Five for Friday - Show - Not Tell, Using Padlet and More

Happy Weekend!

I'm excited to be joining Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday this week. 

Here's a peek at our week:

Do you do Guided Reading?

I love these short reads from Scholastic.

There are leveled, and a variety of text types is included at each level.

Check them out here.  I am in no way reimbursed by Scholastic for this link - I just like these sets.

We're working on writing realistic fiction stories right now, and one of the lessons this week was on Show - Not Tell.  I loved this freebie idea from Deb Hansen.

Night Noises is a great mentor text to use with this lesson, too!

We are studying simple machines in science, and on Thursday we used the free Epic Books app to find related vocabulary by analyzing text features.

Then students took snapshots of the text features, cropped the photos, and added them to a Padlet page.

Padlet is a free online bulletin board!

So, on to the next subject area!

We are telling time in math, and we used Mega Math for a quick, fun review of elapsed time.

We get the Mega Math games with our Harcourt math series.

In this photo you can see that each child was given a time card.  The pairs had to measure the elapsed time between the times noted on each card.

You can never get enough practice with elapsed time!

We watched the Kid President's video on "Twenty Things We Should Say More Often".

Then students used a sentence stem to write a quote they thought they should use more often.

The quotes look really nice on the front of each student's desk!

This post was all over the place with content!

Hope you found something inspirational!

How was your week??

Lego Wall

Hi All -

Recently a Lego Wall was installed in our library/media center.  It is a part of the developing MakerSpace in our library.  If you are not familiar with MakerSpaces, these are areas in classrooms or schools where students are encouraged to use creative and critical thinking skills to build, design, tinker, make messes, explore, collaborate, problem solve, and more. These spaces may or may not include technology tools.  

Our building engineer built the backboard and shelf for the lego wall.

Our media specialist asked for lego donations for the wall, and she also wrote a local grant to add to the donations.

We currently have Ozobots, Spheros, and BeeBots in our developing Maker Space.

Here is a photo of some students using an Ozobot to work on computer programming.

Does your school have a MakerSpace? Please leave a comment to share what you might have.  We would love more ideas for our MakerSpace!

For more on Maker Spaces, check out this article from Edutopia.

BEST MARKERS EVER - Five For Friday

For the first time this summer, I'm able to join Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

First up, are you looking for the BEST MARKERS EVER?

Well, these beauties could earn that description.

I used them this summer at a workshop I led for teachers, and I loved the bold, vivid colors.

 They are a bit pricey - I found this pack at Office Max for just under $10.

But, Office Max/Office Depot is running a 25% off sale this weekend (July 30 - August 2), 

so hurry on over and pick up a pack.

Does your district use Words Their Way?

We do, and I've found these pouches to be perfect for storing weekly word sorts.

These are also from Office Max, and these happen to be our school colors - blue and gray!

In the light, the polka dots reflect rainbow colors.

I am looking forward to attending this technology workshop next Tuesday.

More on that in next week's Five for Friday.

Last week our Book Club took a 2-day trip to beautiful Door County, WI.

One of our book club members has a condo in Egg Harbor.

This is what summer mornings are made for - having a cup of coffee or tea while enjoying that view.

Ahhhh......

This was our view of the sunset later that day outside a favorite restaurant called The Waterfront.

Are you getting pumped for the Olympics??

I created a product for the Winter Olympics 2 years ago and it become one of my best sellers.

So, I revised it and created a similar project for the Summer Olympics in Rio.

Students do independent research on current athletes.

This product includes links to projected medal winners from the U.S.A.

You can check out this product at this link.

Five for Friday - Fables for Third Grade and More

Hi Friends!

What do fables, Lakeshore Learning, subtraction, hand-washing, and Donors Choose all have in common?

Well, they're all a part of my Five for Friday week!

Hurray!  My Donors Choose project was fully funded on Tuesday morning, by the parents of students in my class!  And, this was before the big announcement from Donors Choose about the #bestschoolday.

So I posted another project on Wednesday night to obtain iPads for our room.

I was lucky enough to have that project posted on the Caring Classrooms site.

It has actually been the #bestschoolweek ever !

We completed our traditional literature unit this week.

Fortunately we have quite a few books in this genre for our students to read.

I created a reflection book for the unit that can be found in my TpT store for only $2.50.

Here are some sample pages from the reflection booklet:

There are more "I Can..." posters and reflection sheets that directly relate to the Common Core standards in reading.  You can find this product here.

Our school nurse did a lesson on hand-washing this week.

She used a black light to show them how dirty their hands really were.

Yuck - I think she made her point about using soap!

We used these clips from Lakeshore Learning while reading some Tall Tale books.

The kids loved using these while they read in small groups.

After they finished the book at our Book Club table, we went back and discussed where they had put the clips and why.

Since we were using these for the first time, I only took out the "New Word" and "Question" clips.

Do you use the box method for subtraction?

My students are really loving it.

To subtract from 100 or 1000, box all the digits to the left of the ones place, and think of how many 10s there are.  For example 100 is 10 tens, and 1000 is 100 tens.

Then cross that out to ungroup the tens, and you can subtract much more easily.

See the sample problems in the picture.

Hope you had a great week!

Check out all the Five for Friday posts on Doodle Bugs Teaching!

Five for Friday - Accuracy Anchor Chart & More!

An anchor chart, an iPad buddy, a school fundraiser, pendulum fun, and a kindness tree! This is what you'll find when you get a peek at my week in this week's Five for Friday!

My third graders needed a tune-up in the accuracy department. 

One day I did a mini-lesson on accuracy in reading, and another day we discussed accuracy in writing.

Hopefully these reminders will make some kind of impact.

 Another staff member and I lead a STEM Club for third and fourth graders once a month.

This month we had some fun with pendulums.

Students worked with a partner to count the frequency of the swings in a thirty-second time period.

Then their challenge was to change one variable to increase the frequency.

They could shorten or length the string, increase or decrease the weight of the bob, or change the arc of the swing. It was a fun investigation with little prep!

I have seven iPads in my room which my students take turns using.

I found this cute and cuddly iPad buddy at Office Max for $5.00!

Students earn a chance to use the iPad buddy if their homework is in, they have their assignment notebooks signed, and they have all of their supplies for the day.

The students love this incentive!  They've named this guy Rascal.

Our guidance counselor created this tree for our lobby to recognize students that do kind things for one another.  It's called the Kindness Tree and it supports Random Acts of Kindness Day. 

Our PTA organized a Mardi Gras bingo night last night complete with a silent auction and loads of prizes.

The silent auction items included Disney passes, and two signed Green Bay Packer footballs.

The event was so well organized!

Hope you had a great week!

Thanks for stopping by!