Final Project

        Ulysses S. Grant                                                                Mary Todd Lincoln

                 Al Capone                                                                    Miles Davis


My final project before I left was having the students research and create a model of a famous person that was related to Illinois's history at point or another. I was so thrilled with how the models turned out! They were so cute and I was so happy that they were excited to share them with the class.
In addition to their model, they had been using the iPads to do research about their person for two weeks on www.wikipedia.com and www.encyclopedia.com. After finishing up their research they then had to turn their research into a paper with an introduction, detailed facts, and a conclusion. Then they all took turns giving an oral presentation to the class. The whole project ended up being 40 points, and an additional 10 points where they did a peer-assessment of four students from the class.
(P.S. the darling two people to my left are John Dewey and Joseph Smith!)

IL Note Taking

Their last social studies unit was on Illinois. To help prepare for their test I had the kids work in small groups and go back through the unit and choose what they thought was important from what we covered and write it down on their Illinois-shaped note card. I took points for how well they worked together in their group to get the notes collected as well as the amount of information they wrote down that they found important.
I ended up letting them pull out their note card during the last five minutes of their test to check their answers or look up something they were unsure of. For the responsible students who listened and kept this in a safe place, it paid off.

Fraction Hopscotch

Equivalent fractions isn't something that is hit on really heavy in third grade but it is definitely something that the kids were seeing now and again and was on MAP testing so I wanted to find a way to make them more familiar with fractions that were equivalent and what that meant. One of the ways I did that was by creating a Fraction Hopscotch in the back of the room that they could play on. I just used regular masking tape and put it down while they were in Music one day (so took about 30 minutes). To play they through a bean bag and wherever it landed they had to hop over that fraction while saying it and the other ones that were equivalent to it.
I was unsure if this was going to actually help but wanted to try it and it paid off the other day... We were working on morning work and equivalent fractions came up in a problem and one of the girls raised her hand and told the fraction and I asked her if she looked at the hopscotch board and she said no, she just remembered from playing it the day before!! Ah, the thrills of being a teacher =]

Personification Assessment

After reading Our Tree, Steve (illustrated by David Cantrow) we discussed personification and when/where we see it at. I showed the video http://youtu.be/n2Gzk-8J-Y4 from Beauty and the Beast that I found on YouTube that really illustrates a typical way that we see personification.
Then I laid out pictures of animals that I had found in magazines and cut out and called table groups back one at a time and let each student choose an animal. They had to take their picture and give their animal human characteristics by completing the rest of the picture on a white sheet of paper. Above are two of the best ones that were turned in. They were so funny the ideas that the kids came up with.

Alternative Assessment

                              Similes & Metaphors Test
We spent about two weeks reviewing and discussing similes and metaphors and I wanted to assess the students but didn't want to give a standard written test to do so. Soo, instead I came up with this:
Each student got a blank sheet of paper. On the back they had to come up with four things about them, five for a bonus point. They had to use at least two similes and two metaphors to describe their eyes, nose, lips, and hair (their cheeks were extra credit). Then, instead of actually drawing themselves, they had to draw their portrait with the similes and metaphors they had described themselves illustrated in the picture.
Now, I chose not to tell my kids that this was a test because they tend to freak out. After they turned them in I asked them if they thought it was easy or hard and majority said easy and then I told them it was a test and explained why I didn't tell them.

Fruit Ninjas

Since we started our unit on fractions I tried to think of a creative way that I could incorporate that into the door decoration. Some of the kids that day were acting like ninjas so I thought about Fruit Ninja and the next day I had a new door decoration! I found the fruit pieces at Dollar Tree (for $1!) and laminated them. Then cut them up into fractional pieces and labeled them. Next I used "Face in Hole" app that I downloaded on my cell phone. I took a picture of all the kids and uploaded their face into a Lego Ninja body I found on the app. I printed them off and put it all together on the door. The kids were cracking up at their ninja-selves. 

Idioms

After learning about similes and metaphors we discussed idioms because some similes and metaphors can be idioms. Then we looked up all different types of idioms that talk about food and I assigned each kid to one of them. What they had to do was draw their food idiom on a paper plate and then describe what it really means in their "napkin", aka folder piece of paper.
Then to display it, I got a table cloth from the Dollar Tree (for a $1) and hung them up in the hallway.