Wednesday, May 23, 2012

My Summer Bucket List

This idea was taken from this site:    http://www.miss-kindergarten.com/2012/04/my-summer-bucket-list.html

I loved it so much that I thought I would share it here.  Here are some pictures of my students projects.







 I got some colorful card stock for them to cut their buckets and shovels out of.  I like the ones that are the same pattern for the bucket and shovel the best.  In the future I may just have all students do that.  They liked getting the choice of what paper they got to use.  When you lift the flap up, there are 4 different pages of things they want to do this summer - people they want to play with, things they want to learn, places they want to visit, people they want to meet, etc.  It was a good opportunity for them to practice their best 3rd grade writing. 

Monday, May 21, 2012

Describe Me - An end of the Year Activity

 Describe Me Wordle Example


As we are nearing the end of the year, I am thinking about things I can do that will help them to remember our year and have a positive impression.  I found an idea out there that I have tweeked a little.  I created a sheet for each student.  At the top it says "Describe Me".  We will pass them around the room and they will list 1-2 nice adjectives about each student in the classroom.  We will then take our personal sheets with our adjectives to the computer lab and they will go to www.wordle.com   They will each type in their own words, thus creating a wordle.   They will print them and put them into an end of the year binder we are creating of things we have done this year (mostly in the last couple of months because I just thought of it!)  I will be more on top of it next year and they will have a more thorough portfolio! 

Friday, May 18, 2012

Story Elements Sandwich


Here is something that the other 3rd Grade teacher in my building found online and shared with me.  She made it her own by copying it onto lined colored paper to match the type of food it was representing.  Here is what each one was:

Top Bun:  Title, Author, and Illustrator
Lettuce: Setting
Cheese: Plot
Onion: Conflict
Tomato: Theme
Meat: Characters and Character Traits
Bottom Bun: Opinion of the story

I was very pleased with how this turned out.  She took the week to do a couple each day.  I did it on a Friday morning.  It took a good portion of the day but it was nice to have something more laid back on a WARM friday close to the end of the year!  So either way works, depending on you. 

This might be something that I have a more advanced group do on a regular basis - or something similar.

We all Scream For Ice Cream! - and Learning our Multiplication Facts

I know many of you have heard of the Banana Split Math incentive.  I made it more visual for my students and made a chart.  If I would have had more time and/or space I may have gotten more creative on a bulletin board with cut outs of all the toppings, but oh well, something for next year maybe.  One thing that I will remember to do next year is to have the 9's facts closer to the bottom.  I did 0, 1, 10, 5, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.  As they pass each number, a special message appears "GIVE ME MY SPLIT".  For passing each one they earn the following:

0 - spoon
1 - bowl
10 - 1 scoop
5 - 2 scoop
2 - chocolate syrup
3 - caramel syrup
4 - banana
6 - crushed oreo
7 - sprinkles
8 - whip cream
9 - cherries
11 - m & m's
12 - snickers

I know some people are against using food, but I am also incorporating it in with our end of the year party.  Celebrations every now and then are okay.  I think that teaching them good habits, such as treats every now and then are okay is a good thing for them to learn or working hard to reach a goal and then celebrating that, is okay!



Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Classroom Management Tool - Class Dojo

Here is something my husband (a 6th Grade teacher) and I came across this year.  It has been HUGE in helping to maintain behavior, even now as we near the end of the school year.  It is so simple to set up your class.  Just go to www.classdojo.com It walks you right through all the instructions to set up.  I keep it up all day (only when I don't need my ENO board).  It is especially useful during small group when I can not be with all the students.  The nice thing about it, is that I can use my IPHONE to give or take points.  I don't have to be up at the board to do that.  You could also use IPODS or IPADS to do this as well.

THere is also a feature where it would e-mail you weekly reports.  This helps when you are trying to track behavior for those borderline students or doing tracking for a potential special ed student.  I hope you enjoy this as much as I have!!

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Planet Flip Book

We have a push-in type model at our school.  The majority of our social and science information is read during our reading block/guided reading/etc time.  During my literacy block, students were reading books at their level on our solar system.  They became experts at one specific thing about the solar system.  They then were able to teach their classmates about it.  As each student was sharing their 3-5 facts, the other students worked on good listening and notetaking skills, writing the information in the flip book.

To make the flip book.  Take 5 sheets of 8 1/2 by 11 paper.  Layer it about a thumb length away from each other.  Fold it over so that the bottom of the top flap is about a thumb length from the top sheet of the bottom layer.  Staple the top to keep it all together.  I find the picture off the internet for the students to glue on top.  You could also have them draw the picture of the solar system.

See other posts on my blog of other activities we did to cement our learning of the solar system.

How to Blow a Bubble Expository Writing

Yet another idea I have done that was taken from pintrist.  The students had a blast with this.  There are a couple things that I will do differently next year.  First of all, get different balloons - I don't like the way they come to a point at the end.  I was thinking water balloons might work well, although they are more difficult to blow up.  Secondly, I want to have a few different hair templates.  They really tried, and it looks okay, but I think it would look more polished if they had a template to cut out. The last thing I would do differently is not use the paper plate as the directions had stated but try to find some peach colored paper.  I think that would look a little more aesthetic as well.

Idea taken from:   lessonplansos.blogspot.com

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Toilet Paper Planet Activity

Over the last couple of weeks, my class has been studying the planets.  We read leveled readers on the Sun, Moon, and Planets.  Students created a flip book to compile their information (picture to be posted soon).  After discussing which planets were closest to the sun, we took a walk to the gym.  I gave pairs of students a card, a ball, and toilet paper.  The card had the name of the planet, the distance from the sun, and the amount of toilet paper squares that represented the distance from the sun.  The ball represented the size of the planet.  They were to count the number of toilet paper squares that were on their card.  Then they worked together to line their toilet paper up the closest to the sun to the furthest.  They placed the ball (or "planet") at the end of the length of toilet paper.



Word Work

My students did not so great on this weeks spelling pretest.  So I decided they needed more deliberate work in their Word Work this week. I found some good resource ideas online for word work.  I came up with three stations for them.  BOGGLE, SCRABBLE, and this one, MAGNETIZING WORD WORK.  If you want the Boggle information, go to  http://mrsrojasteaches.blogspot.com/  For scrabble, I printed off scrabble word sheets found on  http://3rdgradesahoot.blogspot.com/ and then I printed off scrabble letter tiles from  http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/scramble_alphabet.html 



Since I am on the topic of Spelling/Vocabulary Word Work, I thought it appropriate to touch on something that has really helped improve my 3rd grade spelling test scores.  Each day we spend 3-5 minutes chunking and spelling our spelling words.  I have the students stand and get their arms ready.  Chorally, we say the word, chunk the word (using our arms to chunk out the different parts), then we spell the word (on our arms as well).  During this process they are seeing the words on the board (visual), saying and spelling it (auditory), and chunking it on their arms (kinesthetic).

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Phases of the Moon

I got this idea off of pintrest.  The students had a blast with it.  It was a great end of the day activity.  The idea I took from pintrest had the students gluing the oreos onto a paper plate.  I found that I would be handing out a TON of Oreos.  So I gave them 4 and had them attempt to make every phase of the moon and then draw it onto the plate with a sharpie.  This seemed to work well but they still had the fun of trying to create (and eat) with Oreos.  Sorry the picture is upside down - got to figure out some kinks!!  :)

First BLog

We are winding down the year, so it is funny that I feel compelled to start a blog now.  I have been so inspired by some of the great educational blogs out there, that I want to join in!  Most of the things I do are "stolen" or "inspired" through pintrest and other online blogs.  I hope to add to that as I become a more seasoned teacher.  I am in my 3rd year of teaching, although I have never taught the same grade for more than a year.  So I feel new every year.  I am finally in a position where I think I will stay for awhile, so I am eager to "publish" the happenings/learning/activities that we do in our class.  I have a long way to go, but I am loving every step of the journey.  Have a great last month of your year!!