How to Challenge an "Above Level" Student?

Getting to know my 3rd graders this past week has been so much fun! I absolutely love my kids! I do need some help though with one of them:

One of my students is above grade level in everything. He finishes his work in record time and gets just about everything correct. He is very knowledgeable and likes to read our class encyclopedia or make origami when he is finished with his work. I want to give him something challenging to do. Making origami and reading the encyclopedia are great things, but this is school after all and I want this year to be a year that he is really challenged in school so that he can keep growing in his academic gifts.

Do you have any suggestions on how I can help him do this? I don't want to just give him complicated worksheets or what not. Those are great, but I want to do more than that. I thought about putting him to work on a big research project for him to work on for a couple of weeks. He likes learning new things and loves reading books. I'm thinking I could get him started on a research project. He chooses the topic from a list of topics I give him and then he could learn to find books in the library and how to research a topic. After researching I could then help guide him through the writing process and he could make a little "book" on his topic. Hmmm....what do you think? Any other ideas?? Please help! I really am at a loss right now.

Fish Net for Pictures

A little while back I posted about a fish net I hung up in my classroom to paper clip the students' art work onto. Several people commented on it and asked for a closer up picture. Below is a closer up picture of the fish net idea. I don't have one from my classroom yet, but this is it being used at a children's home in Kenya. While doing Bible studies there we used the fish net to paper clip their pictures and verses onto. It is such a nice easy idea that saves on tape, paint, and time!  Just hook a paper clip through the fish net, put the paper through the paper clip, and you're done!

I found my fish net at Party City. It was only about $9. Great buy in my opinion!

First Day of School!

What a day! It was fun and exhausting but I was so thankful for how it all seemed so normal at the same time. What a great sense of peace that comes from knowing you are doing what the Lord has told you to do. :)

Well, no earthquake happened! At least on my side of the country...I heard there was one on the eastern coast....

The morning started off with pretty much every parent crowded into the back of our room taking pictures, hovering, etc. So I gathered all the parents up and had them make a circle around their students. Together we prayed for the year and dedicated the students and the year of learning and growth to the Lord. It was a touching moment for me. After that I gently thanked the parents for coming and praying and wished them a good day! They left and our morning began.

It certainly had its crazy moments, but overall things went really well! We learned a lot of procedures today and actually got a bit of work done too. The BIG thing in 3rd grade is that this is the 1st year they can use big 3 ring binders. So we spent an hour today learning how to organize a binder. What an ordeal! I had no idea how difficult that would be...but it was fun at the same time to see their excitement in this new learning phase!

My kids are great - I will have my hands full but they are all so wonderful. I love them so much already! Several of them even came up and gave me big hugs before they left today! Talk about feeling loved. :) I'm looking forward to tomorrow and can't wait to see them again!

Finished Room, Open House and Back to School BBQ

Today I got to meet my third grade students and parents! How exciting!! And slightly overwhelming/intimidating, but overall, it was great! Here are a few of the questions I was asked today over and over:

- "Benscooooter? Is that right?" "Umm...no it is Benscoter with a long o...haha"
- "Where are you from?" "Alabama." "Whoa! But you don't sound like you are from there." "No...no I don't really..."
- "How long have you been here?" "3 weeks!" "Only 3 weeks! My goodness! And what do you think of the Bay Area so far?" "Well I haven't really seen the area much yet....I have only seen the school, my apartment, and Target"

And so on and so forth. :) It was fun meeting everyone! The parents are the most wonderful parents who are very supportive and seem very happy to have a new young teacher. My students are great and seem full of life! I will definitely have my hands full ;)

So, I am looking forward to tomorrow but I am also nervous about the first day! Ahh...but it will be good. Tonight we had a Back to School BBQ with K-12 and parents, etc. It was a great time. All the teachers helped out manning a booth (I was at the Bouncy House). It was exhausting but so much fun! I got to meet many more parents and just being around kids in general energized me and reminded me why I was doing what I was doing. Overall, a great but exhausting day! Who knows what will happen tomorrow. Let's just hope my first earthquake doesn't happen during the first day of school.....haha....But no, seriously...let's hope not. :)

Below are pictures of my finished classroom!

A Decorated Classroom!

Today I finally finished decorating my classroom! I still have organizing to do but the walls are completed :)

Here are some pictures:
The board area. My college's motto was Christ Above All. What a great reminder to see every day while I teach and hopefully to the kids as they learn more about their Creator.

 The discipline system of the school uses tallies or "reminders". HOW I ACT stands for:
- Hullabaloo, Out of order, Work not in, Intentional disobedience, Attitude lacking, Compassion lacking, Talking
- There are purple tallies for "plus" tallies to give to reward good behavior.

My door area: "Adventure's Out There!" Great quote from one of my favorite Pixar movies. (Can you name it??)

I got a computer today!! So excited! And I have TWO file cabinets. Not sure what to do with both of them...but I'm sure they will fill up quickly. The fish net will be used to paper clip student art work to. The Kenyan family I lived with for two months (at a children's home outside of Nairobi: homes4children.org) had a fishing net that they used for this purpose. Thought it would work well in the classroom. :)

 fANTastic work wall - yes, I have given into the elementary teacher pun world ;)

Cubbies stocked with books for each student!! YAY! This took a while today...going through all the textbooks, numbering them, etc. But I'm so happy it is done. :)

And under my board I put this as a good reminder of where to stay grounded in life and in all the subjects we study together.

Now, let the organizing begin!

Day Two of Classroom Work

Yesterday, I got quite a lot done! It was a fun day, I must say. :) Here are some pictures of the projects I began yesterday (today I finished several of them and got more stuff done but I forgot to take pictures at the end of the day....those will come tomorrow!)

Here is my reading corner! Pretty much done now, just add some pillows.

Class procedures area waiting for the posters that coming. And window decorations "Welcome Back!"

Welcome Third Grade Explorers!

Pencil area is coming along on Day Two (Today it looks much better :) )

My favorite part of yesterday! I conquered my fear of bulletin boards and put one up! This is at the front of the room with our calendar, birthdays, math facts ("Know your facts" at the top) and on the side wall I will soon have class jobs listed!

First Day of Work

Today was my first official day of work! We started the day with a brief meeting and then were able to work all afternoon in our rooms (praise the Lord!). My first task of the day was to transfer 3rd grade material (books, manipulatives, etc) from the old 3rd grade room to my room. This involved 3 trips with a cart full of heavy items dragging it across the parking lot and then stopping at the bottom of stairs to carry it up. Thankfully, the new 2nd grade teacher offered to help me and so it got done faster than I first thought it would. Here is the result:

I was also welcomed by finding that the bookshelf I requested has been delivered to my room!!! YAY! I immediately got to work on my reading corner. :) Here is what it looks like so far:

On Saturday when I came in to clean the cabinets I also decided to hang up my attendance tracker. Here is it so far without the cute little owls the students will move from "Home" to "School":

 I also hung up a welcome banner. More work to come on this but here it is so far:

 Oh and I started a writing corner (I think that is what it will turn out to be):

On top of this I also rid my room of all the spider webs and spiders that had taken up residence in it. There were a lot! But with a vacuum, a chair to climb on, and 2 hours later they were all gone!

A lot going on and it is all a little overwhelming but it is good! The other teachers and the administrators are so encouraging and supporting - such a blessing! Looking forward to see what I can get done tomorrow. :)

CAFE Help Please!

In my classroom I need to share one bulletin board and cabinet space with the church Sunday school that uses the room. I have a feeling they are going to leave up a big bulletin board wooden cover thing that says "Cleaver's Cafe" on it with three different spots where they write what the topic is for each week of Sunday school. I was wondering what am I going to do with that big sign clearly visible as soon as you walk in the door. (Below is a picture from the doorway)

I thought about hanging up curtains to cover it but then I remembered hearing a bunch of teacher bloggers talking about CAFE in their reading corners. And thought, hmmmm, why don't I turn the board into that during the school week. After all, I already have a huge sign for CAFE with no work on my part! I can put a moose or something above it (Cleaver sounds like a good name for a moose to me for some reason...) and make it into Cleaver's Reading CAFE during the school week.

However, CAFE is something new to me. I remember talking briefly about it in a college class, but would love some input from you teachers out there that use it. I can certainly google it (and have and will continue to do so) but input from other teachers is so wonderful to have. Please share any advice on CAFE. How do you use it in your rooms? I also remember seeing some posters for CAFE posted on someone's blog but I cannot remember who that was......Does anyone remember? Please help me figure out how to incorporate CAFE into my 3rd grade classroom!

Pictures of an Empty Classroom

I have been up to my classroom two times this week. The first time to drop stuff off during the unpacking the trailer process. The second one, I just sat on the floor with a pad of paper looking at the huge space I need to fill with welcoming signs for the students. What an overwhelming feeling! But, an exciting one non-the-less. Today I did A LOT of shopping at teacher stores and Target (thank you to all the teacher bloggers for opening my eyes to the dollar section of Target!). I now have some things to hang on the walls!

Here is my classroom! It has not been used as a classroom for the past 4/5 years so there are a lot of things that need to be added into it by the school. Also, since the school and the church share facilities my room has been and will continue to be used by a Sunday school group so I will need to share a few things with them. But, it is exciting to see my room!

Time to get to work decorating those blank walls!

In California!

I made it to California on Saturday. And was all moved in by Tuesday night!

I got to see my classroom on Monday and will definitely be posting pictures of the huge blank space I have to decorate. :) I went back up to school on Wednesday to start planning layout and decorations! Today I went to first aid training and got to meet a lot of staff there. And tonight is a New Parent Information meeting so I will go there and hopefully meet some of my 3rd grade parents!

My apartment-mate is also a first year teacher and new to Redwood Christian Schools as well! She will be teaching 4th grade. It will be really good to go through the first year living with someone who knows exactly what is going on.

As of right now I do not have internet in my apartment...that will be coming the 13th....I have been having teacher-blog withdrawals and cannot wait until I can get back into that! But for right now I will just make frequent trips to Starbucks and Panera to keep up to date on emails.