Charlotte's Web Freebie!!

Over the past few weeks, we have been reading Charlotte's Web. It's been a blast!!! It's so nice to see my students enjoying reading again. To celebrate my classroom's good time, I have put a functional text piece with questions about the county fair on TPT. Click on the picture to grab your FREE copy!

The free Copy will be in color;)

 Just as Fern and Wilbur enjoyed going to the fair, my students enjoyed reading about the fair. Not only did we complete this functional text activity--we also created our own flyers about a fair. Some of them were pretty good. Here are a few....

You all can go to TPT to get the whole unit which includes vocabulary words, "pig" questions, and tests!! Whoot! Whoot!

Anchor Chart Overload!

My teaching neighbor believes that I have an anchor chart problem. Ha ha ha! Can a teacher really have too many anchor charts?!?! I believe that they can, because I was starting to run out of room with all of my reading, math, and writing charts. They were taking over everything...I was running out of room to put them, so I was stacking them on my white board!! Finally had to part with some of my "things that come in groups" charts from my multiplication unit in order to put others up to have room to write on my board. Just telling you isn't enough....I just have to show you.

I just realized that I still have my "Merry Christmas" and Christmas tree written on my desk. LOL.I think that I might need to fix that sometime before parents come into my classroom.

There isn't a wall that isn't covered with anchor charts. Is there a support group for my problem?? Ha ha ha.

Friday LINK-UP

Hello my fellow bloggers. I'm linking up with The 3AM Teacher letting everyone know that I've had a BUSY week but some great times. Here are my 5 things:

1. Oh my word...It's been one busy week! The bigger contributor to this was yesterday's SNOW!!! Yes, it snowed in Alabama! Even though I am from Michigan and am used to snow, it doesn't snow in Alabama very often. When it snows.....everything STOPS. 

It started snowing around 9:30, so our principal came over the intercome to let everyone know that it was okay to go outside. YAY!! My kids had a GREAT time! They ran and played hard. There was wet pants and shoes, muddy clothes, and wet hair; but they all had a WONDERFUL time.

Even the teachers stopped to take a picture in the snow, ha ha ha. 

When it came to dismissal...um...it was CRAZY!! The school closed at 2, but it was hard for parents to come because of the snow. Many were stuck on the roads--behind people that were in car accidents. Roads were closed everywhere. Many of the teachers didn't get to leave until 4. There were many phone calls between the parents and I trying keep updates of where they were. 

Needless to say, I was SO glad when I was able to leave to get into my PJs! While driving home, I got to see many kids out in the snow playing--making those wonderful memories. Love it! 

2. As I posted yesterday, my follower gadget was broken. However, I found at site that helped me fix it! Yay!!!

3. There hasn't been much funny that has happened, but I do have one of my students keeps on wearing these large "nerd" glasses just because. Oh, they are fake....at least it's something silly that I am able to ignore rather than something more serious.

4. I do have to say that I am excited that I am able to start planning my next literature unit about chocolate. I'm going to be using The Chocolate Touch for the text. This is going to work out good for my graduate practicum since I can use those plans for the class. Two for one..whoot whoot.

5. I just want to say that I am thankful that I have Monday off. It will give me some time to recover from this week, and prepare for the WEEKs to come!

Charlotte's Web

 

Wow, it's been difficult getting my "goods" together after this Christmas/New Year break!! The kiddos and I have been reading Charlotte's Web for our reading unit. It's so wonderful to FINALLY see my students engaged in reading since my 3rd grade team decided to dump Scott Foresman's Reading Street. No longer do I see my students with their heads on the desks or trying to find ANY excuse to stop reading. They actually are excited about what we are going to do in reading and what is going to happen next in our books! I know there might be some of you that actually like Reading Street, but it was a dream come true for me when my team put the junk on the shelf!!

We are working on Charlotte's Web for 3 weeks. During this time, cause/effect and characterization have been the main focus..

 

 

 Before diving into the book, I spent one whole day building their background knowledge. This included looking at how people lived during the time the book was written, thinking about our knowledge of farms, and making connections to other E.B. White novels

Once Charlotte was introduced in the book, we took a look at "fact and opinion" which included finding the facts about spiders. We created a KWL chart about spiders, filling in K and W before reading for the day and filling in L after we read our chapters. They picked up so much information!! It was easy for the them to see the facts and opinions. It's a teacher's dream come true!!

 

There was another day that we looked at the different ways E. B. White described the farm with senosry words or phrases. We also looked at the characteristics of the main characters.

Fridays are when we have FUNcational text Friday and to allow the kids to have fun. This Friday will be making pigs in a blanket day with a recipe. Fun, Fun, Fun ;) Also, this has been a great way to demonstrate how to write a research paper using animals. All of the kiddos have picked out a book from the library and will be on a writing adventure this week and next. Can't wait!!

when making this unit, I used many things from the Teacher Created Resources unit book and a WONDERFUL site that has TONS of units perfect for 3rd grade!! Click here to visit it ;)
We're not done with the book yet, but I can't wait to see what will come out of it when we're finished!!

Follower Gadget Problem Solved!

For a little while now, I have been wondering why my blog hasn't been growing like it once was then a friend told me that my follower gadget wasn't working right. So, I immediately set out to see what was wrong. Well, the header was there, but none of my blogging friends. How sad?!?!

After a couple of days of searching around on Google (I don't know what I would do without Google, ha ha) and found my answer. I found a sweet blogger at A Gathering Place that gave me the perfect solution! For those of you that are having the same problem, here you go!!

~HERE'S WHAT YOU DO~

1. Go to the SETTINGS TAB on your Dashboard

2. Make a teensy tiny change to your blog domain name, enter the security words and hit save.
(my blog domain name is

Rebecca-gatheryeroses.blogspot.com

and all I did was place an extra "a" after Rebecca {Rebeccaa} to keep the change simple!)

3. Enter your new address in your search bar (your old links won't work yet) and check to see if the faces of all your fabulous, gorgeous, beautiful peeps are back!

(They should be!)

4. Log out.

5. Now...go back and LOG ON again. Go into the SETTINGS TAB a second time on your dashboard and change your blogger domain name BACK to it's original name!

6. Go check your blog again. Everything SHOULD be back to normal!

YEAH!!!

Christmas Parties and Pinterest Surprise

Christmas vacation is FINALLY here!! Everyone has been looking forward to this for a little while since we have not had as many breaks as in years past since the state changed our school calendar requirements. We had our class parties on Thursday which made for a little bit of a crazy day; however, it was all worth it. My kids had such a great time and were so excited about how the party turned out.

My room mother got everyone their own holiday bowl to take home after they were able to create their own ice cream sundae's!! Whoot whoot! She had every topping that a kid might dream of. After we at our ice cream, we drew numbers to see what gifts we would get. I had never seen my students so excited about being able to play and be children at school. Many of them talked about how it was the best party they ever had. That made me feel wonderful. My students surprised me with a gift card to get some things for my backpacking trip to Spain.

Many of them started their vacation after that, but there were a couple of people that come to school today to finish out the week. We spent the day watching movies and playing games. One of my students came just to give me a gift after they saw something on my Pinterest board! What?!?!?! I was floored!!!

They put it one an old cabinet door with string to hang it. This went in my classroom fast!

I do have to say that even though there are hard days mixed with the good, I wouldn't trade this class for ANYTHING! They really are lovely children that make me smile. It was a great way to start my vacation where I am going to just read my books.

What did you do for your Christmas parties?? What do you plan over the Christmas break?? 

Gingerbread Mania and Surprises

First of all, my heart goes out to those at Sandy Hook Elementary!

Wow, it's been a while since I have posted anything here! Now that I am done with my classes for the semester, I think that it's time to share what I have been doing in my classroom. First thing is that I have the most wonderful 3rd grade team!! They secretly went around the school to campaign for me for "The Teacher of the Year". My principal gave me the papers saying that I won the award without saying a word. I asked him if it was a joke then tried to give him the papers back, ha ha. He said that it wasn't a joke. I was floored!! My team told me what they did and I just about cried. They are the sweetest bunch of ladies that I have ever had the opportunity to work with!!

My principal has finally decided to allow my team to use REAL BOOKS for reading instruction instead of our awful basal!! Yay!!! We started with  The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. It's been a long time since I have seen children enjoy reading class. It warmed my heart to see my students having such lively discussions about what was happening and actually paying attention to instruction. We still had reading tests and assignments, but they were more meaningful to my students. The kiddos were able to make real life connections to the characters and what was happening during the Christmas pageant.

The first thing that I did was have my students look at the copy right date in the front of the book. We began comparing the cost of living in 1972 to today. We also talked about what was going on in the world and the types of things that were popular at that time. They LOVED it!!

As we read each chapter, I had my students name each chapter to help them start thinking about main ideas. Some of the names were: "Meet the bad Herdmans", "Herdmans Go to Church", and "The Evil is Stealing the Show". If I forgot to let them name the chapter, they were quick to remind me.

There was a lot of character comparisons being made along the book. Also we analyzed how some of the characters changed throughout the book. That was neat to see them pick up on those things even before we started talking about it.

Every Friday was our "FUNctional Friday". This was where we took a piece of functional text and looked at the components. The last piece that we did was directions to making a gingerbread house. Yes, we actually made the houses using graham crackers. It was SO much fun. I think that this will be what the kids remember the most. Doesn't the "Teacher of the Year" have to come up with awesome activities??? I think so!!! Ha ha ha!!
Here are some pictures from our wonderful day.....