Getting Back to Work

Wow!  This time of year always seems to wear me out!!  Writing scores are due, CRCT Testing is coming, we're in the final crunch to get everything in and review, and for whatever reason, this seems to be the time of year where there is some personal trial in life that I'm also having to handle during all this. 

After going through some stuff for the past couple of months (I've blogged about it here: Choosing to Count ) I am hoping to get back into the swing of things.  I want to get more things made, especially my science mini books, and I want to start blogging more frequently.  We've done some really cute things in class lately, and I want to start posting what we do.  So, here's to April and May being more productive months! :)

St. Pactrick's Day is Just Around the Corner!

   With St. Patrick's Day being just around the corner, there is a small part of me that feels like it is always one holiday after another.  As a mother (trying to send things in for my daughter's class and do all the cutesy holiday things) I long for a break of time where days are just normal!  As a teacher, however, I get excited about the oppurtunity to use a new "theme" in my classroom activities!

So, for fun, I created a St. Patrick's Day Literacy Pack!

It includes four differnt literacy activities that are directly aligned to the 3rd Grade Common Core Standards.

Shamrock Synonyms, Antonyms, & Homophones Sorting Center

 

 

St. Patty's Day Sentences Sort: Simple, Compound & Complex

 

 

 

Parts of Speech Pot of Gold (Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adjecctives, & Adverbs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Luck of the Irish Reference Materials Sort

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also included a couple writing prompt papers as well!  :)  I cannot wait to use this over the next couple weeks with my class!

To view this pack, CLICK HERE.  :)

Common Core Math Assessments 3rd Grade

Well, I couldn't be more overjoyed to announce that my "baby" is almost finished!  When I say baby, I am of course referring to my Common Core Math Assessments Pack!  This has been over a 9 month journey (hence the baby reference :) and I am finally almost done!

I had decided that I was all finished since I had created packs for all the units that Georgia has outlined, but now I'm thinking I'm going to go back and create a test for measurement (length) and create a graphing assessment.  Initially, I wasn't going to do a graphing assessment since I integrated those standards into all my other tests, but now I'm thinking I'm going to go ahead and make one anyway!

I have already uploaded my Mega Assessment Bundle to my TPT page.  When I create these 2 new tests, I will add them to the bundle and buyers will be able to redownload (for free of course! :) ).

Rocks Mini Books

Trying to find new activities and things to do with my units is something that I am constantly striving to do.  This is my 6th year teaching third grade and I LOVE IT!  I would not change grade levels unless I was asked to do so! I love the age, I love the curriculum, I just LOVE it all! 

Before I started teaching, one of my college professors made a statement that stuck with me.  She said, "As a teacher, you have to decide if you're going to teach 30 years, or if you're going to teach 1 year 30 times." I knew that I wanted to teach 30 years, meaning every year, I needed to keep striving to mix things up and to better my practices.

Science has been one of the most difficult areas for me to do this in.  One things my kiddos love is completing mini books!  I love these things!  It allows the kids to read, highlight, and look back for answers.  It also gets them out of the traditional textbooks. 

With this being something I'm hoping to add to my units, this has become my new project...to create mini books for my science curriculum, and I completed my very first one tonight!

 

Rocks Mini Book

 

To view more of my new mini and/or purchase it, Click Here! :)

 

 

 

 

Word Work: Fascinating Word

Trying to find different activities to use during our word work time has been challenging.  Since I teach third grade, I want my students to do more during this time than the typical phonics/spelling activities.  While my students still work on these skills, I wanted to find other ways to push them even further.  I decided to include some language arts and vocabulary into this time as well. 

One of the activities I had my students do is a little "My Fascinating Word" foldable.  They were supposed to try to find a fascinating word in whatever book they were reading during their independent reading time. Each page had a task to complete:
1-they had to write the book title where they found it & write the sentence it was used in.
2-write their actual word
3-write the definition of the word
4- write 3 synonyms for the word

This required them to notice some of the interesting vocabulary in their books, practice using the dictionary, and using the thesaurus. As simple as it is, they actually had a lot of fun with it!

Super Sunday Sale!

Tomorrow is not only the "BIG GAME," but it's also Teachers Pay Teachers Super Sunday Sale! Most sellers (including me :)) are offering up to 20% off with an additional 8% off given at checkout!  All you have to due is use the PROMO Code: SUPER to take advantage of this super deal!  I already have like 10 different things in my teachers pay teachers shopping cart that I'm going to buy tomorrow!  I can't wait! :)



Click here to check it out!

Essential Questions

Post the standards, make sure you have essential questions on the board.........Of all the things we teachers have to remember, these are things I can very easily forget to stay up to date with.  I must admit, I have always thought that essential questions were very beneficial.  They give students big ideas to focus on understanding.

This year, I tried a different approach to posting my essential questions.  I really wanted to make posting these essential questions not only easy for me, but also meaningful for my students.  So, I decided to post questions on the board, with an area where my students can respond to them by putting their answers up their on post-its.  My goal is to start pulling them down on Friday's and reviewing them as a class.