We've got it! Look out area and perimeter!

By George We Got It!

We worked on area and perimeter during December and reviewed it using these fun task cards.  Before Christmas we made presents out of paper and measured the area and perimeter of our presents.  My pictures turned out terrible, but it is one activity that I want to do next Christmas.  This time I just need to check the pictures before I take them down.  I am working a creating an Easter bunny that they will create and find the area and perimeter of him!  Something fun to review!  More to come on that one.

We used these task cards to revisit the concept and everyone seems to have it!  Can I say WOO HOO!  I know that doing an area or perimeter question everyday during our early bird in December helped us a lot also! 

Covering Lots of Topics!

We might have only had school three days this past week, but boy were we BUSY!  Since it was a really short week I decided to hit the ground running and work extremely hard on writing.  We haven't moved past writing one paragraph until this week and I was so pleased with how well the kids did with it.  It took us two days to work through the packet, but it was well worth it. We started off by working through the first picture and discussing what we would put in a 5 paragraph story.  Then I showed them another slide that I had written my own 5 paragraph story about winter.  They really enjoyed naming which part from the slide below went with my story.

 Then we all worked on using this graphic organizer to get our ideas down on paper.  My student teacher and I edited them with the kids to make sure their ideas were on track.

 Finally we all wrote rough drafts using our graphic organizers and published them on this cute paper.  I was really pleased with how well the kids did. Click on any of the pictures to see more!

We are getting ready to jump into fractions!  I love to play BINGO with the kids, so I made this today to include for some fun in our unit.  It has several things that I am going to use as centers or with the whole group.  You can click on the picture to see it in my TPT store.

Time to start the new year....

I made two goals for my class this semester.  Of course one of them is to knock our state testing out the window!  Isn't that every teachers?  The other is to work really hard on writing two to three solid paragraphs at a time.  Tomorrow we begin!  Here are the generic rubrics that I made to help me evaluate their writing this month.  Click on them to download them from Google Docs.
 

 My idea is that if we can write and publish at least one piece a week, then I can use the weekend to grade them.  We have only been writing one paragraph so I think this is a big goal for us, but I know they can do it.  We will be working on some anchor charts tomorrow in class, so I will post some pictures of what we come up with. 

Tomorrow our topic is to write about a snow storm.  I thought this would be an easy topic for them to generate different ideas for multiple paragraphs.  Keep your fingers crossed and I will let you know how it goes.

We also going to slowly start to get ready for state testing.  I know no one wants to think about it, but it will be here before you know it.  Over break, I took a really good look at my students' data on Discovery and what is on the state test.  I made a list of things that I know we need to try again and of course the stuff we haven't even covered yet.  Each week I picked one ELA skill that we need to revisit.  It won't be anything other than a quick review.  I also purchased a test prep file on ELA from my favorite place....  TPT!  For S.S. and Science I have picked one skill/standard for each week and my student teacher is going to make sure we cover it with a few quick mini-lessons during the week.  Since math is my favorite, I spent my break writing a test prep packet for 3rd grade that follows the same format as the ones I have already done for 1st and 2nd.  I think it turned out great and I know my kids love to "flash" the card to show me what the right answer is.  It has 150 multiple choice problems, number "flash" cards, and an answer key.  You can take a look at it and download a preview by clicking on the picture.

Happy Teaching!
Tracy

Text Dependent Questions!

Today was our first day back from break.  It always amazes me how fast that two weeks at Christmas goes by.  This morning I did another inservice for seven of our area schools on text dependent questions.  I started off by showing this funny little video clip.  My kids crack up at these and I wasn't surprised that the teachers did as well.  Take a minute to look at it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH5Ez9fazXU#t=54

So now you completely understand what and where to find text dependent questions and NO they can't watch a movie!  : )

As I've posted before I LOVE ANCHOR CHARTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Here are some of the charts that I made for the inservice so that the teachers could copy them for their classrooms.

So now that we all had a better understanding of what digging deeper into the text was, it was time to look at my plan to make this happen in my classroom.  Here is how my kids and I will tackle some texts this month.  

Then we talked about what type of questions are really text dependent.  Having the kids site the evidence from the story to "prove" their answers is a really big shift for us with Common Core.  I use a ring of cards to make sure that they are text dependent.  Click on the picture to see more of the packet in my TPT store.

Don't forget to download my latest freebie to get your week started off with some writing about 2014! Click on the picture to download it. 

Well they have already called school off for tomorrow since it is so so so so COLD, but the teachers still have to go. 

Please check back over the weekend for a new freebie!  A teacher at the inservice had a great idea and asked if I could put it together for an anchor chart!  You won't be disappointed!

Happy Teaching!
Tracy