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?

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.

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. 

Local Geography

Our local water agency was passing out this poster of our local river. I love that it is a cartoon representation of the Russian River. And it helps my students know more about their local geography. 

Who knows maybe your water agency would have something like this too. Couldn't hurt to check!

Classroom Store

A classroom store can totally drain your school budget. You can shop at the Dollar Store or Oriental Trading, but it still adds up quickly. You also have to think about how often you need to have your class store. If you spread it out too much throughout the year the kids will forget about what they are working towards. At the end of the school year my administrator gave me a few ideas of how to keep to a budget in this area. I took those ideas and then looked up some more.

Here you have my 

List of Affordable Classroom Store Items

• Lunch with the teacher - my co-teacher and I did this last year. The kids loved it. Just have a group of 5 kids at a time have lunch in the classroom with you. Come up with some questions to ask each of them. They will love the fact that they are getting to tell you things about them and that they get to hear things about you! It is great to show your students that you are interested in their lives!
• Extra Computer Time - there are some kids who will love this. Plan a time during the day when they can use that computer time while other kids are working on something or reading quietly. The students who purchase this will feel so special that they get to do their own thing. 
• Special Seats - let the students who purchase this sit in either a special chair or even at the teacher's desk for part of the day. Better make sure your desk is cleaned off first. :)
• Work with a friend - this one might be a little trickier, but I bet you could figure something out to make it work. I would probably make two kids buy this one and they could choose a time to work together on something other than a test. I have a few students who would try to pull that one on me. :) 
• Read Aloud - Let the student read a story to the entire class. It may be one they've chosen or one you already planned on reading. But let them do the reading instead of you. It is also a good time for them to practice reading aloud (bonus!)
• Choosing their seat - let the students choose their seating arrangement. This could be short term or long term. It really depends on the class/kids. I remember being in 3rd grade and loving it when my teacher let us choose where we wanted to sit in the classroom. 
• No Homework Pass - this may not apply to all homework. 
• Planner not signed pass - at our school we start using planners in 3rd grade. Every night when they have homework they have to have their parent sign/initial their planner. They could save this for a time when they forgot to get it signed. 
• Design a bulletin board - I found this one on another site, and I'm not sure how I would use it. It would be hard for me to let the bulletin board go. But it is a cool idea. 
• Choose music to play in the classroom - I often play music while my students are working. Have a selection of cds and let a student choose what to listen to that day. 

Not a bad list, right? I'm looking forward to trying some of these out on my students this fall. I think we'll start with a group reward first and then move on to individual rewards. I'm so excited!