Has Anyone Seen my Snowman?

Well, my sweet students are busy bees right now with the end of the second nine weeks and the holiday break approaching.  It's difficult to believe that my precious students have almost completed half a year of third grade!

The past few weeks we've been practicing writing descriptive sentences and while my students are all about telling me HOW and writing one or two really fabulous descriptive sentences in isolation, having them utilize them in writing was not connecting.  So after a browse through Pintrest, I came up with the LOST SNOWMAN.

 I introduced my activity to my students by telling them that they precious snowman or snow-woman they had built in their front yard was missing.  They would be responsible for writing an ad describing the snow person in hopes of locating him or her.  My students were immediately enthralled.

We started off with a graphic organizer as a pre-write.  Students only wrote the descriptive words they wanted to include for the body, face & accessories.  We moved to our rough draft and students began outlining their thoughts in sentence and paragraph form.  After our peer conferences, students published their writing on snowman paper.

Pre-Write Graphic Organizer

Publishing

Friday afternoon we constructed our snowmen & snow-women.  It was an adventure! I die-cut three different sized white circles for students and laid out all sorts of construction paper. They went crazy!  The creative juices were flowing and it was fabulous to see them come up with interesting ways to build what they had written.

One Lost Snowman

I collaborated with one of the fabulous 2nd grade teachers down the hall and invited her class to come see if they could locate our missing snow-people.  Besides gibing my students a way to share their work, it also gave us an opportunity to practice being hosts & hostesses.  We stationed two greeters at the door that were elected by the class to welcome our guests and give them the matching sheets they would need. (Thankfully Mrs. Rodger's brought her own clipboards....being a first year teacher means at times, I still find myself lacking in some areas.) Each one of my students introduced themselves to the second grader and explained to them what we would be doing.  Hearing "Hi, my name is ________ & I'm so glad you're here." from my kids gave me a glow-stick moment on the inside!

The kids collaborated in reading what was written helping the second graders find other author's waiting to share and all around making sure all of our guests were taken care of.

All 22 Lost Snow-People

2nd Grade friend on the left with Author J!

Looking for clues in the writing.

Probably my favorite picture of the day.  This sweet student of mind rarely talks, but loved conversing with his new 2nd grade friends!

Finding the Snow-People

Afterwards we reflected on a class how the descriptions in our writing directly influenced whether or not the reader was able to correctly identify the snow-people.  The students made wonderful observations and comments of what they could have done differently on their snow-person and in the future show they would make sure to add detail in their writing!

Not only did we have a  blast, we were able to share with a different audience than normal, make some new friends and improve our writing.  I'll be binding our LOST SNOWMAN writing & the snow-people themselves into a classroom book for sure.  This is one activity that is a keeper.


Ms. B


P.S. The other positive to come out of this?  Mrs. Rodger's will be using the writing and picture of our snow-people in a literacy station for inferencing!

Proverbs 16:24

Last week during prayer with the Lord he really laid Proverbs 16:24 on my heart.  One of the hardest parts of teaching in a public school is the inability to share the love of Jesus with my babies.  As a teacher you have to find creative ways to introduce your students to Biblical teaching without them, their parents or administration realizing that was your intent.  After reading Proverbs 16:24 I had an inspiration!

In the afternoons dismissal normally takes between 20-30 minutes for everyone to leave.  Obviously this makes instruction difficult so we have moved toward a "Family Meeting".  This is a time to discuss issues in our classroom, confront disrespect we have seen but also, the best part about Family Meeting is when we begin complimenting each other.

We discussed at first the difference between a genuine compliment and a fluff compliment, examples of each and what kind of compliment we would prefer.  My kids have since been complimenting each other on genuine personality traits & strengths.  Today for example, I was blown away when one of my more popular girls said, "I would like to compliment Jake.  He kept thinking of the answer even when he hadn't gotten it right the first time.  He kept going, I need to be more like that."

HOLY SMOKES Y'ALL.  These kids are 8 YEARS OLD.  And they are complimenting each other on perseverance, tolerance, respectfulness, work ethic & attitude.  Granted, they may not realize it but the fact is they are.  When one of my girls shared in family time her Dad is scheduled for deployment on Monday I had two other students flash the connection sign we use (See Move Your Body) and talk about how they recently have been through the same thing.  They gave advice, hugs & well-wishes.  I saw Proverbs 16:24 in action, in a 3rd grade classroom in Killeen, TX.  God knew exactly why I was hired after answering six questions, an hour away from my home.  He hand selected the 23 kids that sit in my class every-day and knew that the week of September 10th, 2012 I would learn more about kind & edifying words than I have ever learned through twenty two years of Sunday School, godly influences and church camps.

This week has revealed that you truly can serve the Lord wherever you are, whatever profession and in whatever way.  If a public school teacher can witness her kids live out Proverbs 16:24 in a day & age that we are seeing students arrested for bullying, suspended for verbal harassment and beat down by words than anyone can be a light for Christ.

Remember as you go about your day:
"Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul & healing to the bones" Proverbs 16:24


Buzz, Buzz
Ms. B

Move Your Body!

I learned over the past three weeks what an active group of students I have so I stepped WAY out of my comfort zone and came up with motions to help them out.  Step into the beehive and see what these worker bees have been up too!

We started with "Plot Mountain".  My kids freak-out if we use too many technical terms for their learning so we made an anchor chart and decided that the diagram looked like a mountain.  To help we also added in some body movements.

Students start squatting with their hands touching the ground.  The quietly whisper, "rising action, rising action"... as the slowly stand up.

When students are completely standing the jump in the air and yell "CLIMAX" to represent what we call the firework moment in the story.

Finally students slowly return to their starting position as they whisper "falling action, falling action."
My kids LOVE to practice plot mountain.  They grasped the components immediately after I introduced the body movements and stopped in the hall to show off their newly acquired skills for our assistant principal.

We are also working on supporting our claims/answers with evidence as well.  While students make a claim in a class discussion they form their classmates form the letter "C" with their hands to show they understand that a claim has been made.

Students then signal for some support.  (Ignore the blurry picture please, catching movements is hard stuff).  Students place their hands palm up at their shoulders and press upwards to show they need to hear support for the claim.  Support can be from the text or schema but without the support the claim has no place in our room!

 We also constantly signal for students to refer to the text for evidence, connections or to look back and to find some answers.  I witnessed students signaling each other during discussions to go back to the text for an answer!  I love the non-verbal communication.  Students don't feel that they have been singled out and I can save my voice for times it's needed a little more.

The last motion I have to share (today) is our hand motion for connection.  I LOVE my students making connections between subjects, concepts, their own lives or my life based on the snippets of stories they have heard.  When a student thinks of a connection they have with whatever we are doing they form the connection signal.  Today we were sharing our weekend plans and some threw up a connection symbol!!  I'm a firm believer that if my students can connect their learning to the world around them that knowledge will become schema much faster than without a connection.


Any other teachers out their with good hand motions for 3rd grade concepts??  If so, bring them on!

Buzz, Buzz
Ms. B

Forgive Me!

Yes, yes, yes I am WAY behind on blogging!
Being a first year teacher is a lot like swimming.  You tread water just trying to keep from drowning....
That has been my life for the past six weeks.

Thankfully, things are starting to settle down and blogging has once again worked it's way on my to-do list.  I am so blessed with a larger than average classroom and had a blast organizing and decorating my room.  The theme for our classroom this year is BEES.  Since bees must work together for their beehive to survive and they are always busy I felt it was the perfect basis for our room.  That being said, the room is decorated in bright, cheery yellows and accented with black.

The back wall houses our cubbies, Boggle board, reading log tracker and FASTT math incentives.

I arranged my room in 5 table groups of 5 desks.  One of my mentors during student teaching used a wonderful system, "Days of the Week".  Each desk is marked with a specific day of the week.  When papers need to be collected, passed out or students are called to line up I can simply call off the days of the week!  Instead of having students argue over who retrieves supplies or turns in papers it is taken care of.

One of my many bulletin boards!  This one is dedicated to Writer's Workshop

Our room is also blessed with a plethora of bulletin boards.  Soon these boards will be filled with anchor charts and student work.  I have not used anchor charts in the past and am looking forward to seeing how they benefit my students this year.

The first week was an absolute blur off procedures, meet & greets and exciting discoveries.

Buzz, Buzz
Ms. B

File Folder Fun

When I visited with my newly acquired team at the end of May I was gifted with a binder full of 2nd-4th grade file folder games.  Over the past month and a half I have gone nuts!  I've officially copied all of the games I needed and started coloring.  Yesterday after an hour trip to Mardel's and 38 feet of lamination I finished with half of my file folder games.  The games cover English/Language Arts and math concepts.  So excited about this free find, and the fact that it came into my possession in May so I have all summer to finish them.  Thankfully I have spent the month of June with two fabulous roommates that have helped my color, cut & glue for the past six weeks.

We've officially gone through three boxes of crayons and I am pretty positive I have a permanent scissor imprint on my hand but this fall I am going to be so grateful I have multiple games already created for activities!  

23 file folder games down & 23 to go!  Can't wait to see them all finished and stacked up in my classroom.

Ms. B

Bee Responsible

My first Pintrest classroom craft is officially finished!  I found this idea at 3rd Grade Thoughts when I was paroozing her fabulous blog.  It's the No Name board.

Since my classroom theme for the year is "Bees"...I went with a yellow/black template for the board.

I started with my supplies from Michaels.  A piece of balsa wood, wooden letters, spray paint, mini clothespins and spray adhesive.

My lovely sorority sister Taryn helped me with the spray painting.  I painted the long piece of balsa wood black and the wooden letters yellow to go with my bee theme.

After letting them dry for a few minutes we attached the letters to the balsa wood with spray adhesive.  This was a BIG mistake.  The adhesive stuck to everything, myself, my engagement ring, the deck.  Anything it came in contact with.  I wish I had looked a little harder at Michael's for wood glue.

Last but not least I added the clothespins and bee decoration to top off the No Name Board!  I can't wait to hang the board in my classroom.  Hopefully, I won't have much need for it BUT that is wishful thinking I'm sure.


So grateful for Pintrest

Ms. B

First Year & First Post

Whoa!  I'm a first year teacher & a first time blogger all at the same time!  My hope is to chronicle my first year of teaching from the beginning so I can look back and remember the good times, the not so good times & document what I learned.

I'm so excited about this adventure in third grade.  And can't wait to share.

Ms. B