Cyber Monday/Tuesday Sale!!! New Products

New Products and Cyber Monday/Tuesday Sale!!

Click on the picture above to visit my TpT store.

Below is my newest file. I try to make things fun while still making sure we are working on our Common Core skills. Last year we filled out applications to be elves and hung them around the room. I really loved the activity but realized I did not so much like the application I had found. So, I created one that is a little more age appropriate for my third graders. They will fill out the application and then write an opinion letter stating why they feel they would make good elves for Santa's workshop. When we finish we turn the letter/application into the body of the elf and add a head, arms, and legs. (Pictures to come after they are done.)

Want to check out this file?? Click HERE

Happy December Everyone!! 

Discovery learning, Independent research, Challenging extension! All this with an A- Z Book of Learning.

The A-Z Book of Learning is a great way to extend a lesson. It is also a great way to challenge early finishers or you can assign this as a team project for the whole class. Students research a topic by looking for words that start with each letter of the alphabet and relate to the topic. Through written expression they tell what each word means, how it relates to the topic, and its importance. Then they show a picture of the word by drawing or printing it off of the computer. Some words will be easy but some will require deep research which is where the discovery learning comes in. Watch your students independence grow as well as their knowledge of a topic while having fun and being creative! Click on the link below to find the A-Z Book on TPT.

A-Z Book of Learning

We're ready for Christmas!!

Just in time for the Holidays!!

     If you are anything like me you look forward to the holidays to put a little extra fun into the classroom. Sometimes a theme does so much for getting students excited about working! I tend to get told that there is NO time in 3rd grade for the fun stuff, that we have too much work to do. I refuse to accept that we can't do our work and have fun too.

     So, with that in mind I have created a Gingerbread Unit to enhance your holiday season. There are activities for grades K-3 that will engage and excite your students. The picture below shows a preview of some of the files you can find inside. If you want to see more JINGLE on over to my TpT store for a preview. Click on the preview picture to go to my store. Happy Holidays to you all and I hope you enjoy!

Cyber Monday Sale on TpT - Christmas Multiplication Fun

Head on over to my TpT store this Monday for                   Cyber Monday Sales!!!

I am going to be joining the TpT Cyber Monday sale and ALL of my products will be on sale. I am working on finishing up a couple of new ones to put up as well. Here is my brand new one that went up today.

The kids in my class do this activity every year, usually for an independent morning work activity and then we hang them up around the room. In this activity students will create a Christmas tree based on multiplication facts. This file gives you the choice to have students use preset facts or for older kids to create their own facts to use to make the tree. Hop on over to my TpT store to grab this activity by clicking HERE.

So much to be thankful for!!

Well with today being Thanksgiving, I thought I would share a couple of things I am thankful for. . .

First, I am so proud that both my twin (Susan) and I just found out that we both PASSED our test and have received National Board Certification!!!!!  Woooooohoooooo!!! I was such a long and difficult process but it definitely helped us to become stronger teachers and gave us the reminder of what a difference we can make in children's lives.

Hooray for us!! 

(This is a picture from our school field trip to the museum. I love that I get to go on these trips with my twin.)

Second, I am thankful for my wonderful family who always supports me. Even when I spend WAY TOO much time on school work, blogging, and creating TPT products! My husband and my two beautiful daughters cheer me on every step of the way.

Third, I am thankful to have a job at t wonderful school that values the teachers and the students. Teaching is a thankless career sometimes, but the people we work with are always there to support one another and the parents and students at our school are such a blessing. 

And lastly (for today), I am thankful for all of the resources teachers have today. With the use of bolgs, Pinterest, and TPT there are so many opportunities for us to stay connected and learn from each other. I know that I am a better teacher for learning from all of you.

So, with that being said HAPPY THANKSGIVING and I hope you all stop to think about what you are thankful for.

Non-Fiction with Gail Gibbons

Non-fiction Text Features and the Author of the Month!

This year I am really trying to make time for our author studies. Since there is so much going on it is hard to do one a month, so instead I have worked it to study one author every two months. To go along with our Journey's reading program I wanted to pick an author whose focus was non-fiction. So, who better than Gail Gibbons!

This is the poster that we have hung while we study her. I started by going to the local library (my FAVORITE place ever!!) and checking out as many books of hers as I could find. After a lesson on text features and a non-fiction/fiction book sort using Scholastic catalogs, is it was time for research. Before I sent the students off I had another mini-lesson on text features using the books I had checked out from the library.

Students were then paired up and were allowed to chose their topic from the stack of books I had. There were enough for them to all have a choice and really find a topic they were interested in. Over several days the students worked with their texts. They read, took notes, reread, and then created posters. The only directions they were given for their poster was that it needed to be informative, it should include a heading, at least five facts, and a picture. Many of my students chose to draw a diagram and here are what some of the posters came out like.

After everyone had finished their posters we set up a Gallery Walk. Students were asked to really study the posters that were created and take notes from the posters. They were to write down one fact from each poster (other than their own) that they found interesting.

The kids did such a good job and are getting better with non-fiction text features everyday!

Fraction Frenzy!!

Fractions, Fractions and More Fractions. . . 

This unit we went a little crazy with fractions. I was inspired by many ideas from my fellow teachers through Pinterest and blog posts so I decided to go all out and practice as many different ways as possible. This is what my bulletin board came out like, I love it!!

 

We worked with fractions of a whole and fractions of a set. After completing some in class work and posts in our math journals (which BTW are fabulous as this is the first year I have used them), I had the students each complete three activities.  

Our first activity was ice cream fractions. The students created their own ice cream cones and wrote the fractional parts of each. We were also able to pull in graphing skills by collecting data of the entire class and creating bar graphs. Thanks to Susan we were able to take this lesson even deeper. Each student developed two questions about the data and wrote it on a large index card. The cards were then switched around and the questions were answered by another student. When the student was done answering the questions they gave it back to the original owner who then checked their work. So many math skills in just one lesson. To get this lesson click HERE to visit my TPT website.

 I love to see the creativity of the kids. It was their idea to make the bar graphs look like the

 ice cream flavors!!

The next activity we completed worked with parts of a whole. The students were to create pizzas with different toppings and show the fractional parts of each. We brainstormed toppings that could be eaten on pizza and students drew pizzas for pizzas divided into halves, thirds, fourths, sixths, and eighths. They then chose their favorite to create a large pizza. Here are some examples below.

The last activity we did was create a bubble gum machine. Students made a bubble gum machine, colored bubble gum pieces and the recorded the fraction pieces that they had.  I don't have any individual pictures of these, but you can see some in the bulletin board picture at the top of this post.

It really was a lot of fun and I could see the students' knowledge of fractions getting deeper with each activity we created.

Friendly Letter Foldable

The last couple of weeks we have been working on friendly letters. My class has written letters to classmates, teachers, and even President Obama!! We discuss the parts of a friendly letter and what is entailed in each one. Inspired by Pinterest, I created a foldable to help students illustrate each part of the letter. Take a look below at some student work and if you are interested hop on over to my TPT store and grab the foldable to use in your class!!

I made a template with a boy and a girl, but the inside is the same. The head of the foldable holds the heading and greeting, the middle is the body of the letter, and the feet are the closing and signature. 

(click HERE to get this activity)

Students can cut on the dotted lines so they can focus on one part of the letter at a time. This is great to put into an interactive reading journal as well.

At our school we focus on showing good character and write character mail to each other. So, I had my students write a character letter to another student or teacher at our school. This child decided to write to his kindergarten reading buddy.  The foldable ended up being our rough drafts. We then wrote our final copies on a fall paper to send out.

I hope that you enjoyed seeing some of our work and can use this in your classrooms!!

Halloween Freebie!!!

Halloween Freebie!!!

I love this time of year and sometimes we just need a break to do something fun and educational. Hop on over to my TPT store to get this freebie (just click on the picture above)! Good for grades K-4, an activity where students must follow directions and know how to use prepositional phrases. They will enjoy coloring and creating this fun, holiday scene. Hope you have a Boorific week!

Scoot Pad

WOW!!! It is amazing how quick time flies by. It seems that it has been an entire month since I posted pictures of my room. I wish it still looked that clean and organized. Hopefully we will get used to this new world of blogging and have more frequent posts, but we do the best we can. Today I wanted to do a quick post to tell you about a great tool (yes it is FREE) that we have started using in our classrooms this year. It is called Scootpad! Now you may have heard of it but not really known what it was so I want to tell you a little bit about it. We decided to jump in this year and give it a go. Students are given individual accounts where they can log on and practice math and reading skills that are aligned to the Common Core. What is so great you ask???? Well, the students move up levels according to when they are ready so there is built in differentiation!! Students also have access to a class wall where they can post comments and you can set up a rewards system where when they earn a certain number of coins they earn a reward (there's your motivation). There are of course upgraded accounts which add bells and whistles such as online reading logs, detailed student reports, and spelling lists and practice. They also have an app! If your students have access to technology and you are looking for a fun way to practice reading and math try this!

Just click on the picture above to visit the website.

Lyndsey's Classroom Reveal

Welcome to my room!! 

       We have been in school for a little over a month now and I have had time to get things in order, or get them messy, whichever way you want to see it. I do not have an overall theme, but rather a wonderful color scheme (pink, green, and zebra with a little polka dots thrown in!) It makes me happy every day I come to school. This is my 6th year in this room and I think I almost have it perfect (that is until next summer when I come up with new changes). I hope you enjoy the tour. . .

      This is my welcome bulletin board for this year! I saw it on Pinterest and since I love ALL things Apple I just had to make it myself! The students names were written in the screen part of the iPod (and yes, I know that this looks like and OLD iPod, but the kids still knew what it was).

     Here is the view from the front door of my "learning cabana". Every year I struggle with the seating arrangement because I can't find the one I like best. I saw another teacher at our school use the Chevron set up so I thought I would try it. I love it so far!  Each student also has a chair pocket that my mother and I made three years ago. They have held up well and are now called the "Book Pockets".

And the view from my back door!

My Whole Brain Teaching Rules!!

     After multiple years of watching others do whole brain through YouTube I am now doing it in my own classroom (thank you Susan for giving me the push!). This board shows the Whole Brain rules which we recite every day and the kids have a blast. The rule posters came from Teacher Pay Teacher (sorry I cannot remember the source). If you have never seen Whole Brain teaching in action take the time to look it up. It is a fantastic way to keep your students engaged and incorporate multiple learning styles.

     Above the board are my voice level signs. I use the number system to manage the voice level in my classroom during different activities. These signs are available for FREE on TPT.

Classroom Library

I have worked for 5 years to build this library and am quite proud of the turn out. The books are organized in baskets according to genre (mystery, historical fiction, fantasy, etc.), author, series, and by Lexile levels. I also keep bean bags and pillows so students can be comfy while they read.

     This is my check-out system. (Again another Pinterest find! What would we do without it?) Each pocket is labeled with a name. The student signs the card from the book they check out and place it in their pocket until they return the book. This allows me to see who has books and to make sure they are reading books appropriate for their level.

Another comfy area for students to read and work on individual work.

As teachers we must use ALL available space. This is my daily schedule. I glued it on the side of a file cabinet that holds my laptop. The subjects and times are changed daily with Velcro on the back.

     Twitter is now my "ticket out the door". Each box is labeled with a number. When we complete tickets on post-its the students put it in the box that corresponds with their class number. This way I know who has and who has not completed their tickets. Finding time to complete these can be tricky so this year I am implementing "Twitter Tuesdays". Each Tuesday the students will complete a ticket out the door based on a prompt given by me.

Time to Write . . .

     Here are pictures of our writing center. The board is above the desk and shows students examples of things they can write. I still have a couple of examples to add, but am waiting for some student work. The desk was acquired last year. It was my very first project from Donor's Choose. We were super excited to receive it and the students cannot get enough of it. It holds class journals, note pads, greeting cards, and writing centers. 

Classroom clock labeled with the minutes!

Math wall where students can go to find key words, order of operations, properties, place value and more. I love having all my math terms in one spot so students know exactly where to look when they have a problem.

     Last year I got rid of my teacher desk to make room for more student computers and to give the kids more room to move around in the classroom. This became my desk and guided reading table. (Sometimes is hard to tell when papers are all over it!!) I found these dry erase wall circles at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and put them on my table. Very easy to apply and work well. This allows me to save paper and have students write without having to bring their white boards with them. Also, they enjoy it because it is just like writing on the table :0! I also bought stools from Ikea to keep at the table. They stack nicely and slide under the table too!

     Each week my students are responsible for jobs in the classroom. This board behind my desk is the "Job Spot" and students names are placed under the job they have for the week. (These jobs will be placed on TPT soon!) The bar underneath the jobs is from Ikea and I LOVE IT!! I have two in the classroom. It is fantastic to hold pens, pencils, scissors, highlighters, etc.

     At the front of my room (by the Smart Board) I made this large bulletin board. I call it my "Objective Board". The objectives for each subject are written on dry erase sentence strips in "I can" or "I know" statements for the students. The calendar is here as well as weekly vocabulary and reading groups. It is an excellent resource and I thoroughly enjoy using it.

     This is one of my favorite parts of my room (and it is so little, but pretty!!) I have had a love/hate relationship with the pencil sharpener for years but no solution. So, when I saw this idea from another teacher last year I knew I had to try it. I bought an acrylic straw dispenser at Amazon.com (I read blogs saying the plastic was better than the metal ones). I found some of my unused scrapbook paper and decorated the inside. Added some sparkles and now have a fun pencil dispenser!! Students leave the dull pencil and spin the handle for a new sharpened one. NO more sharpener noise (until the end of the day, that is a job we have). Now if anyone can tell me how to make sure the students LEAVE a pencil before they take one . . .

     Well, that is it for now. I hope you enjoyed the tour of my 3rd grade classroom. I know I enjoy peeking into everyone else's rooms!

Write On! Dry erase guided reading table that integrates math.

Susan's guided reading table that doubles as a geometry lesson.

                            I love dry erase anything!

     While teaching in Georgia, I had dry erase desks and it was awesome! I used them constantly for every subject. So, this summer I decided to buy dry erase paint and make my own dry erase table. Although it was pricey and reading the directions was a must, it was well worth it.

     I used the geometric shapes so that students were able to interact with them more often and not just during a geometry unit. For example, when I call students up to the group table, I may ask them to sit at the rhombus or the shape where opposite sides are parallel. They may not always know which shape I am talking about the first time but this gives me the opportunity to teach a super quick mini lesson on an attribute. The next time I call a student to the table, I can choose to add a new attribute to their vocabulary or review a previous one. There it is...math and reading in one swoop!
        

                   Have I mentioned how much I love it?

      I meet with writing groups and use the dry erase shapes for brainstorming or webbing ideas for their stories. In reading, I may use the shapes for expanding vocabulary using leveled readers by having the students jot down the difficult words when reading. We may map out a character and list all of their character  traits. There are oodles of reasons to love this project.  
                                           A great summer project!
      

                      

FREE and Colorful Voice Level Posters

 

Thank you Lyndsey for sharing one of your creative ideas for managing classroom voice levels. This colorful and FREE, whoops, did I say free? Oh Yeah!! It's free and a great classroom management tool. We both have these signs displayed in the front of our classrooms. It works great when students are working independently or in "collective thinking teams". How's that for a cutting edge buzzword???  : )

Click below to visit Lyndsey's Store on TPT and download now!

 

Lyndsey@TPT

Remind101'ing you of an easy way to "Go Green" in your classroom!!

 

We are focusing on "Going Green" and are always looking for easy and innovative ways to keep our parents informed on what is going on in the classroom. With "Going Green" on the mind, we have turned to a new technology this year called remind 101.

With remind 101 all of the parents in your class sign up by texting a code specific to your class to a phone number (not yours!) given out by the company. They can also sign up through email.

What is the best part??  Scheduling messages in advance! I can be anywhere at anytime and suddenly remember that I need to remind my parents of some event, a test, virtually anything and instantly schedule it out for a specific day and time! I don't have to wait or try to remember on a specific day to email but instead, I can schedule all of my reminders at the beginning of the week to go out exactly when I want them to. It makes "Going Green" so easy!

Reminders can be about anything from tests, to projects, to reports, to book orders! Parents love it and it's free! It works great on high school kids too! Click on the logo above to sign up for
remind 101 and bring your classroom into the next generation of text messaging.