A Little Research

We've been doing some fun things in third grade lately. I wanted to share some of what we've been up to.

 

In writing/social studies, we've been working on researching and timelines.

 

The kids worked with a partner to research a famous person in history. They used books from the library and websites to gather all their information. They're actually getting pretty good at finding the important information in a lengthy passage.

 

I made a little graphic organizer for them to use to record their information. I did this because one of the third grade common core standards is about sorting research information into categories. And you know as well as I do that it's all about THE CORE, right?

 

 

 

I mean, they plagarized all over the place but I think it's a pretty good first step when learning to conduct research projects :)

 

Then, I had each group write their information in paragraph form on index cards. I told them to label them with the headings that we used on our graphic organizers.

 

 

 

I also gave them a half piece of paper and told them to draw their person.

 

 

 

Pretty sure Helen Keller didn't have red hair. Or did she? Hmmm...

 

 

Next we put all our people in order of their date of birth on a timeline. And, just saying, I got this idea off Pinterest. The original idea came from the blog Third Grade Thinkers. I tweaked it, of course, but when I saw it I thought it would a perfect activity for my kiddos.

 

Here it is:

 

 

 

 

My kiddos were IN AWE! They love it! All day they kept going and standing under it and reading it.

 

Tomorrow, they are going to present their information to the class and we're going to talk about how they all relate to each other and to our history.

 

Then, it's off to the hallway for the timeline because it is pretty dang huge and it takes up my entire board :)

 

Before I go, I have to share this journal entry from one of my precious kids.

 

 

I know, I know.

 

 You want her to be in your class, right?

 

 Too bad... she's already the star to my moon! Ha!

 

Love, love, love my job.

 

Have I mentioned that?

 

That's all I've got tonight. The next blog post will be all about how we covered about 5 standards in one week studying sea turtles! Woo hoo :)

 

Writing, Monsters and Justin Bieber

Have I mentioned lately that I am LOVING third grade?

Because, I am.

I mean it.

I think kids in third grade are kind of at the best age ever. They are sooooo fun and sweet and independent and into learning.

And, they get my jokes.

That's huge... because, I joke a lot.

Like, for instance, my kiddos are CON-VINCED that I'm obsessed with Justin Bieber.

 A few years ago when these kids were in first grade, a certain teacher who shall remain nameless  told her class that she and I had watched Never Say Never (the Justin Bieber concert dvd, for those of you who actually have lives).

Which may or may not be true.

(Okay, it's true.)

And wouldn't you know it that I would have the one kid this year who not only remembered this information, but is bound and determined to work it into every conversation he partakes in.

Today, we were making bucket lists in writing. I was making my list and putting all my life ambitions and this kid goes "Well, dontcha' want to meet Justin Bieber??"

So, of course I played along ( I ALWAYS do because, as I said, I like to joke around) and added it to the list while the kids just screamed with laughter. Because, it's totally hilarious when your 27 year old teacher is crazy about a dorky kid musician.

I would laugh, too.

 And, maybe I did.

Maybe.

We are officially on Fall Break as of right now. It's very, very exciting. We have to go to school tomorrow but the kids won't be there so it doesn't count. And, we're off all week next week... woo hoo!

Since it was the day before break and the kids were all excited and we had finished all our assessments yesterday, I decided we need some F-U-N. So, we made monsters.

Multiplication monsters.

Basically, the kids roll dice to make multiplication sentences about how many eyes, arms, legs, teeth and horns their monster will have. It's all very exciting.

Then, I just dumped all our paper out onto a table and let the kiddos go to town. We VERY RARELY get to do stuff like this in third grade so the kids were pretty much giddy with excitement.

Their monsters turned out soooo cute!

Well, let me rephrase that. MOST of them looked cute.

And, luckily, I only had enough room to hang up 12 anyway :)

My kiddos also worked hard this week on publishing their first writing pieces. They aren't perfect but they are a great starting point for the year. It was mostly just good for us to get through the writing process and just see what it's all about.

We also discovered dictionaries. Let me tell ya: those suckers have changed my life. I taught the kids how to look up words and spell them correctly and that is another reason why I LOVE third grade! They can totally do it!

And, they want to do it. That's what is exciting. They are currently obsessed with looking up words. And, there are a LOT worse things you can be obsessed with.

Plus, I don't like spelling words for kids so it saves me a lot of headache.

There, I said it.

Anyways... I wanted to find a way to make their personal narratives a little more cohesive since they were all writing about different things. So, I quickly cut out some "frames" using scrapbook paper. And, I let the kids draw a picture in the middle. You'd think I'd told them we'd all be taking a field trip to Disney World if you'd heard the shrieking and excited gasping coming from their little mouths.

It doesn't take much, folks. 

Here are their narratives.

(And, I just noticed that on the bottom row there are basically four frames that are exactly the same and now I won't be able to sleep tonight and I will have to fix that ASAP tomorrow on account of the OCD...)

I love this guys illustration of the fair. We had a LOT of stories about the fair and stories about getting a puppy.

I enjoy the title on this one :)

So, yeah.

That's our week.

 Monsters and writing.

Oh! And, running records until my ears bled.

And, main idea graphic organizers. Lots of those.

And, assessments. Lots of those, too.

But, it's all good.

Cause' whenever I'm overwhelmed, I just come home and snuggle up this little creature and how can you be stressed then?

And if that doesn't work, I just crank up the Justin Bieber tunes...

 



A Bug's Life

As I mentioned in my last post, this week in first grade was all about bugs. Which was actually appropriate because everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, bugged me this week. 

Does anybody else feel like the kids can sniff summer coming? I haven't mentioned to my kids that we only have 24 days left of school, but somehow... they know it's the end of the year. And, they're taking full advantage of my exhaustion. But, luckily, I adore them. So I can deal for 24 more days.... I think. They were actually really good today! So, maybe all my yelling  pleading has paid off?

Anyways... bugs.

I showed these in my last post, but we started the week off with an insect anchor chart.

We also talked about the butterfly life cycle.

(And, let me just go ahead and stop right here to make a disclaimer. You aren't going to see anything super creative or exciting in the remainder of this post. I had big intentions to do the butterfly life cycle with pasta this year. But, ya'll? I've done it literally every year since I started teaching and I just couldn't bring myself to do it again. How's that for a bad attitude? My kids didn't miss it, though. I'm 100% confident that putting some pasta on a paper plate wouldn't have helped them understand the cycle any better than just drawing it. And, I'm out of wall space anyway.)

So, yeah. We just drew the butterfly life cycle. They'll probably revoke my teaching blog privileges.

Then, I gave them a piece of paper and told them they needed to write about the butterfly life cycle. I pretty much always have them do some pre-writing when we write. I can count the number of times I've handed them a piece of paper and just let them write all on their own on one hand. But, sometimes, I think it's really good for them. I want to see what they can do on their own. I want to see if they can apply all the things we've worked on. And, honestly, I just wanted to see if they had retained the information and I wasn't too worried about the writing. So, here is some of their 100% independent writing...

Ahem. So, we've been working on topic sentences. I always tell them that the topic sentence should introduce what the paragraph is about. But, we usually come up with one together. I think the topic sentence above is HILARIOUS! Blunt, yes? Literal, yes? But, ya'll? He introduced the topic. What more can I ask, ya know?

Pretty exciting stuff, huh?

 I know you're sitting at the edge of your seat right now.

The second half of the week, we worked on insect research projects. One of our CC standards is to work on shared research projects. And, although it was great for the kids, I think it was even better for me. You see, I'm what you could call a control freak. But, I've been trying REALLY hard to just relax. The kids need opportunities to create things and work things out themselves. Who cares if the final product is cute, right? It's all about what they learn...

So, I just gave my kids a piece of computer paper and a book about an insect. And, I helped them divide the paper into 4 equal parts and we talked about the 4 things they had to figure out about their insect: where it lives, what it eats, what it looks like and a unique fact. They were in groups of 3 or 4.

They did such a good job of finding the information from their non-fiction books!

The next day, I gave each team a huge piece of white paper and these are the projects they created:

Dragonfly

Praying Mantis

Hopefully, you have x-ray vision. Otherwise, you won't be able to read that. And, this was AFTER their control freak teacher made them re-write it because it was too small. (I said I was trying... I never said I was perfect.)

Grasshopper

Bee

Mosquito

We had a tiring great week learning about insects.

Well, friends... that's all I've got. I'm off to enjoy the rest of my super-exciting Friday night. Which has so far consisted of blogging, listening to my brother's game on the internet and watching episodes of Parenthood on iTunes. Don't be jealous.

If Ever a Wiz There Was...

Well, people? I'm back. I know you've been waiting on pins and needles to hear what's been going on in Ms. Ridings' class. (Yeah, right.) Here's what's been  going on: The Wizard of Oz!!!

Let me go ahead right now and confess my undying love for The Wizard of Oz. It's hands down my favorite movie of all time. I love it. I sing the songs. I know all the words. I have Pinterest boards devoted to it. Not even kidding.

Oh, and the kids I tutor after school two days a week? They're putting on a play. The Wizard of Oz. So, we've been practicing it ALOT.

I've been reading my kids the chapter book since about October. Yeah, that was a long time ago. But, give me a break. It's hard for me to find time to just read without an agenda in my day. But, the kids were ENTHRALLED with the book. They could not get enough. Personally, I think the book is a little weird. But, to each their own...

Since this week was the week before Spring Break, a few teachers on my team and I decided to go full-on Wizard of Oz. We purchased Abby Mullins' awesome unit on TPT and we also came up with some great activities on our own.

Monday, we read the picture book and watched the movie. The kids were so excited they could hardly even contain their little selves. It certainly didn't help that we gave them popcorn with "munchkin treats" in it. Oh, and we worked on our character booklets. I made them all a book with some blank pages where they could draw each of the six main characters and write what they are thinking in a speech bubble. Here's what those looked like:

The front cover

We had lots of good invented spelling of "courage" this week! Ha!

Tuesday, we did some of the math activities from Abby's unit. They loved graphing their favorite characters and doing some of the math journal prompts. We also did a Venn diagram to compare/contrast Glenda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch.

Wednesday, things got pretty exciting! In writing, we did the ruby slipper activity from Abby's unit. They turned out soooo cute! We even added some doilies to Dorothy's socks.

Pretty adorable, huh?

Also on Wednesday, we worked on a class mural. I had pre-made a yellow brick road on a big piece of butcher paper and labeled it with the places Dorothy went throughout the book/movie. The kids were so curious about it all week. They kept asking when we were going to work on it.

I basically just split them up into teams of three or four and gave them all a location. I had typed out some ideas of things they could make and encouraged them to brainstorm with their teams. I set out about a bazillion pieces of scrapbook paper and just let them go to town. Ya'll? I am shocked at what they came up with and what a great job they did! They were so into it and so creative! I must admit I helped them outline the Emerald City and the Witch's Castle... but, they did EVERYTHING else!

Here it is!!!

Close up of Kansas and Munchkinland

I typed out quotes from the movie and we added them to our mural, too.

The Cornfield, Forest and Field of Poppies

The Emerald City and the Witch's Castle

As we went through and retold the story using the mural, I had some of the kids write each part of Dorothy's journey on index cards and we glued those on, too.

The winged monkeys are my favorite, ha!

Dorothy, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. And, Toto too.

I really never predicted that this would be such a great activity. I'd say it's maybe my favorite thing we've done this year.

As luck would have it, Mrs. Carroll over at The First Grade Parade posted this right in the middle of the week! So, we took full advantage and my kids got a great opportunity to use the mural to retell the story.

Poo. I just realized that the other pics of these that I took had some last names on them... so, I'm not going to post them on here. But, you can go get this awesome freebie at The First Grade Parade.

Thursday, I let the kids create their favorite character. All I did was cut out the circles for the faces so that the kids wouldn't make them too small. That's all I did. And, let me tell you. It was painful. I kept debating about whether I should cut out witch's hats and magic wands and Dorothy's hair, etc. But, I just decided no. It's okay if their artwork doesn't look perfect. They're kids. I just dumped out the scrapbook paper and let them go to town. I did give them some pics of the characters from the internet as a refernce point. But, I let them work in their teams and make them all on their own. I had to take a few deep breaths when all the Dorothy's came out looking like pigs. But, I'm so happy I let it go and just let them have fun. And, I think they turned out adorable.

Glenda and Wicked Witch

(You can click on the pictures to make them bigger if you want to read their writing.)

Tinman, Dorothy and the Lion

These friends right here were having a race to see who could write the most. Normally, I would stress quality over quantity. But, the day before Spring Break? Race on, friends!

That Dorothy looks totally like a pig, right?

I hung them out on the wall... along with our mural. And, they're going to stay there for a while because they make me happy.

We will FOR SURE be doing The Wizard of Oz every year from now on. My kids had so much fun... and, I may have had even more fun than them!

Now, I'm off to get my Spring Break started! Hopefully, I'll be able to blog some this week. Although, not about school. I'm not even thinking about school after I push the "publish" button to this post.