Phases of the Moon

I found this great idea on Pinterest! (I love finding things on there!)

The students used Oreo Cookies to model the phases of the moon. 

They had a blast and were excited to munch on a few when they were done! 

I had them working in pairs because I wasn't sure if I would have enough cookies. I find that when I randomly pair students together it works the best. They all got right to work. It was a huge success!

Keep Those Lesson Plans!

I'm only a beginning teacher, but I've gotten some great advice from my peers this year. They all tell me to keep my lesson plans. This may seem logical to you, but I'm not just saying to keep your lesson plan book. It is helpful to be able to look back at your lesson plan book for sure. But I'm thinking about it in a more electronic form.
At my school we have to post our lesson plans, including the objectives, onto the program RenWeb. This how parents and administration can see what we are doing in our classrooms (other than coming into the classroom of course). Before I post them on this program I type them all on a Word document. That way I have them all in one place to look at next year when I'm planning out my lessons. Some of them will change slightly since I am learning what works and what doesn't, but at least I won't have to rethink every single lesson.

So...
KEEP YOUR LESSON PLANS!!

New Obsession

Sometimes kids are so funny. It cracks me up what I find in their desks. I don't look through their desks very often, if at all, but I asked them to clean them out on Friday due to a school preview day coming up. A few of my students didn't really understand the task apparently. What makes me laugh is the amount of children who have accumulated a lovely rock collection in their desks. No wonder they can't fit anything else in them (!) they are full of rocks! 

A handful of my students have decided to spend their recess time crushing rocks out on the playground in order to find crystals. This wouldn't be a problem except that the school secretary has asked that they stop due to the amount of students coming in bleeding from cutting themselves while breaking the rocks apart. Well I guess they are back at it again. So funny.

 

Do you remember playing with random things in your desk growing up?

Cereal Box Book Report

This is my first year teaching 3rd grade. And I completely love it. One of the online resources I've used is Beth Newingham's website. She is a very talented teacher. One thing I found on her site was the Cereal Box Book Report. Her site gives all the information you need to put it together.
This is such a fun book report. My students were really excited to do it when I explained what they would be doing. I asked each student to choose a realistic fiction book that was at least 100 pages long. This proved to be a little tricky for some of them. I might rethink that for next year. They had about 3 weeks to finish the project.
I was so pleased to see how creative my students were in doing this project. They named their own cereal, decorated the front of the box, created fun puzzles on the back of the box, wrote a summary of the book, and put a prize in the box. It was so fun to go through them.

Can you figure out what books these cereals are based on?

Leap Day!

I showed this to my class this morning 

(I know...I'm a day late, but I just discovered it last night!)

It is a great explanation about why we have an extra day every 4 years.

Flowers

I found this idea on Pinterest and it led me to The Inspired Classroom blog. There are great ideas on this blog.
My class just finished up a unit on Plant Life. Before the test my students did these flip books. On the front they colored in a flower (which I drew and photo copied), labeled the parts, and cut them into sections. When they finished this they defined what each part does for the plant behind the flaps.

Bird Paintings

When I first started teaching I was hired to teach elementary art. This wasn't my strongest area, but I could do it. A friend of mine gave me the best book when she found out what I was teaching: "Drawing With Children" by Mona Brooks. I had heard of Mona Brooks in an art class I took at TMC, but it was a brief conversation. I didn't realize that she had so many plans for teaching children how to draw. This book is wonderful!
Mona Brooks uses basic shapes and lines to get students started in drawing. Then she gives great step by step instructions on how to draw different things: parrots, lions, still life, etc.
My 3rd grade students loved drawing their parrots. And I love that all of them are different! Once we finished drawing them we painted them with watercolors. This proved to be a little harder than planned and one of my students did have a meltdown, but all of the results were beautiful.

Glue Pictures

I love teaching art. When I was first hired at the school I am currently working at I taught elementary and jr. high art. Even though it was tricky at times I really liked teaching art. I love finding new ideas and trying them out. Some of them work and some of them don't, but hey that's life! When I first found out I was going to be teaching art 3 1/2 years ago I found this book. First of all I need to say that I love Usborne Books! This book in particular has so many great ideas! I completely recommend it for teaching art in the classroom. As you can see there are a few sticky notes in it.

One of the best ideas I found in it was "glue pictures." It takes a few days, but it is worth it!

1. The students create a picture using elmer's glue on cardstock or cardboard. You want the glue to be thick so that when it dries it stays bumpy. 
2. Once the glue is completely dried paint over it with gold paint. It is ok if the paint isn't overly thick on the paper. Let the paint dry overnight. 
3. Finally rub brown shoe polish over the entire picture. This gives the picture an antique look. They are beautiful. 

My students did this during February. I asked each one of them to do some design using hearts. They are currently looking beautiful in the windows of my classroom. 

Current Read Aloud

New read aloud book in my classroom. It is a little tricky for my third graders to understand, but I make sure we talk about it as we read. 

I love the Narnia Series!!

Valentine's Day

Found a similar idea on Pinterest. 

Our memory verse this week was 1 John 4:9. 

We had a great talk about how God loves us!

The students thought of ways they could show God's love to others. I requested they list 2 ways and most of them did more. It was great to see their desire to show God's love! 

They are hanging from the ceiling in my classroom!

Flower Bulletin Board

We are just finishing up a unit on plants. This is the bulletin board I put up for the unit. 

One of my students helped me put it together. 

Snowglobes

We made this before Christmas but left them up in the window thru January. 

I traced out the shape of the black base and blue inside. 

The students cut them out. 

Each student was given white, brown, black, red, orange, and green paint, a q-tip, and a tooth pick. 

I instructed the students that they had to have at least 1 snowman. 

I love how creative these third graders were! Birds, bunnies, and SF Giants hats. 

Multiplication

       I decided this year that my 3rd grade students needed to start working on multiplication facts early on. For the first several months of school we had "Multiplication Mondays." Most of the students really looked forward to this time. I took the unit on multiplication and spread it out over every Monday. I found this helpful because it gave the students a good amount of time to learn each math fact family.
       At this point many of the students are slowing down in how much they practice their multiplication. About 1/3rd of the class has finished x1-x12. I'm so proud of them. Each of them received a gift certificate for Baskin Robbins. I make a big deal about it. I want to make sure they know how proud I am of them. Those who are finished have moved on to division facts. Woo Hoo!!

Current Read-Aloud

I love Beverly Cleary's books. She is such a talented author. Even the books she wrote several years ago, which are a little dated, can be enjoyed today. Runaway Ralph is one of my favorites of her books.

Onomatopoeia

The Cluttered Classroom Diaries - Part 1

I have fallen into a big problem in my classroom.
I've put off cleaning up some areas in my classroom.
I'm now to the point that I have a lot to clean up.
Yes.
A lot.
My class is functioning well, but I know that if I were more organized I would feel better and they would function even better. Most of the clutter is on my desk and behind my desk. But it is spreading. It is like a paper disease. Help! I need my classroom to be healthy again!

So, today it begins. The de-clutter of room 52.
I am determined.
I'm starting out small.

Step 1: Clean off the top of my desk. 

I feel so stupid that I'm having to even say this, but cleaning it off does not mean to put it in a pile somewhere else. (I'm so known to do that! Shame on me!) It all needs to be put away. The age of stacking papers must end. And today it will.
Everything must have a place. And if it doesn't have a place then it needs to be thrown away.

Happy New Year!

It is 2012! 

Start off the new year by recapping on the previous year and setting a few goals for the new year. I loved reading the goals my students came up with. I found this sheet on Pinterest. Seriously, pinterest is my new favorite place to find teaching ideas. 

As Far As I Can See

As Far As I Can See
Read this book to my class last month. They liked it. I personally love Historical Fiction. I would probably read Historical Fiction to my class all year round, but I want them to be well rounded in their reading.
This story is about Meg. She is from St. Louis in 1856. Due to a cholera epidemic she and her younger brother have to leave the rest of their family and stay with relatives in Kansas Territory. It was a great story.

January is half over already. I can't believe it! After Christmas break I was feeling convicted about how much time I've been spending in God's Word. I've been working at reading the Bible once a day. Along with this I decided that we needed to spend more time reading the Bible in my classroom. (I teach at a Christian school so we can do that! Yay!) I found this book while I was looking through books on my bookshelf. It is wonderful! 

After my kids finish their start of the day assignment we say the pledge to the flag and then read a page from this devotional. Can I just tell you that it really starts our day out well. We begin with our focus on the right thing. I can't believe I didn't do this sooner! I'm so thankful for the many things God is teaching me and how He uses me in the lives of my students.