On Saturday I went to CVS and made Christmas cards to mail to all the families. I used these as a way to say "Merry Christmas" and as thank you cards for the Christmas gifts the parents gave me. Here's how they turned out:
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Christmas Party and Cards
On our last day of school (Friday - I'm a little behind in posts but after this one I'll be caught up!) we had our class Christmas party. It was just something small and simple but it was very nice! We decorated sugar cookies and ate them. Then we did a Secret Santa gift exchange. At the end we had a few minutes left before parent pick up began and so we played Four Corners - a third grade favorite. :-) It was a fun last day together before the break!
On Saturday I went to CVS and made Christmas cards to mail to all the families. I used these as a way to say "Merry Christmas" and as thank you cards for the Christmas gifts the parents gave me. Here's how they turned out:
On Saturday I went to CVS and made Christmas cards to mail to all the families. I used these as a way to say "Merry Christmas" and as thank you cards for the Christmas gifts the parents gave me. Here's how they turned out:
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
The Liebster Blog Award
A big thank you to Rebecca at The Teacher's Chatterbox and Bonnie at Living a Wonderful Life for giving me the Liebster Award! They both have great blogs - so please check them out. :-)
Bonnie explained the award on her blog like this:
"The goal of the award is to spotlight up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers. The rules are:
1. Copy and paste the award on your blog
2. Thank the giver and link back to them
3. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
4. Hope that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers"
Here are my top 5 picks!
1. Megan from Blackboard and Beyond - I love her blog! I found out about Xtra Math through her.
2. Emily from Fun-tastic First Grade had some great beginning of the year posts about organization and classroom jobs.
3. Jennifer from Lifelong Learning just had a wonderful post about a Christmas book countdown that she does with her family.
4. The Life of a First Year Teacher is a blog of another teacher who is just beginning her teaching career.
5. And last, but not least, IAmNan from Third Grade's a Charm has a very cute blog. I loved reading about their Oreo project!
Those are my top 5 up-and-coming blog picks! Make sure you check them out and follow them for wonderful ideas. :-)
Monday, December 19, 2011
Xtra Math
Thanks to Megan at Blackboard and Beyond for sharing about Xtra Math! What a fabulous website to help students practice their math facts! I'm loving it. Hopefully the link connected to the image below works. If not, you can find the website by simply typing in xtramath.org
After seeing Megan's post I looked into Xtra Math and quickly signed my class up for it. We have began multiplication fact drills and this is a great way for my students to have a bit of extra practice. Plus, what kid doesn't like doing something on the computer? :-)
At fist I thought my students would just do it at home as we do not have any student computers available in the classroom. But, then I decided that we do still have a computer in the classroom, so why not let the kids use it? So this past week I had my students take turns coming up to sit at my desk to do Xtra Math on my computer. They loved it and I was happy for the extra math practice they were getting in!
There are several features I really like about Xtra Math. One, the way it gives you a report on each student's usage and progress. Two, the fact that it is easy to adjust the individual level of the program for each student. Three, that it celebrates success through providing a certificate for when a student finishes a level. Four, it is fun, easy, and a great learning tool for quick math fact recall. Great program!
After seeing Megan's post I looked into Xtra Math and quickly signed my class up for it. We have began multiplication fact drills and this is a great way for my students to have a bit of extra practice. Plus, what kid doesn't like doing something on the computer? :-)
At fist I thought my students would just do it at home as we do not have any student computers available in the classroom. But, then I decided that we do still have a computer in the classroom, so why not let the kids use it? So this past week I had my students take turns coming up to sit at my desk to do Xtra Math on my computer. They loved it and I was happy for the extra math practice they were getting in!
There are several features I really like about Xtra Math. One, the way it gives you a report on each student's usage and progress. Two, the fact that it is easy to adjust the individual level of the program for each student. Three, that it celebrates success through providing a certificate for when a student finishes a level. Four, it is fun, easy, and a great learning tool for quick math fact recall. Great program!
Cards for Vietnam Memorial
I found out about an opportunity to have my students make Christmas cards/ornaments for the Vietnam Memorial Christmas Tree in D.C. through another teaching blog. This was such a wonderful opportunity to thank our veterans that I couldn't resist having my students do it.
Here is the link to the official website for the Tree in D.C.: http://www.vvmf.org/811
A couple of my students have family members who are veterans so they made their ornaments specifically in honor of their family member. It was very sweet to see them. Here is a picture of our finished ornaments:
Here is the link to the official website for the Tree in D.C.: http://www.vvmf.org/811
A couple of my students have family members who are veterans so they made their ornaments specifically in honor of their family member. It was very sweet to see them. Here is a picture of our finished ornaments:
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Writing Books
Despite how this late night blog entry might sound, I love writing and I love teaching how to write as well. I feel as if this is truly something I know 100% what I am doing. I don't say this to sound arrogant, I say it because it is a nice feeling to feel like that when all the other subjects I am learning the curriculum and how to best teach my group of students. But I feel like with writing, we have got it down!
We began writing Christmas stories last week. Their guidelines: it has to do with Christmas. Some chose to write non-fiction personal stories, others chose to create a fiction story. Here are the steps we have in my class for writing our three paragraph stories:
Step One: On a large index card write a topic on the front and as many details as you can about it on the back.
Step Two: Divide your details into three parts on three small index cards. These become your beginning, middle, and end.
Step Three: Write a rough draft. Put your details into sentences and viola you have a paragraph!
Step Four: Edit your draft with the teacher.
Step Five: Make your corrections.
Step Six: Peer Edit
Step Seven: Write it neatly with no mistakes in your writing notebook.
Step Eight: Time to publish in book form!
This system works really well for us. We had a good 30-45 minutes of quiet diligent work time where my students were writing up a storm today! It was so nice. At the beginning of the work time I took a poll to see where everyone was at. I then wrote each student's number on the board with a key word to tell us where they were in the writing process. As the process progressed and they each got on different stages based on how fast they worked they would change what it said next to their number so they knew and I knew where we were at. For the board's sake we simply called the steps "index cards", "rough draft", "edit", "peer edit", "publish 1", and "publish 2".
Most everyone is on "Publishing 2" now where we are writing our paragraphs on white computer paper - one paragraph per page. They will then draw illustrations, make a cover, and a back cover. We will assemble them using page protectors and proudly display them in our classroom library.
Here is a picture of two students working on peer editing:
We began writing Christmas stories last week. Their guidelines: it has to do with Christmas. Some chose to write non-fiction personal stories, others chose to create a fiction story. Here are the steps we have in my class for writing our three paragraph stories:
Step One: On a large index card write a topic on the front and as many details as you can about it on the back.
Step Two: Divide your details into three parts on three small index cards. These become your beginning, middle, and end.
Step Three: Write a rough draft. Put your details into sentences and viola you have a paragraph!
Step Four: Edit your draft with the teacher.
Step Five: Make your corrections.
Step Six: Peer Edit
Step Seven: Write it neatly with no mistakes in your writing notebook.
Step Eight: Time to publish in book form!
This system works really well for us. We had a good 30-45 minutes of quiet diligent work time where my students were writing up a storm today! It was so nice. At the beginning of the work time I took a poll to see where everyone was at. I then wrote each student's number on the board with a key word to tell us where they were in the writing process. As the process progressed and they each got on different stages based on how fast they worked they would change what it said next to their number so they knew and I knew where we were at. For the board's sake we simply called the steps "index cards", "rough draft", "edit", "peer edit", "publish 1", and "publish 2".
Most everyone is on "Publishing 2" now where we are writing our paragraphs on white computer paper - one paragraph per page. They will then draw illustrations, make a cover, and a back cover. We will assemble them using page protectors and proudly display them in our classroom library.
Here is a picture of two students working on peer editing:
Gingerbread Man Hunt
Thanks to the teacher of our Alabama pen pals we went on a Gingerbread Man scavenger hunt around the school! I put up clues around the school during their lunch time. Then after lunch we came back and had our normal read aloud time, but since we were done with Narnia I read "The Gingerbread Man". My kids loved this cute little picture book - I was slightly surprised. At the end of the book there was a clue that just happened to be stuck there. I read it all surprised like and asked "Should we follow it??" Of course we did...The kids had a lot of fun with it!
At the end of the hunt, we came back to our classroom for the last clue and found the Gingerbread man stuck in our closet with some gingerbread man cookies and coloring sheets. So we ate the cookies and colored while listening to Christmas music and the kids continued to wonder how on earth I had the time to put the clues around campus... ;-)
At the end of the hunt, we came back to our classroom for the last clue and found the Gingerbread man stuck in our closet with some gingerbread man cookies and coloring sheets. So we ate the cookies and colored while listening to Christmas music and the kids continued to wonder how on earth I had the time to put the clues around campus... ;-)
Christmas Decorations
Here are our classroom decorations for Christmas!
A manger scene made by my students. Each student had a piece to make for it. My favorite (besides Joseph being a lot bigger than Mary) is the shepherd ninja on the right. :-)
Our backpack area:
A paper chain and snowflakes hanging from the ceiling:
Snowflakes hanging form the ceiling made by my students. It is fun to be in the reading corner with 'snow' above us.
Ornaments hanging from the ceiling:
A manger scene made by my students. Each student had a piece to make for it. My favorite (besides Joseph being a lot bigger than Mary) is the shepherd ninja on the right. :-)
Our backpack area:
A paper chain and snowflakes hanging from the ceiling:
Snowflakes hanging form the ceiling made by my students. It is fun to be in the reading corner with 'snow' above us.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Reading in 3rd Grade
One day after school, I noticed that one of my students had left our bear in the reading corner like this and I couldn't resist taking its picture:
Speaking of our reading corner, we have read several great read-aloud books this year!
We started with "Trumpet of the Swan." My students LOVED it so much.
We then moved into the Chronicles of Narnia with "The Magician's Nephew" first and we just finished "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." They loved these as well, especially since they could each find a copy of the books to follow along with. We had some really great discussions about C.S. Lewis' parallels between the characters in the books and Christ and us. I got really excited about one of them one day (I think it was the Stone Table splitting in two part) and one of my students just smiled and said, "You're funny." I smiled back and said, "But it is so neat!" He agreed with me as did the rest of my class.
Today we started "The Best Christmas Pagent Ever" - my kids and I were laughing so hard during it! Such a fun book.
What books do you read to your third grade classes?
Nice Words
I have been meaning to update my blog the past two weeks, but things spun crazily fast after Thanksgiving break and so I have not gotten around to it. So begins my first post to "catch up" on what has been happening with my class over the past two weeks.
I was looking at blogs one day (not too surprising :-) ) and stumbled upon this great activity to do with kids to help them understand the power of words. My class was being mean to each other and so I stopped class and did it. It worked so well! For an entire week my students were only being nice to one another and I did not have one conflict to solve. It was amazing.
I had my students take a piece of white paper and crumple it up into a ball. They had so much fun doing this! We were laughing and having a good time with it. I told them not to rip it though. Then I had them unfold the paper without ripping it. Of course our papers were all wrinkled now. I then told them to apologize to the paper. They looked at me with that "you are crazy" look. But I told them, it was fun for us to crumple the paper but the poor paper was really hurt by it! They apologized to their paper trying to hold back giggles. I asked them, did your apology take away the wrinkles? "No..." Of course it didn't. The same is true with people. We are all nice and pretty looking "pieces of paper" but when people come and tease us, call us names, tattle, hit us, take our things, etc. we become wrinkled by it all. The mean people might apologize but it still doesn't take away their hurts just like the paper didn't loose it's wrinkles.
I of course was rather dramatic when saying all this by picking up a new piece of paper and crumpling it a little bit each time I mentioned something mean that had happened in our class. It hit home with my kids. What was a happy laughing fun paper crumpling class suddenly became very solemn and you could see the Lord working in their hearts. One students said, "You're making me feel bad." Well...that is a good thing, dear. It means you understand and God is speaking to you.
We kept our crumpled papers on our desk throughout the week and one was up on the white board too. It was a great week of no-conflicts and only students being nice to one another. :-)
I was looking at blogs one day (not too surprising :-) ) and stumbled upon this great activity to do with kids to help them understand the power of words. My class was being mean to each other and so I stopped class and did it. It worked so well! For an entire week my students were only being nice to one another and I did not have one conflict to solve. It was amazing.
I had my students take a piece of white paper and crumple it up into a ball. They had so much fun doing this! We were laughing and having a good time with it. I told them not to rip it though. Then I had them unfold the paper without ripping it. Of course our papers were all wrinkled now. I then told them to apologize to the paper. They looked at me with that "you are crazy" look. But I told them, it was fun for us to crumple the paper but the poor paper was really hurt by it! They apologized to their paper trying to hold back giggles. I asked them, did your apology take away the wrinkles? "No..." Of course it didn't. The same is true with people. We are all nice and pretty looking "pieces of paper" but when people come and tease us, call us names, tattle, hit us, take our things, etc. we become wrinkled by it all. The mean people might apologize but it still doesn't take away their hurts just like the paper didn't loose it's wrinkles.
I of course was rather dramatic when saying all this by picking up a new piece of paper and crumpling it a little bit each time I mentioned something mean that had happened in our class. It hit home with my kids. What was a happy laughing fun paper crumpling class suddenly became very solemn and you could see the Lord working in their hearts. One students said, "You're making me feel bad." Well...that is a good thing, dear. It means you understand and God is speaking to you.
We kept our crumpled papers on our desk throughout the week and one was up on the white board too. It was a great week of no-conflicts and only students being nice to one another. :-)
Sunday, December 4, 2011
YES!!!
I am SO very happy right now. I just finished grading reading tests from Friday - usually my emotion is more depression after this, but today I am about ready to jump up and down and do a happy dance!
The lowest grade was a.....91 A-!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!! They all made A's! I am so excited. I can't wait to tell them tomorrow!
I will definitely continue to teach Reading how I taught it this past week. :-)
The lowest grade was a.....91 A-!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!! They all made A's! I am so excited. I can't wait to tell them tomorrow!
I will definitely continue to teach Reading how I taught it this past week. :-)
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