Made It Monday-May Edition

Holy cow!  I can't believe it is time to link up with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics for another Made It Monday!  If you haven't checked out what all the hubub is all about, you need to...it's just that great!

As my fourthies and I are becoming more familiar with CCSS, we are also finding lots of ways that CCSS and Smarter Balance are different than our current state tests.  The "ante has been upped" and questions are certainly a skosh more robust than what we are used to.

Case in point:  questions involving area and perimeter.  Gone are the days when the diagram gives you the measurements on a quadrilateral.  The questions contain more steps and require students to dig a bit deeper.

In trying to prepare my kiddos for the rigor and reach higher than what is asked, because that's really what I'm aiming for...giving my students much more that what they need and really encouraging them to think beyond...I put together today's Made It.

I'm living the dream...truly.  (No sarcasm here.  I love what I do and I love my kids.)

So enter the "Pop Your Top" card decks.  I'm giving you access to the file of four pages with teacher notes here.

I bought these great tin coasters at Target in the Dollar Spot for $3.00.  They were a little spendy, but so stinkin' cute that I walked away with 6 packs of them!  They had "classroom learning center" written all over them!  Of course, when I opened them at home, they had this written on the inside:

While I do love the sentiment, these do not make for wonderful center tools...unless you alter them a bit.  Here's my take on them:

You could also create a small deck (think Spot It) and use them as flat disks or back them up on cardboard coasters in order to better reinforce the cards.  Lamination in this is instance is, of course, a must.  I used the great tin coasters that look like ginormous bottle caps.

I left the activities open a bit for teachers to use as they see fit.  I totally envision either earning the cards by completing them correctly or even a match it game for your advanced learners.  I have this 24-card deck set up to be played either way or...better yet...come up with your own version!  (There are 12 pairs with identical answer/responses that could be matched up!)

The answers are embedded into the QR codes, so a reader is a must.  (Always looking for a technology hook...it satisfies my inner geek!)  I used qrstuff.com as a resource to make the codes.  It works really well!

So what are you waiting for?  Why not download this deck and get a move on!

Happy Monday!

Nikki