The New Normal...Or Not!

I recently went to the supply closet to pick up a package of pencils for our high stakes state testing, which is next week.  Yes, in their infinite wisdom, my state department of education decided to test students at the beginning of October.  Guess they have never heard of summer learning loss!
Anyway, imagine my chagrin when I saw the packaging:

I guess even the pencil companies know the destiny of their product!
I refuse, however, to let this blog be about my beef with testing (a.k.a sucking the life out of my kids).  I categorically refuse to let high stakes testing and its evil twin benchmarking become the new normal.  I refuse to let mandatory test prep to put the damper on my students' spirit and fun, despite them being tested ad nauseum.
This week we have been reviewing figurative language.  To elicit some quality similes and metaphors, I showed some dazzling pictures of butterflies and caterpillars.  Students came up with one simile and one metaphor.  Then they met in groups to offer praises and deltas (the symbol for change).  At the end of the session, they choose one simile and one metaphor to represent the best of the group.  These bests were shown to the whole class who voted on the best of the best.  They came up with some very creative figurative language:
The caterpillar is like a gummy worm because he has bright colors.
The butterfly is a model with its beautiful features. 
The butterfly is like an Indian because its wings look like eyes with face paint.
The butterfly is an alien because it has so many eyes.
In Math, we are working on estimating and problem-solving.  As Professor Harold Hill from The Music Man said, "Think, men.  Think!"  I am hopeful that these two strategies will help steer students to the correct answers, even if they aren't exactly correct in their calculations.  
Yesterday we built arrays for multi-digit multiplication problems.  My pre-test revealed that most students had forgotten everything they learned about multiplying by multi-digit numbers, including making magnitude estimates.  Students are very familiar with building arrays for multiplication facts, however, so we built on that idea.  Yesterday they learned why we don't generally use array-building as a strategy for multiplying larger numbers.

Here two students show 25 X 35 = 875.  Many students were surprised at how big the arrays turned out to be.  This activity showed them visually what is going on when we multiply multi-digit numbers.