Let me say up front that week two did not go as planned. I did not get to focus on Read to Self like I wanted, but I did introduce Word Work and it was a hit. Listen to Reading was not as impressive to my students, but I thought they did a great job listening to Boom Town each day. On Thursday I was brave enough (and prepared) to introduce my clickers - big yay and amen to that activity!!! My students begged me to use clickers everyday, all day - oh how I wish I was that prepared! So now my weekend will be used grading and creating clicker activities.
Now onto a few pics:
I wrote loose objectives on boards from Pinterest. They were more focus skills than objectives, but they reminded me to stay on track.
These adorable guys are Quiet Critters. They can be found in the Halloween section of Michaels for $2.99 of sixteen. They sit on my students' desks and remind them to be quiet. They don't like a loud talking or talking when teaching is going on, nor do they enjoy being handled. Quiet Critters leave when these behaviors go on, and no treats are given if they leave. On the other hand, Skittles, Gummi Bears, and tickets were rewarded for keeping Quiet Critters all day! Very popular and successful for most of my students, so yay me!
These are part of my Word Work center/station. I've read about them on several blogs, and downloaded an activity sheet called Shake, Read, Write from a blog (Fourth Grade Frolics I believe). I have four: weekly spelling words, weekly vocabulary words, sight words, and Teacher's Choice (words I think third graders should know - right now I have days of the week). The students sift through the pom-poms (tactile and just fun) to pull out a word, read the word, spell the word as they write. Then they repeat, but highlight vowels when they are finished writing, and finally rainbow write.
Here is my reason for using a center that is perfect for first grade in third grade: writing. In a few years the ARMT+ (or whatever it will be called by then) will be used as writing assessment. Spelling is part of writing. Our students are taught to read sight words, but not always to spell. Or sometimes they just need more practice to be successful at spelling. There are words such as days of the week, months of the year, holiday, etc., that I think kids should learn to spell, so this is the perfect place for this as well. And let us not forget, third graders are kids - they like to do things like this. Give them a pencil, tell them to write their words, and you can forget it; but give them highlights and ink pens of different colors and tell them to write their words - they love it!
I've looked through The Daily Five book by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser and am really excited. From what I can tell, the premise is that students need to know what they are doing and be comfortable with it so they can focus on reading. I've spent years trying to come up with new and different activities in centers/stations so that my students won't be bored. I've also spent years complaining that my students don't know what to do in these same centers/stations. One of the other concepts of the Daily Five is training. Students need to be trained from scratch each year and given time to learn the routines and practice what they are to do. There are templates for the mini-lessons addressing each of the Daily Five components that includes making a chart of behaviors and discussing the chart before and after practice until students are independent. One point the sisters make is that teachers are to stay out of the way - students can not be independent if teachers are hovering. I can't count the times I've said, "I have to stand over my students for them to do ..." Guess I've missed the idea of independent over the years! So now I'm working on five to seven activities for Work on Words and a few different things for students to read to each other on a daily basis. I plan on having my students Read to Self and Listen to Reading daily; Word Work, Work on Writing and Read to Others may be rotated or given as a choice center for students.
My first post...again...so bare with me. I've already lost my first blog, so I don't know how this is going to go. I'm getting ready to start my seventh year as a third grade teacher, and love it! I taught first grade for five years and sixth grade for one before landing in third; third grade is definitely the charm for me! I've spent the past month on TPT and TN looking for new materials. I'm also redoing my room; painted one wall and the bulletin board and went with Chocolate Dots for my design. Now on to the new classroom management tools (tickets, anyone?) and centers/stations (easy but worthy please!). Wish me luck!
