Teaching Kiddos

For our phonics lesson about the silent e, we became   " ninjas". We loved doing this lesson because we not only got to sing a Teenage Mutan Ninja Turtle's song ( go ninja, go ninja, go) but we got to learn how powerful that silent E can be at the end of a word . To demonstrate this we became ninjas and placed an E at the end of several short vowel words.  After the whole class lesson, the students then took their masks and went through their daily 5 books from their book baskets. In their own leveled books they could search for words that had the Super Sneaky Silent E. In our opinion , any lesson with " costumes" is a fun and productive one!!!!!

We have begun using our iPads on a daily basis. We are so fortunate to have these in our classroom. With California's new core curriculum , we are able to expand our standards based teaching and take our learning to the next level. Each student has learned the rules and responsibilities of having an iPad. We did a quick lesson on the various parts of an iPad . After our iPad introduction was complete, each student signed a contract to ensure that they would take this new responsibility seriously.  Our first lesson with the iPad's began after we learned about the Earth's continents . Each group filled out a tree map and jotted down as much information about the continents . When the tree map was completed, each group picked one continent to focus on. They opened their PicCollage App and choose one picture of their continent and typed out 3 facts about it.  We can already see that this year will have so many more opportunities to allow our student to do so much more research ...

We still continue to excel in our Daily 5 morning routine. We added a few new books this week. One being from the Harry Potter series. We were happy to see many excited kiddos who wanted to get their hands on it , but it did make us pause and review the Daily 5 " I PICK" system.  A few weeks back we introduced I PICK and it seemed to help a huge majority switch out their books in their book baskets with books that were more readable .  I showed the kiddos 3 sizes of shoes. I would put one on ( too big)and run unsuccessfully around the class. Then I put on another shoe ( too small) and tried to run around the classroom , unsuccessfully .  Finally the     " just right" shoe was put on me and I could easily sprint around the class. This demonstration not only gave me a good workout but more importantly taught the kiddos that they needed to find their own " just right" books to be successful with reading. We talked about I-PICK as well as the "Five Finger...

          WARM FUZZY JAR.           "Do something kind and get a warm fuzzy" One thing that is really important to us is having a positive classroom environment where students feel safe and loved.  The warm fuzzy jar will contribute to such an environment.         Here is our Warm Fuzzy Jar! As we see students doing a kind thing, serving, helping each other, encouraging each other etc. they will get a pom pom (warm fuzzy) to put in our Warm Fuzzy Jar!  When the jar is full we will have a class celebration! The only stipulation is that everyone in the class has to have contributed a Warm Fuzzy in order for us to have the party!  We're really excited to see how this will contribute to a positive classroom environment where our students will be excited to come and be able to learn to the best of their ability! One nice thing about a big jar is that we can be generous with our rewards. Dropping wa...

Daily 5 The Daily 5 is a series of literacy tasks which students complete daily while the teacher meets with small groups or confers with individuals.   The Daily 5 is more than a management system or a curriculum framework – it is a structure that will help students develop the daily habits of reading, writing and working with peers that will lead to a lifetime of independent literacy.  We started  The Daily 5  this year in third grade and we are soooo excited about it! This is what we have been doing each day. We created a read to self anchor chart. We talked about urgency and the importance of reading. We talked about student/teacher expectations during this time and how to build our stamina. Stamina is doing anything for a long period of time without getting tired or giving. Our kiddos needed to get to 20 minutes before we introduced the next daily 5 task, work on writing. Sense of Urgency: Why do we read? 1. Become better readers and writers 2. It is fun!...

A,E,I,O and U can spell! During the month of  September our spelling words consist of mostly short vowel words. This is one of the best times of the year for spelling tests because by 3rd grade many of our students have already mastered this strategy. Many short vowel words are 3- lettered and some ( like many of our spelling words) are more. The vowels " glue" together the letters to make a true word. Perfecting our short vowels at the start of the year help to make it an easier transition into long vowels. Words with only three letters are the easiest to make the short vowel sound out of, due to the fact that only having three letters typically doesn’t allow for a second vowel to force the long vowel sound. An obvious example of the exception would be words like bee or tea. These words use a second vowel to force the long vowel sound from the first one, while other words like ant or mat use the placement of  consonants  to force a short vowel sound.  If your studen...