Plans for the week...

It's Monday night and I'm planning for my week. One of the standards I need to address is 3.RI.3. This standard has taken me awhile to wrap my mind around, and I'm still trying to figure out how to teach it the best. One of the resources I came across was from Read, Write, Think. If you haven't checked out their website, you absolutely should! It has some great lesson plans. I got there from Read Tennessee, which is another great resource. They have lesson and ideas for every common core standard! It is great! The one I will be using next week is for writing cause and effect essays. I will pretty much be using the lesson from the website.

I know this is hard to see, but click here to see the whole lesson. It gives you graphic organizers for the students, and great graphic organizer tools that can be used on the web. I plan to project the graphic organizer on the SMART board as I read a book about natural disasters, probably this one:

We will fill out the graphic organizer together, and then the students will create one with a partner on a different natural disaster book. I have several books in my class library, as well as there is a couple articles in the Time for Kids supplement we got with Treasures. After that, they will create an essay using the Essay Map program that is also available. We will do this during computer time later in the week.

I would love to hear if any of you have other ideas for teaching this standard, especially the scientific processes part!

Valentine's Day

 Wow! Valentine's Day is right around the corner! Next week is conferences so I don't have school on Valentine's Day, so we will be celebrating on the 13th which just seems wrong! One of the things we will be doing is my newest product, Valentine's Day Math Centers. There are 5 centers and one whole group activity.

It includes measurement, graphing (pictographs, bar graphs and line plots), multiplication, subtraction and fractions. These are all things my students need some more review on!

This activity is working on measurement to the 1/4" and line plots. The students will measure the objects then place their data in a table. After that, they plot their line plot.

Also included is fractions on the number line. We have been working on this for awhile, but fractions are a major topic for third grade. In this activity the students have hearts with fractions on them that they have to find the matching number line.

There is also a subtraction game. My students are beginning to be proficient in this area, but I want to make sure this skill is solid.

Also included in the bundle is a multiplication match. Students will match the array with the multiplication fact and the area drawing.

Two data and graphing sheets are also included. Students will collect data about their friends' favorite candy, and create a bar graph. In addition, students will create a pictograph of colored candy using the candy of your choice. This page is available as a FREEBIE!! when you download the preview.

I plan on using these centers during my math rotations next week.

Super Sunday Sale!

 

I'm super excited for the Super Sunday sale tomorrow! I will be happily munching on buffalo chicken dip, guacamole and watching the Super Bowl ads. I will also be filling my cart to the brim with TpT goodies! To take advantage of this great sale, click my store, and enter SUPER at checkout!

My most recently added product is my Fraction Unit. Before I  saw the CCSS standards for fractions, I had never thought about putting fractions on a number line. Now that I have done this with my class, I see the benefits for the students of understanding how fractions work.

 After placing fractions on the number line, both visually and with numbers, I moved to comparing fractions. The 3rd grade CCSS requires comparing fraction with like numerators or denominators. They understood the common denominators, but numerators were a little more difficult. This is where manipulatives were helpful!

Comparing fractions led to equivalent fractions. With these lessons, manipulatives are so important! We used fractions strips that are in our math kit.

There are 3 games included in this packet as well as a number line for the bulletin board. I hope this is helpful for you!

Click here to purchase Fractions ~ Number Lines, Equivalents, and Comparing. A FREEBIE of the Comparing Fraction page seen here is available in the preview!

Parts of Speech lessons

I have been working on writing this week in my classroom. I pulled in a few things from Step Up to Writing. It is a great program, and starts very simply and moves up in difficulty. Today we worked on sentence fragments. The students had fun making the fragments into complete sentences. They loved making each other laugh with their silly sentences! Tomorrow we will be working on sentence parts. We will be talking about what a sentence needs to be interesting and complete, the who, what, when, where and why. We will talk about how the what is verbs and the who is nouns.

They will practice their noun, verb, adjective, and adverb identification by playing Parts of Speech Sort using this game board and recording sheet.

After they are able to identify parts of speech, we are also going to add in superlative adjectives and adverbs, which is Common Core Standard 3.L.1. I have never had to teach superlatives in third grade, but my students seemed to know what they were, we just had to work on the spelling of them! Now that they know what they are, they will be able to practice their skills during literacy centers.

I have created a few games for 3.L1, it includes parts of speech and superlative adjectives and adverbs games. There are three boards and 117 total cards with recording sheets for each game and two versions of each game. I hope this will help you teach this kind of boring stuff. I really hate grammar! :) Parts of Speech Games are available for purchase {here} in my TpT store.

Avoidance

So I should be working on grading assessments, and math continuums and ESL paperwork, but instead I will write this blog post.

This week is killing me with the teacher paper work! My head is going to explode! Anyone else in crunch time?

My birthday was this week so I gave myself some school time off which led me to being so behind! Ah!!

Anyways, in class we are working on subtraction. This was something my students are still struggling with so I did a review lesson today. I used the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. If you haven't checked it out, it is awesome!

I started by having students complete the problem on their white boards then we went over it together.

The great thing about this website is that when you put the red cubes on top of the blue cubes the blue ones disappear. Also, when you borrow, you just move the rod to the ones, and it will break apart into the ones. The students seemed to really understand how it works now.

We did several problems like this and I also showed them how to subtract by expanding using the Singapore methods. In the above problem, you would say that it was 100 +60+12 and the bottom number was 80+5. Then subtract the 12-5 and get 7 and 100-80 and get 20 plus the 60 that is there, so 80 plus the 7 left over. So the answer is 87.

I think I cleared up some misconceptions. Now, to work on other things they are confused about before they take the NWEA next week (equivalent fractions, number lines, line plots etc!).

I hope you all are going less crazy then me! If you are equally crazy, please tell me what you are procrastinating!

Assessments, Goals and MLK, oh my!

Anyone else completely and utterly exhausted, but in a good way? I've enjoyed coming back to my 21 smiling faces, and we've hit the ground running! With report cards due Monday at 8:00 am, I have been scrambling to make sure I have everything assessed.

My students used this test for math.

I just copied the standards I needed that I had all ready taught, which turned out to be 17, which shocked me! It was a lot, which meant the test took FOREVER. Even with only three questions the students really took a long time.

The test has 2 multiple choice and an extended response question that required an explanation and drawing. It was good though, because it was a great way to see what I need to work on before the state test in March. Also, a great stamina builder! :)

We also worked on goals and talked about New Year's resolutions and how the students can have goals for what they want to achieve. They created action steps and we talked about SMART goals.

Next week my plan is to work on Non-Fiction text features and informative writing, an important part of Common Core. One way I will do this is my new MLK Non-Fiction Text Analysis and Mini Research Report product.

This allows me to teach about text features (heading, photo, caption, title) as well as, how to answer and ask questions about non-fiction and find answers in text.

There is a timeline and map page as well! I think it is so important that they are able to use a timeline and read a map.

Finally, they will be able to create their own article about MLK using the provided graphic organizer and pictures they can cut out.

In addition, I found this super cute activity that has some cute graphic organizers for writing about MLK's values of respect and peace by TpT seller, The First Grade Reader. Download {here}. I will use these when I read the "I Have a Dream" book which is the text of his famous speech paired with beautiful pictures.

I hope everyone has a fabulous Friday!!

Purchase products here:
Common Core 3rd Grade Multi-Format Math Assessment
Student Goal Setting Packet: Create SMART Goals for NWEA, DRA and Behavior
Martin Luther King: Non Fiction Text Analysis and Mini Research Report

Christmas Break

I hope you all had an amazing Christmas holiday. I had a great time with my family. I'm now busy working on remodeling my house (ok, hubby is doing most of it but I'm great moral support). I'm busy catching up on school stuff to and I just started my dossier (ah!! it's crazy!)

I'm, of course, thinking about the first days back in January, and one of the first things I am going to revisit is my SMART goal packet.

We start NWEA testing a couple weeks into January, and I use this packet for student goal setting. We talk about where they need to be by the end of the year, where they should be now, and test taking strategies to help them do well.

I talk more about how I use the other forms in this post, Goal Settting. Check it out at TpT!

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary