My Weekly Lesson Plans in Pictures {August 14-19}

Back to School was a huge success!  I was so happy to meet my class and our first three days together were amazing!  I love that we started on a Wednesday this year.  Those three days are a great opportunity to take it slow and learn our routines, procedures and expectations and then we can hit the ground running on our first full week.

Monday will start our first full week of the school year and here is what our week looks like in pictures!

Spelling:

We won't officially start our spelling time until next week.  We still need to finish assessing our kiddos and then meet as a grade level to work out our spelling groups.  We switch classes during this time to do targeted instruction on phonograms and spelling rules that each group specifically needs to work on.

During our spelling time this week I will continue to focus on our classroom routines, procedures and expectations.

We learned most of our routines last week, thanks to my trusty Routines and Procedures Binder I was able to stay on track and not forget any!  This week we will discuss what to do when you finish an assignment early and learn the "Fun When You're Done," options.

We will also continue to learn our classroom expectations during our Morning Meeting.  We have already learned to Be Respectful, Be Trustworthy and Be an Active Listener.  This week we will work on Be Safe and Be Your Best.

Classroom Expectations

Grammar:

Grammar this week will focus on reviewing and learning the Parts of Speech.  We will do lots of interactive and get up out of your seat activities!

Reading:

This first part of our week will focus on learning how to "Table Talk."  We do a LOT of taking about our learning in our classroom and I think it is sooo important to teach them HOW to have a good conversation.  We started last week and will finish learning about it early this week.  We will have our first "official," Table Talk using First Day Jitters toward the end of the week.  The great thing about Table Talk is that once they learn how to do it, I can use for ANY content area!  

Writing:

This week during writing we will focus on  how to write a good paragraph using Color Coded Paragraphs.  In third grade they need to begin writing multiple paragraphs, so I spend a little time at the beginning of the year making sure they know the parts of a paragraph and how to write a good paragraph.  We also write a friendly letter in our Home Journal every Friday so I need them to be able to write a good paragraph for that!  Head to my TpT store to download the freebie!!

Math:

Our first Instructional Unit in Math is Understanding Multiplication and Division.  I'm excited to have a new resource this year, our district adopted My Math and it will be so nice to have some resources!  I will still use my Monster Multiplication resource to introduce the concept of multiplication, as well as my journal companion to Each Orange Had 8 Slices.  I love using hands on and fun activities to introduce and practice this new skill!

Science:

I'm excited to get our Earth Science unit underway.  I love teaching this unit and I have so many fun...and yummy things up my sleeve!  This week we will learn about the different types of rocks!

To check out any of the products I will be using click on the links!  

It should a fun and busy week in third grade this week and I can't wait!!!

Text Features Using Who Would Win

My class has a new obsession….they can’t get enough of Jerry Pallotta’s Who Would Win series!  I had seen the idea on Pinterest to use the books to work on opinion writing, so I bough a big pack of them using Scholastic Bonus Points.

 
We used this awesome pack by Teaching in Stripes to organize our thoughts.  I read aloud from Whale Vs. Giant Squid, stopping before the big fight scene at the end.  I wanted the kiddos to form their own opinions based on the facts presented in the book.  Then they had to choose if they were Team Whale or Team Squid.

I gave them time to meet with their “teams,” and compare notes and then we wrote our opinion pieces.  After everyone’s writing was complete, I finally read the battle scene and they found out who would win.  They absolutely LOVED it!

They were so in love with these books that I had to think of another way to use them.  So we did a review lesson on text features because these books are FULL of them!  I partnered them up and each set of partners got a different Who Would Win book.  They had to go on a text feature hunt and fill out a graphic organizer.

After that, they got to create a poster about their Who Would Win battle.  Their poster had to included three text features.  I think it’s safe to say that this project was a huge hit!  They had such a great time and it made my teacher heart so happy to hear them discussing which text features would help them explain the information on their posters!

Want to try it out with your class?  Click HERE to go grab the graphic organizers and poster rubric, they are a FREEBIE in my store!

A Proud Teaching Moment….and a Little Freebie

I had one of those moments today,  you know the one I am talking about.  The one that makes your eyes fill up and you can’t even find the words to tell them how proud you are.  I had one. 
 

We have been working hard on using evidence from the text to support our answers.  (Yes, I am gearing up for full-fledged Common Core next year.)  We have also been working on close reading and reading text for different purposes.  Today we did our 2nd read of Wilbur’s Boast from our reading series.   The students were given a question that they had to answer and they had to show evidence from the text to support their answer.  I was super nervous.  I thought for sure that it would be one of those times I would have to really spoon feed them and we all would end up frustrated.

We did a quick review of showing evidence by making this anchor chart.
 

 

As we reread the text, the students used sticky notes to “stop and jot,” spots where they found evidence to support their answers.  Afterwards, we talked about how to take their “stop and jot,” notes and use the sentence starters to write an answer to the question.
 

It was when they started finishing up their responses and bringing them to show me that my moment occurred.  I couldn’t believe the responses I was reading.  They were so well thought out.  They had actual evidence, that actually supported their answer! 
 

I made this rubric to use to grade their responses.  You are welcome to download it for free!  Just click the picture and it will take you to it!
 

 

This week we also have been working on the prefixes re-, un-, dis-, and pre-.  We made this anchor chart.
 

 

Then we did a little cooperative learning activity using the prefix cards in my spring centers pack.

You can check out my “Bring on Spring,” centers by clicking the picture below.
 

 

I will close with this little gem.  As you may already know, my family is pretty much basketball obsessed.  March Madness is like some crazy holiday in our house!  I always love when I have a student who loves basketball as much as I do.  As I was grading vocabulary sentences this week, I came across this…..
 

 

It is sentence #3.  “Aaron Craft wasn’t boasting after he made the winning shot of the game.”  Love it!  Melt my heart, this kiddo shares my love for college basketball and Aaron Craft! 
 

I may or may not have Ohio State winning it all in my bracket…I’m just sayin’. 

Go Buckeyes!

 

Easy as PIE!

Before I get to the PIE, I have to share our new class t-shirts with you.  I am in L.O.V.E. with them.

I can’t wait to see all my littles wearing them on Friday!
Okay, so this week we are reviewing author’s purpose.  I have been waiting to make this Pinterest inspired anchor chart.  I honestly don’t know how I ever did my job without Pinterest.  So many great ideas. 

After making the anchor chart together and reviewing it was time to get out of our seats and practice a bit.  I am a big fan of changing it up throughout the day. I try not to have them sitting in their seats for a huge length of time.  So, we did a little inside/outside circles with my Author’s Purpose Task Cards.  They did such a great job with them!

Promise me that you will ignore the mess in the background.  My helper hadn’t done their job of cleaning the word work station yet!

Today was a much better day.  Thank goodness.  Yesterday was our first day back and it was one of those days that I have every once in a while where I just wasn’t feeling on.  You know when you have those days where you just aren’t feeling the magic happening.  That was my day yesterday.  I think it was just a little back to school funk.  Thankfully I had my weekly Bachelor night with the “Bestie,” last night, got a great night’s sleep, and was on it today!
Hope you are all easing back in!  Happy Tuesday!

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year…..

No, I am not one of “those people,” playing Christmas music already.  From now until right after Christmas is my absolute favorite time of year.  I love all of the parties, decorations, and fun memory making activities.  Of course, life at school gets pretty crazy for the next couple of months with assemblies, holidays, class parties, and projects, but these are the moments that my third graders will remember.  20 years from now, when they think back to our short time together they will remember these memories that we make.  I am sure you all have some things that you do every year to celebrate the holidays at school.  I have seen the character pumpkin idea all over Pinterest and have been waiting for October so we could do it.
Here is one of my favorites from Second Grade Shenanigans….

I tweaked the project a bit so that it relates to third grade curriculum. Instead of doing a full on book report my kiddos have to pick their favorite book.  They will make the character pumpkin at home and in class they will work on writing a character description, which happens to be our writing skill for the week of Halloween! 
Here is the little packet I made to use with my class. Click on the pic to download it for free! 

Can’t wait to start making some more fun memories with my kiddos this season!

Word Detectives

One of the skills that we are working hard on this week is using context clues to determine meaning.  I tell my kiddos that they are “Word Detectives,” and just like police detectives look for clues, it is their job to look for clues to help them determine the meaning of a word.  The first thing we did was work together to make this anchor chart….

Oh. My. Goodness…I can’t even tell you how much fun they had doing this.  I gave them the sentence and we brainstormed words that could fit.  Then I gave them the same sentence with additional clues that narrowed it down to only one possibility.  They LOVED it!  After we made the chart I read aloud this book…

Another HOMERUN!  They ate this book up.  It is filled with “alien,” words and they had so much fun trying to figure out what each of the words meant.  You can click on the picture above to see it on Amazon!
Finally, we went back to our desks and did an activity to practice using context clues.  They were lovin the made up words so much that we used an activity from my “Becoming Word Detectives,” pack. We used context clues to determine what zerples, ermps, and faffen might be.  It always makes my heart happy when I hear things like, “this is so much fun,” as they are actually working hard to learn something! 
 

Authors and Apple Pie

Happy Monday everyone!  We were back today for a “normal,” week of school.  Of course, there is no such thing as normal in third grade!  We have an assembly tomorrow to kick off our big school wide fundraiser and that is guaranteed to get them all crazy!

Today we started talking about identifying an author’s purpose during reading.  Not something kiddos usually get too excited about right?  Well, a little bit of gum and permission to chew it in class will get any third graders attention!  We learned that authors write for P.I.E.  We looked at some examples and made a “Pie Plate,” to help us remember.

While they were quietly working they were allowed to chew on this…..

Last year, when my teammate and I were lesson planning for author’s purpose she joked that we should bring in apple pie for the whole class.  Well, I had remembered seeing this yumminess at the checkout stand.  I know what you’re thinking….gum that tastes like apple pie…really?  It really tastes like apple pie, I promise.  All but one of my kiddos ate it up…literally!  I am hoping that this helps the concept of author’s purpose “stick” with them.
In other news, I finished up with my November Brain Boxes and they are now in my TpT store.

If you missed the post on Brain Boxes you can read about it HERE.  If you are using Brain Boxes in your room I would love to hear how they are working!
Have a great Monday night!

-Mrs. Wood

Fall Break = Lots of Planning Time!

WooHoo!!!! Conferences are done and Fall Break is here!  I am so looking forward to a solid 3 days off from school.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my job and my school kiddos, but this teacher is tired!  So many of our friends are leaving town for the 3 days….not me.  I am super excited to sleep, catch up on housework, and jump ahead on some lesson planning.  Call me crazy but I love being planned way ahead of time and not running around at school like a crazy woman!  We are also 24 days away from the official start of basketball season (I say “official” because in our house the season sure does feel year round!).  Anyways, once season begins life gets crazy and I like to have a good head start going into it.  So, I have been working on some activities for teaching a practicing context clues.  In my room we always talk about being “word detectives.”  Detectives look for clues and that is what we do when we try and figure out what a word means or if it makes sense in the sentence.
Here is my “Becoming a Word Detective,” pack.  Now available in my TpT store.  You can grab it for 20% off the regular price for today only! 

Here’s to a relaxing, yet productive Fall Break!

Finding the Main Idea….Candy Corn Style!

Finding the main idea is such an important skill and every year we spend quite a bit of time practicing it.  I have used many graphic organizers and fun things over the years, but my favorite by far is also the simplest.  We call it the Main Idea Triangle.  I love it for a few reasons.  #1  Students can visually see that the facts and details are what “hold up",” the main idea.  #2 It is so easy to draw that they can draw it anywhere, their whiteboard, the back of their paper, etc… and #3  Because they can draw it on their own I don’t have to waste a ton of copy paper making worksheets.

A few weeks ago, I introduced my students to the triangle for the very first time.  Now, I need to tell you that I have a boy this year who L.O.V.E.S. all things Halloween.  It is hands down his favorite holiday of the year!  OBSESSED!  So of course, when I showed them the triangle he immediately thought…..”Candy Corn!!!”  So, now my entire class calls this the main idea candy corn and they all insist on coloring it to look like candy corn when we are done!
I was inspired by my candy corn lovin’ students and made a Candy Corn Comprehension center for our short 2 hour school days coming up this week.   The triangle itself you can grab for free by clicking the picture.  The center activity is for sale at my TpT store! 

 Would love some feedback, let me know what you think!  Have a great weekend everyone!

Fluency Friday….and a Giveaway!

Every Friday in our room is “Fluency Friday.”  I LOVE routines and so do so many of my kiddos.  They love to know what is coming next and exactly how do it.  Our fluency routine is a great 5 minute fluency practice that we do each week.  I start teaching them the routine early in the year by introducing one thing fluent readers do each week.  That is then our focus for our practice. 
We start out on the carpet reviewing the things that fluent readers do.  We then move to our seats and get our “Fluency Folders,” out.  Our folders have our passages and our fluency graph.  The students put on their “fluency ears,” to help block out their neighbor’s voice and I time them as they read aloud for 1 minute.  As they are reading, if they come to a word they don’t know they circle it.  I walk around the room listening to them read and jotting down notes.  When I say stop, they draw a line after the last word they read.  We then talk about a few of the words that I noticed circles around and read the passage again for 1 minute.  After the second read, they count up how many words they read and I ask them 2 questions for comprehension.  The last part of our routine is their favorite!  In their folder they keep a graph where they chart each week how many words they read.  They LOVE watching the bar graph go higher each week and celebrating their hard work!
I have put together a packet of all of the things I use in my weekly fluency routine.  It includes posters with the 3 things we review each week and includes an explanation of the hand movements we use as we say them (love WBT…I will have more to say about that in another post!).  There are 2 sets of posters, one with cute little monsters that I just couldn’t resist, and another more traditional set.  Also included are the parent letter I send home, a fluency folder cover, and a few different graphs.  Not included are the actual fluency passages.  I use the ones that came with our reading series.

The “Fluency Friday,” packet is available at my TpT store here….but I am giving away  free packets to the first 2 people who comment on this post and become a follower!