Food Chains and Poetry

This week has been a ball of fun for the kiddos! YAY! I love weeks were I am able to plan fun, creative things for my lovelies to do in order to express their learning. That is really a weakness for me....creativity.

This week we have been learning how animals get energy, this includes food chains. We created our own food chains from an ecosystem of our choice on styrofoam cups. Most of my students chose the forest or savannah. We used the cups to make a mobile.

First, I poked holes at the top of the cup. I gave everyone 4 cups to create their mobile.

The students wrote the names of their animals and plants with a pen. I tried using a crayon and marker, but neither one of them would write on the cup. The students then drew their animals on a piece of paper. Then they cut them out in order to glue them onto the cups.

I strung the cups together with string.

Here is our finished product. A couple of my students said that it looks like snow falling from the ceiling. Ha ha ha.

We are starting our poetry week in our reading series. There were some difficult words for them to understand without a little help. So, we talked about the words "alliteration" and "personification" through examples.

After that I had the students create their own alliterations and personifications. They had a blast! Their favorite part was creating personification examples.

 To quote my favorite TV show..."I love it when a plan comes together".

Oh...I almost forgot....I got a dog! It's a sweet little thing. Here name is Pete Sake. She hasn't left my side since she's been at home!

Main Idea Activity and Analytical Writing

Ever since starting the new Wonders program, we have been trying to get a good schedule/routine down. Our principal had us go to a 6 day rotation instead of a 5 day rotation. This had prooven to be helpful beyond measure. It gave us time to dig deep into stories and skills. Oh yeah, an to do stations! Whoot! Whoot!

The last six days were all about main idea. Most of our stories were nonfiction (50% of our text has to be nonfiction according to the Common Core) which was great for main idea. With the last story before testing,  my students were completed a consensus map for main idea.

I grouped everyone into groups of 4 and gave them a piece of chart paper with the main idea that the class agreed upon in the middle. The chart paper was then divided into 4 sections. Each person had to give details (we call it evidence) supporting the main idea. After everyone was finished, they had to come to a consensus about the details written on the chart paper. Once everyone agreed, they would each sign the paper in the middle.

This went better than I could have imagined! They were truly digging. This helped them on their reading test too!

Here are some pictures of our little project:


Look at those busy bees working away on their main idea and evidences.

This was the nonfiction text that the students used.

This brings me to our analytical writing ….

In the Common Core, students have to construction analytical writing pieces (answering questions using text evidence) to prove they read. This the first year to write this deeply; therefore, I had to do a lot of modeling on using text evidence.


I found it helpful to create a “show your evidence” wall with sentence stems for showing text evidence.

Here is the guidelines that we set for our writing.



This is the piece I modeled.



This is the piece we wrote together.

 

They wrote a piece on their own too, and took it home to show their parents about text evidence.

 Here is an example of a student using analytical writing for a test question.

The Lost Art of Writing

As many of you know, I am a TOTAL bookworm. Reading is just a way for me to escape the real world even if it's for a little while. There are many favorites tucked away on my book shelves, but my all time favorite genre is classic literature. No one writes stories like Pride and Prejudice, Tale of Two Cities, or Great Expectations (just to name a few) anymore. There are so many layers to these stories which make them timeless pieces.

Right now I am reading Moby Dick.

This is a fantastic book! I may only be about 1/4 way into it, but I can already tell that I am getting lost in the story of Capitan Ahab! The way Melville uses the English language to form his story is just amazing. Why doesn't anyone speak or right like this anymore?!?!?! It's so beautiful.

This world is full of people that want everything handed to them. They don't want to think and discover.  The plainer the speak and writing the better.

Okay...enough of my soap box.....

What are you reading right now?

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Wonders Anyone????

Well, we've been in school for 3 weeks now, and I do have to say that this year has been going wonderfully!! I am so greatful for a good class that tries so hard ;)

These past few weeks have been so busy, I have not had time or even thought about taking pictures of what we have been doing. I could tell you all about it, but I won't bore you with the details without the pictures :)

Thursday night was our first time to have "Teacher Talks" instead of a traditional Open House. It gave us a chance to talk to the parents about expectations and issues in the classroom. Also, parents were able to voice their opinions and ask questions. I loved it! I hope that the parents enjoyed it too. I think that this should be an annual thing.

I was thinking that the parents would ask questions about our new reading program McGraw-Hill's Wonders, but I was wrong. There is SO MUCH stuff to teach whole group, I have YET to get to small groups!! Another team member and I were talking after school about how we could use our RTI time for reading stations and leveled readers. Then if we go to a 6 day reading rotation, it would give us time to pull small groups to discuss their leveled reader.

Any of you use Wonders???? How do you all make it work with whole group and small group in your reading block?? I have 90 minutes, but it isn't enough most days....

The program is big on showing evidence. I think that I am going to "steal" an idea from a team member and make a "show your evidence" bulletin board as an aid. Once I get it together I will post pictures to show y'all.

This Teacher Needs Your Help

Over the past few days I have been attending the Mid-South Reading and Writing Conference/Institute. It has been a great experience learning more about how to make writing and reading (specifically vocabulary instruction) more meaningful and fit into the Common Core.

One of the discussions was about the lack of at home libraries of children from poverty or low-income homes. We all know that children in these circumstances have smaller vocabulary than children from higher social-economical homes. Some of this comes from the lack of reading at home. I know that there are other reasons too, but this is a problem that we can fix. The way that we can fix this is to build the child's at home library. We expect these children to read every night, but they don't have the books to do this. They might not have someone that can take them to the library; life is just about surviving, it's not about going to the library. So what can we do to build their libraries??? Well, we can get these books donated.

I have included 2 different representations showing the importance of having students read EVERYDAY for 20-30 minutes.

From Perry Public Schools

From The High-Tech Teacher

There is a point to all of this, I promise......

I would LOVE to be able to have those of you in the blogging world to help me out here. Many of my students (not all, but many) do not have the books at home to become successful, to build their language and vocabulary. My goal this year is to be able to give EVERY student at least one book every 2 months, but I do need your guys' help! This blog might not be the most popular, most read, but I do know that teachers know how to get the word out even for tiny little blogs like mine! So yes, I am begging you to please help build students' at home library by sending books that you think little 3rd graders would love to read!!

Just let leave me a comment with your email address if you are interested and I will get you the information that you need! I hope that you all will get the word out to help my little lovelies!!

A New Reading Series

Okay guys, my school is adopting a new reading series and I would love some advice. We're going to be using McGraw-Hill's Reading Wonders. What do you all think about this series? What do you like or dislike about the series??

 From what I have seen of it, it seems really good. Although I am not liking shelving my "real books", there are some good things. One of my favorite things that I saw was the read aloud chapter books that come with each unit.

I would love to hear what y'all have to say!!

Stone Fox, Open House, and State Testing

We've been pretty busy trying to finish our Stone Fox book these past couple of weeks, but we got it done! Oh, how my students loved this book. I think it has been there favorite so far.

***SPOILER ALERT....if you haven't read Stone Fox then you might want to scroll down a little bit****

        I had never read the book before, so on my spring break I took it home to read. I was shocked that Searchlight died! It was almost like when Luke Skywalker found out the Darth Vader was his father..."NNNNNOOOOO!!!!!!!!" However, when Stone Fox stopped the race allowing Little Willy to carry his dead dog over the finish line, I lost it!! There were tears involved. So when I had to read it to my students, I knew that I was going to have to hold it together--which I did, barely. The reaction of my students was priceless. They were so in to the story, so when Searchlight died it was the same reaction as I had! WOW! They were REALLY engaged in the story. I think they were more mad that the story didn't have an "ending". They had all sorts of questions about what was going to happen next. Did Willy get a new dog? What did Willy and Grandfather do now that he was well? Were Willy and Stone Fox friends? This led them to writing the next chapter of Stone Fox.

****OKAY....it's okay to read now...spoiler alert is over*****

        Next, we are reading Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger. This out to be interesting. I haven't seen my kids so excited about reading in a long time. So thankful that my principal gave my team the "go ahead" on using REAL books! The little ones are constantly asking about what we are going to read next. Even if they do not care for the current book itself, they are still excited about what the next story will be. That makes my heart get warm fuzzies!

       Okay, next week is an open house during school hours for an entire week! We are trying to give parents a chance to see what goes on in our classrooms during math and reading. Since our school has gone to using Investigations math material, some of the parents started to worry about this "new" math. This is a great way to for them to get a glimpse into our math world, see how making math fun can help students learn, and how we are allowing students to use their own strategies for solving equations (not just using the ONE way the uses one the board). Maybe it will help them see that I have to take care of other children's needs too, if you know what I mean. So far I only have one parent that is coming. Maybe there will be others. Our school already had math and reading sessions one evening a little while ago, so that could be for the low response. I will let y'all know how it goes.

      State testing is just around that corner--in 3 weeks to be exact!! Where did the time go?!?! Our preparations have been underway since the beginning of the month. We have to get our opened responses a little more refined. Lots of reviewing going on here. I have been thinking about what I can do for my students to get them pumped up about doing well on this test. There were some really cute ideas on Pinterest (of course, isn't that were we get every idea nowadays, ha ha ha) that I might try. For example, I saw some cards with cute messages that matches different types of candy. Also, last year I had parents write a letter of encouragement to their child which was given to them the morning of the first day of testing. Those kiddos read their letters every day, aaaawwww. I might do it again. I would love to hear your ideas!!

The Chocolate Touch with Download

      Spring break is almost upon us. I just can't believe that it's almost the end of the school year! Where has the time gone? The 4th quarter has just started, so it won't be long before we are testing, take up text books, and have field day. In the mist of all this excitement, I am in the middle of planning a trip of a life time! I am sure that you all are wondering what we have been doing these past few weeks. Let me tell you.

We have been slaving away at our book Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling.

It's a story about a boy, John Midas, who is greedy and selfish. He desires chocolate more than any thing else. John finds a mysterious coin and buys a box of chocolate. This is where the trouble  begins. Everything that he touches turns into chocolate. This could spell trouble or it could be the "touch" of a lifetime.

Week 1: 

We looked at the copy write date and compared 1952 to 2013.

They LOVE seeing how things were different, especially when they get to see how much things cost back then compared to now. My lovelies scramble to find the food that they like and see how much they could have bought it for in 1952. I always hate having to stop them to move on, but if I don't then we'll get nothing else done.

"What is greed?"--This was the question that I had them ask themselves. 

They wrote their answer on a sticky note and placed it one the chart paper. They had some pretty good ideas about it too.

In order to get ready for our book, I read them the story of King Midas and his "golden touch". They LOVED this story! This did give me hope that they would love Chocolate Touch, but I was wrong. Some of my kiddos didn't like it surprisingly. All well, you can't win them all I guess.

We read half of our book doing character analysis along the way and trying to find out what was going to happen. In order to help my students with comprehension I allowed them to name each chapter keeping the main idea of each chapter in mind, and I had them create 4 visualizations about their favorite parts. We have talked a lot about visualizations and how they help us understand what we are reading. When we can see it in our minds, we have better idea what is going on in the story and it makes the story more real. 

Week 2:

      We finished the other half of our book in our second week. Many of my students talked about things that they would love to be able to eat all the time until we got to the end of the story. Ha ha ha. By the time we got to the end, my students created many text-to-text connections on their own. Here are a few:

• The Dr. Cranium was just like the doctor from Charlotte's Web. Whenever the parents are worried about their kids then takes them to the doctor, nothing happens. The doctors never seemed to help the kids ever!
• The shopkeeper was just like Mr. Wonka from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Both of them worked in a place with chocolate and were trying to teach children a lesson about greed and selfishness. 
• John Midas was just like King Midas. The kids made this connection before I was able to start our comparison with these two stories. They saw that both characters had a greed problem even though they looked a little different.

Dr. Cranium give John Midas an Elixir to help try to help him eat better, so I had my students create their own Elixirs. 

Once we were done reading our book, I had the kiddos compare King Midas to Chocolate Touch (a little more deeply than their previous connections) with their tables. After a few minutes, we came back together and made a Venn Diagram to display our thinking.

Since we discussed the theme of "wants and needs", "greed", and "selfishness", I thought that it was a good idea for us to make a chart paper that made us think about things that we need and want. There were different types of people wishing for different things and we had to determine if it was a "want" or a "need". Everything was going okay until it got to a 3rd grader wishing for a vacation, LOL. of course they felt that it was a NEED even though we discussed that one a length. All well, ha ha ha. 

It was a fun book, and I can't wait to do it again next year. If you have the book and are looking for some tests to go with it, you can look on my TPT, just click on the picture below to get your copy!

 

 

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!

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!!

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.....