Daily Five Literacy Rotation

      I introduced math rotations a few weeks ago and it has been going well, so I thought it was time to introduce the reading/writing version. The students handled it so well. They did not want to rotate out of some of the stations, and I might get to the point where we truly do the daily 5 where they can choose how long they spend in a centre but for now, 15-20 minutes is how long each rotation lasts. During the summer I won a management system from the awesome Ashlyn Ellsworth  and I use that to help my students know what station to go to.  There are 4 stations that the students rotate though, and the only one missing is "Listen to Reading". I may add that one in, as we have an awesome app for reading that I want to introduce. 

This is a picture of my rotation boards. Green and orange is math and yellow and teal is reading. You can buy a copy here

So in our rotations we go through: Read to Self, Work on Writing, Word Work, and Read to Someone. We use the acronym R.E.A.D. 

R is: Read to Self

In this station, students read to themselves and fill in a sticky note using a bookmark I adapted from Pinterest. They read and when they come to a part they want to respond to, they draw a symbol on their sticky note and leave it in their book, at the end of the session they put their sticky note into their reading response journal and write a sentence or two about what the sticky note is about. So for example if they draw a heart on their sticky, that means that they liked that part of the story. then in their journals, they write down what they liked. Some of them got it, but we will keep trying.

The E is: Exploring words

In this station students sort their words (we are using Words their Way this year for the first time) and then they do a word activity. In our first rotation we did rainbow words. 

A is for At Your Seat Writing: 

For this station the students were either working on finishing their fractured fairytales, or writing in their free-write journals. (I love how she was writing).

Finally, the D is for Duo Reading or partner reading: 

I have a few bins of books that I have put 2-3 copies of the same book in, and they can choose what books to read with a partner during this station. Eventually I will add in a response element but for now, reading together is our main goal.

I was so proud of how well they did, I can tell that last years teachers did some Daily 5 stuff, and the ones that didn't, those students caught on quickly. I am really enjoying how quickly most of them adapt and just get into the flow of the routines and expectations, and that I can trust that the majority of them are doing what they are supposed to do. It has been a great start to the year! 

First Month... WHAT????

HOW IS IT OCTOBER??

Haha, but seriously how?? This first month has FLOWN by! We have done some great things and we have started to settle into routines. Since I moved from second to third grade last year and kept some of my kiddos I felt like we did not have to take as much time setting up routines because they knew most of them. This year, I have to set up the routines again, and that takes a lot of time. I also have a full time aide this year and I need to get used to having someone in the classroom all the time again; as I haven't had one for a couple years now. This aide came back to elementary from high school and she is still trying to navigate the differences between grade three and middle school expectations and the way we learn.

So on to my topic for this post, MATH. We have been doing some great things in math this month and I thought I would share with you some of those things. I started interactive notebooks this year, and I must say, I am LOVING THEM. It shows me pretty quickly who understands the concepts we have been working on and who is still struggling. I think I will do more pages a week as we are still into place value and it is almost time to move on to addition and subtraction with regrouping (the subtraction section is never fun because it's just so hard for them to get!).

So we have been playing games, like expanded form dice games: students roll place value dice and use them to build 4 digit numbers which they record in expanded and standard form.

We did Place Value Scoot, which I made the task cards for, (thanks to Ashley Schroeder's Schroeshow Periscope on how to make task cards). The kids loved moving around the room, and they really showed that they understood how to represent a number 4 ways (in a drawing, in standard form, in expanded form, and by looking at a pictorial representation). It also showed me which kids need more direction and step by step assistance (which was only a handful, PHEW). If you don't know what scoot is, you can also go to Ashley Schroeder's website and there are posts about it there. There are cards placed around the room with different questions or activities on them that the students have to complete. They move from one question to the next and see how many they can get finished in the time given. I had 28 cards and 4 or 5 got them all done in 30 min. One person only did 4 (which I was a little shocked at, but they can be a day dreamer, so I know for next time to really monitor them). Student record their answers on a recording sheet whose numbers correspond to the numbers on the cards. So they look at the number on the card they are working on and then write their answer in that box (so if they are working on card 15 they write their answer in box 15 on their recording sheet). If you didn't have time to put them on the wall, you could put them on desks and have them move from one desk to the next. They don't have to wait for their classmates to finish a card before they can also work on that card, they just join them, so they can work at their own pace. It was so neat to see them all engaged and reviewing the concepts we have been learning!

I think that when we get back from Thanksgiving (I am in Canada so that is coming quick), I will take pictures of our interactive notebooks so you can see those, but for now, these are two of the fun things we have been doing in place value. 

Now to a freebie (it's my first and the only product in my TPT store).  My kids have been loving playing what I call "The Dice Game" They roll a double 10 sided die and add the two numbers rolled together to get the sum. Then they colour the sum in on their recording sheet to create a kind of bar graph. The goal is to see which sum will "win". It gets them practicing their addition facts as well as having fun playing a game. I will be posting a multiplication version soon as well.  Here is a multiplication version if you are interested. It's not fancy or cute, but it is fun and the kids are practicing math facts so that makes me happy!

Classroom Reveal Part 2

I made it through my first week back and I have to say, while I am tired, I'm also excited about this new year! I have some very sweet third graders and one or two that can be a handful. As promised, here is my classroom finished. It was a lot of work,  but I am very happy with how it turned out this year!

View from the door:

My desk arrangement:

 The reading corner:

The "back of the room" (Even though it's the side, technically).

My Job chart and mailboxes:

Another view of my reading corner:

The front of the room:

 My desk area

The back corner:

My Brag tags:

Student and Math supplies:

Close up of the student desks: the goodie bags I stamped myself and have a pencil, bookmark, and box of smarties. Each group also has a scrap bucket in the middle for our Interactive notebook cuttings.

My Super Improver Board:

View from the reading corner:

My desk:

Our staff mailboxes: I made a little box with Werthers and card for each staff member. All 55 of them!!

So that is my classroom, I hope you enjoyed it and if you have any questions don't hesitate to leave a comment.

Classroom Reveal

My Room, So Far....

Before Shots: 

From the door:

The front of the room:

All the furniture stacked up 

From the front of the room looking back

looking to the far side

My library area

Ok, now that you saw my "blank canvas" I am going to show you some of the things I have been working on. We don't start until September 8, so my room is not quite ready, therefore, I will do a follow up post to show you the after, when it is ready. For now, here are some new things I have done this year. 

Amy Lemons and her Key Word Kiddos!

My Super Improver Board

 Hope King's Math Centers!

Ashlyn Ellsworth's Reading and Math Centre rotation boards

 Inspired by Ashley Schroeder  ( and yes, I went barefoot at this point in the day! :))

 My B.R.A.G. Tags, will be from Angie Olson 

Edit: Here is the link to the follow up post showing my classroom "finished"

http://mygrade2adventure.blogspot.ca/2015/09/classroom-reveal-part-2.html

Bulletin Boards Linky

Bulletin Boards are wonderful things and the bane of my existence sometimes. I love creating pretty or  bulletin boards for the beginning of the year, but I struggle with making them interactive for my students. Most of my bulletin boards are out of their reach, so making them accessible is not plausible. I love reading about how others use their boards, so this link up was PERFECT!

 I have a giant tackable wall on one side of my room and I divided it into three sections, Reading, Theme (which is what we use for Social Studies and Science) and Writing. I never felt that this space was used to it's fullest potential, but I am not sure what to do with it yet.... I display anchor charts, and visuals that go along with our themes, but nothing really kid generated which is what I would like more of...

One tip I got a while back, that I whole heartedly endorse, is moving away from theme style borders (for example: planet borders for Space) and choosing patterned or neutral borders that will go with everything! I am afraid of heights and having to climb on my bookshelves and change the borders all the time makes me slightly dizzy, haha, so if I can leave the paper and border on all year, then that is what I am going to do. For this board I went chevron in orange, teal and green on yellow paper as these are "my classroom colours"Also, choosing fadeless paper/material/a colour that doesn't fade, is also important as my OCD will not allow me to keep that faded paper (usually blue or black) up for long.

At the front of my room, I have more tackable wall and a blackboard/whiteboard combo. I hate chalk (haha) so I use the blackboard as my calendar/shape of the day/homework board. I put a border, with magnet tape on the back, around the blackboard to make it more fun and eye catching! Underneath the boards are my multiplication monsters that the kids love to look at and use during math. Above the boards I have my number line and cursive alphabet. Beside the chalkboard is a Read Across Canada reading incentive chart that I tried this year. The kids read and hand in their reading logs and get to move a little car that I made from province to province. I might change it up this year, or rethink it a bit. With last year being my first in Grade 3, some things kind of fizzled by the end of the year...

And just because I could not resist, this was my welcome back/summer review BB last year, and I am going to do it again this year because it was so cute and #awesome! I gave the kids a blank polaroid frame and had them draw a moment from their summer, and then create a hashtag to show what it was about. In third grade hashtagging (is that a verb?) is hard but they (mostly) conquered the concept! I made the IG icons out of cardstock and circle dies. I had so much fun making the big one that I had to make a few cute little ones as well! 3NEW is my class identifier as we have three grade 3 classes, so I had to give that a hashtag! Once I hung all their summer memories, the board was done!

Thanks for checking out my post! Have a great day!

~Laurie

5 Ways To Engage and Motivate Student Writers

Have you ever been in the presence of teacher that you could spend all day listening to and wish he/she worked at your school and that you could be him/her when you grew up, all at the same time? Well, that is how I feel about Adrienne Gear. She is a teacher, author, speaker, new book smeller (her #reallife confession) and motivator. She has written 4 books, Reading Power, Reading Power for Non-Fiction, Writing Power and Writing Power for Non Fiction and she travels around and shares her reading and writing methods. She is AWESOME and so real and down to earth! Oh! and she fuels my obsession with children's literature and I buy so many books because of her!  I have been to many of her workshops and will continue to go for as long as I can. Every time I go I learn new things, and get inspired to teach reading and writing ALL DAY LONG!  I know, that's not possible but if it was I would be on board! 

Okay, enough gushing, here are some of the things I learned in her Writing Power workshop on Friday (and yes I know it's the middle of summer, but it doesn't matter, it was SO WORTH IT!). 

1. I re-learned that the process of writing is more important than the cute products we find on Pinterest. (although these have their place). For every 10 or so pieces of writing, only one should be taken to the publishing level. We want student's to practice how to be writers, and not everything a writer writes will be published. That's real life! 

2. I learned that to motivate students to write, they need to have a reason to write. That reason is their reader. They write so a reader will read their writing. They have a purpose when they write, to engage their reader. To entertain, to instruct, to tell a story, to inform or share knowledge, to connect, empower, impact, to persuade or share opinions, to describe an event. THIS IS KEY! Students need to know that what they write is important and that someone wants to read what they write. She uses the line with her kids, "You don't have to write, you GET to write!" 

3. I re-learned that students should have two goals as writers. Their goals should be to not bore their readers or confuse them. I love how simple these goals are and yet they encompass everything that students need to be taught in order to have effective writing. To engage readers writers should have: interesting details, interesting words, similes and other literary techniques, engage their readers five senses, and have a writer's voice. This will ensure that their writing is not boring. To make sure they aren't confusing their readers,writers watch out for spelling errors, they use proper punctuation, they use correct spacing, they organize their writing and they stay on topic. I have these goals in my room as an anchor chart and I refer to it A LOT! I love that it is broken down in a way that makes it easy for all students to understand. 

3a. I learned an new acronym for those students who constantly have their hand in the air during writing, waiting for you to spell a word for them ( I had one child who wanted every word spelled for her, ain't nobody got time for that!). You simply tell them to G.U.M it! Give it a try, Underline the word, and Move on! When I heard this, it was like a Hallelujah moment let me tell you! I will be making this into a anchor chart ASAP, believe me! 

4. I re-learned that having a writing routine is important so kids know what to expect (this is true of teaching in general, but I loved how she broke this down in an easy to follow way). 
           Day 1: Kids plan to write about a topic that they are given by the teacher who is using an anchor book as the model. Their plan can be a web, list,  or a drawing with labels.  
           Day 2: Write: kids share their plan with a partner, you teach a mini lesson referring back to the anchor book from day 1 and then kids use their plan to write. 
            Day 3: Conferencing and Editing. Kids share and edit with a peer, and the teacher takes 3-4 students and conferences about their writing. 
            Day 4: Have 2 or 3 students share their writing. (Author's Chair type idea)
Repeat!

5. I  learned some technique lessons that  I will share with my students during our mini lesson time. I will share more about them here as I do them with my class, but one that really was an "ah-ha moment" for me was her mini lesson on Robot Writing. Sounds fun right? Robot writing is not fun, they are sentences that go: I like my mom, I like pizza,  I like hockey and I like summer. "I like" over and over again (read them with a robot voice, it's fun and makes a point).  No details, no voice, no connections being formed.  Big ol' BORING! So we tell our students that they need to add in detail and we get, " I like summer because it's fun" ARGH! So what can we do???  I learned that using the word"and" or "because" to add detail to writing, will never produce an interesting sentence! Instead teaching students to use these 4 magic words will take that robot writing and turn it into effective writing. Are you ready for the words? they are.... when, sometimes, once, if.  Use those words and you get: I love my mom when she.... I like pizza, once I had.... I like hockey, sometimes I...  See? MAGIC! I think that introducing these words to students in a Hogwarts cloak and using a wand would be really cool! (But that's just me). Using those 4 words will set up your students for successful writing that will engage their reader and will banish the robotic sentences to Azkaban. 

So if you haven't checked out her books and are wondering how to set up and engage your students to become better and more effective writers, check out the link at the top of this post or here: http://www.readingpowergear.com and remember, this is not a program, it can be used with any literature, any program, and anywhere! She also has a blog, and it has lesson plans and great resources as well. https://readingpowergear.wordpress.com