Give Me LIBERTY!

Last week we did a unit on US Symbols in conjunction with our Reading story: The Story of The Statue of Liberty by Betsy and Giulio Maestro. This is one of the activities we completed. The students made their own Statue of Liberty. Then they wrote one opinion and one fact about the statue.
If you are interested in having your students complete this fun activity click on the photo to go to my TPT store. It is $2.00 but will be on sale during the Leap Year Sale on Wednesday! Have a look!

Live Scoring

We have been practicing our constructed response questions to get ready for our upcoming spring testing session. A great way to do this in your class is with Live Scoring! We did a live scoring session when we were wrapping up our unit on Fractions. The students were placed in groups of 4. They were given a large sheet of chart paper, a question and one marker. The students then worked together to answer each part of the question. When they collectively thought they had a score of “2” (which is the best they can get)- they called me over to check their answer. If they had a “2” we celebrated and I marked their paper. If something was missing, then they were given a different colored marker so they could make corrections or add to their answer.

Why do they have to change their color? Each time the group thinks they have answered the question and you check their response, they should get a new marker color if they have corrections to make. This is an important step in live scoring because it helps the students see what they had to do in addition to their original answer to get a perfect score. All to often students give a minimal answer and think they are finished. This really shows them how close (or far away) their answer is to being perfect (or DISTINGUISHED).

Here is a group’s finished answer.

This group had to change their answer to Part C so you can see that they changed from their original color of purple to orange to make the changes. This gave them the “2” that they were looking for.

I hope you will consider doing a live scoring session in your classroom, too! I would love to hear about it!

Candy Converstations

I can’t wait for Valentine’s Day! I have so many fun and engaging activities planned for my thirdies!! For Math we are going to do my Candy ConverSTATIONS. I love it because there is a little of everything included: measurement, estimation, fractions, subtraction, graphing and more! Plus the kiddos get to eat their manipulatives when they are finished. Yay!!

All you need is a bag of conversation hearts and your ready to go! I use Valentine’s Day cupcake baking cups to hold a generous amount of hearts for each child.

Click on the below picture to get your copy of my Candy Conversation Heart graph. If you want my complete set of “Converstations” go to my TPT store. It’s on sale for $2.50 until Vday!!

Love ya!

Melissa

Really, really?

Okay- I just realized I am 1 away from having 200 FOLLOWERS!! I can't believe I am almost to this blogging milestone! Stay tuned as I will definitely have to find some way to say thank you!!
Melissa

Thrilled to Pieces!!

We have been working with fractions for like the past 7 weeks in third grade. I have to say, I am not complaining, because this is one of my favorite topics to cover in Math. The reason being, my students are "thrilled to pieces!" right now with Math.
One of the very first things we do when tackling fractions is to create our very own "Fraction Kits". If you haven't done this with your students during your fraction instruction, not only are you missing out on having a powerful hands-on tool that they can use over and over, but you are missing on a key opportunity for some real honest- to -goodness direct instruction with fractions! Building these kits is almost as important as having them to use for future lessons.
Plus, it is a cheap way to get fractions into everyone's hands. Even if I did have plastic fraction pieces (which I don't ) I am pretty sure that they would be gathering dust on the bottom shelf of my Math bookcase.

So, do you want to tackle the task of making fraction kits with your students? I promise you will not be disappointed. Check out the directions and pics below. Let me know how it went. I love to hear from you all and I will be back with some more of my recent fraction escapades.

Playing Cover-Up with our fraction kits

Fraction Kit Directions:

You will need 6 different colors of construction paper. It is best to use the 12 x 18 paper. Cut each paper into 6 strips (12x3).

Each student will get 1 strip of each color.

1. Start with 1 color and have the students label it "1 whole".

2. Have them take the second color and fold the strip in half. Teach them the proper techniques for folding- making sure to line up the edges and make a good crease for accuracy. This will be important in future steps. Have the students label each side as 1/2. Then they will cut the strip on the crease. Discuss what it means to be "1/2" of the whole and let the students place each piece on "the whole".

3.With the third strip students will be making thirds. This can be quite tricky for them, so you will need to show them how to "eyeball" the strip as they fold it to make 3 equal parts. Students will label each section as 1/3 and then cut them apart on the creases. Let students explore covering the "halves" and "the whole". Continue the discussion about how many pieces it takes to cover each larger piece. You could begin to talk about equivalency at this point.

4. Continue with the last three strips making fourths, sixths and eigths. As students are exploring each new denominator- this is a good time to talk about the accumulation of fractions (1/3 + 1/3 +1/3 = 3/3).

5. Finally, have your students stack each group on top of the whole. Then fold the whole piece over and paper clip it to keep it secure. My students keep their kit in their Math folders so that they can easily get it out of their desks during Math instruction.

Stop back in for a look at some great games to play with your Fraction Kits.

This material has been adapted from, Marilyn Burns.

Unpack your Adjectives!

December is here and I can't believe it. This is my second favorite time of the school year (back to school is 1st, of course!). Not only is this a busy and fun time of year, but there are so many wonderful, exciting things to teach. I am currently in the middle of my writing unit for Christmas Sensory Poems. I love teaching poetry to my thirdies and this is a great way to start off learning how to write one. Also, their finished piece makes a great remembrance for their parents. In addition, we attach them to snack bags that we are assemblying as part of our Service Learning Project. So, let's just say - we are very good at multi-tasking in the third grade!!

Today we watched an oldie, but a goodie! We viewed "Unpack your Adjectives" on Teacher Tube. Who doesn't remember the great Grammar Rock videos? If you haven't used any in your classroom lately, I guarantee you won't be disappointed! My thirdies loved every minute of it!! Plus- they are free and easily accessible!

After watching the video, we did a quick little formative assessement (worksheet). Click on the picture to get your own copy.

If you want to see the rest of my Christmas Sensory Poem Unit, check it out at my TPT store.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Christmas-Senses-Poetry

Melissa

Thank you, Public Library!

This weekend I ran into the library with my kiddos to find a good movie (just didn't want to spend that $1.00 at Redbox!) and stumbled upon something great in the children's section! I can't believe I hadn't noticed this wonderful tool sooner- but I am grateful I found it when I did. Have you ever heard of a Playaway View (The All-in-one video player)?? I hadn't until just now.
It is this remarkable little gadget that houses preloaded videos. It is about the size of a cellphone, so your students can hold it in their hands while viewing.

It comes with a jack for headphones.
I was so happy to find this amazing piece of technology! Each of my little ones checked out one for themselves and I snatched one up for my classroom. I couldn't believe my luck when I was able to get the "Great Places and Faces" video. The very first video (it has over an hour of watchable video) was Thank You, Sarah. How perfect for Thanksgiving and for my Turkey Task Centers that I had planned for Monday and today. My listening center promptly changed into a video center!!
Let me tell you, my students were so excited about this new piece of technology. Of course, a couple of them who are frequent visitors of the library had already checked one out and knew all about it.
The icing on the cake was when I read a comment on one of my posts from Elizabeth over at Fun in Room 4B. She shared some great printables from another blogger for, you guessed it, the book Thank You, Sarah! Could things get any better!
I hope you have a great public library like mine that has wonderful resources! If they don't have these yet, maybe tell them about them! I can't wait to check more out for my Listening/Video Center!!