100 Followers and Mentor Text Linky

I'm so excited that I've reached 100 followers! Thank you to my wonderful followers. I enjoy the interaction through comments and all of your blogs as well.  I'm participating in 100 follower celebration giveaways of two other great blogs and now will be hosting my own. Head over to Hunter's Tales from Teaching and
Mrs. Mauro's Kinderverse to check out their giveaways.
     I'm linking up with Collaboration Cuties for Social Studies Mentor Text.
                                                     

 

 I use my book, The Time Travel Storm, as my mentor text while teaching the Communities Past and Present Social Studies Standard. I integrate Language Arts Standards into the unit as well since the school master has such a defining personality. It is easy to pull in character traits with supporting evidence. The children use the story to compare school then and now.

  The main characters in the story, Alex and Scott, get separated from their class during a storm while on a field trip. They find themselves in a one room schoolhouse in the 1800's. The children reading the book experience what school was like then through the eyes of Alex and Scott. Click here to view the Book Trailer.

 

 

The children enjoy comparing school then and now using the school house as the venn diagram.

I have created free resources to go with the story. Click here.   For my 100 follower celebration I will be giving away a signed copy of the story for your classroom. I will announce when the giveaway is after I round up some contributors and figure out the rafflecopter. :)

Flashbacks and Randoms from Testing Week

Yippee!! Testing week is over! I couldn't have asked my kiddos to work any harder this week. I'm so proud of them. I'm linking up with Teaching Madness and Doodle Bugs to look back over the week.

 

1. Polygons, Polygons---We reviewed for the math test with a variety of different activities. The children worked in small groups to identify polygons I gave them made from chart paper. They also had to measure the perimeter of each, identify the number of sides and angles, and identify the types of angles. Each group reported their information to the class.

2. Polygon Patrol-We followed up the polygon activity with a cute reader's theater called the Polygon Patrol by Educational Theatre Scripts. They performed the reader's theater for the other third grade classes.

3. Name Graphs- To review fractions and decimals the children wrote each letter of their first or last names in a square of graph paper. They wrote a fraction and decimal for the shaded squares of each letter.

4.  I had the children create an acrostic using the word  TEST. They worked together and came up with phrases for each letter like, "take your time", 'think carefully", "stay focused", "eat a good breakfast",  "take a deep breath". Our school's student council bought the kids pencils that said "Rock the OAA", so keeping with that theme, the kids created themselves as rock-stars. I saw this idea at Fun in 4B.  I displayed their rock-stars with their acrostics. They had a blast with this!

5. I'll end with a quote.

Have a wonderful weekend everybody!

Dear Children of the Earth

  Happy Earth Day week. I'm linking up with Collaboration Cuties for Must Read Mentor Texts.

  I plan my Science Units so that I teach natural resources in April for Earth Day. I introduce conservation of resources  by reading Dear Children of the Earth by  Schim Schimmel . It is a letter from Mother Earth to all of her children stressing the importance of taking care of her.
                                                                    

                                                                          

   After reading, the children brainstorm ideas of how they can do their part to help Mother Earth. I record their ideas on chart paper and display in the room. Each student writes a letter to Mother Earth telling how they will help. You can download a copy of the checklist I created here.
 They also make a Mother Earth craft from DLTK to display on the bulletin board along with their letters.
                                                                 

 I'm also linking up with Flying into First Grade for.....

The topic this week is My Classroom.
1. I made a special place in my room to display anchor charts. I dressed up blue clothes pins with felt flowers and hung a decorative ribbon along the bulletin board to hang the charts.

2. My little library contains book baskets in my room colors.

3. I learned how to make my own poms using tissue paper. I hung blue and green poms above my computer area.

I love my green and blue room. :)

Spark Motivation Saturday-Keep Motivation During Test Review

   Hello! I'm linking up with Head over Heals for Teaching for another Spark Motivation Saturday.
Next week is our state testing so I spent the last week reviewing skills in reading and math. (How boring is that) I needed a way to keep the kids interested and also work hard..... a delicate balance. My kiddos are artistic and like to create things. So I decided to pull that into my review.


      I reviewed character traits with the story Smelly Socks.

    The main character in the story, Tina, has a strong personality.  My children found the story hilarious and enjoyed picking out character traits for Tina.  The children wrote the character traits on a sock  pattern and supported the traits with evidence from the story. Then they designed their own smelly socks and shared them with the class.

 Have a wonderful weekend!

Fantastic Friday and Spark Motivation Saturday.

Hello all!. I'm linking up with Head over Heels for Spark Motivation Saturday.


Something I do each week to motivate good behavior is Fantastic Friday. We use the behavior color wheel in our school with green being a good day with good choices. Students with green all week get to choose a Fantastic Friday Coupon on Friday afternoons. These are little rewards that don't cost anything. The children love Fantastic Friday.
 I also have used Fantastic Friday as motivation for students who struggle with behavior or homework. I may set a goal with them to earn a Fantastic Friday coupon. Some of the children's favorite coupons are.......stinky feet, write with pen for a day, practice spelling words on white board, and of course no homework coupon.

You can download some of my coupons free. Just click the picture below. :)

Five for Friday Linky

I'm finally making a new post!  My life is has been crazy busy.........anyway it is time to link up with Doodle Bugs for Five for Friday. Here are my randoms from the past couple of weeks.

1. Our school district is a national finalist to be recognized as a  National District of Character. We had NSOC site evaluator visit our school. We will find out in May if we're named. The children displayed bees for the visit and wrote on the wings how they demonstrate good character in the classroom.

2. We are down to one week before state testing. In our classroom we are doing math, math, and more math. Here are our area and perimeter monsters.

3. We finished up our Metric Unit with a quiz. The children studied their flip books for the quiz. They turned out great! You can get the materials for the flipbook at my store if you are interested.

4. This is national poetry writing month. The children have read different types of poems and began writing their own. Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry for Kids is an awesome resource for poems and writing. The children in my class love his poems.

5. I will end with something I found on Pinterest that can apply to us as well as our children. I love this....

Have a great weekend everybody!