Looking Ahead...Christmas is around the corner!!

I am currently on maternity leave. My beautiful baby is 8 weeks old today!!  I am taking off until after Thanksgiving, so I have a couple weeks left. Some may say I am crazy to be thinking about school and planning, but I know I need to hit the ground running!  It will be a difficult transition. It's not my first, it's my forth, but it never gets easier!  And I have to be Thankful for the extended time I've gotten with Brynlee.

So on to school things...  There are two units I love doing during the month of December. The first is something I got from TPT. It uses the book Elf on the Shelf, although you could do this lesson without getting that book. You do need an elf of some sort though. The unit is called "Christmas Around the World with Elf", and it was created by Dancing in Our Teacher Shoes, found on TPT. This unit takes a look at traditions around the world, that students record data and report back to Santa. I like to add an element of behavior management, telling the students the elf is reporting back to Santa as well about their behavior. Third graders are on the verge of being to old for that, but I find they like to still play along. :)

The second one I like to do uses the story, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". I created a writing and story elements unit that is very fun. We end with doing the readers theater version (also included in the unit). You can find the link to the unit below!

I hope you can find something useful!

Make it a great day!!
How the Grinch stole Christmas Writing and story elements unit

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. 

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! 

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!

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!!

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.