Sunday, December 2, 2012

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY NOVEMBER - GREAT FIND AT 99CENTS ONLY STORES

November was such a busy month. 
These are all the things we did.

 
Look what I found at the 99Cents Only stores! Since my kiddos love using dot markers for a variety of activities.  I found these Bingo Dot Markers that work just as well as the brand name ones.  Affordable!

 
This is what I made for each of my student helpers from the state university college.  They were so wonderful and such talented helpers.  They will make future great teachers!!!
 

 This is what we did for November "I am Thankful For" Writing Project. 
 

We also finished our Ecosystem Writing Project, which stem from Our Ecosystem Writing book (poem, reading, vocabulary and drawing) that we had been working on all week.  I will probably post the student book PDF later.
 



Hope you had a great November and Thanksgiving!

Election-Voting Fun!

This is what we did for our 3rd Grade November Election!  We had so much fun making I VOTED TODAY hats.  This activity, including the hats and talking about presidential election, might seemed time consuming, but turned out to be much simpler than expected and well worth the time!


I pre-cut 1 inch  strips from red  8 1/2 X 11 regular paper.  You can cut the paper horizontally or vertically.  Cutting smaller strips was easier.  I copied the I VOTED TODAY! stars on bright yellow paper and the smaller stars on blue paper.  Then my kiddos just glue everything onto white sentence strips.  


Super quick voting box: I took an blue empty tissue box and added some yellow die-cut stars to each sides.


 
Instead of asking the students to vote for a president.  I asked the students to choose 3 things that we could vote for that we would want at the end of the week if our group earned the most points.

We use the voting strips from No Monkey Business (created by Michelle Harper).  Click on Michelle Harper's Election Day Freebie.

Click here for the I VOTED TODAY! and small stars.

Hope you enjoy!







Friday, November 2, 2012

Batty Fun!

Today was the last day of our exciting two weeks unit study and writing about bats.  My kiddos had so much fun learning new facts, making their own bat, and writing about bats. 

First we did a KWL chart using die-cut bats for each kiddo to write their own facts and questions.


Then I read a great book (Bats, by Gail Gibbons) that had lots of bat facts and information.  Then we finished writing bat facts we learned.


After we were finished with the story and KWL chart, my kiddos completed their bat packet (which had a few reading bat paragraphs, bat life cycle, labeling the body parts of bats, writing rough draft paper, and graphing fun activity).


Then we did an are, can, have graphic organizer to record facts we learned, either from the book or the facts paragraph in the bat packet.  The we formulated these facts into sentences, in preparation for our writing.  First we drafted out the facts into complete sentences and paragraph, then we edited our paper, before rewriting our final draft.     


Next, we labeled the parts of a bat together as a class.  I cut a large bat then typed out the words and then laminated both (the bat and words) for durability.  Next, I used black velcro dots to stick the words onto the bat.  This way, we can reuse the bat and words as a labeling the parts game or activity.

 
The bat cycle and labeling the bat parts pages are from Kidzone.  
 
 
For the bat project, I painted toilet and paper towel rolls with 2 layers of black paint.  The toilet rolls were the perfect size, but since I didn't have enough saved for this project, I cut the paper towel rolls in half.  Having the rolls painted before hand saved time.  I copied the bat's body (see below) on black construction paper.  For the hands, I took 12" by 18" sheets of black construction paper and cut them into 6 equal squares.  I had my kiddos traced their hands and cut them out.  Then we took our white crayon and drew two eyes, a mouth, and 2 teeth. 

 
 
I displayed the toilet paper bats with my kiddos' writing on the cabinet wall. 


After all the writing and project was completed, my kiddos did a graphing survey to see what their classmates thought about bats, whether they were cute or creepy (activity from Cara Carroll).  This activity can be done as a whole class or individually.  I included this page as part of my bat packet and told my kiddos to ask 10 students what they thought.  Then we came together as a class to tally and share our results.  

Click on this link to see Cara Carroll's great Cute or Creepy Bat Graphing activity as well as her other bat activities!

This was a very exciting unit!  We had so much fun doing and learning about bats!



Click here to get your FREE copy of all the bat pages you see above to make your bat packet so much fun!

Hope your kiddos enjoy just as much as mine did!








Friday, October 26, 2012

FREEBIE-Shape Witch Craft & Activities

I love sharing my ideas and projects so whenever I finish creating a project, I always try to post it for free for a little while before putting it in my TPT store.  This craft comes with easy to copy templates, is simple and fun, and teaches the little ones how to count shapes.  The shapes on the face are optional.  You could use it or just let your kiddos draw their own face.  Looks cuter than the pictures are showing. 



Grab it for free while you can.  Hope you enjoy!

Click here to get your free Shape Witch Craft and Activity Pages.


Sunday, October 14, 2012

FREE Scarecrow Craft

If you are lucky enough to find my blog, you can download this free scarecrow craft project, which comes with patterns and templates ready to be copied.  I will be posting more projects and activities shortly.  Don't forget to sign up as a follower to receive notification of free items postings. 

This free scarecrow craft will be available to download until the end of November.  Hope you enjoy!

Here are the ones my kiddos did.  They love doing it!  Although the scarecrows looked so cute on the walls, the kiddos took them home to decorate their house. 

 
 



Click here to get your free copy! (Google Docs)

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Classroom Organization & Posting Objectives Ideas

Love these weekly organizing bins from Lakeshore Learning. 
I use these to store lessons, worksheets, activities, etc. that I will be using for the week.  Sometimes when I'm super efficient, I plan a week or two ahead.  All I use is a yellow cardstock sheet as a divider with a small sticky note (with the date, for example W-8/26/12) on the top right hand corner of the cardstock.  This is worth the investment. You can also do this with other bins as well.  What a great way to be ready to teach with materials at hand!

Lakeshore Learning All Purpose Organizer


Going to change the labels that came with the set to the cuter ones I got from
http://kindercraze.blogspot.com.au/search/label/organization


This is another great way to lay out your lesson plans for the day or week.  I took some colored file folders and laid them out, then I labeled the subject with address labels on a green note card backing.  Red for language arts, yellow for math, green for ELD, and blue for science, social studies, and Friday art; I coordinated my folders to the color of my school/district curriculum.  The ones I used here are the wavy tab multi-colored file folders, which I bought from Staples awhile back.  Not sure if they still carry these kind.   
 


Posting Objectives

Objectives tell the students what they are learning for the week or day. 
They can also be learning goals which can be aligned with Common Core. 
I put my objectives on a pocket chart so they are easy to change. 

 Here are two examples. 



Friday, September 28, 2012

Check Out New Math Number Practice On TPT

Just finished uploading a few math number writing practices.  My favorites are the strips of number writing practices. 

TIP: Print two copies of each, copy back-to-back, for more practice.  Start out with 1-20 first.

  
 

Use these empty strips as counting mats to count linking cubes/colored tile squares, or small counters.

 
I use the blank ones that has a place for score as assessment tools to monitor growth. 
 
 
 
 

Here are a few more number writing practice sheets.

 
 


Get your free copies at my TPT!

Click here for complete set ! (Google Docs)


Enjoy!