First Week of Third Grade

There has truly been no greater meme then the one above.

I survived the first day of school.  More importantly, I did it without the aid of coffee or Mountain Dew.  That's right folks, you're looking at a teacher who went caffeine free the first week of the school year. Granted, a nap happened after school.  To be totally fair, a nap happened most of the first week.

I had every intention of coming home each day and blogging about what happened.  But those good intentions didn't get fulfilled.  I'll do my best to recap the whole week at once.

Monday, August 14th

Without an alarm, I woke up at 12:18 ready to start the day.  However, there was still a good five hours before I actually needed to be up and luckily I was able to get a little more rest.

I left early to grab Starbucks on the way to school.  Last week the front of the school and the nearby roundabout were torn up with construction, so I gave myself extra time.

I got to work and after finalizing my first day plans (which ended up taking three days to get through), I set up my photo booth:

We took a pod picture, but I spaced on getting a grade level one.  We ended up taking that picture on Tuesday. I also set out water bottles for their first day treats. 

Officially I have 23 third graders on my roster, but I have a push in student all day from the autism room.  24 is a great number.  Granted, I keep feeling like I've lost a good dozen students because I'm used to fifth grade numbers.  But nope, I just have two dozen kids to keep track of and it's a rather nice feeling.  (Right now, one of the fifth grade classes is sitting at 41 students.  I am so glad I switched.)

I went outside, met students and families, then we came inside to start our day.  Some teachers wanted to jump right in to teaching cursive and silent worksheets.  

We went a different route.  I explained breakfast procedures and had them write about how they were feeling.  We then watched {this Kid President} video to lighten the mood.

Afterwards, we talked about how we were going to help each other out and make this year awesome.

The first day was a combination of get to know you team builders and procedures.  We incorporated movement and practiced talking with one another.  One of  my favorites is "Find Someone Who":

Kids get up, introduce themselves to one another, and ask get to know you questions.  It incorporates movement in a controlled way, which they need after hearing about school procedures and class rules.

Lunch will be an adjustment this year.  I'm used to 12:15, but alas, lunch this year is at 11:25.  The kids get 20 minutes to eat and 20 minutes to play, but teachers are only contracted a 30 minute lunch.  I spend the first 10 minutes in the lunchroom on duty with my kids.  As a trade off, this means I no longer have morning crosswalk duty, which is a blessing.

For those of you who have never experienced the joy of lunchroom duty, it looks a little something like this:

And is best described in this {video}.

But in all seriousness, I spend half the time separating classes into two lines and walking around passing out sporks, napkins, and ketch up packets.  I often fight with sealed fruit cups and have spilled on myself every single day.  I have a new hatred for capri sun juice pouches.  

By the time my ten minutes of duty is up, I've lost most of my appetite.  Watching several hundred kids shovel food into their mouths will do that.  Still, I'd prefer the duty at the start of my lunch period because most of the other teachers have outdoor playground duty and well, it's hot outside.

We did read First Day Jitters on the first day of school and practiced procedures.  I allotted forty minutes for filling out agendas for the first time and going over back to school paperwork.  It was barely enough time.

There weren't any tears the first day, I got hugs goodbye, and as soon as the bell rang, I was ready for a nap.  

I stayed an hour and a half after school getting ready for the next day, grabbed take out (B had softball and I hate cooking for one), and was asleep by 8 pm.

Tuesday

I spent before school prepping these treats:

I ended up passing them out at the end of the day, but still. It's the thought that counts.  I'd also like to thank Costco for having the box of 54 rice krispies on sale for under $7.  Smaller class sizes means the hubs now has a lot of rice krispies to enjoy as a snack for softball.

We did a classroom scavenger hunt the second day (because we ran out of time on the first day of school).  It was a great opportunity to embed voice levels, team work, appropriate movement around the classroom, the location of extra clipboards (if they didn't bring their own from home), and challenges.  Plus involving students in this process means not only are they more likely to remember where something is because they discovered it, but also have a higher sense of shared responsibility and ownership in the classroom.  These feelings of ownership mean that (hopefully) they will take pride in our room and treat things with respect.

 They did a really good job with moving around the classroom appropriately:

They also worked quite well as a team:

To further practice team work, they learned how to do a sort with "No Way Jose! That's a Fact Jack!"

I created several dozen statements about third grade.  Some of them are true (that's a fact, Jack!) and some of them are false (no way Jose).  Students worked together to sort out the statements and explain their thinking.  The point of the activity was to dispel some myths about third grade and to practice team work.

After each table sorted their cards, they went to investigate how another group sorted theirs.  They couldn't touch the other team's cards, but had to practice complete sentence stems:

I agree with ___ because ____
I disagree with ____ because ____

We'll eventually post more, but for the first week, we're using just these two sentence stems.  I have a few kiddos that are ELL, so these sentence stems are a great way for them to practice and structure their responses.

We also managed to take a grade level photo (since that slipped our minds day one):

This is the first time I've ever worked on a predominately male team. It's an adjustment. I've also taught all the men about a few different technology components, so that feels nice to be helpful.  

We've split up planning responsibilities this year and I'm really excited about it.  Almost everyone is on board.  Our two newest teachers are planning math because the Engage NY curriculum is already scripted.  It doesn't mean they get off easy because of how copy intensive this program can be, but rather they get to read the scripted lessons and narrow them down to create lesson plans for us to use.  Two others are planning writing and I'm planning reading with Ms. H.  We moved down from fifth together and are quite used to sharing the responsibilities.  Language will be shared between us and the writing team.  We haven't talked about science or social studies yet, but have a grade level meeting this week. 

We also did a few gallery walks, where students use markers to answer questions that I've prepared on big butcher paper.  I use this as an opportunity to practice using markers, whisper voices, sharing ideas, agreeing or disagreeing appropriately, and moving around the classroom.

After each group visits each question, we talk as a class and make our class norms.  

We used math manipulatives in the form of cubes to practice solving math problems in a hands-on way.  I gave them five minutes of free play to get it out of their systems, then we used the cubes to solve problems.  Ms. S happened to stop by during the five minutes of exploratory free play and was delighted to see their towers:

Three tables built towers, one table built fidget spinners. 

We did actually do some math with the cubes as well:

It was a great chance to embed Number Talk norms and quickly assess some of my students' background knowledge.

This problem was awesome:

It was nice to see how they worked with numbers.

I also had student helpers solve problems on the board:

I didn't know all of their strategies (the ribbon strategy?!) but got it after they explained their thinking.

The rest of the week was a blur.  I napped almost every day after school.  We read the following picture books:

Ms. Nelson is Missing  

This classic tells the tale of a teacher who brings out her alter-ego when the kids are misbehaving.  Not only did we practice coming to the carpet, answering questions, and being good listeners, we also did a gallery walk about how we should treat each other and our teacher.

My Mouth is a Volcano

 
This is newer find for me and quickly became one of my favorites.  It tells the story of Louis who has a problem interrupting (erupting) others.  The tables turn when he realizes how it feels and how being interrupted hurts feelings.  His mom helps him with strategies for not blurting out.

First Day Jitters

This book goes through the typical struggles of getting ready for school, not wanting to start at a new school, being anxious about making friends, and is quite relate-able for students.  But *spoiler alert*, the main character is actually the teacher!

Thank You Mr. Falker

It's always a struggle to not cry with this one.  Patricia Polacco tells of her own childhood struggles to learn to read while dealing with family deaths, a cross country move, and bullying.  We talk about perseverance, bullying, and asking for help.  We also used this book to learn about writing summaries, which we practiced as a class and with table teams.

We practiced fire drills, took a STAR test on the computer, worked on our reading stamina, set up our daily response journals, and had some talks about choices. We learned about Class Dojo and they helped me create the categories for positive and negative choices.  Granted, I already knew what categories I wanted, but they were so excited to participate in making classroom decisions.  That buy-in from students is important.

They got new book orders:

I always give a few weeks between passing these out and having the orders be due to allow for pay day and students to do extra chores to earn books.  I put our class code and the due date on the book orders to make it easy for families.  I also gave them time to explore and get excited about books.  It's important and I get to see what books are on the "must have" list so I can use Scholastic dollars to stock up on things they want to read. 

(For non-teachers, every order placed earns teachers points.  I think if I place a $25 order this month, I get $10 free to spend on books.  It's quite nice to help me build my library.  Plus Scholastic's prices are quite low to make books affordable for kids.  It's a great system.)

We talked about how to care for dry erase markers and set up classroom supplies.  I print their names on sticky labels and use packing tape to secure the labels.  I usually do this at home and can go through the class set during an episode of Friends.

Alas, I do not do these classroom chores alone.

We made a T chart about what constitutes a nurse visit:

 

We learned about stamina and practiced independent reading:

We had a busy, busy, busy week.  I've gotten two love notes so far and lots of hugs.  Third grade is off to a wonderful start!

Try it Tuesday: In Kahoots with learning

I'm all about gallery walks and collaborative learning.  I've blogged about using cups as a response strategy and having students solve problems together for math review.  

However, I'm excited to take this to the next level with kahoot! 



I signed up for a free account and will create quizzes for my students.  They'll answer with the iPads and as a table group.  All they'll do is go to kahoot.it and log in with the code I give them (that I generate to go along with a specific set of questions.) 

It looks like this:

There is literally no way for them to mess it up other than typing in the code wrong.

From there, we'll make teams (usually the table teams since they're Kagan structured anyway).  From there, the game begins!  The quicker they answer will lead to more points for their team.    

Here's what a sample question looks like:

I'm also excited about using this to build metacognition for my students.  I can have them create questions for the class.  I can have them answer if the questions were too easy or too hard, and have them give feedback to me and to others.

In the fifteen minutes or so we played with kahoot, my brain began buzzing with possibilities.  This could be great for inspiring students to create really thoughtful, deep questions for one another about what they're learning.  They'll get to take charge of their own learning.

Will you be in kahoots with me this year to try something new to get your students excited about learning? 

Detour

Sometimes the best teaching moments detour from the lesson plan.

We had this Engage NY activity sheet to give:

3 problems.  The time slated for this independent practice was ten minutes, then they were to go work independently in a textbook that's older than them.

That's not what we did.

I had them work collaboratively at their table teams.  I had them include written explanations of their thinking and justify their answers.  I had them show their work multiple ways.  It got a tad noisy, but they were all engaged.  It's amazing how the simple act of giving them markers and butcher paper turns an otherwise mundane activity into a lively discussion and collaborative activity.

When they were done, I had them do a gallery walk and critique the other groups' presentations, thus highlighting math practice #3.  

Did this activity take way longer than it was slated to? Yes (but it still fit within our math block).  Did they gain so much more from one another than they would have by silently working then going over the answers? Yes.  

Was it worth detouring from my lesson plan? Absolutely.

Year Six, Day 2

Day Two

With no duty to be had and the kinks from yesterday all worked out, the morning ran much smoother.

We started our day with this meme:

Before I showed them the wordle from their first day feelings exit tickets:

I was pleased many of them wrote in complete sentences.  My favorite may have been the child that just wrote "I'm satisfied."  I still have a few that are nervous, but that's to be expected. 

We went over more classroom procedures, did our number talk (which lead to some awesome discourse about making sense of problems!), made our class norms with a gallery walk, and did another read aloud:

This mentor text focuses on life skills and provides strategies on not erupting (interrupting).  Again, most of them had never heard this book so I'm on a roll!

Can't wait to read this gem on day 3!

I did make my first student cry.  Yes, we made it through a day and a half of fifth grade before there were tears.

He had his phone out and in his words, was just looking at the time.  Since his back was to the wall, I chose to believe him.  We had a conversation in the hallway because it's not a conversation for the whole class.  He apologized, we talked through strategies (look at the clock, keep phone in backpack), and I moved him seats so he would face the clock.  I gave him his phone back at the end of the day, but there were still tears. 

I guess the honeymoon is over?

Day three is a weird day.  We'll tackle second prep and our first assembly.  Fingers crossed!

Day 2 Down

Survived the second day.  We still need to work on being respectful listeners and not taking half a dozen bathroom breaks but it's a definite work in progress.

Yesterday (day 1): 

We read Ms. Nelson is missing and made these anchor charts in a gallery walk:

Today, I turned these into wordles:

Our class norms

Our individual goals

Small group norms

I prefer wordles for the class rules because they take up less space :)

Today we read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and discussed how students should treat one another.

Here are the "I'm moving to Australia" cards for when students are having "one of those days".

On to day three!

Rules, rules, rules

I don't like the word rules. I tend to want to bend them, immediately.

Instead, I prefer "guidelines for harmonious living" but that's a little long for an elementary classroom.

So instead, we shall call our guide lines norms.  Norms, in contrast to rules, are created by and with the group that they'll affect.  Rules are imposed upon a group by a leader and often met with resistance.  Not to go all social contracts and political science on you, but rules don't always lend themselves to I-Thou relationships.  I want I-Thou relationships in my classroom where respect, individuality, rights and cooperation are emphasized.

(Thank you to countless political theory classes and the ideas of Locke, Socrates, Hobbes, Rawls, Buber & the whole gang)

So instead of making rules posters, we are going to make a class constitution and set our norms during the first week of school.  By creating a social contract with my students rather than handing down rules, I will create an environment where discourse is encouraged.  I won't tell them what I want our class norms to be, I'll guide their discussion and let them generate norms of how we'll thrive in room 45. 

To do this, I'll generate their question stems for gallery walks and let them go.

After they've had a chance to answer all of the questions, I'll bring them back together for a Socratic chat about each poster.  We will establish norms for general classroom cooperation, small group interactions, student-teacher expectations and most importantly, they'll get the opportunity to reflect upon their own goals.  They get to decide how they want to conduct themselves and how they want to grow academically this year.

Granted, they won't have total control because well, they're ten.  However, they hopefully will feel a lot more ownership over the classroom and hold one another accountable to our norms.  Not my rules, our norms.  

I'll display our norms on a wordle and something cute like this:

(Except it won't say rules!)

New product: Mixtures & Solutions Sort

One of my students' favorite science topics is mixtures and solutions.

I don't know if it's because the unit is very hands-on and we make chemical reactions occur (often with a loud noise or foaming bubbles).  Maybe it's because mixtures and solutions is kind of like potions and they wish they were at Hogwarts (that would be my dream).

Since supplies are limited and we can't necessarily have a chemical reaction a day, I created a sort for mixtures and solutions, available here.

I would go over the difference between mixtures and solutions, then allow students to complete this sort as a table team.  While they were discussing, I would walk around listening and doing an informal assessment.  Students would then walk around and critique one another's work in a gallery walk format.  They're allowed to look and discuss why they agree or disagree, but they can't touch one another's work.  After they've gotten a chance to observe the other tables, they return to their seats and we go over just a few of the answers.  They discuss why a particular combination is either a mixture or a solution.

We repeat this activity several times throughout the unit and again before testing.

Hope your students enjoy it as much as mine do!

Beginning of the Year Activity Pack

In preparation for the upcoming school year, I made a bundle pack of 6 different back to school activities and ice breakers that are appropriate for elementary and middle school.  

All you need to do is print and go!  This fifteen pager is a must have!

Grab yours here!