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

Summer Time Projects

Since I am moving grades, my mind will not go into full summer mode and I have been busy doing fun school projects.
First I started with a new word to add to my collection. I was at Hobby Lobby and found these Chipboard letters on sale! So I covered them in patterned paper and VOILA!

Next I made a welcome banner, I had made one for my grade 2 room, but it was old and faded after 7 years, so I bought some wooden banners from Michaels, painted them up and stuck letter stickers on them to spell out "Welcome".

Next, since I was on a banner kick, I made another banner for my writing BB. I used Stampin' Up Banner Framelits and card stock for this version.

I also saw this online and fell in love, but could not justify spending $100 on a planner, so I'm making my own version!!

It's a work in progress but it makes me happy. These are the page dividers. I have 6 sections: Calendars/Schedules, Daily Plans, Class Lists, Records, Student Information, and Unit Overviews

The backs have a fun quote and I may have had too much fun with the embellishments...

The cover and the spine of the binder:

 The monthly dividers for each month's lesson plans and calendar

 A twin pocket folder to hold miscellaneous papers and memos

 A notebook to write down things to remember for next year and for all my brilliant ideas! BAHAHA!

 The last project was adding tags and ribbon to file boxes and wash tape to storage boxes!

I love school supplies, and adding personal touches to them makes me happy! So that was the first few weeks of summer, who knows what will happen next!

Movin' on up

So I found out on Thursday that I am changing grades next year! I am excited! I have been wanting to move back to grade 3 for years and haven't been able to, until now! I know that it will be a lot of work and teaching some of the same students won't be all roses, but I am so ready for a change.

 I am excited about the Themes I get to teach, and how the students will become even more independent. I always feel sad at the end of the year when they move on, and I have to start all over with a new class. It's a lot of work getting them through the first few months! Now I get to keep going with a few of them, which will be fun.

I am looking forward to being organized from the get go, because I now know my organizational style and can put my units together so they function better for me (no filing cabinet!) and I can go through all my current stuff and purge!!! That is also daunting to me as I have A LOT of stuff.

I am really going to miss my team, as we work well together and we get each other's quirks. It will be interesting to see how my new team functions, what my place will be and how we will work together to make a cohesive unit. I know that two of my future colleagues are great, but one is a mystery (though I have my suspicions). I get to work with a great friend as well so that will be awesome!

All in all, I am pumped, but also sad to leave what is known and comfortable. I know that God is at work in this, so I can trust Him and know that he will give me the wisdom I need in this new adventure.

I may have to start a new blog, as My Grade 2 Adventure is almost over!!!

Perspective Snowmen

We did an art lesson on perspective today. I had my kids do a directed drawing of a snowman from different angles. A side view, a bottom view, a close up, and a full view of the snowman. They did a great job! We also added a little shading! I was a proud teacher!

This one is cute. He added a blue bird on the nose and an extreme close up!

Kim Sutton Math!

Last Friday I left my kids in the capable hands of a TOC and went to see the always wonderful Kim Sutton. I was able to attend the workshop with my mom which made it even more fun! We arrived just on time (traffic) and had a great day of hands on learning!  One of the best things about the workshop is all the fun dice you play with! definitely know how kids feel about playing with dice when you see the fun colours!

The location was great, and there were a lot of people there. Here are some more shots of the day.

 all ready to go!

So of course this week we have been putting the things I learned into practice. 

We made counting strings on Tuesday:  They string 20-30 beads onto a string and then the beads can move along the string. It can be used for addition, subtraction and multiplication/skip counting.  It is also great for kids who need to fiddle with things. 

On Wednesday we played a few games with digit cards, and it was interesting to see who had number sense and who took a while to catch on to where the digits should be. The first game we played was with the random number CD that says the numbers 0-9 in a random order and they had to flip the cards over and back every time they heard it. When it was face down some forgot where the number was! Then we went over which digits were face up and which were face down. 

On Thursday we started with the flip over game and then added a twist where they had to flip over two digits that equalled the number called, so if the number called was 8 then they could flip over 2 and 6 or 5 and 3 or 1 and 7 etc. If they ran out of addends, then they had a rest time. You can play this game with partners and a double die (which we will do next week) and then if they run out of cards to flip over, they have to flip them all over. The winner is the one who can flip all their digit cards face down exactly. You can also add in that they can subtract or add the numbers together to get the number rolled.  The digit mats that they are playing on have dots and on the other side coins. When I had them put their digit cards down at first some were confused as the 5 spot only had one coin in it, but the coin was a nickel so we had a good discussion about why the 5 card would go there. 

The other game we played was with the hundreds chart and bingo chips. To start the random number CD that calls numbers 0-100 called numbers and they put the chips on that number. It was interesting to see who had a good number sense and who had trouble locating the number (a good reminder to me that we need to do this more often!!) Then they had to get 4 numbers in a row. After the random number CD (which one student figured out everyone would get a four in a row at the same time if they are listening) they rolled a double decagon die (10 sided, I am trying to use more math language) and covered that number( the outside number was the tens place and the inside die was the units place). When they got 4 in a row, they wrote down a tally mark and once they got 10 tally marks they won. Now we don't have 100 bingo chips each so the kicker was that once they ran out of chips, they could start moving the ones on the board to another location if they felt it would benefit their game. This was a hard concept for them to contend with. 

Math!!

We have been finishing up our unit on number sense and as one culminating activity I read the story, "One Is a Snail, Ten Is a Crab" by April Pulley Sayre. It's a really cute counting book with a fun twist.

Amazon.ca

After reading the book I gave the students a number between 20 and 100. I also gave them pictures of the different feet in the story that I found online here. They then had to create a picture showing that number in feet. For example if their number was 29 they could use two crabs, one insect, two feet, and a snail.

 We have also been working on doubles and I found a great doubles craftivity on pinterest, which led to a great blog by Amy Lemons The students created a Doubles Dude and then wrote out the doubles facts. They are quite cute!

It's been a fun Math week. Maybe too much fun????