Our school wanted us to be sure to incorporate more author studies. This coincides with our standards, as we are expected to see if our students are able to draw conclusions and generalize about authors and their works. One trimester I did an author study with Eve Bunting books and another trimester I did an author study with Patricia Polacco. I decided to add a poet to my author studies and settled on Jack Prelutsky! He is a favorite … [Read more...]
Figurative Language Mini Posters
Since they painted our classrooms this summer (a lovely shade of off-white....blah), I am continuing to reprint and laminate all of the things I hang on the walls of my classroom. I have been picking and choosing what I want to keep, what I don't want to hang back up, and what I might want to add. I have already reprinted my baseball behavior system (freebie!), some motivating mini-posters I created, and some math and reading posters. … [Read more...]
Updating Posters and Signs in My Classroom
Well, after several years of teaching, I figured it was time to update some of the posters and signs that I have made along the way. I went into my classroom the other day because I know that time in August will be limited and I dug through the things that I hang up every year. I pulled out a handful of hand written signs that were in desperate need of a facelift. I brought them home and got to work on the computer. Here's what I came up … [Read more...]
Interactive Reading Journals/Notebooks: Starting The Year Off Right
A few years ago before the school year started, I stood in my classroom with two huge piles of notebooks. I knew there had to be a way to practice our reading standards and skills while creating a reference tool for my third graders. I had always used a writer's notebook, and I really liked the way I could teach mini lessons and my students could reference the information if they needed to. I looked around online and learned about the concept … [Read more...]
Say What?! Persuasive Paragraph Writing
In our classroom we have been working on writing persuasive paragraphs. This is the first year that third grade is working on persuasive writing so I had to think of some engaging activities to get my class motivated! This is an activity we did that used sentence starters to try to persuade our families to let us get a puppy, a cell phone or let us stay up later. Once students wrote their rough drafts using a graphic organizer, they edited … [Read more...]
