and growth throughout the academic year.

These Beginning of Year Math Assessments offer teachers a valuable resource to assess student abilities, reinforce foundational concepts, and establish a positive classroom environment. By utilizing these assessments, you can gain valuable insights into your students' needs, develop targeted instruction plans, and collaborate effectively with parents. Remember, a strong foundation sets the stage for success in mathematics and beyond. Start the year right with our comprehensive assessments and unlock your students' full potential.

If you'd like to start your school year off on the right foot, you can purchase your Beginning of Year Assessments here OR save this post to come back later.

Aloha,

7 Tips for Planning Parent Teacher Conferences

I remember my very first year of teaching, I was SO NERVOUS for Parent-Teacher Conferences that I thought I was going to throw up. Luckily, I had prepared well for conferences so I had all of my talking points, which was a good thing!
Over the years, I've perfected how I plan for conferences which have helped ease the nerves...but it is still a stressful time for sure. Today I'm here to share some tips on preparing for your parent-teacher conferences to help ease those jitterbugs.

1. Send Home a Parent Questionnaire

Sending home parent questionnaires can help you to plan for your conferences. Choosing a questionnaire that asks parents what they feel their child's strengths and areas of need are can help you to know beforehand if the parent sees the same things you see in school. It can also help you to get a gauge of how your conference will go as well.

In addition, plan to ask about any concerns that the parents have in your questionnaire. This will allow you the opportunity to address those concerns during your conference time. Knowing the parent concerns ahead of time will help you to plan out your talking points and gather any necessary evidence pieces or resources that may be needed.

2. Share Glows and Grows for Each Child

Many times, students are totally different at home than they are in school. We as teachers spend the majority of the day with these kids, we actually see them more than their own parents get to! Because of this, it's nice to share Glows (Strengths) and Grows (Area for Growth) for each child. 

Having a checklist similar to this one makes conference prep easy. Not to mention, this sheet will become a sort of "cheat sheet" for your talking points.

When planning for each child's conference, I check off the boxes or add notes for each individual child. I try to grab student work samples to show as examples for both grows and glows. I put them in order and paper clip them to each checklist. In addition, I add in any beginning of year assessment data to share with parents so they have an idea of how their child is performing academically.
As you go through the talking points on this sheet, you can pull out student work samples that address those Glows or Grows. Place the student work in the order of what you plan to discuss. 

3. Plan and Organize in the Order of Your Conferences

Know that you do NOT have to have ALL 28 of your conferences prepped and planned before any of your meetings begin!
A good rule of thumb is to be at least 2 days ahead of schedule in your planning. For example, if it's Monday, you have Monday and Tuesday's conferences all planned and prepped. At the end of the day on Monday, you can begin working on Wednesday's meeting prep. If something comes up for you on Monday afternoon, you don't need to worry about scrambling for Tuesday's conferences since it's already done.
Decide on what you would like to share with your parents. They truly appreciate seeing work their child has completed, so try to incorporate showing samples while you talk. It also helps parents to better understand what you mean when you're able to show examples. 
I use the above checklist to gather student work and figure out my talking points for each child's conference. In addition, I add the parent questionnaire to my paper-clipped stack. I go through the questionnaire to see if there are additional things I need to address and I'll write it at the bottom of my checklist (above). Any additional items I'll need will get paperclipped to that child's conference packet. 
I add all of my paperclipped conference packets into a basket in the order that the conferences will happen with the most recent conference being at the top. I'll add a schedule into my basket too so I can refer back to it to keep myself on track/time. 
If you have breaks in between your conferences, use that time to begin working on prepping more meetings! 

4. Send Reminders

Be sure to send out reminders to your families notifying them about conference week coming up and the modified school schedule. In addition, you'll also want to send home reminders to families about their specific conference day and time. 

You can print out simple reminders like this, fill them out for each child and staple them in the child's planner or communication notebook. 

I suggest sending home the reminder a few days in advance just in case a parent will need some time to rearrange their schedule.

Sending reminders home for each child does take a little extra time, but if you can save yourself from missed conference blocks (and making them up later), that time on the front end to send reminders will be worth it!

5. Set Up a Waiting Area Outside

Set a waiting area up outside for your families in case they arrive early for their conference block.Set out chairs for families to sit and wait and a table that has books or student work that parents can look through. This will help them to pass time comfortably.
In addition, be sure to include a sign on the door that reminds parents that you are currently in a conference. You'll be surprised how many parents will try to enter your room if you don't have a sign up!
 Next to that sign, it is also helpful to include a conference schedule so that families can see what time their conference begins and what time the conference before them ends. Sometimes parents with multiple kids get confused about which child is during what block. That schedule helps them to check and head off to the correct meeting!

6. Set a Timer

You'll be surprised at how quickly your 15 or 20-minute conference block will go by! Set a timer at the start of each conference so that you don't get off schedule. Let your parents know that you'll be setting a timer so that you can honor the time of all families.  

Set the timer to go off 3-5 minutes before the actual end of your conference so that you can address any final questions the parents may have. 

7. Have Parents Write Letters to Their Child

One of my absolute FAVORITE thing about conferences is having parents write a letter to their child. I ask parents to write an encouraging letter focusing on their child's strengths, what makes them proud, and to encourage their child to keep doing their best. 

I provide a simple half sheet of paper and an envelope.  Some parents will finish their letter during our meeting, work on it outside (and drop it in a basket I leave on the table), or some take it home and secretly send it back the next day. 

**If the child is in the conference, I kindly ask them to leave while I share a secret surprise with their parents. 

Once all conferences are done, I'll leave the letters on each child's desk. Their faces are SO surprised and they LOVE reading what their parents have to say. Many of the children keep the letters in their binder or pencil boxes. I've seen students take them out to read when they're having bad days. 

If you're interested in any of the conference sheets I shared in this post, you can snag them here. 

I hope this post was helpful for you in planning and preparing for your Parent-Teacher Conferences. One thing to keep in mind, most of the time, parents are probably just as nervous as you to hear how their child is doing. 

Save for Later!

Don't want to forget about these tips? Pin the image below to save for later. 

Until Next Time...Aloha!

Parent Teacher Conferences

Hi Everyone! We're officially done with 1/4 of the school year. Here in Hawaii, we have a Fall break and we've just returned back to school this past week for 3 days (with students). I must say, the break was wonderful! I had some time to relax and gain back some of my sanity! My hubby and I were so lucky to win a FREE 2 night stay at a hotel in Waikiki (from a wedding workshop we had attended). 

We had a chance to hit the beach quite a bit, and enjoy lots of yummy cocktails with that beautiful sunset. If you're ever visiting Oahu and need suggestions of places to eat, definitely shoot me an e-mail. I am a foodie at heart and as my mom says, I live to eat! Waikiki has a ton of GREAT Happy Hour Specials running, so we definitely took advantage of that :D 

I decided to take a break from prepping for my parent teacher conferences to write a quick post to share some ideas with you of how I conduct conferences. 

To this day, I still get a little nervous before each conference (some more than others) :P but once I get started, I'm fine. For those of you who are first year teachers, always remember that parents are probably just as nervous or even more nervous that you are to hear what you have to say. I always try to stick to 2 positives for every need area that I share. This helps parents to understand that we are here to help their child, love their child and see good in them; rather than as mean teachers who are picking on their child. 

About a week before conferences, I will send home a questionnaire to parents along with a conference sign up sheet.

This questionnaire helps me to get a better idea of some important points to discuss during conferences. It's also interesting to see what parents see as their child's areas of strengths and needs. 

I also send home a reminder to parents with their conference date and time and staple it to the questionnaire sheet.

This past summer, I used Vistaprint to create business cards that I use as conference reminders. Vistaprint has some great specials that they run quite often, you can score a ton of freebies with some of their promos. Groupon also offers deals on Vistaprint as well. Check out this post for more ideas of how to use Vistaprint in the classroom. 

When you order the business cards you get a box full of cards. I will probably be using these cards for the next couple years (I believe you get 250 cards in one order). 

I also prep for each individual conference by filling out sheets like this for each student. 

I use this sheet as a guide to conduct each conference. I like to pull student work samples that support my strength and needs column. Parents love to see work their child does in school, especially writing and cute projects! It's always important to pull data and student work samples to support anything that you are sharing as a need the child needs to work on. 

By the time I've covered all the major talking points on this sheet, my conference time is usually up. At the end, I like to have parents take the time to write a positive and encouraging note to their child. 

At the ending of conferences, I like to send these out to students :) They love reading their notes from their parents. Many of them will hold on to it for the entire school year! That's pretty impressive considering that some of them manage to conveniently lose their homework and in class assignments all the time.

Some teachers like to give a little THank You gift to parents. Here are some cute ideas found on Pinterest. 

If you can't read the little leaf it says: An Apple for the teacher is really nothing new. Except when you remember Parents are teachers too!

This one cracked me up! Some of these pins were uploaded by a user, so I just linked back to the original pin I found this image from :) Click each picture to go back to the link. 

Thanks for stopping by! If you're interested in any of the forms that I use for conferences, check out my Parent Teacher Conference Pack in my TPT Store. I'll have it on Sale until the 31st, when my PT Conferences end :) 

Good luck with conferences!

Productive Day and the Breakdown of Conferences!

Wow..Since I'm all finished with my conferences and was done with school at 1:00, I had an EXTREMELY productive day! It feels so good to actually get things done..I haven't had much time do much of anything else since conferences have been my main focus. I went shopping at our school book fair, came home and cleaned the house!! My oh my did my poor little apartment need it!! Do any of you live in apartments?? I can't wait to move into a house and have more space. My poor living room (and poor and kind boyfriend who is so understandable and patient) was a COMPLETE MESS with stacks of paper here and stacks of paper there. My living room is pretty much my office with storage bins and shelves all over the place with school stuff. I had student work everywhere as I was searching for all the student evidence I needed and going through things that needed to be graded. So I got a chance to sort through the piles, and now I can actually see the floors and couch :D I also did a load of laundry and had time to take a NAp. I feel so nice and refreshed!!

Alright, so I did want to share how I go through conferences. I begin by sending home a pre conference form to parents so that I can see how they feel their child is doing as well as address any concerns they may be having. This form is extremely helpful in guiding my timeline for each of my conferences. I can be sure to address any concerns or issues parents are having and make the most of our 20 minutes together.

Next, I schedule all of my conferences then send home notifications to each parent. Each year its so helpful because I just pull out all of my conference files, print them and send them home. I have included a word document of my conference schedule so that you can change it to your needs (dates, times, and add in student names). I have also included PDF files of scheduling notes to send home to kids.

I also have notes to send home just in case parents miss a conference. There is an option for parents to either email or give you a call to reschedule.

While preparing for conferences, I use a template to guide my conferences that highlight the strengths and needs of each student in reading, writing, math, and and overall class behavior and work ethic. At the bottom of the sheet I add in any other things/reminders of things to address during conference. I have included a pdf file in my packet as well as a word document, just in case you prefer to type out your notes.

Please keep in mind that my word documents are plain and have no cute clipart. If you prefer to use the pdf file of my notes to go home, yes you will have cute clipart. I could not include it into my word documents because of the terms of use on Scrappin Doodles. :)

I've also included a cute sign to put on your door while meeting with families.

Last but not least, I created some notes to finish conferences off by having parents write a positive note to their child. I don't think that parents really take as much time as they should to really tell their child how proud they are of them and what a good job they do every day in school. These notes should be collected and once ALL of your conferences are done, hand them out to each child. Unfortunately, I thought up of this idea AFTER all my conferences were done..but I do think this will be such a sweet ending :)

All of these conference items are available in my Parent Teacher Conference Bundle at my TPT Store :)

End of P/T Conferences and a New Conference Kit!

Phewww!! I'm winding down from a week and a half long of Parent Teacher conferences. Our official day that we are done is actually this coming Friday, but tomorrow will be my last two conferences. YAY! I will be able to finish school at 1:00 and have some time to work on some much neglected work. I'm not sure if it's only me..but since I've been working on conference things I have fallen so far behind in GRADING. We've just started multiplication and division and I have a TON of worksheets to look through :( The days have been FLYING by because we finish school at 1:00 and meet with parents until 2:50. I still have two conferences left tomorrow but I can honestly say that I LOVE all of my parents and the families that my kids come from. I have the most supportive and wonderful parents a teacher could ask for :)
This year, I think my conferences have went smoother than ever. Over the past three years, I have worked on many different things to use during parent teacher conference times. I have them all on different files here and there but would like to compile them all into one document to help some of you out when it comes time to conferences. I can honestly say that I think I've finally got all of my conference things DOWN! It was so easy this year since I had all my files (some took longer than others to locate) and could just print and reuse. Probably over the weekend, I"ll be putting them all together and will be ready to share with anyone who could use it :)
SO..we'll see who is actually reading this. For those of you who are still actually following me and reading my few posts, leave me a comment, your e-mail address and I will send you my conference file for FREE. I do ask one thing though, that you look it over and give me some feedback. Please only respond if you are willing to let me honestly know what you think about this product. I'll send it to the first three people who comment me with their emails.
Thank you for sticking with me (if anyone even is ) :P