Wordless Wednesday: Kindles!

      This is my first time linking up for Wordless Wednesday and I am excited to join in on the fun! I finally received my Kindles and a Kindle Fire from Donor's Choose.  I've created a schedule for my kids, but I am still not too happy with it and will work to find  a better schedule for next year.  

      How to you organize/monitor/assign technology use in your classroom? I'd love to hear your ideas! 

Five for Friday...19 1/2 days left!!

      I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday.   The countdown continues!  We are now officially down to 19 1/2 days left, but the learning continues!  Check out a few things from my week!

1. I had a nice Easter!  We went hiking at Clifton Gorge.  

2. I completed a Donor's Choose project and was funded mostly by my amazing family and friends!  I was able to get 6 Kindles and 1 Kindle Fire!  My kids LOVE reading on these during independent reading time.  What type of technology do you have in your classroom?  I would LOVE to have more!!

3. This week we started learning about the 3 States of Matter.  Our state has books that are aligned to the state science standards.  The students read a book this week to learn about the states of matter.  In the book, it described the difference between the particles in a solid object, liquid object, and gas.  Here is what we did to model this, again, thank you to my team member:

4. Tutoring is over! This comes with mixed emotions. This spring I worked with a couple other teachers at my school to help tutor struggling third graders. This year our state has something called the 3GG (3rd Grade Guarantee).  This has stated that third graders who do not pass our end of grade test or another form of standardized testing, will be held back in third grade.  I keep reminding my kiddos and the ones from tutoring to show everyone else ALL that they are able to do!  Keep your fingers crossed! :)

5. What do you do to prepare for state testing?  Our 3rd graders will take a reading test and math test this coming week.  We have spent a TON of time reviewing steps for answering questions about short stories.  In math we reviewed each of the major math strands using some awesome task cards that I purchased from The Diary of a Not so Wimpy Teacher.  They are great for quick station rotations.   

Happy Friday!

Five for Sunday?!

     Yes, yes, I know I am a little late to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching and that today is Sunday, not Friday!  Sorry!  This past week was my first week back after spring break and it felt SO LONG! I didn't feel like blogging after school.  Then, yesterday was our first BEAUTIFUL day that I could really just hang out and enjoy outside, so no blogging for me! Here I am on Sunday and here are a few pics from this past week!

1.  We finished up our unit on mass and liquid volume this week. One of my team members had her kiddos do an experiment and I did the same activity.  Our students had to try to make salad dressing by deciding what ingredients and measurements to use.  Let's just say that I love salad, but I didn't love their dressing!  They definitely learned that measurement is an important life skill!!!

2.  The "Soil Lady", as she calls herself, came to talk to our kids about soil conservation to go along with our Earth's Resources unit.  It was a great presentation about soil conservation and conserving all of Earth's resources. 

3.  During my spring break I went back to my old school in NC and my old first grade team member and now literacy facilitator gave me some ideas!  She uses old puzzles for kids to practice all types of skills.  Here are a few examples that I am going to try to make! The first one requires them to match up synonyms and the second one is for  suffixes and root words.

4.  Yesterday I was busy running in the Color Me Rad Race!  It was an awesome race!  I also was out enjoying the amazingly beautiful day!

5.  Not that I am counting or anything, but we only have 29 days of school until SUMMER VACATION!!!!! Not that I am counting! haha :)