So Many Goodies!

Hello darlings!  I have been away for so long!  More on that in another post.  I have so many awesome things planned for this blog in this next year!

This is going to be short and sweet.  I just wanted to tell you guys about an AWESOME bundle that some of my blogging buddies and I have put together!  It is a collection of our BEST SELLERS of 2013 with over 1,400 pages of engaging activities!  I already have it and I can't tell you how excited I am to start using it in January! Just do yourself a favor and check it out!!  It is only $29.99 instead of $143.24!!!! Click here!

Concepts include: fractions, geometry, computation, story problems, poetry, genres, fluency, reading comprehension, and geography just to name a few! Your students will have a lot of fun learning key concepts with these AMAZING best-selling products!

If you do end up purchasing this totally awesome bundle, leave me your email in the comments.  One lucky winner will also get to pick three items from my store for free!!!    

I hope you had a Merry Christmas!

RTI Resources for Clueless Teachers (like me)

Hello darlings!  Are you doing RTI in your classroom?  If not, you probably will be soon.  It is the new big thing in education-Response To Intervention.  Not that we aren't "interventioning" enough already!  I don't know about you but I feel like I am teaching 25 different curriculums every day, trying to meet my students where they are.  That being said, you gotta do, what you gotta do!

This post is going to be all about what I have the other 20 or so kiddos doing while I am pulling my small tier 2 intervention group.  I didn't want it to be busy work.  I wanted them to be challenged and have fun.  AND I wanted it to be E*A*S*Y!  Can we say "Aint Nobody Got Time for That!" boys and girls?

So I created 8 centers/stations that two or three kiddos could visit at a time.  They spend 25 minutes at the station and complete one station a day.  This means they will not get to all stations in one week.  Which also means you don't have to change the math center out every week.  You have to do it every two weeks.

  Each student has an RTI notebook that they record all of their work inside.  I am not necessarily going to take this for an academic grade because not ALL students will go to the centers.  I will most likely take a participation grade.   The only station that requires you to change out any materials is the Math Wizard Station.  Everything else is good to go.  See what I mean....

The above picture show Super Hero Vocabulary.  Students simply create a vocabulary card for each of the words you have chosen.  I use a sticky note to write the words up each week.  Once they compete the card, they hole punch it in the corner and put it on a binder ring to keep them together.  My kiddos store these on the metal bars of their desks.

Materials 

note cards

hole puncher

1 1/2in binder ring

Math Monster Center: Depending on your classroom computer situation you could have students play math games, go to xtramath.org, or take a quiz at multiplication.com.  I am lucky that I have 3 computers.  You could also have kiddos use flashcards or practice with a dry erase board.

Materials

Computers or

flashcards

News Reporter Center:  I have a stash of Time For Kids magazines.  Students read an article and then summarize the article and write a reflection.  If you don't have TFK magazines ANY nonfiction article, book, or textbook would work.

Materials
Time For Kids Magazines or
Nonfiction texts

Poetry Center:  Students read a poem and then pick a task card.  They follow the directions.  I got the task cards for free from the Lesson Plan Diva.

Materials
Poetry books
Poetry Task Cards

Friendly Letter Center: Students grab a sheet of paper from the pocket and write a letter to a classmate.  The letter must be detailed and formatted correctly.  I put the example that we did together back there as a reminder.  We write the letter to the Rockstar of the Week.

Materials
paper

Comic Strip Story: Students choose a fiction book that they have already read or are finishing up.  They then create a summary in comic strip form. (sorry the Comic Strip paper is from a book)

Materials
fiction book
comic strip paper
crayons

Word Study Center: Students choose a task card to study their spelling words for the week.  I got the task cards fro free from Amy Lemons.  The spelling words can be found in my store by clicking here.

Materials
spelling task cards
spelling words

Math Wizard Center:  This is the only center you will have to change out every week.  I just find different games for my kiddos to play.

Materials
Math games

To the right you can see each of the posters in mini size. (to print I just chose multiple pages and chose 4 to a page) This is how we keep track of who is at each center. (one center a day)  I took this pic before we added the clothespins with each kiddo's name.  We just move the clothespins down each day to rotate for the next day's center.  I make this a job in my classroom.

Thanks for sticking with me through this long post.  Would you like to download all the direction cards?  Here you go! Click here!  Please follow me on TPT and bloglovin my friends!


Blessings,

Place Value is SOO Valuable!

Hello darlings!  I think everybody has a place value unit that they start the year off with.  We gauge to see what our kiddos remember from last year, and then we add on.  Common Core has upped the ante and really requires students to understand place value to be able to use mental math strategies to add, subtract, multiply, and divide larger numbers.   Here is a peek at what we do in third grade....

Students have place value mats and place value discs. (from Singapore Math)  We use these to visually represent numbers so we can complete number patterns and decide greater than and less than.

Here are a few games we play.  The first game is a FREEBIE!

This is a PART of our SCOOT games, but you can see the kinds of questions we are working on.  Click the pic to get the SCOOT game.

This is a Quick Check just to see how they are comprehending.

The next few pics are from two of my smartboard lessons.  I chose a few slides to show you and give you ideas of the types of questions you can ask your kiddos.

This project is my favorite part of our unit!  We are reading the book POPPY by Avi for Interactive Read Aloud, so I created a themed Place Value review using the POPPY characters.  The kiddos loved it!  It does have some challenging questions that require kiddos to EXPLAIN their thinking.  They have to PROVE their answer which is a must do in the Common Core!

Want these awesome resources?  Click the pic below to get the entire unit of supplemental materials. 

Have a fantastic weekend!  And make sure to follow us on Bloglovin!

Want this unit for free?  Leave a comment with your email and I will randomly choose a winner on SUNDAY!!!

Long Over Due and Plant Investigation Freebie

Hello darlings!  I have had absolutely no time to blog over the last few weeks.  I have been super busy, as I am sure most of you have been too!  We have been in school since August 15th, but can I tell you, it feels like it has been a year already!!!  The first day of school felt like MAY!  You know how you are supposed to have a "honeymoon" period where the kids behave because they are trying to feel you out?  Well, let's just say, we skipped the honeymoon and we are at the five year anniversary. Wow!  I have some super kiddos and some who need LOTS of extra love!  Wish me luck! (by the way, I also have a student teacher to help! That should tell you something!)

So I thought I would post a few ideas for next year, as I obviously didn't get this posted soon enough...  Here is our photo booth for Meet the Teacher Night.  My team and I are demonstrating for you since I can't use kiddos pics.

Click here to see where I got lots of the fun printable props!

Want the third grade rocks printables? Click here.


These are the little treats I gave to my teamies on the first day.  I found cute little buckets and stickynote pads at Target.  I then put in some Extra Gum for an "Extra Awesome" Year.  Yeah, I could have made a cute tag to go with it instead of handwriting it, but as Sweet Brown would say, "Ain't nobody got time for that!"

This is how our I'm Unique Poems turned out.  We used M&M's for the apostrophe m in I'm.  They are so cute!  Click here to get the project from my Back to School Writing Craftivity Bundle.

In Science, we are learning about plants.  The kiddos had tons of fun with this homework investigation.  I gave it to them on a Friday so that they would have the weekend to go to the store and observe some roots in the produce section.  Click the pic for the freebie!

Have a blessed day my friends!

Back to School Sale & Some FREE Classroom Decor

Hello lovely friends! So I must admit, things has been crazy ever since the first week of August (I know you guys can all relate). I have been going nonstop since I could get in my classroom. Sorry for the little absent from me! Unfortunately, grad school starts back up for me tomorrow so I am going to try my best to keep up with blogging. We shall see how it goes with two 8 week grad classes, which includes my portfolio class. SIGH! But like Amy always reminds me, this is it for me and then I am done. There is light at the end of the tunnel! YAY! :) It will pay off in the end, and I am sure that I will be thankful that it's out of my way before kiddos are in the picture. SO if I am MIA, I will be back in the middle of October.

So I have to say, that the week before getting back into my classroom I had no clue how I wanted to set it up and how I wanted it to look. I have always loved having bright colors in my room. It seems to cheer me up and brighten up my room. After thinking about it, I started creating some new décor, and little did I know, I had almost a whole new look to my classroom. I am actually excited about how it all turned out.

Here is an overall look of my classroom. It took me about 4 days to get everything where I wanted and situated.

I feel like the bright colors really make a difference. I thought about getting colorful table cloths for all of my tables but then realized that the black would make the colors pop. I originally was going to get fabric from JoAnn's (like Amy) but was shopping in Wal-Mart and saw that black twin sheets were $4. I bought those instead. They work perfectly. :)

I love the set-up of my library. It is in the back corner and actually cornered off a bit. It's one of my favorite parts of my classroom. As you can see, I have my book labels on with ribbon. Some are on with Identa-Labels (they are like pockets that stick to the book bins and you can just slip the book labels inside it). The label has the book numbers and each book has the matching number. This makes it so much easier for my kiddos when putting books back. I give 2 kiddos the job of being the librarians. They make sure the library is nice and neat (the books are going the right direction, are in the right bins, and are organized). It works out so well for me. I also made labels to go along with my theme for my classroom. I put the theme/series, a picture, and some have the general DRA and G.R. levels. (These will be coming soon!)

I used to put clothes pins up around my walls to hang my anchor charts up. However, I got tired of looking at white paper so I decided to add some color (with the help of my great friends Amy and Gretchen). I made bulletin boards on the back wall of my classroom where I will place my anchor charts for each subject area within the designated area. I used to just separate the charts according to each subject area. However, I thought that having banners above each one would be more user-friendly for my kiddos. You can get those banners by clicking here.

I debated and debated what wall to put my alphabet on. It ended up above my Smartboard in the front of my room. I wanted to put black paper behind each letter. After thinking it through, I decided they were colorful enough and decided not to. You can get this by clicking here.

 

I hate to admit this but I didn't do a word wall prior to this year. However, I decided that I would give it a try. I debated and debated about where to put this. I wanted to create a big bulletin board on the back wall, but then decided to put my subject bulletin boards up there. Then I thought about putting it on my front small bulletin boards (putting half of the alphabet on one and the other half on the other). I changed my mind and decided to put it on a big dry-erase board that I have on the side of my room. (Some of my friends can tell you...I have a VERY difficult time making decisions sometimes...well most of the time)

How do I plan on using this? Again...I haven't made up my mind. LOL. :) My students and I will either write words up there using dry-erase markers or I may have them write them on index cards and tape them up there. These will be words that my kiddos keep asking me to spell repeatedly.

To make sure each letter would fit, I measured the width of my board and divided it by 13 (I put half of the alphabet on top and the other on bottom). Then I marked each amount and taped each alphabet letter within that range. It ended up looking better than I expected. You can get this by clicking here.

This is my jobs bulletin board. I make sure that everyone has a job for the week. Every Monday (or first day of the week) I change the jobs. If it is a short week, I normally have my kiddos keep the same job for the next week. This way they have enough time to do every job. My main goal is to not repeat. Sometimes it is difficult, especially at the end of the year.

I also put a "Classroom Jobs Description" up next to the bulletin board. It is a binder ring full of what each job entails. This allows the students to refer back to if they can't remember what they are supposed to do with a certain job. It really cuts down on the amount of time I have to review jobs and allows the students some independence too. You can get these by clicking here.

This is what my hallway bulletin board looks like. I did a pun on my name. Since my last name is 'Day', I decided to put "A 'Day' in 3rd Grade". I used the small nameplates to put my students' names on and then taped these up. I love using cloth pins to hang their work up with. You can download a FREE hallway banner for your classroom by clicking here. If you would like the editable small nameplates for your classroom, you can get them by clicking here.

The guitars are from my students last year for my students this year. They wrote letters talking about how 3rd grade rocks! (Thanks to Hope King for providing this wonderful idea. Click here to check it out!)

 



 

This is my informational bulletin board. It has our 3rd grade schedule, my class's specials schedule and the study hall schedule for our grade level. It also has the homework club (Thanks to 4th Grade Frolics). Click on the link to check out what the homework club entails! :)

When Amy showed me these, I was in love. I decided to make these the weekend before my first contracted day back. You have to make cones out of the paper. It took me a bit to get the hang of these but once I figured it out, it didn't take long. I wanted one to say "READ" and decided to make one with my initial of my last name to put on my classroom door. I couldn't tell you how many compliments I have gotten for these. Check out Hope King's instructions for making these. They are detailed and easy to follow. Thank you Hope King at 2nd Grade Shenanigans for the wonderful idea! :)

I am using Amy's idea for my behavior chart. Each day my kiddos start on green. They move their clips if they aren't following directions. However, I am also a BIG advocate for positive reinforcement in my classroom. I feel like it makes for a more relaxing learning environment. When I catch my kiddos doing what they are supposed to be doing and going above and beyond, I give out tickets that they keep in a zip-locked bag (the tickets you can get at a party store that you use for drawings). At the end of the year, we have a class auction. I have the kiddos donate items and we auction them off. My first time doing this was last year (thanks to a wonderful colleague, Kolleen, for the awesome idea) and my kiddos loved it. I decided to give it a try again this year. (Click here to check out Amy's awesome décor pack where you can find this chart)

On the other side of this is my Study Hall/Completed Work chart. (You can download a FREE copy of this by clicking here). I always have a difficult time knowing which kiddos have work completed and who doesn't. Therefore I created this chart to help me keep a better track of which kiddos need to stay in from recess to complete missing or incomplete work.

This is just a small snap shot of my classroom. You can find a lot of my décor in my Classroom Décor Pack-Bright Colors on TpT. Click on the link to check it out!

Ok. Here is the best part....DRUMROLL PLEASE.....Amy and I are throwing a.....

Wait...the best part is....TpT is also having a Back to School Sale. So you will receive 10% OFF EVERYTHING on top of the original TpT sale. Check out our stores by clicking on the links (Jamie and Amy)!

I am always looking for new ideas on a behavior system. What do you do in your classroom?

 



P.S. I wish you the best of luck if you are currently setting or getting ready to set up your classroom! If you have started school already, here is to a great here! :)