Target Finds!

Today I was doing my weekly grocery shopping at Target and began the trip as any other trip to Target must begin: with a trip through the Dollar Deals! I found quite a few little treasures today.

They had a bunch of classics for only a dollar!!! I picked up Peter Pan, Black Beauty, and The Wizard of Oz. I would have also gotten Alice in Wonderland, but there was another teacher right next to me and he grabbed all the copies of that one. Can't say I blame him!

I also found these cute little buckets for organization's sake:

Yay Target dollar deals!! :-)

Book Suggestions?

First off: Accreditation went really well! Our school got an outstanding report! Second: Field trip went wonderfully as well!! Every one had a great time. The parents were amazing. The students were well behaved. We all learned a lot. And I now have experience on an all day field trip!

Next week starts our testing. We will be taking the Terra Nova tests. I must say, I will be happy when this year is over because then I won't have quite as many "firsts". I'm getting a little tired of being new at things and am so ready to feel like I know what is coming and how to do it. I feel like I"m getting a handle of everything and then something else comes up - like testing! Experience will come in time though...I just have to be patient.

My main reason for posting is to ask all of you teachers out there for book recommendations for my class. I want to read more children's literature and have a good feel of it for book recommendations for students, stocking my classroom library, etc. But, there are so many children's books out there!

What are you recommendations for third grade books?

Accreditation and Field Trip Week

Spring break was wonderful but I was glad to be back at school last week. However, there was so much to do! The school is getting ready for Accreditation this coming week and there were many things to get ready for that. The accreditation team will be here Monday-Wednesday of this coming week. 

Also, on Friday we are having a field trip! We will be going to a Space and Science Center. Should be a blast! I am looking forward to it. The only major down side is that the other third grade teacher (the one with the wisdom and experience) is not going to be going on the field trip because her son is graduation from college that day; so a substitute will be going. That means, I'm the one "in charge" of the field trip. Wow....So the teacher who has only led one other two hour field trip in her life is now in charge of 12 parents and 31 students for the entire day. That should be fun! :-) I'm not too worried about it, but if I over think it then I get a little freaked out. So I just won't do that and pretend like I know what I'm doing (something I've learned to do this year a lot...hehe...) and have a good fun learning time with my students! Prayers would certainly not be turned down though. :-)

Hope y'all have a great fun week!

A Nightmare for an Elementary Teacher

I just had to share this ridiculous dream I had. No, it wasn't about testing, I didn't forget to show up for school, my lesson didn't go terribly wrong, and my kids did not go wild. It was worse....

The Very Hungry Caterpillar turned evil! He began attacking the city I was living in. He was huge and angry and eating everything and everybody. I have had many action packed dreams before and never considered them nightmares as I wasn't very scared in them. But this one was a nightmare and I was definitely scared. The only way my family, friends and I could escape from the V.H.C. was to get on this futuristic looking train as he would not eat the train. But then he began to try eating the train! If you've ever had an evil hungry caterpillar chasing you trying to eat you, you would understand this was scary stuff!

I have no idea where this dream came from. I haven't read the book in a long time. I did put away the stuffed animal I have in our classroom reading corner yesterday before leaving though....*shudder* I will never be able to look at the adorable Very Hungry Caterpillar the same way again - at least, I will never be able to look at it without laughing. :-)

Just One of Those Days

Today was a bit of a sad day....I had to send a student home for extremely disruptive behavior.  I'm afraid I lost my temper with him a little bit during the whole ordeal. Nothing was getting through to him and he couldn't control his anger. I won't go into details but it was heartbreaking and infuriating all at the same time.

One student was refusing to think well on his math test today. For example, he would come up to me and ask, "I don't know how to do this." The problem was "6 yd = _____ ft." I ask, "How many feet are in a yard?" "Uh...I don't know." "Yes you do. You wrote the answer to that question on your test already." Blank look reply. "So.. how many feet are in a yard?" "I don't know." "You already wrote that on your test! Look at number one..." "But no..I don't get it." "Get what? How many feet are in a yard? You have that answer correct. You have it on your test already." "I don't know." "Then I can't help you, honey." Grr......Oh my little darling...Please think for yourself. I will not do your thinking for you.

I also had students with tummy aches and headaches and coughs galore.

Three of my girls were complaining about sore tummies and legs. I finally figured out that their muscles were just sore from PE. Once they knew the reason they were fine and off running around during recess. Yes, I'm sure it hurts a lot if you can run on it...

During chapel, one of my students stands up and says, "MRS.[which I'm not a Mrs...but it's a habit for her] BENSCOTER, My tooth fell out!!" Thank you for shouting it out during the middle of chapel, dear. I walk her to the back, it is bleeding a lot, she gets a littler nervous about it, but we patch things up nicely and return to chapel.

I also had fun with my students though and we shared laughter frequently throughout the day. So I need to hold on to that aspect of the day over all the other stuff. :-)

Praise the Lord that we wake up each morning to a new day!

Something New...It's a...

VPU! I have a projector hanging from my classroom ceiling now! Very exciting times. :-) I had been using a portable VPU that the office had for teacher's to borrow. I was very thankful for the portable one but now I don't have to put it away at the end of every day! I just plug in my laptop in the morning and I'm all set for the day. Yay!

My students had some interesting questions about it as they have never seen one hung from a ceiling before.

Here are a few of my favorites:

- How did you get it up there?! (Thank you for your confidence in my technological abilities, but I'm not that good. I didn't get it "up there".)
- Did you have to use a ladder?? (If I had been the one to put it up, yes I would have used a ladder because I'm not very tall.)
- Is it going to fall?? (No, it is hung up there very tightly.)

And my favorite, asked as the principal is walking out of our room from fine tuning some details on it:
- Does the principal know you did it?! (First, I did not do it. Second, he was the one who ordered it and had it installed so, yes, he knows.)

Needless to say, it was the talk of the morning! Every time a student walked in the door their already present and highly distracted classmates would run up to them and point at the ceiling.

More power points and review games await!

Guest Speaker #3

I don't recall if I have mentioned our previous Guest Speakers on the blog or not, but I have discovered I love to invite guest speakers to my classroom! More specifically, I love using the school faculty/staff as guest speakers!

I've been using guest speakers as an added little something to our reading units.

For the first guest speaker, I asked our Reading Specialist to come in. She is an avid bird watcher and has such a great wealth of knowledge on birds in our area. This played nicely in to our unit on "City Wildlife."

Our second guest speaker was the Business Manager of the school. He came in for our unit on "Money" to discuss the money/business side of a school.

Our third and most recent guest speaker was our Librarian. She came in for our unit on "Storytelling." She gave the students a brief overview of the history of story telling (written and oral), told a story of her own, and then had the kids finish a story she began for them. It was a great time!

Our next reading unit is actually reading the book "Little Pilgrim's Progress." I might ask our Curriculum Director to speak on this topic from his experience as a missionary which would tie nicely in to the overall theme of Pilgrim's Progress. What I would also love to do is find someone with a full set of knight's armor to show the students what that looks like! That might be an overly ambitious task for my first year as I have yet to meet any knights, perhaps by next year I might run into one. ;-)