I have missed blogging! I think when I moved to 3rd Grade, I felt lost in the blogging world because all of my blogging buddies were 1st or 2nd grade teachers. Not only do I not teach first or second grade, I don't even teach reading or math...I teach 3rd grade science and social studies. I just didn't feel like I fit in anymore. But blogging I think helps me to be a better teacher, it helps me to reflect on my lessons and projects so that I can improve them for next year. So I'm going to try to jump back into the ring! This year's class studied maps in much more depth than than my class did last year. I do a pretest and post test on all of my major skills. I don't really mind doing that except I have to remind the students over and over that the pretest IS NOT going in the grade book. Now that we are 3/4 through the school year, I think most of them understand that now. Anyway, I really like doing small projects to follow up the lessons so the students can show what they know. I was thinking about doing a group (4 people) map, but I didn't really have any suitable paper for them to use. I was going to have them make a city map and then as a group they would add things that were important to each of them. I started searching the Internet to see if I could find some ideas. The first thing I found was called Barefoot Island. I liked it, but I kept looking around. Next I came across these Autobiography Islands. I really liked them! I had to make a few adjustments since the ones I found were for middle school and I teach 3rd grade. I'll be making a rubric for next year. This year I told the students I would be grading them in four areas: Neatness, Creativity, Spelling and Required Elements. We first discussed the definition of an autobiography. We looked at samples from the middle school students. We brainstormed what types of things could go on our maps and then the students got to work on the rough drafts of their maps. I helped to proof each one for spelling errors. After that, they got to work on their final project. The required elements for each of the maps were: 1) Map Title 2) Compass Rose 3) Map Legend 4) at least 3 Man-made objects 5) at least 3 Natural Landforms. I thought most of them turned out great. I liked the way this project kind of evened the playing field. Since I was checking the spelling on all of the projects, I got to see some of my lower students shine with creativity in their maps. Here are some examples. Probably too many, but I just loved them! Be glad I didn't post all 68! LOL I'll be honest, when it came to grading their creativity...everyone got a 5 the max points. I don't know call me a softie, but I really thought everyone was creative on their own level. I did give a bonus point on those I thought we "extra creative".

Will you be teaching Wonder by R.J. Palacio in your curriculum? This post describes how I taught it to my 6th grade English langauge arts class.

I'm not going to give you a packing list. Honestly, I'd just be repeating all the awesome lists I pulled together in my Ragnar roundup. Instead, I'm giving you my packing process in steps. (I did take the standard packing list and the lists on the blogs and create a spreadsheet, so if you want

Here's everything you should know before visiting Punta Arenas, Chile including amazing things to do in Punta Arenas and more!

I am working on some quick assessment sheets for key concepts in art class. I came across this famous lines handout from The Bees Knees Cousin. I’m also not too big on worksheets and we rarely do them in art class, but they can be good for some fine motor practice and assessment. I liked the famous lines handout and tried to download it from Scribd, but I couldn’t get it to work. So I ended up making my own … Read more... →

What would you say if I said that I use 7UP and M&M's on the first day of school? You're probably thinking that I'm crazy, wanting to fill my students with sugar on the first day. Well, maybe you won't think I'm so crazy after you find out what I do with them. Some of our best ideas come from our colleagues, don't they? My blog post today is a share of two ideas that I've picked up along the way. The first, the M&M activity, was first introduced to me by the teacher that I student taught for. I'm not sure where it originated as I know she had learned it from somewhere else and I've seen other teachers do it in various forms, but when she did it, I knew it would be a staple in my classroom too! The second part of this was introduced to me by the wonderful Ms. Kitchen, one of my favorite colleagues when I was teaching in Washington. Ms. Kitchen was a 4th grade teacher stuck in a 5th grade pod with 3 new 5th grade teachers. I learned a TON from her and picked up a lot of her activities along the way. The 7up sentences are just one of her fabulous ideas that I "stole"! I've combined the ideas of two super teachers to make for one fantastic back to school activity. This activity will help you to discuss consequences, get a sample of student writing (as well as an idea of what they are ready for), learn about your students through their writing, and leave students with a memory of the first day that they will still be talking about on the last. My suggestion is to do this after lunch, so you know they've at least filled their bellies with something good first.Here's the details: Items Needed: A can (I use the ½ can size when I can find it) of 7up for each student* (Use 7-Up Ten if worried about calorie content) A giant bag of M&M’s/Skittles (if allergies are present)/a large box of rainbow Goldfish if looking for a healthy alternative. Plastic gloves or a small baggie for each student to use as a glove As an alternative (and to avoid students choosing way too many M&M's), bring in measuring cups in two or three different sizes or just a coffee scoop and give them a maximum amount of scoops A napkin or paper towel Lined paper and a pencil Directions Ask students what a consequence is. Write the word on the board and explain that there is a consequence for all of our actions. Sometimes the consequence is good, and sometimes it isn’t. Use examples such as “What could be a consequence of not coming home on time?” or “What could be a consequence of studying really hard for a test?” Use examples of good and bad consequences. Tell students that our activity will involve consequences. Pass out the gloves (if using gloves) Bring out the large bag of M&M’s (keep it in hiding until this point). Tell students that they will each get one glove and that once they have it on, you will come to their desk with the bag. They are allowed to take up to one handful, but they can take as few as they want as well, with a minimum of at least 5. They should place their handful on a paper towel They cannot eat them YET! Remind students that this activity will end with a consequence and that you can’t say whether it is a good one or a bad one. If you are using the measuring cup instead, hold up the measuring cups and tell students they will have to choose one size to scoop out some M&M’s. They can fill the cup, but do not have to. Everything else is the same as the directions above. Pass out the 7up. Explain to students that as they enter this new grade, they will be expected to write 7up sentences. What is a 7up sentence? Well, it’s a sentence with 7 words or more, of course! So instead of saying, “I play football,” I might say, “I am a quarterback for the Green Bay Packers.”* (If you are teaching younger kids, you can omit this part of the activity). Now pass out lined paper to each student. Tell your students to write their name at the top then count all of their M&M’s. They should write the number of M&M’s that they have on the top right hand corner of their paper. Go around and make sure everyone has written down their number before you unveil the next direction. Give each student a “Marvelous to Meet You” paper. Say: “Ok students, now that you’ve got your M&M’s and 7up and you know all about 7up sentences, I am ready to present you with your consequence. I’d like to learn about you and get a chance to see your 7up sentences in action. You are each going to write me a sentence that tells me something about you FOR EACH M&M that you have.” Read over the different topics for the different colors and write an example for each topic on the board. Say: This might be a good consequence for some of you, while some of you are wishing you could put some of your M&M’s back! The good news is, for each sentence you complete, you may eat one of your M&M’s. You may enjoy your 7up throughout your writing. Time to get started!” Now, this is meant to be a fun activity, so I don’t push students that took 65 M&M's to write 65 sentences, though I will let them sweat it out a little. If they are a fairly strong writer, I might stop them at 25. If they are struggling to write or come up with ideas, I might stop them at 10. It's the first day of school, you want this to be fun, so use your best judgement on when to stop them. I get the colorful smiley incentive stickers and put those next to each sentence and then display these in my room. For that reason, you might not want your students to write on the back of their paper. Now don't you want to do this activity with your students during the first week? I'm all stocked up and ready to go. I can't wait to see their excitement when I pull out that big bag of M&M's!! You can print the directions for this activity and the Marvelous to Meet You reproducible by clicking on the image below.

How was your week? We had a crazy week of assessments in Room 206 - being the end of the marking period and all! But we made it! I managed to throw a little fun in somehow. Here's a sneak peek - #growthmindset is a hot topic in the education world currently and Class Dojo has jumped on board by creating cute, engaging videos that tell kids "the brain is a muscle that needs to be worked out." If you haven't shown these videos yet - put them in your plans for next week!! They've released two videos so far (just a couple minutes long for each) and they have three more planned! We typically do a GoNoodle brain break each day before writing time, but we substituted with the videos twice this week instead! Just go to your class dojo page and click on the 'big ideas' tab. The videos will pop right up. Since it's the end of the 2nd marking period for us this week - new semester means new partners! If you use partners in your classroom a lot (two heads are better than one) than you need to download these phone partner templates from Young Teacher Love. For years, I used a strategy similar to this one but with clocks - when I saw Kristine's phone templates a few years ago I HAD to replace our clocks with her phones - I mean it's the 21st century, right? Better get with the times! The concept is easy - each student gets a phone template and walks around the classroom searching for ten partners. I laminate the phones when they're completed and we tape them to our desks. Whenever the students need to check over their work with a partner, discuss ideas or work together, etc., I spin a spinner and they find that number partner quickly. Takes all of about 10 seconds to determine partners this way. And we use partners several times daily so this is a HUGE timesaver in room 206! End of the marking period also means LOTS of assessing! To review for our math summative assessment this week we played one of my favorite review games - Math Baseball. This idea was passed on to me from a former colleague and it's never gotten old! Here's a quick run-down of how to play - separate the class into two teams. Number each student 1-15 in team one, and 1-15 in team two. (numbers will vary depending on your number of students) Draw two baseball diamonds on the board - or create reusable posters like I have. Bring batter number ones up to the board, all of the remaining students are outfielders. Give the students a review question to solve. The batters solve it on the board but keep their work covered up. The outfielders solve it at their desks. Call a random outfielder number, check each outfielder's work. If correct, the team moves a base. Check the batter's work. If correct, the team moves a base. Play until all review questions are complete. The team with the most runs is the winner!! What I love most about this game is that ALL students are engaged the entire game! We took a BIG writing test this week too over opinion essays. What I've noticed over the past few years of teaching opinion writing is that my students are good at forming an opinion and good at backing it up with evidence and good with arguing their point (what kid isn't???), but they struggle with putting all that great thinking into the correct opinion essay structure. So we created this anchor chart to help with remembering the format for an opinion essay! I think it really helped! Lastly, while we tested our little behinds off this week, we also celebrated the end of the marking period with a PBiS school wide movie. Our gym was transformed into the Falcon Cinema for a showing of the movie 'Inside Out.' The kids brought in blankets and pillows and we served cookies and hot chocolate. A good time was had by all. Our PBiS team rocks!!!! Happy weekend teacher friends! I'm off to grade all of those assessments we took this week! Yikes!!!!

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Happy Friday!!Here in South Jersey, were are eagerly awaiting snowageddon!! Blizzard + coastal flooding + four kids under the age of 7 stuck inside all weekend = CRAZINESS!!Anyway, before we lose power to the snowpocalypse, I wanted

This past week's after school art class was great! We were able to get two art projects done in the allotted time and some children had a few minutes to sketch. Both of these projects are fun and colorful and easy to do. I've done them with preschoolers up through fourth graders and everyone seems to enjoy it! This time, I was able to show the children artwork from each artist and link the lessons to children's books about the artists. If you haven't checked out these books, please do! The first project is: Handy Andy's inspired by the blog Artolazzi. For this project, I shared the book: "Uncle Andy's," by James Warhola. What a lovely book! This is written by a nephew of Andy Warhol and is told from the child's perspective. James Warhola talks about visiting his Uncle Andy at his studio and all of the interesting projects and people he sees there. I really like this book. It is interesting to look at the illustrations and see all of the fun details. The book also reminds me that children are like little sponges, soaking up info and inspiration from their environments. Warhola speaks about how inspiring it was to be surrounded by all of the art objects and artwork in his Uncle Andy's studio and being able to see the process his Uncle went through to create his art (note: I brought in one of the Marilyn Monroe series of paintings for the children to view--it had repetition and color that I wanted to highlight with the project below). Handy Andys I saw this project on the blog: Artolazzi and loved it. I changed it a bit to use bright papers instead of paint for the backgrounds to speed things up a bit. I used a bright pad of paper I bought at the local copy store (Staples) which was 50 sheets of 11" x 14" paper (5 bright colors) for about $5. Supplies Needed: 1 sheet of bright paper 11" x 14" for the background 2 5.5"x 7" rectangles of bright paper (different colors than your background) 4 5.5"x 7" rectangles of bright paper (assorted brights so that the hands cut from these papers are different than the backgrounds) Pencil Scissors Glue stick Black tempera paint Paper plate for palette Directions: 1. I had the students select one 11" x 14" piece of bright paper for their background. In the above image, my background piece is yellow. 2. I then had them select two rectangles (5.5" x 7" each) these needed to be different than their background paper. These were glued down to the background so that it appeared the background is divided into four sections. Use the photo as a guide. In my example, I used a blue and a green rectangle. 3. I then handed out stacks of four rectangles (each 5.5" x 7") of assorted colors that had been stapled together. I had the students trace their hands onto the stack and cut through all four at once with their scissors to create four identical hand shapes. Remove the staples, arrange onto the background and glue down using the glue stick. Glue the fingers down well so they don't curl off of the page. 4. Once everything was glued down well, I had the students come over to the printing station where they could dip their hands into the black tempera I had placed in foam plates and then print onto their backgrounds over each of the hand prints. They came out great! The children had lots of fun with these and the bright colors really created an eye-popping display! These would be so nice for Mother's Day or Father's Day and they didn't take any time at all (maybe 30 minutes from start to finish). Coming soon: Part two of this post...15 minute Jackson Pollock paintings!

Some of our students need movement to help them learn! Speech therapy and in particular, minimal pairs, can become boring... so inject movement activities!

I am all done with parent conferences and it feels great! I had the most terrific year and I’m so happy to share my students’ progress with their parents. During parent conference time, I always love to have lots of student work to display. I absolutely love to incorporate student pictures into student work. This ... Read More about Silhouette Autobiographies and Read Across America

Dining in Dubrovnik - a taster of the most romantic restaurants in Dubrovnik and the best local restaurants in Dubrovnik that you cannot miss! Read more!

I am so excited to launch my first "series" of blog posts! It's making me feel all grown-up and blogger-like :)My first series is going to be on increasing student engagement in the classroom. Over

I admit - the idea for this graphic organizer wasn't mine. But I did clean up the graphic organizer I've seen floating around Pinterest and put it into a clean, neat, PDF format. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • CONNECT WITH ME! My Blog Facebook Ins...

This year will bring about a BIG change for me! I've always been in a self-contained classroom-- until now! I took up a new position this year, and it just happens to be in a departmentalized 3rd grade! There will be 3 of us: Math, Reading, and Science/Social Studies. I decided I better do some quality research-- and go right to other teachers who have been in my shoes! After asking for tips on the All About 3rd Grade Facebook group-- I've come up with a list of my favorite ideas! 1) Assign a color to each group-- and use those colors religiously. So, I will be teaching math, and I purchased a rolling cart, 3 dish buckets from Walmart, and 3 rolls of duct tape. I labeled each bucket with teacher names and used different colors: Navy, teal, and green (I was trying to stay in my classroom theme colors) Also, when I label things for the students (like interactive notebooks), I can quickly put duct tape on the spine and recognize the class color! The students will keep their math notebooks in my room (less traveling = less headache) 2) What if the rotation is super long (90 min)? Keep this in mind: "Make sure you take breaks to get the kids up and moving. We do random dancing. Sometimes we dance going to get our supplies for the following subject" (Katie Elliott) 3) Stay in touch with your teammates all day, every day. Before you begin-- be sure you've talked about the following: How will we discipline? How will we contact parents? What is everyone's routines for cleaning up or rotating? How can we track behavior? What are everyone's classroom rules? Should they be similar? How will students keep track of their materials? What materials should they bring EVERY day? What materials will stay behind? How will we track unfinished work or missing assignments? Will we give homework? 4) Students aren't always the most responsible (say what?) until we teach them to be more mindful-- and many things can be lost in the shuffle between room. Geneva Pemberton recommends, "The less they carry to each class the better it is. Try to store things in the room where they will use them." 5) But how will I know what's happening in other classrooms? I know-- as teachers we hardly get breaks to just talk to each other see how the day is going. Oftentimes I won't see a fellow teacher until the end of the day! I LOVE this idea from Shelly Parker-Finch! "We pass a clip board around with the 3 classes where we write missing homework, bathroom breaks, behavior problems, etc. That way the next teacher/homeroom teacher has an idea of what is going on with each student. Also works as a record for parents to see how many times someone had a missing assignment or behavior." I thought this was such a great idea-- I have this on my TPT page for you to use! I recommend typing student names (instead of writing them every day) and then making several copies of the finished logs for the month (copy them in your class color-- of course!) so you can be ready to go every day! I plan to copy mine on blue and put on a clipboard-- then I'll make sure my "teacher helper" carries it from class to class for me! 6) This last one is very important (in fact, I think every teacher needs to remember this) and comes from Robbie Ann, "Remember they are 'our kids', not 'yours and mine' ". If you have any advice I've missed-- please share in the comments below! I hope you have a great school year!

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Teaching setting of a story to your first graders in an engaging way with these different activities. Build comprehension skills by teaching this story element.

Last week we began our Procedural Writing Unit. We began the unit immersing the students with different procedural books. Students went on...

I’m excited to share with you an EASY PEASY way for students to see osmosis in plant cells! In the past, I always used elodea leaves for this lab. Elodea can be hard to find at pet stores and is a little temperamental to keep alive. This year I decided to use onion skin from ... Read more

Hey there bookworms! I’m so excited to be back with you for another round of bright ideas! Here we go! One of the things I loved about my position last year was being able to go into so many different classrooms and learn new tricks from the fantastic teachers in our building. One of my ... Read More about Beat the Bell {A September Bright Idea!}

There's nothing quite as amazing as cooking with kids. Frustrating, yes. But amazing, too. I've always (mostly) enjoyed showing my kids how to cook decent food and take ownership of their own nutrition. But that's not always easy when they're first learning to read recipes. Especially for young kids still learning to read. Long recipes

Camp Kindergarten is a great way to get to know your incoming students. Use these tips and resources for a smooth and low-prep event!

Are you struggling to meet the needs of all your learners? Learn how to differentiate for EVERY student without spending hours prepping!

In this post, we’ll cover Scrivener live files and backups—where to save each, how to find each, how these files are different from each other, and some basic best practices.

Julia Child's Scallops and Mushrooms in White Wine Sauce or Coquilles St Jacques a la Parisienne recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking is so delicious. If you are a seafood fan then this scallop recipe is a must. It's a great summer recipe!

This August, I'm participating in a monthly blog challenge called Blaugust. To see the list of participating blogs, click on the logo below. Please cheer on our participants with either a tweet or a comment on their blog. It can be hard to blog on a daily (or even regular) schedule! :) If you want to join in the blogging fun, it's not too late! Go HERE to sign up! :) Exit Tickets (Again) Do you ever come up with an idea and think, "OH! What a great idea!", only to find out that you've had that idea before? No? Well... it happened to me... I have been thinking a lot about Exit Tickets and how to incorporate them into my classroom more effectively. I know! I'll make a key ring of exit prompts!! I was so excited!! And then, I found a link on Pinterest that linked to this post... FROM MY OWN BLOG!!! What?!?!? How do I not remember posting this? Well, maybe it had something to do with making the cards and then storing them away in a nice safe place (aka a hiding place that I still don't know where they are....) Of course, prior to finding the link on Pinterest, I had already made a file of exit ticket prompts: Get the PDF HERE I have had the file made for a while, but finally got around to assembling it today. I bought this really awesome single hole punch at Wal-Mart last week and picked up a set of rings while I was at it. I had some in my classroom, but that's 30 miles away :) Then some time laminating and hole punching, and here's the end result: I now have this hanging on the whiteboard right behind my desk, but I forgot to take a photo of that :) Enjoy!

Early Finishers Activities are a must in your classroom. We have all heard the dreaded, "I'm Done, Now What?" Usually, it comes right when you are in the

Have you ever dreamed of going on a reading retreat? Check out this post for reading retreat ideas and discover how you can participate in one! This past week was a whirlwind of excitement as I hosted my very first MomAdvice Reading Retreat. I, honestly, still can’t believe that this actually happened. The first time […] Pin It

I love grammar. But convincing my students to love grammar sometimes feels like trying to convince a bobcat to enjoy a nice, relaxing ice bath.

We have season passes to Schlitterbahn Galveston this summer and today I'm sharing all the tips I have to enjoy Schlitterbahn with your kids!

Get your students excited for growth with a fun New Year’s goal-setting activity! Explore a creative way to inspire reaching for the stars!

Reduced grading time? Yes, please!

Vibrant health from primitive diets? What is the Weston A. Price Foundation?

I have been working and observing in Montessori classrooms for a good fifteen years now and I’ve seen dozens of different ways to keep track of the mountain of information generated on a daily basis. I’m also a bit of an information junkie and I collect ideas like they’re about to run out (have you seen my Pinterest boards?!) […]

At my school we call them learning buddies but you might know them as reading buddies or big buddies/little buddies. Whatever you call them, some times it’s hard to think of activities to do with them. I often found myself planning things on the fly so I decided to compile a list of activities that […]

Looking for differentiated summarizing activities? These summary anchor charts, activities, free lesson ideas, and modeled writing will help your upper elementary students master the art of writing.