Phew! and First week Read-Alouds

My first week is over! My class is super cute and fun! No major behavior problems as far as I can tell.

I read If Everybody Did yesterday and they all cracked up!

I love reading a good book and having them interact with the book. I use this book all year round to remind them what would happen if everyone picked the grass in assemblies, everybody yelled across the room or everybody took their shoes off during class! :)

Another read-aloud I read this week was Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon . They were all begging me to read that book so I did.

They cracked up, and said oh and aw over all the pictures (I told you they were cute!) We started working on text connections and noticing and wonderings so we talked about what they noticed, wondered and how they could connect with the text. I also use this book to talk about how it is okay to be different and we should support each other in being different!

I also read Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse to talk about school rules and why we have to follow them. After we read the book we came up with our own expectations for school and those became our rules.

I started my novel read-aloud as well. I am reading Rules by Cynthia Lord and it is a great book so far. The main character in the story is Catherine and her brother David. David has autism and Catherine wishes he was normal.  This read-aloud will be used for my first book report example for realistic fiction and it also enables a discussion about fair not always being equal. We talk about how some students may need wiggle seats or fidgets to be successful, but not everyone needs those things.

What are your first week read-alouds? Next week I will be reading, Chrysanthemum (name tag activity), Say Something, My Secret Bully and A Bad Case Of Stripes . I'm also hoping to find my copy of A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue to addresses the whole tattling vs. reporting issue!

Back to School Room Tour!

I'm finally got my head above water 4 days into school and I've finally uploaded my classroom pics for the room tour linky!

The view from my desk. You can see my large divider covered in sheets, buckets on the tables and the listening center!

Painted bulletin boards (awesome idea and looks so nice, thank you teacher friend!) and my centers charts, a schedule that is falling off that I later taped and my birthday banner.

Pretty curtains, standards on cookie sheets and my desk area.

I need to take close ups of things, but that works for a tour for now!!

Thank you for taking a peek at my classroom!

Craziness

Wow! This week has been crazy so far! I have been working hard testing all of my students! I have professional development tomorrow and a work day on Friday and my students start Monday. So far, my students seem so sweet!

This week I finished my Common Core Math Assessment with all standards from third grade. I plan to use it to quickly assess student progress on a standard. Each page has 3 student tests with 3 questions each.

This is the one for 3.MD.8.There are three of the same thing on one page. This way I only have to make a few copies, can cut them out and have a quick idea of how much my students know. I think these would be great to use before the end of quarter for those of us who have to have a grade for every standard at once!

You can purchase the packet by clicking here!

Anyone else as nervous as I am about starting Common Core?

Back to School Sale

It's that time of the year for back to school sales. I love the smell of new crayons and pencils
(You've Got Mail reference!) I know I'm heading to Joann's today for 25% off for teachers!

I'm throwing my own sale at TpT! Check out the blog hop to see who else is on sale!

Happy Back to School!

Bucket filling

I got my class list today. I am so excited to start the year. So far it looks like 12 girls and 8 boys. I'm sorry to those of you with 30 students. I bow down to your amaziness!!

I worked on more details for my classroom today. I wanted it to look presentable because parents come next week for assessment days. One of the things I did was put my buckets together. I am a BIG believer in the power of bucket filling.

So I attached tags to the buckets with wrapping ribbon.  I wrote the students name on both sides with permanent marker.

Here's what they look like hung up!

You can see in this pic the books I start off the year with. I especially love "Say Something " and "Have You Filled a Bucket Today? " of course!


To hang my buckets I use clear plastic hooks like these.



I put mine up last year and they are still going strong! I also hung up the posters you can barely see in the pic.

My students will begin filling bucket right away! I have bucket filling forms on their desks for them to fill out about each other. I read them aloud to encourage other students to be bucket fillers. This program has really given my classroom a positive and nurturing classroom environment. 

The tags, posters, and activities are all available on my Bucket Filling Classroom Activity Packet at my TpT store.

Do you use bucket filling in your classroom? What do you like about it? Anyone work at a bucket filling school? I would love to know what that is like!

Monday er.. Tuesday! Made It!

Ok, so I'm a little late to the party, but this week so far has been crazy! I worked like a mad woman in my classroom yesterday and I had jury duty all day today! No fun!

The first thing to share, I did not actually make, my mother in law did! How awesome is that?

She painted them turquoise and added black polka dots. I love how they jazz up my library area.

The second project I worked on this week was labels for my literacy centers. The square ones are for the pocket chart and round are for the tables and buckets that the centers are at.

If only I could find a teal blue pocket chart, I would be happy! Why are they only in primary colors?

I'm off to laminate so I have some more stuff to cut out during jury duty.

Literacy Centers~ Writing, Game and Computer

I'm continuing talking about Literacy Centers in my classroom. Today I want to talk about Writing, Game and Computer Center. You can read about {Working with Words, Buddy Reading and Listening; and Newspaper, Poetry and Spelling} in my other posts. I also talk about how I manage the centers in this {post}.

Writing

For this center, I usually have a writing prompt or type of writing that I am trying to teach.  I use several sources to help me find what would benefit my students.

SMART Board Resources Blog Hop

I'm joining with Margaret at Kinder Journey for her first time hosting a blog hop.

I've started a technology series focusing on test prep that I'm still working on that you can find {here}. For the blog hop, the resource I would like to share is The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. I found this thanks to my wonderful colleague.

 

This site is broken down into the subject like algebra and geometry and by grade level.

For third graders, I usually start with the virtual manipulative page that shows addition and subtraction using base ten. I usually keep going to the next problem until it gets to double or triple digit. The problems get progressively harder as you go along.

For each problem you use the SMART board (or mouse) you move the cube down to make ten. When you make ten you can circle the ten cubes and it will turn into a rod (or click and draw a square around the cubes).  Make sure you go around ALL of the cubes to make ten or it won't work.

Now that it is turned into a rod, you can move it to the tens column and it will show the answer.

This site has nearly every kind of manipulative you can think of, as well as ways you've never thought of to teach a particular topic!

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do!

P.S. Am I breaking bloggy rules by posting twice in a day if I didn't post yesterday? :)

Summer Shopping Linky

 Ladybug's Teacher Files is hosting the Summer Shopping Linky.

I've been looking forward to this linky since I saw the post in June and started my blog in July! I really love looking at everyone's finds. My pocket book doesn't like it too much though! :)

Oh, shopping! I've bought quite a few things this summer, but my most recent purchases were:

The number line and paper kit are from a teacher store and the curtains are from Target. The paper kit is pretty neat, it has graph paper, a giant piece of ruled paper, and a normal size of ruled paper. They are all dry erase and I will use them for showing my class how to organize their paper. 

I'm very excited about the curtains. I have a gorgeous view, but the light from the window leaves a major glare on my SMART board, not to mention it gets HOT over there! 

See those glaring windows?

My desk is near the window so I thought curtains would work. They match my teal theme too! This picture is my "before" class photo. Hopefully, I will have a more finished look soon!