Going to Med School

Our wonderful 3rd graders have only a few short days left before spring break and testing season. We leave for spring break in 7 days and the day after we get back we begin our week of 3rd grade FSA (Florida Standards Assessments). Perfect timing of course :) 

In order to combat the crazies that come before break and manage the stress of test anxiety, I decided to try something new and transform my classroom--- Okay maybe not totally new, but I can honeStly say this is the first time I have gone all in. #setthestagetoengage #weregoingtomedschool was a HUGE success. Here are some sneak peeks into our operating room last week.....

Operating tables and surgical trays were prepared for the kiddos when they entered Monday morning. Each student had a syringe needle pen, bandaid post it notes, surgical mask and cap, along with a patient file (their work for the week) and their surgeon badge. All of the little props definitely made the week so awesome for them. They weren't too expensive either. I have a mom who works in the medical field that donated the caps and masks. I bought the pens and band aid post it notes off Amazon for about $10 and made the badges myself then just printed, laminated, and cut them out. Parents donated white or light blue bed sheets or table cloths and cookie sheets for us to use for the week. And the little yellow man (Carl) was kindly cut out from butcher paper by a talented parent.  

 

 

The first item on their agenda was to read "What to Expect if You're Having Surgery" an article from ReadWorks. They got right to work with their syringe pens, taking notes and making sense of this passage. When they were done reading and take notes with their partners, we read it together as a class and discussed our thoughts. I was so proud listening to their conversation, about how they noticed that part of the article was organized using sequence because it was giving the information of having surgery in order from before you go to recovery and they used signal words like before, first, then, finally. Or how there was a word they didn't know, but they looked for clues to determine what it was and noticed that after the word there was a comma and a definition. EEEEKKKK! My teacher heart was just thrilled! We used this article as we transitioned to our next activity using the bandaid post it notes to create a main idea and detail web with Carl (the yellow patient on the table). 

 

I found neat candy which the students thought looked like medicine (not my original intention but hey it worked perfectly!) to use with the Distributive Doctor packet I purchased from More-Time-2-Teach which was a great chance to review strategies we can use to multiply as well as hitting that tricky standard one more time! 

 

 

Another fun activity was when the students practiced their measuring to the nearest quarter, half, and whole inch AND creating line plots. These two standards go hand in hand for our 3rd graders. I found a cute clip art of some bones and printed them out in various sizes for the students to measure. They used this measurement data to create their line plots. We also measured each other, because you always get measured and weighed when you visit the doctor! 

 

Throughout the week we read several doctor related articles, save many patients (word problems) thanks to our symptom analysis, evaluations, surgical procedures, and check ups. We learned about creepy medical procedures like mummification, the history of modern medicine, and cool facts about our bodies like how hiccups and our nerves work. We also had lots of fun------ #setthestagetoengage #weregoingtomedschool #testprepcanbefun was a wonderful week that I know both myself and the students will have in our memories for years to come. Who knows I may just have created 20 wanna be doctors? 

Five for Friday: WHAT A WEEK!

What an awesome week!!! Linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for another episode of Five for Friday!

We have been working super SUPER hard this week on our writing. Our current unit is writing in response to literature. This week we practiced with the short passage in the writing books, but then also with our mentor reading text Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens. I LOVE this book! It's such a wonderful text that can be used across grade levels to teach characters and character development, sequence and retelling, and also central message or theme. I know my kiddos will be prepared and ready for 4th grade's writing expectations! Quick tip, it takes a little while but I love to type up passages, excerpts, or the mentor text in it's entirety so students can have their own copy of the text to annotate and refer to. 

I saw a post from Teaching in Room 6 a few weeks ago and fell in love with how she used Tagxedo in her classroom with theme. We have used Tagxedo when writing about main idea and details but I just knew we had to use it for our study on central message this week. The students used the picture book Mr. Peabody's Apples by Madonna and wrote short response paragraphs about the central message or lesson in the text using key details from the story as evidence to support their answers. IT WENT GREAT! When they were done they created their Tagxedo pieces in the shape of an apple and printed them for display! 

Besides all of our awesome reading and writing this week we also studied geometry! My students are officially quadrilateral experts. We ended our week with one of my favorite cooperative activities where students take on the roll of teacher and create anchor charts (they love this) identifying the critical information about a concept. Typically I have them present these to the class and pretend to be teachers a little longer, but I decided to switch it up. The anchor charts were posted around the room and the groups rotated around critiquing each other's posters using the "I NOTICED.... AND I WONDERED...." methods. Such a success! 

" I noticed they created a web to share their information. I like this."

"I wonder why they chose to leave out some of the attributes. I think those are important." 

And on Fridays we take selfies! Wandered around the room to facilitate this adventure and just had to stop for some group shots and quick selfies for our end of the year video!

The husband and I went on another one of our planned date outings last week. We did a walkabout or progressive dinner. We started at one location for a small bite, and worked our way around the block or neighborhood, visiting several locations throughout the evening. It was rather interesting. We also enjoyed Monday (President's Day) off from school. Such a nice extra day to get work, errands, and time with our boys in. 

Using Free Resources to Create Standards Based Reading Homework

Reading homework is a challenge. You want the kids to read their own novels or books at home at night, but have no way of knowing if they really do. Your book lovers will, your students with supportive parents will, but you have some that just won't. Over the last several years I have tried many different approaches.

For a while I did a reading log. They had to read so many minutes a night and then their parents signed off saying they did it. This solved some problems, but not all of them. Some parents would sign and not pay attention, and other parents would forget to sign and then the children would cry and reassure you they actually did do the reading. Worst of all, just because they were sitting with a book in their hands doesn't mean they were actually reading.

After running into issues with that, I found an adorable monthly reading "MENU" which had the students choose from different activities to do throughout the week based upon their book. So, I was addressing the problem of parents signing a reading log, and students had to be reading (at least somewhat) in order to do most of the activities on the menu. But, this menu came with new problems. The activities were cute but not necessarily on grade level or standards based. As adorable as a photograph of the story is, for 3rd graders it's not always the best option. My new principal this year is leading the way in the district for standards based instruction, and I have to say while it did seem like a lot of extra work on my part at first, I was fully on board once I understood what she was looking for. And sadly..... this adorable appetizer, entree, dessert just wasn't going to cut it.

So thinking and thinking, searching and searching, and the PERFECT idea came to me. So, now what am I using? I'm so glad you asked? #iwasgonnashareanyways There are so many fantastic resources out there to us as teachers that are FREE. Don't get me wrong I love #TPT and I have purchased some amazing products over the years, but there are some places to get tons of resources by just signing up, most of them are very well known. Read Works and NEWSELA are my favorites!!!! So many amazing passages all available to us instantly.

It's so simple! The students get one passage or article (less than 3 pages) each week. They also get a cover sheet, which has their instructions for the week. I created two, one informational and one fiction, that I tweak slightly depending on what skill we are focusing on that week or something I know they need extra practice in. For the most part though, they look very similar. This is great for us, it provides consistency. Students and parents are understanding what is expected with little assistance from us, and it's a great indicator of how well a student is grasping a concept. BONUS, the article is pretty short so it still allows students ample time for reading for pure enjoyment. My principal loved this so much she took it to her data meeting with the area superintendent, who then shared it with other principals. #YIKES #LOVEIT

It's not beautiful but boy does it work. Here is an example of a cover sheet and article turned in by a student.

As you can see it can be used with almost any non-fiction article, and most fiction stories. I have tweaked it slightly (format wise) throughout the last few months. You can sang your fiction cover sheet by clicking for your FREEBIE HERE and the informational cover sheet by clicking for your FREEBIE HERE. 

Fonts from KG Fonts and Hello Literacy

I hope you enjoy :) 

Discovering the Main Idea and Details

One of the biggest struggles across our 3rd grade classrooms this year is 3.RI.1.2 or Common Core Standard RI.3.2- Determining the Main Idea and Retelling key details found in the text. Knowing this is a big struggle, our team decided to start here with our reteaching. I went straight to work, looking for the best ways to bring in main idea and details while keeping the students engaged and increase their mastery of this standard. Here is a look at the last several days in our classroom, becoming Main Idea Masters....

Introduction/Review- What is Main Idea?

I used a small paragraph about new puppies to model how to find the main idea. First, I have my students identify and box the topic: What is a word or phrase that sums up what we just read? In our case it was PUPPIES. Then, I have them think about a few things. What information is presented? Why did the author write this? What's the point? The so what about our topic. We then take that information and write a sentence about what we just read. If we write a good main idea sentence, we should be able to chose almost any detail in the text to support it. However, we talk about the difference between details and KEY supporting details (We use the ever popular table analogy because it works so well). Details are the legs that hold up the table top- main idea. You want to make sure your details are strong and supportive, other wise your table might not be able to hold weight that you put on it.

Students worked in small groups with short paragraphs to practice what I just modeled. They loved getting to use our anchor chart paper to record their thinking. Above is a photo from a small group identifying the topic, main idea, and a key supporting detail. 

Continuing Practice: Practice Makes Perfect 

Over the next several days we read stories from our Journey's book (Young Thomas Edison) and Read Works' passages to continue practicing identifying the main idea and details. We learned all sorts of new tricks. Some of my struggling readers have difficulties nailing down the topic and main idea, so we use highlighters and look for repeated words or phrases and examine text features. Other strategies we learned were jotting down summarizing notes after sections in a longer passage or text. 

Of course we created anchor charts! I loved this tool from The Applicious Teacher. This interactive anchor chart freebie is a great resource. We used it throughout the week and just removed the post it notes when we were ready for the next one. 

After we finished Young Thomas Edison, students worked with their partner of the week to create a main idea web that identifies not only the main idea but also three key details that they feel best support the main idea. Partners then traded their main idea webs and critiqued each other's work. They used the "I noticed and I wondered.." strategy. Its important for students to learn from each other. This is a great way to make it happen! 

Integrating Technology

Lastly, we used computer time and small group to continue to weave in our main idea practice. In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day this month, students read a Read Work's passage and used Poplet (a SERIOUSLY wonderful app) to create main idea and detail webs. This is the third time we have used these in my classroom and my students LOVE them! They are a great and engaging way for students to create thinking maps about their reading or learning. 

I am happy to say that we took our 3.RI.1.2 (Main Idea and Details) assessment on Friday and 94% of my students passed with an 80% or above! My proud teacher heart couldn't have been happier as I was grading and saw all their annotations and strategies on their tests! Success

Five for Friday

Another wonderful week over here in Florida. Weather has finally cooled down and I am loving it! This week was also our 1st week in the 3rd Quarter- which means the year is officially over half way done! So I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for another Five for Friday!

Many of you already know that my husband is also a teacher. Life in our house is crazy busy all the time. Especially since until recently we were both also full time graduate students. So for Christmas I gave hubby the coolest gift, a year full (1 per month) of dates. Time together is the best present! Well hilariously enough, he was feeling the same way because he did the same thing for me. He planned out 6 wonderful dates that we can go on throughout the year to spend more time together. So 2016 is going to be full of amazing experiences for us! Anyways.... Our first date was something we were both really excited about. It's called a Do Good Date Night. It's something recently started by Orlando Date Night Guide. The first part of your date is volunteering and the second is fun and food. Our event was perfect for our teaching sides because we were sorting books to be given to at risk youth and then we played (and DOMINATED) trivia! It was nice to give back, meet some great people, and the cherry on top was a gift card for $50 for restaurants in the area. So another date night!!!! 

 

Can't have a post with out these two! They are The Elementary Journey mascots! Due to the colder and rainier weather, there sad faces have been extra mopey and cuddly this week. I don't mind the cuddly part! They came into the classroom with me during teacher workday to help me get some office organization and filing done. 

 

My husband, besides being a teacher, is also a kick ass furniture builder. Seriously though, he has some mad carpentry skills! He built my table and bench for me and it's finally done and it he house. I LOVE it.... {OBSESSED} Of course it didn't stay cleaned off and pretty for long, it took about 4 hours before it was covered in teaching and planning materials! 

We kicked off the 3rd quarter reviewing main idea and key details. Check back tomorrow for a post on how we mastered this standard this week in 3rd grade! 

The Brown Bag Teacher blogger Catherine Reed shared a post a few weeks ago on a quick and awesome reflection tool she uses at the end of the day. To ensure students were starting off the 2nd half of the year ready to rock and roll (and to combat all the crazy from indoor recess and PE) we tried it out and it was great! Click here to read more