Miss V's Busy Bee 500 Follower Giveaway

Have you been on Sara's blog for her 500 Follower Giveaway?  It is wonderful!  Click on the picture and head over there NOW!!!!

Clip Art List

I don't know about any of you, but it is getting harder and harder to keep track of the clip art I buy and use.  So many bloggy friends are making such cute stuff out there lately I had to make this simple chart to keep track of all the "terms of use" for the clip art I bought.  I don't know if you can use it, but here it is.  I didn't make this a PDF in case you want to change the heading titles. Edit away my friends...

 

Here is a picture of how I used it.

I hope you can use it...Happy Clip Art Shopping!

Reading Journals

I started something new this year.  Instead of writing a journal topic on the board in the morning (which I tend to forget to write up the night before and it is too late once the kids walk in the morning)...I decided to type them up instead.   I also realized that when I send home a journal or share it with parents at conference time you can't always tell what it was the students were supposed to write about.  Having the little strip of paper on each page is easier to share.

I type out what I want my kiddos to write about for the reading selection for the week.  I then print them out, cut them out and glue them into their journals.  I bought those black composition notebooks that have the poly cover and printed out a cute label (using ScrappinDoodles graphics).  They are holding up so nice! 

Here are some examples:

It is working so nice, that I am doing the same thing for science and social studies learning logs as well.  It makes it so much easier.

Shared Writing Journals

My class is really enjoying my shared writing journals!  During center time, one of my centers is writing.  I have a bunch of different activities the children can do in this center, but they keep going for the shared writing journals.  They even write in them during free time!

 

I only put out 6 journals to start with.  I figure after Christmas break I will put out 6 more and then 6 more again after Easter break.  I wanted the children to get excited about the journals and not become bored with all 18 out at once.

Here are some examples of what they look like once the kiddos have written in them.

    

 

 

 

     

 

  

 

 

How are your shared writing journals going???

 

 

Halloween Math Freebie

I was feeling creative the other night.  I love how everyone out there makes such cute activities where they use cute clip art to make a color worksheet.  So...here is my first attempt.  My students were just finishing up our addition chapter.  So on each section of the Halloween picture I used review addition skills from the chapter (addition properties, adding larger numbers, etc).

If you are interested, I have made this a freebie.  Let me know what you think...but please remember, it was my first attempt!  :)

Graphics from KPM Doodles, Fonts from Rowdy.



Bloggy Friend Giveaway

I hope you stopped over to Tania's blog to join her giveaway.  There are only a couple days left to enter! 

She has some wonderful giveaways (and yes....I am lucky enough to be a part of it)!  Click on her picture to go directly to her site and join this great giveaway!

Art Gallery

My school has a program called AVIC (Art in the Classroom).  Parent volunteers come in once every other month to talk about an artist.  The first one of this year had my class learning about George Seurat (who happens to be one of my favorites).  I have this really cool book by Dover that the kids can color an actual masterpiece.  So after they painted their own "Sunday Afternoon in the Park" with the AVIC parents, I had them start working on this one in the classroom.  I had them use markers and dots only!  They were not big fans in the beginning.  I gave them like 2 weeks to work on this project in their spare time.  I had only 6 children turn them in, but I think they turned out fabulous.  I told my students that anyone who turned them in, completely dotting in all areas, would go in the hallway in our class art gallery.  Here are the final 6...aren't they beautiful!!

 

          

 I just had to share them.  I'm so proud of the 6 students who did not give up!  And their masterpieces look fantastic!

I've Been BOO-ed!

Crystal over at Ms. Jones Junction Boo-ed me!!
Thanks Crystal!

Here are the rules:

If you've been booed, copy and paste the above pic and these "rules" into your post.
1. Give a shout out to the blogger who booed you and link back to their site!
2. Share 3-5 October activities, books, products (yours or someone else),or freebie(s) that you love!
3. Share the Boo love with 5 bloggers- make sure you check this link to make sure you don't boo someone again: http://toristeachertips.blogspot.com/2012/10/ive-been-booed-fun-october-linky.html

And don't forget to tell them that they have been BOOED! 4. Link up {here} so that others can find you and read about your October ideas! And while you are there... check out the other great blogs!

Here are some of my favorite October books and activities:

I love these books...

    

I love doing Glyphs each season, and so does my class!

    


I love my Halloween ABC order game:



I love these activities I bought from TPT:

  from Ashleigh


 from Second Grade SmartyPants

The Bloggy Buddies that I am Boo-ing are:

Gina atThird Grade Tidbits

Erin at Adventures in Third Grade


Storie at


Tania at

Amber at

 

Giveaway

Just a quick blog tonight.  My son is home sick today and we will be home again tomorrow.   

 

On a happier note...my bloggy friends Katie and Lisen at Second Grade SmartyPants are having a "SWEET" 350 Follower Giveaway.  I am lucky enough to be a part of this great giveaway.  Click on the picture to take you there!

 

Similes

Third grade is heavy on figurative language.  I introduce similes with these posters.  I put them up on a bulletin board a week before I discuss it with the class (generates interest).  If someone asks me a question about them, I just say "You'll have to wait and see".  This drives them crazy. 

Then we discuss how did they feel when I wouldn't tell them what the posters mean.  We have a great class discussion.  They say things like:  crazy like a fox, crazy like a Will E Coyote, crazy like a skunk...etc.  This I tell them is a simile.  We then discuss all the posters and the kids work in groups to make their own simile.  I collect their papers, tweak anything that is not a simile, and then pass them back the next day.  The groups then make a poster and I hang it up on the board next to my posters.  This is also a great time to teach character education tied to similes.  

How do you teach similes?

So Cool!

Oh...my...gosh...this is wonderful!  Stephanie from 3rd Grade Thoughts has done it again.  I found her blog this summer where I learned all about whole brain teaching.  Well I've done it off and on this school year with okay success.  For those of you who don't know about these sayings, you have to check out Stephaine's blog.  She explains it all there. 

But I went on Stephanie's blog again Wednesday and found this adorable picture.  It says Hocus Pocus, Everybody Focus.  Click on Stephanie's  blog name up top to go to her site and get a copy of her awesome poster.

I say "Hocus Pocus" and they class says "Everybody Focus" back to me.  Can I just tell you how much my class is loving this???  They are so into it, they beg me to say it all day long.  I made my own incentive for my students.  I told them that every time they repeat their part after me they will get a point.  Every time we reach 10 points, I will give them a marble for our marble jar.  They are loving it! 

So thank you Stephanie!  Now I'm trying to come up with new ones for each season/holiday.  Check back to see if I get creative!

Harcourt Trophies

Hello everyone!  So our marble party voting was a success.  Thanks for all the ideas you sent my way!  I had the students list ideas on the board.  Then they voted.  Today we will be fitting into our packed day "Bring something to play with" Party day.  This way the kids can bring a stuffed animal, board game, craft project, or any other toy they want to play with.  I told them I will give them time at the end of the day.  The amount of time depends on how quickly we can work throughout the day.  Hopefully that will spur them on to get at least 20-30 minutes at the end of the day!  Fingers crossed!!!!

Now on to new stuff--- I was wondering if any third grade teachers out there use Harcourt Trophies as their reading series????  As I look around on other blogs, on Pinterest, or on ProTeacher, I don't really see anyone using it.  Maybe because it's not that good???

Well I made some stuff over this long Columbus Day weekend to help out my students.  Right now we are working with Theme 2 which actually has some great stories, like:  Turtle Bay, Balto the dog who Saved Nome, Wild Shots They're my Life, and Rosie a Visiting Dog's Story.

But, unfortunately, the series is weak in skills.  Here are some of the things I made to help my kiddos out. 

 

My students this year are REALLY struggling with answering questions by restate the question in their response.  I made a few of those skill sheets, too.  I typed the question on the worksheet and then used a sentence starter for what I expect their response to start with.  I am doing this for the 4 stories in this reading theme.  After that, I expect them to do it correctly without prompting from me.  I will also take points off after this reading theme if they don't restate it.  I know I'm mean, but our fourth grade teachers EXPECT them coming in knowing how to do this.  And after the first reading theme this year without much success, I'm keeping my fingers crossed about doing it this way!

 

I don't know if anyone uses the Harcourt Trophies series, but if you do, please leave me a comment.  Maybe we could swap ideas??? 

 

Tell me what you think about these skill sheets or better yet how you get your students to restate a question in the response...I would love some comments.

Marble Party

Okay so my kiddos won their first marble party of the year!  YEAH!  Whenever my class goes to a special class (art, music, computers, gym, library, recess, lunch) they can earn a marble for good behavior.  Our whole school uses this program (it is part of PBIS).  Last year I used a small jar that was only a few inches tall.  The children really lost interest in it fast.  Probably because the size was so small.

This year I made a new jar.  I blogged about it in the summer.  You can see my post below.  This is what it looks like full.  I sticky tac it onto the shelf...that way it won't fall and spill all over!

When we get back to school tomorrow, we will have to vote for a class activity.  Does anyone have any great ideas to share with me???  I don't really want to wear pjs and have a popcorn party.  Any suggestions would be WELCOME!!!!!

Thank you for the ideas...in advance!  :)

Columbus Fun

I know everybody does something about Christopher Columbus.  Well today I did an activity that was so much fun.  We had a nice discussion to see what the students knew about Columbus.  Some good answers:  he discovered America, he had three ships, he left from Spain, and of course the typical third grade response..."he's the guy who we love cuz we get a day off of school".  Gotta love my class.  They are such a funny group.

But anyway...we then started talking about discovering a new land.  We had fun with this one too!  Here is the worksheet we used.

 

 

 

Here are some examples of what my kiddos came up with:

 

This is the sign on the bulletin board I put them on.

 

 



Peace Land

 

Bat Land

 

 

Mustache Land

 

 

Pizza Land

 

 

Cat Land

 

 

Pumpkin Land

 

 

  Just wanted to share a few.  I thought they turned out really cute!  Hope the Columbus activity you did with your students turned out well, too!  :)