Disney World Letters

About a month ago all of the kids wrote letters to their favorite Disney World character so we could get practice writing letters. They've been anxious ever since about getting a reply and we finally got one yesterday!! They sent the whole class back this letter:

Then on top of that, each child got their own autographed post card. One was all the Disney Princesses and the other was all the Mickey characters. I didn't get a picture of the Princesses before the kids left but here is the Mickey ones. I also posted a picture of the address to Disney if this is something your class would be interested in doing!

Spring Door

Wow! When you start teaching you really have no down time so it took me literally two weeks to get the picket fence up but now the door is totally done! The tree used to be twisted paper and it made it look 3D (was pretty cool) but unfortunately we don't have strong enough tape to keep it up so it was a constant battle to keep it up so I just redid it.

Classroom Organizer

Have you ever seen this resource? It's really cool and I love it! You use the barcode scanner on your phone, tablet, or iPod to scan the barcode on the back of a book and it instantly adds it to an online library where you can look up and manager the books in your classroom. I know a lot of teachers who spent time typing up all of the books they have in their room but this is SO much faster!
This can also be used in the class for students to check out your books if you need a library management system! I highly recommend it. It took about two hours for me to get all my books in but now it's really great because anytime I get new books it only takes a few seconds to add them to my account.

http://classroom.booksource.com/

The Water Cycle

In Science we are currently learning about the water cycle which will lead into our next chapter on weather. I wanted to create a reference for students to be able to look at throughout the day to remind them what we had learned so far. I created the background and hung it by the classroom door. Then each time we learned one of the new vocabulary words we added it to the picture where it would go. I used this as a tool when we were waiting in line to leave for our specials and asked students the vocabulary words that were posted on the window at that time. Then because it had been there throughout the whole chapter, when we took our quiz the students were able to refer to it during it. The definitions aren't posted anywhere near it so it was more of a visual representation to help students remember and recall.

Pesk in My Desk!

To go along with our Dr. Seuss theme we read "There's a Wocket in my Pocket". After reading the story the kids had to create a creature that was in their desk. They had to give it a name that rhymed with desk and then draw their creature in the desk. In addition too, we were currently learning about adverbs so to join the two together the kids had to create four short sentences that used adverbs in a sentence about their new creatures. Here are some examples:

Rocking ISAT!

My words of encouragement for the kids as they enter the room!

Measure Up!

We are wrapping up our measuring chapter in Math and I wanted to do some learning centers as a last assessment to see what they students get and what they're struggling with so I know what needs to be retaught before we take a test. Our chapter was on measurement including centimeters, inches, meters, millimeters, pounds, ounces, grams, kilograms. Then we were also starting the next chapter in advance so that the students would be familiar with the plane and 3D shapes on ISAT this week. 

We had five group:

Group 1: did measuring with grams (first set of pictures)

Group 2: measuring to the nearest inch/ft (last picture)

Group 3: liquid measurement 

Group 4: Quilt Quest- they built shapes out of the plane geometrical shapes they just learned about

Group 5: iPad's on a math app for 3rd grade

Birdies in the Window

My start to the new spring decorating. I found silhouettes of birds on Google search and printed them off. I played around with the copier until I got them to be a real faint gray so that you could hardly see the outline. I copied them all of on colored paper and cut out the silhouettes. I took some small white string and put across the window like power lines and then taped the birds along the string. I'm so happy with how it turned out!  

An addition to our Dr. Seuss unit I went to the public library and checked out all the Dr. Seuss books available. Now our kids have some books to read in their free time since I took Mo Willems back.

Dr. Seuss

The third grade hall is being taken over by Dr. Seuss! In honor of the doctor's birthday [March 2nd] we have switched gears from Mo Willems to Dr. Seuss. I am currently working on a unit with different lessons to explore through Dr. Seuss that match our common core standards. These are the drawings I did and hung up outside our classroom. A lot of the other teachers are flooding the halls with Seuss inspired projects too so the third grade halls is very seuss-ical. 

What's in the news?

I just started this on Monday so I'm not sure yet how well it's going to work out with this class, but we shall see. I went through the stack of newspapers my fiance's grandparents had at their house on Sunday and clipped out some things that were relevant to what we had been talking about in class or some things that I thought would interest them. I posted them up on Monday and a few of the kids asked if they could check them out at their desk. I'm going to try and find interesting things each week for them to read and this would be a good source for the kids that come up to me and say they're bored to direct them to.

Cell Phone Book Reports

I searched and searched for a non-traditional book report for the kids to do. I found this online (I can't remember where but if I find the template again I will post the link!) They are front and back so I chose to hang them from the ceiling in the room so that the kids could check everybody else's out and guests to our room can see them too. They have sections for students to put the conflict, resolution, an "incoming photograph" where they draw a picture from the book, and a space to recommend the book to a friend. They're pretty large, if you look below you can see one of the kids goofing off holding it up to his head like he was talking on it. But it's a perfect example of the size of these phones. I've caught a lot of the kids who have finished their book reports cutting out and decorating the model cell phone that was on their instruction sheet. The two girls at the bottom were pretending to text each other while waiting on their bus after school yesterday. Too funny. 

Reader's Theater

On the final day of Mo Willems I wanted to do something fun and let the kids get some energy out (we've been trapped in from the snow). I decided to do a readers theater where they got to pick their own partner and then their favorite Mo Willems book to share with the class. I drew numbers out of a basket for who got to pick books first. I didn't want everyone to use the same book over and over again so everyone had to choose a different Mo Willems book. Then I gave everyone 15 minutes to practice and make any props that they wanted. My cooperating teacher recorded the videos while each group performed and I assessed the students, jotting down notes, by their pronunciation, drama, expression, etc. They love them! We have been watching a few of them each day so they can all see how they did themselves.
The two above were one of my favorite. They really got into it and made it entertaining for the whole class. They made their own props for Piggie & Elephant so that they looked like the characters they were playing. Too cute!!

Welcome March!

MARCH IS HERE!! YAY I am so excited for Spring!!! and with March finally being here we are that much closer! Next week I'm decorating and adding spring-themed pretties everywhere. Even if it doesn't look like Spring outside it's going to be blooming in our room! 

For the door display I just rolled up the paper and made rainbow beams out of them. Then I had the kids all write on the gold coins what they wanted to be when they grew up (end of their rainbow). Then the clovers at the bottom have all the student's names on them! 

By the way, here is what it currently looks like in central Illinois:

Valentines

My Valentines Day box! I love the whole owl-theme so I couldn't resist this little guy at Wal-Mart. It only lasted for a day though because the following day when I was at school my dog ripped it opened and ate all the candy =/. I think he has a stomach made of iron!

Doodles

My desk is being swarmed with art projects and doodles the kids are making me. I love them though and will never refuse them! I have started noticing a trend in their doodling lately though... check out the picture below! =)

 (Mo Willems influence?)