Fly to Third

These are a few of my favorite things....
This time of year, I am often asked by parents about what I have been putting in my stem station boxes. Here are some of the materials we use to build and create in third grade! They are great items for indoor recess too!

There are more below I would recommend too that I do not have yet in my classroom.

Each month I try to incorporate one stem activity on a Friday. Here are some of the options I have for the month of December. They are LOW PREP and provide good collaborate conversations! Check out the fun activities below.

Take a closer look

Seasonal Activity Stations

Sunday, November 24, 2019 No comments

I often am asked, what do you do to honor or celebrate this holiday or this event in history? Over the last couple of years my answer has been changing from bingo games and crafts to STEM or STEAM activities. This last year I committed to making 9 months worth of STEM activities, crack the code puzzles, graphing, and writing craftivities in monthly bundles called: STEM Activities and MORE!

Getting Grammar Back into Daily Teaching

Tuesday, October 1, 2019 No comments

Grammar has been one of those forgotten subjects since I entered in the teaching field in 2006. Writing workshop, Math workshop, Reading workshop has been the trend and while they offer differentiated lessons, it has taken up some valuable time slots. One of those time slots for me has been grammar.

So....why now? Well, it is important! Have you read emails that do not have a capitalized "I" when it stands alone? Have you seen missing commas or the wrong end punctuation too?

Grammar is a skill that needs to be mastered!

HOW? I will tell you in just 15 short minutes 4 days per week, that is how. Here is the process I took.

First- I read the common core standards. You can find them HERE if you need a shortcut.

Next- I broke up the items that needed to be taught into 4 big chunks since our report cards happen 4 times a year.

Quarter 1- Noun, Verbs, Simple Sentences, and Adjectives

Quarter 2-Subject/verb agreement, Pronouns, Prepositions, and Adverbs

Quarter 3- Coordinating/Subordinating Conjunctions and Compound sentences

Quarter 4- Complex, Compound, and Simple Sentences

Then- I found and created handouts with assessments for each skill. I usually spend a week on a skill and then I find a mentor sentence to go with that skill. The week of the mentor sentence we will do a "What do I notice or wonder about?" followed up labeling each part of speech we have learned, then revise the sentence with the skill we are learning, and finally imitate the sentence on our own and share.

For Example:

Skill week:

Day 1- What is a verb? Identify verbs both regular and irregular

Day 2- Linking verbs vs Action verbs

Day 3- Vivid verbs vs boring verbs

Day 4- Identify verbs together in sentences and choose two boring verbs and make them more vivid in a sentence

Mentor Sentence week:

Day 1- Read "Come on, Rain" and put our thumb up when we hear our mentor sentence. Read it together and paste in our notebooks.

Day 2- Identify all the parts of speech in our sentence: The first drops plop down big, making dust dance all around us!

Day 3- Revise the sentence changing "plop" and "dance."

Day 4- Create our own sentences using vivid verb word list.