Well it's the wonderful end of the year. We've been through testing fun days, write-up free days, awards assemblies, packing, cleaning, sending things home, inventories, grades, filing, and all the other wonderful little tidbits that you have to do. One thing I wanted to do this year was to add a fun project at the end of the year so my third graders could look back on the year and make it something my new class could benefit from. As I looked around for ideas I saw students doing letters and similar things, but I loved the idea of doing a brochure (can't remember where I saw the idea).
My kids adore using the laptops to publish their writing so I decided the end of the year would be a great time to take that a step farther. I created a brochure template and decided on four topics: What you love about third grade, how you felt when you came to third grade, fun things you do in third grade, and what you learned in third grade. I went ahead and put the topics as headings on the brochure template and created textboxes for them to type in. With this project my goals were for students to type their paragraphs, change fonts, navigate pages, edit text box borders and insert clip art. We didn't work on the computers as much as I wanted this year, so those tasks in themselves would take a lot of time and effort.
We started by writing a paragraph for each topic. This crew of kids aren't fans of writing so this is like pulling teeth, but this was something they could identify with, wasn't difficult, and they actually half-way enjoyed it. When they found out they were getting to publish on the computer and do fonts and borders they were ecstatic. Their next question was if they got to share them with the class. They may not like writing but they definitely like talking. The kids loved this project and I can't wait to show them to next year's students.
It is easy to use one of the pre-made templates on Word or Publisher if you are doing editing on the computer. If you want to be a little more low-tech with this assignment, you can get a free printable here.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Make Your Own Labels
So I haven't been the best blogger. I have several in progress posts that just aren't getting done for one reason or another. That is what summer is for right? Blogging more is on my summer to-do list, aka the List that Never Ends and Just Gets Longer and Longer. I am making progress though!
Another thing on my to-do list is to get more organized in my home office. Last year I pulled three large tubs out of my extra closet to find them filled with office supplies. I vowed not to buy office supplies any time soon because I obviously had plenty. True to teacher style more post-its made their way into my cart a couple days later. I'm a teacher. You can never have too many post-its. My three gigantic tubs got whittled down into various areas, but most ended up in a twenty tray organizer that I had originally bought for my classroom. Today I went through and made another box of supplies to go to my classroom and combined some trays. I now have several empty trays which means I can go buy some new goodies!! That's what that means right??
Well I put post-its on there to show what was in each drawer, but they kept falling off and they looked horrible.
Another thing on my to-do list is to get more organized in my home office. Last year I pulled three large tubs out of my extra closet to find them filled with office supplies. I vowed not to buy office supplies any time soon because I obviously had plenty. True to teacher style more post-its made their way into my cart a couple days later. I'm a teacher. You can never have too many post-its. My three gigantic tubs got whittled down into various areas, but most ended up in a twenty tray organizer that I had originally bought for my classroom. Today I went through and made another box of supplies to go to my classroom and combined some trays. I now have several empty trays which means I can go buy some new goodies!! That's what that means right??
Well I put post-its on there to show what was in each drawer, but they kept falling off and they looked horrible.
I found this tutorial on Pinterest for making backgrounds and tags. I am in love. I can now make cute tags for my home and classroom. You can bet I'm about to go crazy. Here is the finished product of the tags. It is super simple.
All it took was some scissors and some packing tape and here is the much nicer looking tray (if you ignore the giant filing box on top).
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Testing Toolbox
So this post is a day late and a dollar short, but here it is anyway. I'm sure it will make a great throwback post next year. I'm just way ahead like that. ;) The beauty of testing this year was that we were flooded out on Monday and supposed to test on the Tuesday we came back. Then the kids walked back in like crazy hooligans that were going to tear apart the school with their shenanigans. Ok...maybe I'm exaggerating...maybe. Well a decision was made that we would not start testing on Tuesday...so what am I supposed to do on Tuesday. Let's not ask what I was going to do on Monday because I have no clue on that either. Testing stress had set in and I was winging it. Well this is what I came up with on short notice. (Sorry I forgot to get pics of my lovely student work)
We have been talking for weeks, months, years (there I go exaggerating again) about our strategies for testing and all the tools we've learned that have equipped us for the test. The best part of this is it is super easy to throw together at the last minute and if you have construction paper you are golden.
Step one: Fold a piece of construction paper into thirds. I made sure the two folding pieces overlapped. I did fold the red page for my students because I was rushing and didn't know how well my kids would fold. They have a low tolerance for frustration and so did I that day lol.
Step two: I cut a black piece of construction paper into fourths. The piece of red construction paper and the 1/4 of the black constructions paper are all you need for each tool box. It's that simple.
The next step is something that my kids did without many issues. I had them start on the long edge and cut up most of the way. Then showed them how to cut a rounded corner and then cut most of the length of the paper before turning their scissors back down.
This is what their piece looked like. Some of my students went ahead and used the large handle piece for the handle of their toolbox.
I wanted a smaller handle for the toolbox, so I showed the students how they could do the same cut with the rectangle left over from the first cut.
Once you glue the handle on the back of the toolbox the easy stuff is done. Woohoo!! Now it was time for their toolbox to add some tools. On each of the folds the students were instructed to write a different set of tools. The top was ELA and we put on things like going back in the story, main idea, fact and opinion, cause and effect, author's purpose, capitals and endmarks, narratives with beginning middle and end, and pretty much anything else we could think of. Math included multiplication, division, in and out tables, adding to check your subtraction, rounding, and the other million and one things we've learned. Testing strategies was the super easy part for my kids because we've been talking about them non-stop. These were the things they need to remember specifically for the test like eat a good breakfast, get a good night's sleep, go back and check your work, bubble neatly, etc.
The kids adored the toolbox because it wasn't more traditional test prep. It also got them jazzed and reminded all of them how far they had come. Their teacher was excited that there were no copies, no prep, no grading, and they could do this mostly on their own once we got past the brainstorming. Then they got to decorate the outside which put them in marker and crayon heaven. I will post a disclaimer that if children begin using scraps of black paper to glue mustaches and beards on their faces I take no responsibility (no joke I answered an email, turned around and they had glued things to their faces).
Happy Testing!
We have been talking for weeks, months, years (there I go exaggerating again) about our strategies for testing and all the tools we've learned that have equipped us for the test. The best part of this is it is super easy to throw together at the last minute and if you have construction paper you are golden.
Step one: Fold a piece of construction paper into thirds. I made sure the two folding pieces overlapped. I did fold the red page for my students because I was rushing and didn't know how well my kids would fold. They have a low tolerance for frustration and so did I that day lol.
Step two: I cut a black piece of construction paper into fourths. The piece of red construction paper and the 1/4 of the black constructions paper are all you need for each tool box. It's that simple.
The next step is something that my kids did without many issues. I had them start on the long edge and cut up most of the way. Then showed them how to cut a rounded corner and then cut most of the length of the paper before turning their scissors back down.
This is what their piece looked like. Some of my students went ahead and used the large handle piece for the handle of their toolbox.
I wanted a smaller handle for the toolbox, so I showed the students how they could do the same cut with the rectangle left over from the first cut.
Once you glue the handle on the back of the toolbox the easy stuff is done. Woohoo!! Now it was time for their toolbox to add some tools. On each of the folds the students were instructed to write a different set of tools. The top was ELA and we put on things like going back in the story, main idea, fact and opinion, cause and effect, author's purpose, capitals and endmarks, narratives with beginning middle and end, and pretty much anything else we could think of. Math included multiplication, division, in and out tables, adding to check your subtraction, rounding, and the other million and one things we've learned. Testing strategies was the super easy part for my kids because we've been talking about them non-stop. These were the things they need to remember specifically for the test like eat a good breakfast, get a good night's sleep, go back and check your work, bubble neatly, etc.
The kids adored the toolbox because it wasn't more traditional test prep. It also got them jazzed and reminded all of them how far they had come. Their teacher was excited that there were no copies, no prep, no grading, and they could do this mostly on their own once we got past the brainstorming. Then they got to decorate the outside which put them in marker and crayon heaven. I will post a disclaimer that if children begin using scraps of black paper to glue mustaches and beards on their faces I take no responsibility (no joke I answered an email, turned around and they had glued things to their faces).
Happy Testing!
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Superbowl Super Sale!!!
I'm excited to participate in my first TPT and Teacher's Notebook Sale. You can get my products at either site for a 20% discount! Who doesn't love a sale. While the significant other is watching football you can shop! Sounds like a perfect plan to me! Head on over to my TPT store or my Teacher's Notebook store to check out my products. My newest product is a creative writing prompt called "My Teacher's Secret Life."
Saturday, February 1, 2014
AR Goals
My students have struggled to get excited about reading and no matter what I do, they still don't seem to get excited. We've read chapter books together and done prizes for meeting goals. We have AR at our school and starting next year they receive a grade for meeting their AR goals. That means I really need to get the kids excited about reading and used to taking AR tests. One of the wonderful ladies on the hall created a new cute AR clip chart to track her students meeting their goals. It was so cute that it inspired me to create my own to go with my room.
Polka dots has been my theme so I created a simple clip chart to get my students focused on reading. My favorite part about this clip chart is that it isn't focused on specific point numbers. It's focused on the percentage of progress each student makes toward their individual goal. I have students with goals for just a few points to students with goals for ten or more points. That means students aren't competing to get the most points. They are focused on reaching their goal.
This has been a fabulous motivator for my kids. They get so excited when I start moving clips down the chart. More of my kids have met their goal this month. I'm hoping they continue to get excited about reading and moving down the clip chart.
Polka dots has been my theme so I created a simple clip chart to get my students focused on reading. My favorite part about this clip chart is that it isn't focused on specific point numbers. It's focused on the percentage of progress each student makes toward their individual goal. I have students with goals for just a few points to students with goals for ten or more points. That means students aren't competing to get the most points. They are focused on reaching their goal.
This has been a fabulous motivator for my kids. They get so excited when I start moving clips down the chart. More of my kids have met their goal this month. I'm hoping they continue to get excited about reading and moving down the clip chart.
Monday, January 27, 2014
My Teacher's Secret Life
A few months ago I went to a conference for three days. While I was gone, my students had a writing assignment. I told them that I was going to be gone, but I never told them why. Their job was to create a narrative about what I did while I was gone. There were some that told a typical story about me being sick, but a few of my kids really came through with new and interesting ideas. Some made up stories about me working at Wal-Mart or moving. Other kids sent me to Disneyland. My favorite was two of my students who worked together on their stories. They both wrote stories about me going to a beach and meeting a guy named Chad and falling madly in love. I have to say I had a very interesting 3 days according to my kids. I wish my life actually was that interesting.
I wanted a fresh and creative writing assignment that might spark my students' interest again, so I put together a pack on My Teacher's Secret Life. Click on the picture to head over to my TPT store.
I thought the kids might have fun creating a strange life for me on the weekends. My hope is that my students will come up with off-the-wall ideas. To get them started I thought I would throw a couple ideas at them like maybe I'm an alien or I play baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals. This packet has brainstorming, prewriting, and final draft pages in color and in blackline masters. I can't wait to see what kind of ideas my kids come up with.
I wanted a fresh and creative writing assignment that might spark my students' interest again, so I put together a pack on My Teacher's Secret Life. Click on the picture to head over to my TPT store.
I thought the kids might have fun creating a strange life for me on the weekends. My hope is that my students will come up with off-the-wall ideas. To get them started I thought I would throw a couple ideas at them like maybe I'm an alien or I play baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals. This packet has brainstorming, prewriting, and final draft pages in color and in blackline masters. I can't wait to see what kind of ideas my kids come up with.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Music for the Soul (and to Prevent Pulling Out Clumps of Hair)
This post won't be amazing news to anyone, but maybe it will be helpful. Have you heard of the Electric Company? I hadn't when I started teaching first grade, but I stumbled over a video and fell madly in love. Electric Company is a PBS show that focuses on reading skills. They have a ton of songs that are related to phonics and reading strategies. Love! Love! Love! Many of my kids love to rap, so they love Electric Company.
I started using these songs when we started talking about the silent E. There are two fabulous songs, one by James Englehart and one called "Silent E is a Ninja." If you don't check out any other Electric Company videos, you have to check out "Silent E is a Ninja." (Disclaimer: I am not liable for damage done by these songs getting stuck in your head.) My kids BEGGED to hear these songs. When I didn't have access to YouTube for a few weeks I thought they were going to start a riot.
I started using these as brain breaks, a chance for the kids to get up and dance. By the end of the year, I was using the songs to transition. It's educational, so the time isn't wasted. Plus, the students know when the song is coming to an end, and by the time the song was over they had to be cleaned up or at their seat or whatever the transition was. I also loved it as an incentive. Several of my kids liked to dance to the songs and if they were through with the transition they were allowed to stand in line or behind their chair and dance. That meant they worked faster to get the transition over and get dance longer. It meant a lot less wasted time.
Since I was doing this several times a day, I made up a Symbaloo board for my phonics songs with all our favorite songs right there with out navigating multiple searches or windows. (If you haven't checked out Symbaloo you should. It's all your bookmarks in one account on the Internet, so you can use them no matter what computer you are at.) You can find that board here.
I started using these songs when we started talking about the silent E. There are two fabulous songs, one by James Englehart and one called "Silent E is a Ninja." If you don't check out any other Electric Company videos, you have to check out "Silent E is a Ninja." (Disclaimer: I am not liable for damage done by these songs getting stuck in your head.) My kids BEGGED to hear these songs. When I didn't have access to YouTube for a few weeks I thought they were going to start a riot.
I started using these as brain breaks, a chance for the kids to get up and dance. By the end of the year, I was using the songs to transition. It's educational, so the time isn't wasted. Plus, the students know when the song is coming to an end, and by the time the song was over they had to be cleaned up or at their seat or whatever the transition was. I also loved it as an incentive. Several of my kids liked to dance to the songs and if they were through with the transition they were allowed to stand in line or behind their chair and dance. That meant they worked faster to get the transition over and get dance longer. It meant a lot less wasted time.
Since I was doing this several times a day, I made up a Symbaloo board for my phonics songs with all our favorite songs right there with out navigating multiple searches or windows. (If you haven't checked out Symbaloo you should. It's all your bookmarks in one account on the Internet, so you can use them no matter what computer you are at.) You can find that board here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)