Cyber Sale

Well, Thanksgiving is over....three more weeks until winter break, but who's counting!

We have decided to join TPT in their Cyber Sale this Monday, December 2 and Tuesday, December 3.
We are offering 10% off all our products along with TPT's discount, Happy Shopping!

Check out our Gingerbread poems, both printed and cursive versions along with our December quilt square!

Gingerbread Poem

What is a Pilgrim?

This is the question I am asking my students. What constitutes a Pilgrim? I created this unit incorporating the book Molly's Pilgrim along with four other texts, which deal with the same theme of immigration. Each book takes coming to America from a different part of the world and delves into the fact that people emigrated to America for a better way of life. Whether it was for religious reasons as the Pilgrims or for security and safety

I broke Molly's Pilgrim into three sections and created comprehension questions for it as well as the other four books. I also created graphic organizers to compare and contrast the similarities as well as differences in the texts. I am also having my students create a Heritage doll using a clothespin, which will be a take home project. Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Literature Unit

Third Grade Goals

My goodness, it is already October, where does the time go? Today we have officially started our second nine weeks and with that I have my third grade students once again write out academic goals for the nine week period. I have them revisit their previous goals to see whether they were attained or whether that is still something that they are working towards. In doing this it puts some of the responsibility onto the student's shoulders as it is something they are working towards.

These goal statements are in our TPT store for FREE. I have included one for each of the nine week periods in both girl and boy versions.Third Grade Goals

Halloween Poem Book

This is a project that my children did in elementary school, so I applaud the teacher I was working with at the time for the great idea. It consists of 26 pages, one page for each alphabet letter. The poem goes through the alphabet talking about Halloween type things. " A is for attic with spooky old things. B is for bats with black flapping wings." It continues like this through the alphabet. Initially I  wrote out the poem on chart paper, one letter a day. The students would copy it and then draw a picture which describes what the poem is saying.

As the years have progressed and I went from first grade to third, I changed it up a bit by creating a cursive version. The premise is the same, however I wrote the day's entry in cursive, for the students to copy. Even as third graders, they love this project. Now we have created a computer version of the poem, with pages for each letter and as well as a power point poem, so if you don't 

have time to re-create it on chart paper, you could show one slide a day for the students to copy. 

We have created two different files, one for primary grades which is titled Halloween Poem Book, and the third grade cursive version is titled, Cursive Halloween Poem Book. The file consists of the alphabet pages, power point poem, a black and while version of the cover page to make a book for each student. We start this project at the end of September, so we can get through all 26 letters of the alphabet by Halloween.

We printed our cover pages on orange copy paper, but the rest of the pages we printed front to back, which used less paper. I hope your students enjoy this project as much as ours do.

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                           
                         

Word of the Day

Well the school year has set off like a bang and I'm convinced that there must be some sort of protection mechanism in a teacher's brain where we forget how long the first month of school truly is. For morning work I have been using something called Word of the Day. I got this idea from Made for First Grade a few years ago and then adapted it so that it would co-inside with whatever unit I was teaching. I also use the word of the day as a classroom management tool (something I saw on the teacher channel). I teach my students that when I am giving directions they are expected to stay in one place and listen to the complete direction. I am sure you have noticed that children, especially young ones are already on the move before you even finish the directions. This means that most likely the child has either missed all of the directions or at least a good portion of it. By having the students wait for the word of the day it means that he or she is forced to pay attention until all of the directions have been given. The word is then their cue to move forward and complete the directions. If you are interested in trying this in your classroom and you are planning a Frog and Toad unit (or a Frog Life Cycle unit) then you need to check out my Frog and Toad word of the day worksheets and posters! Check out the picture below for a sneak peak.

30 Book Challenge / Readers Workshop Journal

Well, We have successfully made it through one full week of school! I began among other things my 30 Book Challenge  and Readers Workshop Journals.

In order to become a better reader, you have to read, read and read! I read the book, The Book Whisperer, by Donalyn Miller  a couple of years ago and absolutely loved her philosophies. 

  She instigated a reading program in her classroom of sixth graders, which I liked and modified her program to fit my third graders and challenge them. Like a lot of teachers, I previously had the students reading at home and bringing in a signed reading log, however even with what I was implementing in class I didn’t see much improvement in fluency/comprehension. I decided to completely revamp my Reading program. I created time within my schedule where the students could read daily for 20-30 minutes. 

The first year I required 25 books of different genres to be read within the year. The challenge was easily met so the next year I increased it to 28 books. Again the challenge was met. This year I have increased the number of books to 30 and added an Accelerated Reading test to them as well.

Here is how the program works. I have a recording sheet for each student. Each of the recording sheets have the genres and the number of books the students are required to read within that genre. This is all done in class, not at home.

The second part of this program is a writing component, which is called the Reader’s Workshop Journal, which again is a variation of Donalyn Millers program. Each student has a spiral notebook, and weekly they are required to write me a letter regarding what they are reading. I like the letter writing format, because it not only reinforces those letter writing skills, but allows me to write them back in letter format, which I do weekly.

          The letter consists of what they are reading at the moment. They may be just finishing a book, or in the middle of a book or just a few pages in, I don’t want a book summary, that’s easy, I want their feelings about what they are reading. 

         I want to know about the characters, do they relate to the characters, is there a conflict in the story, how do you feel about what you are reading, are you happy, sad, then tell me why?

This is an entry from one of my students.
click the link to take you to our TPT store to view the product


I have used this system for the past few years and it has been very successful in increasing both comprehension and fluency. Check it out and see what you think!


 

Starting Small Groups with a Freebie!

As every school year begins comes the challenge of not only grouping your new students into the correct group academically but also teaching them the rules and expectations of these groups. I have used the rule "Ask Three Before Me" for a while but wanted a cute sign that matched the rest of my classroom decor. If you think that this rule could help you in managing your small group or just want to update your signage then be sure to snag the super cute freebie from our TPT store.