Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss, and Other Fun Things

Yesterday was Dr. Seuss' birthday and of course in elementary school, this is a HUGE. DEAL. I planned a bunch of activities around the book The Lorax (which is apparently a popular book among 3rd graders) and we got to celebrate all day long!

I would have used red to write Happy Birthday, but the red marker was all out of ink so black had to do :(

 When the kids came in I gave each of them a bookmark that said, "The more that you read, the more things you know. The more that you learn, the more places you go." -Dr. Seuss

I searched high and low to find the book The Lorax (which I thought I owned, and quickly realized that I did not). After checking every library in the area and hearing "Ma'am, tomorrow is Dr. Seuss birthday, every known book of his is checked out," about a thousand times, I found an option even better than the actual book...an e-book being read online! The guy had a British accent (which the kids got a kick out of) and there were tons of sound effects and the kids viewed it as more of a movie than a book being read. They even clapped at the end of it! The book I used can be found here.

After hearing the book, I had the kids fill out a story sequence sheet out of truffulas! After they wrote the events from the story, they glued them to a piece of construction paper and could draw in the actual trees. They love art, so they had fun with it :)

We have been learning about ecosystems in science, so I had the kids write about what they would have done to save the ecosystem from the story. I got some really good responses!

And isn't that worksheet just adorable? I found it from a K-5 unit study on the Lorax! The entire unit can be found here. And, the whole unit has a free downloadable so you can use whatever you want from it!

 

After lunch we had a grade level read-in where all the kids went into the pod area with pillows, blankets, and books, and got to celebrate Read Across America for 30 minutes as a grade level. It was a huge success, and the kids really were reading!

 

In math, we have been doing some work with patterns this week, so the kids got a sheet with 100 truffula trees on it, and they had to create different number and color patterns. They had lots of fun and it still tied into our book for the day :)

 

Elsewhere this week, we finished up arrays making a giant array chart as a class! The kids were amazed how big it was and cool it looked when we were done :)

 

 

 

 We have been preparing for the state assessment and the kids really struggle with understanding how to effectively retell a story. So, I created some re-telling sticks to help them along.

 

Each table group got a bucket of 10 sticks...

 

 

 ...and each stick had a different question on it such as, "What was the main idea? What happened in the beginning? If you could re-title the story anything, what would it be and why?" All of the questions correlated to re-telling, and after they had answered every question on the sticks, they had the correct information to re-tell the story! It was a HUGE success and the kids loved it :)

 

I have been struggling to find fun activities for the kids to practice their spelling words. Last week we did some rainbow spelling which was fun, and this week I found the template of a keyboard online, and ran with the idea to create an activity to practice spelling.

 

 

 I printed off the keyboard on colored cardstock and then put them into a clear sleeve. The kids used their dry erase markers to write the word AND type it out. They got a kick out of the keyboards, and they got to practice their words in two different ways!

Most of them were actually typing too...SUCCESS! They said the computer teacher would be proud they had practiced their key-stroking skills :)

It was another fun week in 3rd grade and I'm teaching full time now, so I feel like the "real teacher!" It's 3 days with the kids this week and then 1.5 days of meetings and teacher work day and then SPRING BREAK!!!! (I think I get just as excited as the kids do :))

Have a great rest of your weekend, get a lot rest and relaxation!
 

Happy Teaching!

Ms. Boyers

Pinterest Obsession Gone Good

Good Evening!

I have spent the past two hours filling out online applications...yuck, but absolutely necessary to achieving my end goal...A JOB! As always, Pinterest has pretty much taken over my life, but it has been in a good way :) We have done TONS of Pinterest activities in class this week and the kids have just been lovin' it! They are super engaged and it's more fun to teach too :)

Here's what we've been up to in Math: Fact Families and Arrays

The kids each made a Fact Family Flower and they got to choose whatever fact they wanted to for the center

 Our beautiful spring looking front board...if only it would be nice enough for these flowers to grow outside ;)

 Lots of practice with arrays, and you know a kid's best friend...FOOOD!! We used Cheez its to represent different arrrays!

 Lots of crumbs which could have resulted in a total mess, but I caught that one before it became a disaster ;) Cheez its on the desks only!

 I got these foam dice for Christmas and have yet to use them, so today was the day! The kids rolled the dice and had to draw the array. Whichever partner filled their sheet up first was the winner! :)

In Language Arts, we are quickly approaching the state assessments, so we are working on reviewing lots of concepts with the kids through their weekly reading story. This week we focused on a story called Alejandro's Gift (which was quite the hit since a kid in my class' name is Alejandro ;)

  The kids made paper plate Venn Diagrams and compared this story to another story we have read this year. They turned out so good!

 

Kids LOVE stations/centers! (Of course, this is way more work for the teacher) but it is worth it because the kids get so excited about them AND they get to review multiple skills at once. Today we did five different stations that focused on homophones, r-controlled vowels, prefixes/suffixes, and spelling practice. We had a great time!

Of course each station had a Directions card so the kids knew what the expectations were.

 

You can kind of get a glimpse of the kids sheets, but this was rainbow spelling!

 

 The homophones station which incorporated paint chips! The kids LOVED THESE!!!

 

 This was a game I created during my block classes and I actually got to use it in class today! Safari Adventure was quite the hit (even though half the groups argued the whole time about who's turn it was, who was cheating, etc.)

 

 Prefix and Suffix trees...they turned out so cute!

 

 Each student had to choose a prefix or suffix, write the meaning, and then write examples on the leaves of the tree.

 

 Yay, so cute! Thanks Pinterest :)

 

Tomorrow is Friday folks, yahooo!! Have an amazing JEANS day!

 

Happy Teaching!

 

Ms. Boyers 

Measurement Unit

WOW. It has been FOREVER since I have blogged. I vaguely remember thinking, "Oh gosh, it will be easy to blog during student teaching...how busy can I possibly be?" Boy oh boy was I ever wrong! I have been very overwhelmed (the good kind though). I am teaching everything but the last 45 minutes of the day so planning, organization,  and enthusiasm have been essential! I finished up my unit (yes, I have already taught my unit, hard to believe!) last week and I was amazed at how well it went. The kids absolutely loved the activities and numerous kids said, "It doesn't even feel like we are doing Math!" SUCCESS. I decided instead of making a boring update with all that I did, I would give some helpful hints of how to be successful for your unit (and I have TONS of pictures to share along the way!) So here goes nothing.

1. STAY ORGANIZED!!! This can be one of the hardest things to do during your unit since you have so many things going at once, but the more organized you can stay the better.

I kept a binder with clear pages for each day of my unit. I kept all of my original copies in here in case I needed to give them to another teacher or I wanted to reference them. I clear containers that I kept copies and activities for each day in. This kept me organized day to day and allowed me to know exactly where all my supplies were. This helped a ton!

Keep a folder with all your student assessments! You will need to analyze each formative assessment so have a place that you can keep all the student work so you can later refer to them in your unit when you are making assessment tables :)

 Have all of your supplies for the kids set out BEFORE the lesson begins! I had lots of hands on activities and had I not organized everything beforehand I would have died out of mass chaos going on in my classroom (there is still probably going to be mass chaos even if you are organized, so don't worry!)

2. Create engaging activities...even if it takes a little extra time! It's hard to take the time to create activities, but believe me, it pays off! The kids LOVE innovative ideas and activities that make learning fun! I spent LOTS of time creating my own worksheets and activities (with the obvious help of fellow bloggers and Pinterest :) but it was soooo worth it in the end! I was pleased with the learning that occurred and the kids had fun in the process :)

  Non-standard measurement with honey comb cereal and twizzlers. Kids love candy, so use it whenever you can!!

Measurement Olympics!! Kinesthetic, fun, AND ENGAGING!!

 

 The beanstalk I attempted to create (I think my kids are MUCH more artistic than I am :)

 

 Every day we did a different object for our "Estimation Station." The kids got so into this and it helped them practice measurement and estimation all at the same time!

 

Countdown to Valentine's Day...kept the kids engaged and looking forward to the holiday!!

 

 We created meter long links to see how long a kilometer really was. 1000 meters!!!

 

3. Encourage cooperative learning groups!! The kids love working together and it will impress you CT and CI if you use them...so do it!! It's fun and engaging and it boosts the students' confidence.

 

  Measuring the length a toy car traveled at a measuring station.

 

Candy bar measurement...another measuring station!

 

 Tracing and measuring a teammates body from a lesson based off of the book, "Jim and the Beanstalk" by Raymond Briggs.

 

4. Allow yourself, and your students, to be creative! I don't know about anyone else's kids, but mine LOVE anything have to do with drawing, coloring, and creating! Lessons that involved the kids doing any of these things always turned out well :)

 

 We read the book "Actual Size" by Steve Jenkins and then took animals from the book and the kids re-created them and then measured them at actual size. This was a walking stick that is 22 inches long!

Gian anteater...7 feet long!!

  Goliath frog

 

12 inch long moth!

 

 I created a visual for the kids to remember conversions! This was a meter stick with 100 beads glued to it to signify that 100 centimeters=1 meter

 

5. Utilize children's literature!! My kids loved reading books and then relating it to a lesson. They were always super engaged in the story and did a great job of using the book during the rest of the lesson :)

 

  6. Display student work and give quick feedback! When the kids know their work will be displayed, they will work that much harder to do their best, quality work. Beyond this, giving quick feedback is helpful. If a student struggled with an assignment, pull them aside and help them one-on-one so you don't leave them behind as you move onto more difficult material.

Our animals in the hallway :)

 

 Our links that we made to demonstrate how long a kilometer really is!

 

Hilarious response.

 

 At one of the measuring stations the kids created measurement riddles. Some were sooo good. The answer to this was a piece of candy corn!

 

 BEST RIDDLE EVER!! The answer was a pillow! 

 

7. HAVE FUN!!! It can get overwhelming at times with all the tedious things that are due for our portfolio...but just have fun and don't get caught up in the stress of it all!! Focus on teaching and the details for the portfolio will come later :)

Had to cut out the kids faces, but if you could see their smiles then you would know that we are having a great time!!

So there you have it...my advice to surviving the unit! It is getting time for bed (haha oh the joys of having a full time job) but maybe I will get around to adding all my worksheets to a google doc tomorrow so you can use anything I did :) Best of luck to you all who are planning and implementing a unit. It's a great experience...so enjoy it!!

Happy Teaching!

Ms. Boyers