Reading Journals

Starting on Tuesday, students will be introduced to new reading response journals.  Third grade students should be reading 20-30 minutes every night. Now I want them to keep track of their thoughts and ideas while reading.  I will be assigning reading passages in chapter books and students will have guidelines in the front of their RRJ for entries.  These entries should give insight into the student's thinking and be written neatly and carefully. This journal will be graded! I genuinely look forward to reading the journals.

Also this week, students will receive a new literature circle book and partner.  They will be reading this book for a longer period of time and will need to work with their partner on an in class note style reading log.  The students will also meet in groups to discuss what they have been reading and their thoughts they have recorded.  This will also count as a grade.
Back to school tomorrow!

Hurricane Sandy

I hope everyone made out well during Hurricane Sandy.  It could have been much worse and I am thankful that it didn't devastate our area like it could have.  Hopefully the kids enjoyed their extended weekend and are ready to get back to work.  Just as a reminder: This week is supposed to be pretty cold (low 50s all week) please make sure your child is dressed appropriately.  Thank you!

End of October Update!

It feels like I have not blogged in so long!  I will start out with a few general reminders.
*Wednesday Folders- This year the Wednesday folders are part of the homework folder, but they still need to be signed.  This is where all graded papers are returned and your signature shows that you have seen the grades as well as all the other informative flyers.
* Please remember to sign agendas every night as this is the main form of communication between school and home.
* Please check agendas for reminders, especially which days we have gym. Students lose credit for not having appropriate shoes and attire.

Since I know many students inform their parents that they do "nothing" in school everyday, I will fill you in:
     We have been working on reading nonfiction text and identifying main idea, details, text features, and learning how to ask and answer questions.  The students have really been doing a lot of work and it is harder than what they are used. I am confident that as the year goes on they will get better.  In the next few days we will be moving on to a new topic in reading: Fables, Folktales, and Myths.  I feel this will be interesting to the students and they will hopefully want to read more. I definitely encourage all parents to have their child read every night and talk to them about what they read.
     We are also tying in our Writing and Social Studies units.  In Social Studies we are reading about communities and their cultures.  You may have had your child come home and ask you about a tradition you have in your culture.  This is for our essays in writing.  Every student is writing an opinion essay about a family tradition.  I hope that you can talk to your child about their traditions and what your feelings are or even how they got started.
    In Math we have moved on to Unit 2 which is all about adding and subtracting.  Please practice basic addition and subtraction facts with your child.  They need to know these from emory, not counting on fingers.  This can even be done during a car ride- call out the fact and have them answer as quickly as possible. Make it a game!

This week we will also celebrate Halloween.  I have decided that since we are discussing cultures and traditions, that we will do some activities from the Day of the Dead (Dia de Los Muertos) tradition as well.  Look for more information in homework folders about this week's activities.  I will post pictures next week!

Writing Journals

    Every week the students have been writing two entries in their personal writing journals.  This was tough for many of the students in the very beginning since many of them have never written in an "unprompted" journal before.  I gave the students some guidelines as to what to write about and how much they must write.  Even with this help I still received basic summaries from most students about what they did that evening or in school the day before.  I wrote a post-it in every child's journal to give them praise and to suggest what they may include the next time.  Still I received very much the same outcome. 
   I decided that the students needed more than just a few discussions and post-it notes.  They needed to see and read what I was looking for, so I shard a few entries from my own personal journal. 

   The kids were so excited and many of them had their own memories or stories that sparked in their heads.   I am happy to say that after this "show-and-tell", I have seen a few bright sparks that show promise.  I have asked a few students if I may share their entries with the class (once I have their permission, I will share them on here as well).
    Overall, I just wanted to let everyone know how it's going with our personal journals.  I would also like to ask parents to encourage their child to take their journal everywhere.  You never know when a moment might occur that is worth writing down! Have a great night and keep journaling!

Some Helpful Information

First, I would like to thank those parents that attended Back to School Night. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedules to learn more about your child's education. Today all other children should have taken home some information that was passed out during BSN.  I will attach the information here so that it is easier to read than on the handout. If there are any questions regarding this information please let me know!

Here is what was discussed last evening:

Daily Classroom Schedule
9:05-9:30 ………………………Enter(late bell 9:20), Morning Work

9:30-9:50……………………….Read Aloud

9:50-10:35……………………..Reading Workshop:

(Ind. Reading, Strategy Groups, Conferences, Computers)

10:35-10:50……………………Message Time Plus, Centers

10:55-11:35……………………Specials (See below for rotation)

11:35-12:20……………………Writer’s Workshop:

(Independent Writing, Conferences)

12:20-1:05……………………..Recess/Lunch

1:05-1:20……………………….Word Study

1:20-2:30……………………….Math Workshop

2:30-3:05……………………….Science or Social Studies

3:05-3:30……………………….Health/P.E.

3:30-3:40……………………….Prepare for dismissal

Specials Rotation

Day 1- Music                                        Day 4- Spanish

Day 2- Library                                       Day 5- Computers

Day 3- Phys. Ed. (Wear sneakers!)       Day 6- Art

Grading:
Students will be graded in all subjects using the district

grading policy (attached in your packet).

Homework:
Monday through Thursday students will have Spelling, Math, and Reading or writing homework. Homework will be checked every day. If it is to be graded, I will let students know ahead of time. I do not give lunch detention for missing homework; it will effect their homework grade and they will have to complete it over the weekend. If students are absent they will have the same number of days to complete missing work. If you know your child will be absent, I can prepare work to do at home.

Behavior:
Students will be expected to follow the Mennies Code of Conduct and school rules as well. I will communicate via agenda primarily, and I like to take care of problems immediately. On Fridays, you will receive a Class Dojo behavior report. This report will show how many points they received during the week for positive behaviors as well as how many points they lost for negative behaviors. This should be signed and returned on Monday.

We will no longer use the Harcourt Anthology to read a story each week. This will be replaced with Reading Workshop which allows students to develop reading skills while working with text at their independent level. Students will have reading and writing conferences, as well as strategy groups. Each week students will read independently, read with a partner, use computer programs, and participate in read-alouds.

Writing will be done in units of study and students will learn a new skill or strategy each day. Rubrics will be used to grade writing. Also students will be writing in personal journals at home. There are now guidelines in the front of every journal as to what is expected. The purpose of these journals is to help develop writing skills as well as allowing students to have a resource for ideas in class.

Spelling is being replaced with Word Study. Students will spend their time looking at spelling patterns within words and learn how and when they are used. Each week they will be given a pretest which will determine if they receive the regular word list or the challenge word list. They will study 10 words for homework. On Friday they will be tested on their 10 words plus 10 words they have not studied which have the same spelling patterns (to show if they mastered the pattern, not just memorized words). They will also study 5 high frequency words that they must use in a sentence on their test.

Students will be doing a lot of projects this year. Some will be in school and some at home. You will not receive many worksheets for grades. I like to use assessments and projects that show student mastery of skills.



Also on the sidebar that says "Helpful Links" I will link to websites that students and parents may use during the school year to assist with homework and other issues.

I hope this is helpful for everyone and that I will see a lot of traffic on our blog! Have a wonderful evening.

And They're Off!!

    The school year has begun and we are already working towards making it "A Record Breaking Year".  Now that our Room 16 families will be joining this blog, I wanted to extend another welcome! Throughout the year you can check in as I will post homework, projects, pictures of events, helpful items, and class news.  I encourage our families to leave comments if you have anything to add or questions about a post.  Please keep all comments positive and related to the post topic.
    There are many curriculum changes this year, and we have a lot of hard work ahead of us.  My hope is that every student's learning does not stop at the classroom door, but continues on at home. Feel free to send me an email or write in your child's agenda if you have any concerns or questions.  I hope to see everyone at Back to School night on Monday Sept. 10th (6:45-8:00). Until then...

So Many Successes, But Still So Far To Go!

      I know I haven't been blogging lately, but I have been so busy (in my classroom and out). I have been working on the new Language Arts curriculum for the district to align with the Common Core Standards, and let me tell you- it was crazy! There are a million changes that our district had to make and it is a lot more rigorous than our former curiculum.  Anywho, that took up a lot of my time.  I was still able to manage some time in the classroom and have gotten a great deal of my de-cluttering finished. Woo hoo!

      I was very excited to get to my blog today (I'm actually sitting in my classroom) because I have finished some bigger projects that I wanted to share. First, I cleaned out ALL of my classroom closets and rearranged different areas of my class.  Trust me, this was no simple task!  Some things have been in them since my third grade teacher worked here (BTW I teach in the very classroom that I sat in for third grade). I even moved my word wall so that students have better access to the words.

Then, I covered all of my bulletin boards with fabric. I picked up some 200 thread count, twin size sheets from Walmart for $5 each. One sheet covers just about 8 feet (or in my case, 2 bulletin boards).

* It drives me crazy that the doors on this BB are misaligned!!

My writing area is still not complete.  The boards are done, but I am waiting for some of my orders to come in before I can finish the setup for the students supply area.  You can see that some of the supplies are ready to go!








My next project is my favorite! I made an awning for my CAFE board.  I used striped fabric (which happens to match my BB colors) and some pvc pipe.  I used flag holder brackets to attach the pvc to the wall.  This is by far the coolest area of my room now.








Finally, my last project was making a hanging file that I saw on Pinterest.  It was really easy to make- just some file folders and duct tape!

      Now I just have to finish cleaning up the random stuff that was in my cabinets and other boxes. Then its on to the task of preparing for the start of the school year and incoming students!   I hope everyone else's summer is going well! Until next time...

Finally accomplished something!

   I'm happy to say that I finally completed the milk crate bench!  I ended up buying milk crates from The Container Store for $7 each because the stores I called all said that they do not own the milk crates they use and have to return them each time they get a new shipment. :(  Either way it was pretty easy once I had all my products together.  I used 4 milk crates, 4 Cubeicals (from Target- made by Closetmaid), zip-ties, 1/2 in plywood, a twin-size foam mattress pad ($10 at Walmart), and a twin size flat sheet ($5 at Walmart). Oh, and a staple gun!
Here is what the final product looks like:

1) First, I zip-tied all the  milk crates together,  then I measured the top for the plywood (mine ended up being 53"x12" because I wanted a 1/2" overhang all around).  2) I put the milk crates on the plywood and marked the spots where I wanted to attach it. 3) Then I drilled holes to put the zip-ties through. I placed the zip ties through the holes but didn't actually attach it yet.  4)  I doubled the foam pad and cut it to size and stapled the ends to the plywood. 5) I cut the material to size and wrapped the plywood and foam, stapling all the way around the bottom. 6) I attached it to the milk crates using the zip-ties and put the cubes inside. All done!

Once I got started it really wasn't a hard project.  I have even had several requests to make them for others.My plan for the cubes is to put the textbooks for each table (my room has 4 tables instead of desks) as well as other items that the students don't need handy at all times.  As soon as my classroom is done being cleaned by maintenance I will be taking this in and continuing to de-clutter my closets. Hopefully this won't be an all summer project.  I'll keep you posted!

Still de-cluttering!

So I haven't really gotten that far in my quest to de-clutter. On the other hand I HAVE been planning and mapping out my classroom for next year.  I am addicted to Pinterest and have found a few projects I definitely want to complete for next year.  Here is a picture of one of my goals.

(Thanks to http://grade2happenings.blogspot.com/ for the idea)
I have purchased the fabric and foam, but I am working on getting milk crates (not file crates) and plywood.  I love that there is storage under the seats.  My thought is: I have four tables so their books and other larger supplies could be in one of the boxes and a table captain can retrieve the box when needed.  Aahhh so many things to accomplish (and still vacation).  Any volunteers to help are welcome :)

Where do I begin?

Here is my first summer project- cleaning and organizing!  I always start out the year with the best intentions of staying organized or with a great plan of how the flow in my room is going to work, but inevitably something doesn't work or gets left behind.  I am now following the Clutter-Free Classroom Project (which started in January, better late than never) and I am purging- as painful as that is with some items. Here are some photos of the current condition of my classroom as I started to pull out and take stock of all my stuff.

Please note that I am not purging all those books!  I am actually using a fantastic FREE website called Classroom Booksource to scan them all in, so that next year I can use my Iphone or Ipad to check them out to my students (no more paper!). For all my colleagues, you should definitely check out the site- it not only keeps track of your entire library but also keeps a reading log of all the books your students have checked out!
Anywho, Monday will be back to purging for me.

Well Hello!

I decided to start this blog as a way to communicate with parents, families, and colleagues about what is happening in my classroom.  I also have another blog for students to respond to what is going on with reading and writing in our room. This summer I plan to blog about some projects I am working on for the new school year that I am really excited about. Feel free to browse around!