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!

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?

Welcome!

Welcome to this new venture for me.  I've blogged personally for a few years but after much scouring of the internet for things in my professional life I figured it was high time I share what I have too.


I believe in the sharing of ideas but making sure the credit is given for them.  First and foremost, I have to thank Becks for helping me decide on a name.  My idea here is to share what we're doing in our classroom, which happens to be a third grade room.  But it's that time of year where Back-to-School is all the rage and I was in the mood for some fresh ideas.


As my introductory entry I've decided to share a great find.  I had the idea in my mind--a cup or tumbler of sorts to hold supplies.  My classroom has tables, not desks, so there is no storage.  In the past my students have had "bins".  These ended up being cardboard book boxes--can we say disaster?  They tore, the bottoms fell out, and they tipped over. I've upgraded this year but I'll share that later.


Today I went to several stores in search of these supply cups.  At a couple of stores they had what I wanted but only four or five of them.  Another store had super cute mini buckets but they were $1.50 a pop.


Finally, a last ditch effort to Hobby Lobby and just as I was about to leave I spied another clearance section. 

These were cute and not exactly what I was looking for but guess what sealed the deal?

Sold!  

I had already purchased velcro dots to help affix them to the table so now it was time to get to work.  

First, I made sure to use rubbing alcohol on the table and the bin to remove any oils or what have you.  Then I affixed the velcro to the table and the bin--fuzzy part on the bin.  

 Voila!

Now to see if the daily supplies will fit.

Perfect!

I did have some bumps in the road.  There were only 24 of these bins and I needed 28.  Not sure why it hadn't dawned on me before to share bins between table partners but I'm glad it did.  This will save space and money.  While I originally wanted a harder plastic I realized these will be just as great because I could throw them in the dishwasher if I need to.


Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned for my next share: