First Week!

Things went really well our first week back.  I have another amazing group of students this year.  I feel like I say that every year--and every year I remember thinking, "How could I enjoy a group as much as last year's?" but I certainly do.

A little update on how our first day went, with the play dough and Starbuck...great!  The students were really receptive to talking about bullying and sharing ideas on how to prevent it.

These are the rules my students came up with:

1.  Be respectful

a) Act kindly

b) Don’t hurt others’ feelings

c) Wait to speak until you’re called on

d) Treat our classroom and others’ belongings with care

2.  Use appropriate language

3.  Be actively listening when others are speaking

4.  Keep food off of fabrics

5.  No bullying, ever.

I was very impressed with the kids!

The play dough was like Christmas morning.


"We get to keep this?!"

Well worth all the effort.

I received an email from a parent the next day:
"I just had to touch base with you and let you know how excited [T] was yesterday after-school.  The words could not come out of his mouth fast enough as he wanted to explain every detail of the morning.  The skin colored play-dough that changed color was amazing (as we were told!!!!)  Thank you for inspiring my 3rd grader and making the first day so memorable and exciting!  ([T] loves to learn, but he was charged up yesterday!!!!)


I am so appreciative of the parent support I've already seen.


This is going to be a great year--I'm so excited!

First Day of School

It's always tough figuring out what to do with those first three hours of school.  In my district it's only a half day.  Just enough time to begin building relationships, setting initial procedures, and maybe a thing or two more.

This year my district's focus is bullying--rather stopping and preventing bullying.  We had a really great presenter last week, Kevin Honeycutt, who talked a lot about cyber-bullying.  This is a new thing for us after all. I know I didn't grow up with all the pressures of online friendships.

Anyhow, Kevin has a really cute and highly effective story set to PowerPoint that targets bullying from the safety net of a cute dog named Starbuck.

This is something I'll show on the SmartBoard with the kids while pulling the sympathy/empathy out of our discussion.  We will brainstorm and list ways to prevent bullying from happening and from this, we will generate our classroom rules/guidelines.  I feel strongly that starting this way will get us off on the right foot.

When the kids first walk in there will be several things at their table but among all those supplies will be a baggy with a small ball inside.  Optional extra, have your parents come up to visit you for two dyas over Labor Day weekend and then stay extra long because your husband and dad decided to remodel the bathroom.  Then have your mom work classroom slave labor for you, including working on perfecting playdough. Thanks mom!

I came across this on one of the teacher blogs I read, Clutter-Free Classroom. I later Googled playdough recipes/back to school (or something like that) and came across A Teacher at Heart's blog. She blogged about and reviewed Teacher Tom's playdough recipe, which I agree, is awesome!

So here's my two cents on the subject.  First, I think this is a great way to help work out any nervous tension the students may have on the first day of school.  Secondly, who doesn't like to take a prize home with them?  All together a good idea (thanks ladies and gents!).

Following Teacher Tom's recipe, when all ingredients are mixed together-sans food coloring, it looks a bit like this.

You'll know it's done when they playdough starts to form a kind of skin on the outside.

Let your playdough set on wax paper for a couple of minutes.  Although, I really don't think you need to wait the five minutes it suggests. Once it's a temperature your hands can handle, form it into a small ball.  Then form a hole in the playdough ball big enough to house food coloring.

The hole may look something like this although I learned quickly to make the hole bigger, almost like hollowing out the middle.

Drop in around five or six drops of food coloring.  I used red to test but ended up using the neon colors for school.  Cover up the hole as carefully as you can so as to not disturb the food coloring.  Place each ball into a bag and seal.

For the first day of school I'll have the students work the playdough around in the bag for about a minute.  When the food coloring no longer appears liquidy, they may take it out of the bag and work it with their hands.

So, why a blog post about not bullying and playdough?  The Starbuck story line and the playdough work together like this--not judging a book by its cover--it's what's on the inside that counts.  You get the point.  I'm really hoping to drive this home in those first three hours and to keep it going strong all year long.

All you teacher readers out there, have a fantastic first day!

Welcome Back Door-Update

Here are a few pictures of the completed door.  I actually haven't decided if I'm going to put names on the door or not.  I may do air bubbles and have the kids do their own names.

The Welcome Back Door

Every year this throws me for a loop.  I toss around just sticking the kid's names on the door to going hog wild.  I've been able to reign it in and meet that somewhere in the middle.

This year I came across a blog that had a phrase on it that really resonated with me. "We all may be fish of a different kind but in this school we swim together."

Love it.

So now, what to do?  First off, you should know, I'm not an artistic person.  Sure, I'm creative but I really struggle with getting the ideas in my head onto a canvas.  So here's my plan.

The next step is to add the fish.  I'm borrowing a friend/parent's Cricut cartridge and am going to use some funky prints with these fish:

My apologies--no idea why these photos are not cooperating.  So, they're upside down...sigh.

Last year my door looked like this:

Tomorrow is my official first day back to work.  Luckily it's building-level.  We'll get the chance to chat and reconnect before we dive back into the year.

Three For Thursday

I'm trying something new here at Tales of a Third Grade Something...I'm blog hopping.  This comes from Blog Hoppin' and you can join in too.  Today simply answer three questions and link back up.  Here goes nothing.

The three questions:

1. My favorite font
2. My favorite blog
3. My favorite online resource

1.  Well, can I say ANY font that comes from KevinandAmanda.com?  She seriously has the best fonts.  I'm currently in love with Pea Lauryn, which I used to compile my Master's Presentation.

2.  My favorite blog...this is tough!  I'm just recently into the whole teacher blogging thing and I love many of the ones I've seen so far.  So I'm cheating a little, I'll share three!  

3. My favorite online resource--again, there are so many!  But I think I'll have to go with Two Writing Teachers.  Their resources have been invaluable. 

So there you have it.  Next step for me...create a button!

Calendar

This is a work-in-progress post.  But this is my calendar area.  I only recently, last year, started doing calendar in the morning with my students and guess what?  I love it.  It gives me time to reinforce some skills that aren't always addressed in the curriculum that I feel are life skills.  Of course there are other skills too, some you might need to know some day.

Sorry about the slight angle it's on and the slight blurriness. I realized today my lens is scratched )o:  Going to have to figure that out.  Anyhoo, as you can see it's colorful but hopefully not off-putting to the eye.  I have the months of the year, days of the week, ordinal numbers, standard and expanded notation, and even and odd numbers.

As for what else...as soon as I purchase some velcro strips I will be fastening up a chart for counting the days with Base Ten pieces.  Also, I have a chart about rounding.

We have a new math curriculum this year, Everyday Math, and imagine my delight when I found out it was highly suggested that you add the minutes to your clock...when mine were already there.  It's so great for talking more concretely about time with kids.

But I'm wondering, what else?  Last year we worked on symmetry, shapes (regular and 3D), and even congruency. We also counted each morning--Monday by 2s, Tuesdays by 3s, Wednesdays by 4s, Thursdays by 5s, Fridays by 6s, and always did the reverse.

What other skills could I be touching on here?  What do you do with your calendar time?

Crate Chairs

This post is totally inspired by Megan over at The Boutons from her entry Crate Seats.  I adored her crate seats so much that I had to make them.  So now, I'll share how I made mine.  

Materials Needed to make 4 crates:


1 yard of fabric
1 yard of foam (I used something inventive...)
4 crates
Decorative ribbon-I'd say a foot
About half a sheet of OSB (Oriented Strand Board)


Scissors
Staple gun
Pliers (needle nose, in case you need to remove a staple)


Bug spray.  Oh wait, that's just me...who is living in the midst of the worst mosquito season in 20 years.

My tools.

Check out the bargain price on the ribbon!

I loved both fabrics and they coordinated so I decided to make two of each.

This was my surprise material find.  These were egg crate mattress pads that I have owned for years...like ten years!  I found them in our basement when I went down to find the padding I knew we had.  In retrospect, this would be a much cheaper alternative than buying regular foam padding anyway.

This is an optional extra.  She had to be right in the mix.  Isn't she cute?

My amazing husband agreed to cut the OSB for me and when ba-knonkers!  He cut them and sanded them.  He went all out!

Anyway, lay your OSB on the foam and cut to size.

Cut your foam to size.

Set your foam and the OSB on the fabric, print side out.

Now take each side, one at a time, and tautly staple them to the OSB.

Now add your fabric strap.  I didn't measure...just folded, checked, then cut.

Flip it over and check it out!

Fabric two:

And it's official, I love my new seats!  I'm going to use them at my kidney table for small group.  I'm pretty sure I'll be running an LLI group this year so my kiddos can keep their materials in their crates.

Easy project and well worth it!