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?

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!!

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.

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. 

Class Library

Using your space to the best you can is a huge asset. Over the summer while I was thinking about the layout of my classroom I realized that I wasn't going to need all of the cubby space for my students. What a perfect place to put our class library! The cubbies even made extra storage space for books and the gagillion (not sure how to spell that) dictionaries in my classroom. I'm also able to store any pillows or cushions I have for when my students are reading around the room. 

Wall Stickers

I was so excited when I found these at Michael's Craft Store. And I'm pretty sure they are reusable! Awesome!

Reading

"Shopping for books is akin to shopping for clothes -- if we don't take the time to try them on to see how they fit, they are destined to remain in our closets and on our shelves."
(Debbie Miller Reading with Meaning)