Back To School Teacher Swap!

Jen, over at Following the Footsteps is hosting a Back To School Teacher Swap to share your favorite books for kicking off the school year!

I have a top 3 that I read each year. I will also be sharing pictures of my finished classroom since I didn't have any good ones on for the Classroom Tour!

My first back to school book is Crysanthemum. I love this book for the first day because it teaches about accepting the differences in others. Many of my students have names that I can't even pronounce so it's great because other students can learn that it's okay to have a unique name. There are tons of activities you can do with this book such as graphing your class names, doing making words with your name, sorting names, etc...

The second book I like to read is First Day Jitters. I enjoy having students discussing what jitters are and then writing down their own first day jitters. We always share them after!

I realize that the other two books are commonplace in elementary classrooms so this should be a bit of a change. My absolute favorite back to school book to read is Oh, The Places You'll Go! by Dr. Suess. There are soooooo many amazing things that you can do with this book and I'm going to share a few things that I am going to do this year since our classroom theme is Oh, the Places We'll Go in Third Grade!

* Have students write down their academic or behavioral goals for the year.
* Ask students to paint a picture of a place they want to go and write a few sentences about where they want to go, why they want to go there, and what they'll do there! (I will be doing this and hanging them outside my classroom!)
* Play Balloon Geography - Start by reviewing geography facts (continents, oceans, landforms, states, cities, etc.) Blow up a balloon and have the class stand in a circle. The object of the game is to keep the balloon from touching the floor, but every time a player hits the balloon they must name a geography fact. If they can't say one fast enough, they are out! I would focus on one topic at a time. Play one round of continents and oceans, then landforms, etc... This is a great way to review at the beginning of the year!
* Have students analyze different parts of the poem and discuss what they mean. For example, "You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. And your gang will fly on. You'll be left in a Lurch."
* Give students a copy of the words to the book and highlight the words that speak to them and how it relates to their own lives.
* Make a book jacket for the book based on the students own uniqueness and goals.

These are just a few fun things you can do with this book! Here is my outside bulletin board that I will hang their watercolor paintings.

And here are the pictures of my classroom I promised! This is the view of my classroom when you first walk in.

This is from the other side of the front of the room looking at the back.

This is from the back left corner looking to the front.

And this is from the back right corner looking to the front.

Here is my essential questions board at the front.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my activities and classroom photos! We have our first day with kids tomorrow so I will keep you posted as to how the week goes!

Teacher Week: Online Resources

I am a little sad that today is the last day of Babbling Abby's Teacher Week! I have so enjoyed reading everyones ideas and viewing all the lovely little classrooms! On top of that, I've gained about 7 new followers! I want to take this opportunity to welcome you and I hope you keep stopping by and sharing your ideas and thoughts!

Today, we are sharing online resources and I have been so excited about sharing new ones that I have recently discovered! I posted my Top 10 Websites when I first began this blog, so I wanted to try to share some new ones that I have found useful.  

1. Delicious - This is a social bookmarking website that is great for accessing your favorite websites from any computer location. You never know when you will need one of your "favorited" websites, so this is just a good way to make sure you always have access to them. If you are familiar with PortaPortal, then this is very similar.

2. Curriki - This website provides amazing free lesson plans and resources for educators at all grade levels. I just recently discovered this one and thought it would be just like a lot of those not so great teacher lesson plan sites, but this one has it all!

3. Prezi - The coolest new way to create a presentation. I call it the next generation of presentations! You can see an example of one my prezis here. Soooo cool!

4. Critical Past - I also just recently discovered this website and I love it! If you teach Social Studies, this site will be your new best friend. There are about a gazillion video clips and images available in this database for use in your classrooms! The best part? It's freeeee! Unless you choose to download any of the material, in which case you must pay.

5. Creat-a-Graph - I love this website because you can quickly and EASILY make several types of graphs with just a few clicks of your mouse!

6. Knowitall - This is mainly a resource for teachers in South Carolina, but you may find some of the activities useful. If you teach 3rd grade in SC, you will love this website. It has so many grade standards based activities to teach your students!

7. Internation Children's Digital Library - This website is full of books available online from all around the world.

8. Prepdog - We use MAP testing to assess our students learning throughout the school year. This website contains practice test questions, education tools, and video tutorials for parents, students, and teachers! I always use this website to practice and prepare my students for the state standardized test.

9. Free Teacher Resources - Jam packed full of great stuff for teachers from lesson plans to professional development to worksheets! I'm lovin' it!

These are just a few more of my go to online resources!

Step into my classroom

It's day 4 of Teacher Week over at Babbling Abby's! You know what that means...Classroom Tour! I meant to take a bunch more pictures of my room today before I left, but I had some other things on my mind and so I forgot...

Here are the pictures that I do have! This one is a picture from last year of my promethean board. It's at the front of the room.

This is part of my reading area along with part of my desk area behind it.

This is the other part of my reading area...

One of my desk groups...and some other stuff in the background. (I promise better ones to come later.)

This is my back bulletin board featuring our lovely state, State Carolina! Oh, and the computers obviously.

I will post better pictures later this week. I was really meaning to take a picture of my welcome bulletin board on the outside of my classroom because it is soooo dang cute. I'll keep the secret for now...but you just wait til tomorrow!

Beginning of Year Activities and Icebreakers

I apologize for post number 2 of the day, but I want to share these since many of you are starting school soon or may have already and can still make use of some of these ideas.

I love the beginning of the school year! There is no pressure for testing, you can do more fun activities that you couldn't otherwise, and your classroom is typically behavior problem free for at least a month!

Here are some of the activities I have done or will be trying this year:

* Gallery Walk Consensograms - This is a great activity to get to know your students learning styles/likes/dislikes. Give your students a sheet of sticky dots and post questions with multiple answers all around the classroom. Sample questions:

• What is your favorite subject? Math, Science, Reading, etc.
• Which way do you most like to complete your work? Alone, In a Group, With a Partner)
• My favorite reward is... Candy, Free Time, HW pass, Verbal Praise, etc.

* Musical Icebreaker - Embed music clips into a powerpoint or just play a selection of songs. I use about 5. Let them listen to the song for a minute or two and then write down a memory that the song makes them think of. I always give a few examples. Call on students to share. Tip: Try to pick songs that you know most of the children have heard of.

* Snowball Fight - Have students write down 2 facts and 2 opinions of themselves in random order on a sheet of notebook paper. Once they have all completed this, have them ball up their sheet of paper and have snowball fight for 2 minutes. When you call freeze, the students must pick up 1 snowball near them, open it, and read the statements. They must label the statements as either facts or opinions. Then, go around the room and have students try to guess whose paper they have! (I have never tried this one, so use with caution and have lots of rules! I will be trying this one this year!)

* Skittles Activity - Let students take as many Skittles as they want from a bag. For each Skittle they take, they must divulge one fact about themselves.

* Read, "Crysanthemum," and discuss what's in a name! There are more great ideas for this book at Jen's blog, Following the Footsteps.

* Teacher Scavenger Hunt - Every year, I gather a bunch of things that are important or that represent me and scatter them around the room. I have the kids walk around the room and try to find the important things about me! Once someone finds one, we stop, gather around, and discuss the item that is important to me. After this activity, the students are asked to create an about me bag in which they must fill with at least 3 important things.

What fun things do you do at the beginning of the year to "break the ice?"

Creative Ideas

Babbling Abby's Teacher Week topic today is Creative Ideas. (How about that use of alliteration!?) I am going to share some ideas of things I do in my classroom that make life a bit easier for me and hopefully will for you too! Some of these ideas are actually activities that you can use when teaching content areas.

1) Gem Jar - This is a classroom management idea I use to reward whole class behavior. I have a cut out of a jar taped to my whiteboard. There are also a bunch of magnetic gems. When the class WOW's me, I add a gem to the class jar. When other classes compliment our behavior in the hallway, the cafeteria, or Related Arts, I add a gem. When the class fills the whole jar, I let them vote on their class reward. We've done Pajama Day, Popcorn Party, Brownies, Ice Cream Sundaes, Movie, etc...

2) Flow Charts - I love flow charts! They are great for all subject areas and for classroom procedure. I made a flow chart this year for my morning procedure which is pictured below! I also have a print out of the flow chart for their PRIDE Planners. You can use flow charts for a ton of different math skills (adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, etc...) The possibilities are just endless.

3) Finger Language - I am sure many of you use your own version of this, but I like to keep it simple. I just have three hand signals. 1 finger for a question, 2 for the restroom, and 3 for using the trash can. I love not having children ask me if they can go do something. This way, I can just acknowledge their request in silence so as not to disturb the rest of the friends while their working. =)

4) Classroom Map - In third grade, we teach South Carolina history and geography. This year, I decided to make a blank giant map of South Carolina posted to one of the front bulletin boards. At the start of the year, we will mark our location and a few other major cities. As the year goes on, we will add important locations, events, regions, and people. For example, we teach about the 3 major Native American tribes in SC, so we will mark their locations as we discuss each. There are also 6 regions of South Carolina which will be added to the class map when we come to it. The map itself was made on laminated poster board. This way, I can write on the map with Vis-a-V or white board markers so I can wipe it clean at the end of the year and use it again!

5) 8 Step Model Drawing - This is the method used in Singapore where problem solving is a whiz due to the use of this method. I implemented it last year and have noticed a significant difference in my students abilities to understand and SOLVE word problems correctly. The thing I love most about this, is there are steps and children can feel successful when completing the steps. For more information on Singapore Math, visit this link. I purchased this book to help guide me last year when I was just starting out. I really recommend it!  

6) Wheel of Choice - This is an idea I got from a previous teacher to help children learn to solve their own problems instead of always "tattle-telling!" This is a great idea for students to build a better classroom community and teach kids more responsibility for their actions. This isn't my actual wheel (mine has more choices), but this is a good example. My students are told to try two strategies to solve their problems before they come to me to deal with the situation. This rule obviously doesn't apply to situations that are more serious. The trick is to teach them the difference between serious offenses and minor ones that can be solved on their own.