Morning Message

Every morning I post a morning message that reviews something we have been learning, or showcases something we are about to learn that day.  In the message I purposely make errors that I see the kiddos making in their own writing (not capitalizing proper nouns, forgetting to indent, etc.). The kids have to find my mistakes, and when they do they earn a sticker in our sticker economy.

Here is our message from today - pre-corrections: (Excuse my yucky handwriting - I was in a rush this morning)

I tried something a little different today with a find a word activity.  I had the students see what words they could make with the word "veteran". I had some interesting results (just a few shown below) and some teaching points to work on.

Do you use a morning message with your class? What things do you include?



Thanksgiving Gift Card Giveaway!

Thanksgiving is a great time to show appreciation and a few of my favorite blogs have gotten together sponsor a "Thanksgiving Thank You- Gift Card Give Away"  

They will each be sending the winner a $20.00 gift card.  Here is what the winner will receive:

Teresa at Fun in K-1 will be giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to Target. 

Cindy at Granny Goes to School will be giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to Old Navy.




Rikki at  The Hive will be giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to MAC Cosmetics.

Megan at Mrs. Wheeler's First Grade is giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to The Limited.
 

Ash at Pixy Stix and Teacher Tricks is giving away a $20.00 Gift Card to Target

 

Head over to Granny Goes to School to enter now!

Teaching Non-Fiction - Freebies!

This week we begin our unit on non-fiction.

One of the resources I will be using are these 3rd Grade Reading Comprehension Worksheets from K12.com.  The site also features free reading comprehension worksheets for other grades as well.  I will be printing out worksheets from the other grade levels to help differentiate for my kiddos.  I have a few kiddos reading at a first grade level, and a few reading at a 5th grade level, so I love that I can do this.

The site features 36 free printable passages (you could use one a week or pick a few to focus on during a non-fiction unit like I am).  The passages include a a cross-curricular focus on earth science, physical science, history, social sciences, mathematics and life sciences. This allows students to build their reading comprehension skills and reinforce knowledge in other subject areas.

Hope you find them as useful as I did!

November Currently

Well, I missed a few months, but decided to get it in gear for this month with Farley's Currently!

Sending Home Good News

       The other day I handed a free lunch notification letter to one of my students (they come in envelopes for the student's privacy). 
      
       She asked, "What is this? Is it bad?"

      I know that as teachers sometimes we get so bogged down with all of the other things that we do, that the only communication that goes home is negative.  I hated thinking that my kiddos think that whenever a note goes home to their parents it means that they did something wrong.

      So... I started sending home notes that celebrate their successes!  I started with just  a few students this week who had STAR tested (Accelerated Reader) or had 100% on Accelerated Math.  I added a few personal notes to make it even more personal and special.

What ways do you share good news with your parents?

Ways To Show Multiplication Lesson

I had planned this amazing lesson based on this Pinterest Idea  I had seen awhile ago. Instead of marshmallows, I planned on using Fruit Loops.


Well... my third graders had completely different ideas and hijaked my lesson.  And while their ideas were not as "pretty" as the Pinterest pin - they really involved mathematical thinking on their parts.

Counting his fruit loops in his array. (Love the use of our laundry basket a.k.a. lunch basket for a work surface!)

Hard at work - they decided to draw Jenga multiplication tiles to pick out their math facts.

Close to what I had in mind -multiple ways of showing his thinking!

I love how these kiddos decided to use the Fruit Loops to make the sixes!

I love their word problem!  63 goats!  Future textbook writers for sure!  (Love the improvisation when they ran out of fruit loops.)

And one of my favorites - explaining his thinking in his Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book (this kid carries it EVERWHERE!).

Do your students ever "hijack" your lesson?

How do you get your kiddos to engage in mathematical thinking?

Our Tomato Hornworm Returns!

One of my students had brought in a tomato hornworm a few weeks ago.  It was one of the best experiences in our class so far.  Luckily, the tomato hornworm returned, but not in his original form - he had become a moth.

The student had another one that was still in the pupa form as well.

The kiddos had a blast comparing what our little "friend" looked like on his first visit and what he looked like now. They studied both the moth and the pupa and made some observations.

The students also noticed that the moth seemed very quiet and sleepy.  I said, "I wonder if that means moths are nocturnal?"  The students grabbed dictionaries and looked up the word nocturnal.  One of the students noticed that it was an adjective and asked, "Could we use that as a word for Mad Libs?" 

My students create the best lessons!  I've joked with my husband that I should invite a few of the students over each weekend and tell them, "OK this is what we need to learn next week, how should we cover it?"

Do you learn as much from your students as they learn from you?