Cyber Monday and Tuesday Linky! What's on YOUR Wish List?

      It is that time of year! My Thanksgiving was wonderful.  I needed the break from school and enjoyed spending time with family.  It has come and gone, so quickly.  So has Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, so let the Cyber Monday shopping begin!  This Monday and Tuesday my entire TpT store will be on sale for 20%.  With the promo code TPTCYBER, you can save an extra 10% off!  

     
     I am linking up with Pinkadots Elementary to join in a TpT Wish List Linky!  I know that I have been adding to my wish list and waiting for the bit sale.  I am sure that you have been doing the same!  

 An item that has been wish listed a lot of my TpT site is my Reader's Notebook Starter Kit!  This product is perfect for starting up a Reader's Notebook or providing you with journal prompts at any point in the school year! This particular Reader's Notebook is geared towards first grade, however, I have a Second, Third, and 1st-3rd version available on my site as well!  I have used this version, when teaching first, and now I am using the third grade version!  It has helped my students independently respond to texts.

     

      Another top wish listed item from my site is my Three Little Pigs Companion Book Studies.  This packet is perfect for differentiation and comparing and contrasting different versions of a similar story.  

    So what's on MY WISH list?!?!  Well, I have really been working hard with my struggling readers this year.  We are focusing on Close Reading.  I have some great resources for fictional texts, but have had a harder time finding appropriate informational texts to use with them.  So, I would really like to purchase these products that are both on my wish list right now. They are by Teaching and Tapas. 

What is on your wish list? Link up and share and don't forget to have fun shopping on Monday and Tuesday!

I HEART Number Talks!

     If there was only one new thing that I could implement this year in my classroom, it would be the use of Number Talks. Luckily, I was introduced to Number Talks by our intervention teacher last year.  We team taught math and she introduced me to Number Talks.  I have continued using them in my math instruction.  This fall, I also signed up for a professional development class based on Number Talks.  

      The book Number Talks: Helping Children Build Mental Math and Computation Strategies, by Sherry Parrish, is a phenomenal resource to the elementary school classroom. The concept is to promote mathematical conversations in the classroom while building mental math concepts.   

      Last year, as I mentioned, I began implementing these Number Talks on a weekly basis. I instantly saw improvement in my students' abilities to discuss their strategies, as well as seeing confidence with sharing their answers.  Number Talks are supposed to provide students with a safe atmosphere for sharing their thoughts.  I found that when provided with this environment they quickly began to engage in the lesson.  Thus, creating an exciting discussion about mathematical concepts.  The students show that they know the answer by a thumbs up by their chest.  Then putting fingers out to show that they can explain the strategy that they used.  This allows the teacher to see who is ready to share, but allowing the students to not have to respond if they don't feel ready to do so.   

      This year, I began implementing Number Talks three times a week, as our daily math warm-up.  I am LOVING using these three times a week.  I am noticing a HUGE improvement in my students' abilities to think about multiplication and division.  The way that the book is set up, is that it provides you with a series of related problems.  You simply write one on a board/chart paper/Smartboard, at a time.  Each problem builds upon the prior. Students have the opportunity to solve and share their thinking for each problem.  Students can comment on each others answers and agree or disagree.  They are able to learn from their peers errors and understandings.  

      If you are looking for a way to promote discussion and mental math, within your classroom, look into Number Talks!  I would highly recommend it!

 I plan on posting some videos in the next few months.  Stay tuned!

Currently November

        It's November!?!  What?  This school year seems to be flying by so fast! Just last week, report card went out to parents and we are about to start the 3rd week of the 2nd quarter.  I am linking up with Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade to join in on the November Currently fun! 

Listening: We are flipping back and forth between the Bengals (WhoDEY!) and Browns games.  

Loving: The fall colors!  Last weekend we were out in the woods on Sunday and it was beautiful!

Thinking: Conferences start this Thursday and we have them again one night the following week.  I try to prepare a sheet for parents to take home, that gives them information about their child.  This takes a LONG time to prep.  I am about half-way done.

Wanting: Last weekend it was BEAUTIFUL!  It was in the 70's and sunny. Today I woke up to it being only about 28 degrees and frost outside!  BRRR....I am not ready for the cold weather!

Needing: If I had a three day weekend, every weekend, think of all the things that could be accomplished!!!

Reading: I am taking a Close Reading course.  I am currently reading articles about Close Reading.  I need to work on one of my online modules for the class today, as well. 

Book Talk Tuesday- Promoting Positive Classroom Behavior

      It's time for Book Talk Tuesday!  This week is an extra special book that I am talking about for Mrs. Jump's Book Talk Tuesday.  This book is extra special because I had the privilege of working with the author at my old school just outside Charlotte, NC!  
    I have seen her posts about her new book for a while and ordered it over the summer, thinking I would love to read it.  So, when it came I was even more excited to see that she signed the inside cover!  My kiddos were super excited to know that a real author wrote them a note! :) (Thanks Stephie!)
   

     The book, The Garden in My Mind, does an excellent job creating a mental picture for students of what happens when you make good choices, instead of poor choices, at school.  When reading this book, I imagined many of my previous students who would have benefited from this book and being able to SEE what impact of their choices.  I used this book in the first few days of school and I am planning to use this next week as we start looking at setting personal and academic goals for the next quarter. Many of my students need a quick reminder about making good choices!

      As a third grade teacher, I realize that so many of the back to school books and those about choices and behaviors, have been read multiple times by now.  This was a brand new book to my kiddos and I know it impacted them.  I think reading it again, now that we know each other better, will give me a chance to give students specific examples from our classroom. If you are looking for a good book to use on the first few days back to school, or throughout the year, this would be a great choice.  Click HERE to go check the author's website out and grab a copy for your classroom!

Five for Friday- October 17th!

       October is FLYING by!  It is going so fast, I can't believe it.  It has been a while since I have blogged again, but I am back for another Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching.

1. This past week, we went to the Columbus Blue Jackets home opener!  It was SO much fun!  We had a blast at the game!  I am looking forward to hopefully another winning season!

2. I finally sent out my SLANT BOX last week!  I made a clipboard and sent lots of back to school teacher must haves.  (sticky notes, dry erase markers, thank you notes, note pads, candy, and more candy)  I am looking forward to receiving mine in the mail any day!  :)

3. We won a popcorn party from our school's most recent fundraiser.  My students brought in the most money in the third grade.  They thought it was a HUGE deal. So, I let my students partner read their animal books, that we are using for our research projects.

4. Here are my kiddos working on their life cycle projects that they did last week. They did an AMAZING job using the rubric to guide their work.  

5. Last, but definitely not least, today was probably the highlight of my students' year so far!  One of my teammates has a friend who works for Petland.  He brought in a bunch of critters to show the kids.  He talked about their adaptations and traits.  He came last year, too and the kids just LOVED it both times!

BEST OF ALL...Today we have the day off! Woo Hoo!  Yesterday was the end of the quarter and today we are off school!  I am ready for a long weekend!

Five for Friday- September 26th

     It has been a few weeks since I posted on a Five for Friday, so I am sort of including the past couple of weeks, instead of just this week! I am linking up again with Doodle Bugs Teaching for another Five for Friday.  I am so thankful for this weekly linky, even if I don't make it each week.  It still keeps me motivated to keep posting!

1. As we prepare for our first integrated unit of the year, focusing on nonfiction and life science, we spent this week doing a nonfiction text features review. Thursday and Friday were spent working with partners, digging through nonfiction texts, and determining how the text features we found, helped us to better understand the text.

2. Each math class, we start out with a warm up.  We do the same type of warm up each day of the week.  Every Monday is a number of the day, Tuesdays are word problems, Wednesdays are journal prompts, Fridays are Number Talks, and Thursdays are called The Answer Is...  This warm up is when we give a number (39) and expect students to come up with the word problem and a way to solve it.  We flex group for math and I am currently teaching a group of struggling math students.  The intervention specialist and I have taught them modified algorithms and number lines to solve addition and subtraction problems   There are a few examples of their work on The Answer Is... and it was great to see students using those strategies on this type of problem!  The first is called add going down.  The students add the tens, add the ones, and then add the tens and ones.  This works with hundreds, too! The second strategy is an open number line.  This student made hers backwards.  It should have started on the right and moved backwards, but that is ok!  She was able to understand what she was doing to find the correct answer.  My favorite subtraction strategy is called expanded subtraction, but I do not have a pic of my kiddos working on this, yet.

3. My view this past week, while walking at the lake and my NEW shoes!  They look EXTRA large in the picture!  You get the point, though!

4. Our school's biggest fundraiser is called Dance-A-Thon!  The kiddos loved this!  It takes place during our recess one afternoon and they have a professional DJ and dance instructor come in to run the activity. 

5. Last weekend, I went to the Columbus Crew game.  It was a GREAT soccer game. We were the first so many people in the stadium and received a free bobble head.  I took mine to school, only to have a few students SUPER excited to see that we had to have been there on the SAME night! haha As if I venture out to do things at night?!?! They were shocked.

Writer's Workshop is Up and Running!

       I have been extremely busy at school and don't have much time to write, but wanted to share how excited I am with my kiddos this year.  I used Lucy Calkins' Writer's Workshop for the first 8 years that I taught.  Last year was the first year that I didn't use Writer's Workshop.  When our new literacy support mentioned that she was hoping to introduce our school to Lucy Calkins, I was super excited!  
      We spent the first few weeks doing a ton of assessments required by the state and my district.  Now we are finally getting into our daily routine of writing.  My students are off to an amazing start and they are LOVING writing!  I am LOVING seeing their writing.  Here are a few of our anchor charts from the first few sessions!  

Happy writing!!!