Back to School Parent Packet

It is done!!  I am so excited!  My sister, Sarah, and I have spent hours making a new Back to School Parent Packet.  Don't you just love how fresh everything is for back to school.  The smell of new crayons, and clean desks.  Awwww.....it makes this teacher's heart happy.

This year, I decided to do a complete overhaul on my Back to School Parent Packet.  I wanted something that included all those necessary little tidbits of information we teachers need at the beginning of the year, and had that crisp back to school feeling.  Well, here it is:

See, happy smiling faces for Back to School :).

I put all the important questions I need about my students in one place.  

I also made a contact information sheet that I am going to put directly in my teacher binder.  That way, if I need to contact a parent, I will have all the information I need easily accessible.  

Keeping volunteer information organized is very important to me.  I made a detailed parent volunteer form for the back to school packet, and a cute chevron parent volunteer list to be kept in my parent binder!  So excited to have names, phone numbers and email addresses ready to use when I need volunteers for activities, field trips, parties or someone to read with a student.

Because transportation can be confusing at times, I also made a transportation form so I know how my students are getting home each day.  This is especially helpful for the little kiddos who sometimes get confused about how they get home everyday.   

This may be my favorite part of the packet.  Every year I send home a parent packet, and every year I get about half the packets back and have to BEG, barrow and bribe to get  the rest of the students to turn in their packets.  This year I decided to include a raffle ticket.  The students who bring back the packet filled out, get to enter a drawing for a prize.  A little motivation for getting everything back quickly!

Hope things are going well in your back to school preparations and MOST importantly you are enjoying a little R & R.  If you're interested in the Back to School Parent Packet, it is available on TPT HERE. 

Have a great one!

Anchor Chart

I keep seeing all these SUPER cute anchor charts on Pinterest, and decided as part of my "getting organized summer", I was going to make some anchor charts too.  Teaching about nouns happens at the beginning of third grade, so here is the noun anchor chart I made:

**VERY IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE:  my drawing abilities are very often surpassed by the abilities of my third grade students.  Third graders, I have found, are amazing little artists!

 I need to find out how other teachers have used their anchor charts in their classrooms!  How do you use yours?

Mystery Reader

A couple of years ago I was looking at the cool teaching blogs on Scholastic, and came across the idea of Mystery Readers on Beth Newingham's blog.  She has some pretty incredible ideas, and I was very excited to try having Mystery Readers in my classroom.  BOY am I glad I did!!  The Kiddos ATE IT UP!  

If I were to think of the top five things that contribute to my students becoming lovers of reading, Mystery Readers would without a doubt be one of them!

Every Friday, after lunch, I have a Mystery Reader come and knock on our classroom door.  Our class Mayor (or leader) for the week answers the door and let's our Mystery Reader in.  The kiddos are always SUPER excited to see who the Mystery Reader will be.

I try to get a wide variety of Mystery Readers to visit our classroom; parents, school personal, special community helpers and my personal friends and family.  We have even "Skyped" with one of my favorite authors in New York City.

Before a Mystery Reader comes into our classroom, I ask them to do four things:

1. To pick a children's book they love, or help me to find one for them.  If they love it, so will my students.
2. To tell my students about why they love reading and how it has been important in their lives.
3. To tell my students about the job they have and how being a good reader is vital to their job.
4. To explain to my students why getting an education was important to them and encourage my students to go to college.  

Can we say, "four birds with one stone".  That's how we teachers roll :).

Here is an example of a Mystery Reader.  One of my sweet friends works at a nearby zoo.  One year she brought a 60 pound tortoise to class and read a book about a turtle.  She explained how much she loved reading, and without it, she would never have been able to read the important books about how to take care of animals.  She also talked about getting a degree in biology and told my students if they wanted to work with animals, they definitely needed to go to college and be good readers.  

Do you think the kiddos were paying attention?  YEP!

Another one of my friends works in the athletic department at a nearby University.  She was great!  She talked about some of the athletes the kids were familiar with and then asked them the question, "What do you think is one of the MOST important things these athletes do in order to play at a University?"  The kids responded with, "Work out!",  "Practice!!" or "Run" etc...   My friend responded, "All those things are very important, but they would never be able to play at the University if they weren't good readers, and they didn't study hard everyday.  If they don't get good grades, they don't get to stay on the team."  

The little athlete kiddos in my class were listening, I guarantee it. 

Before a Mystery Reader leaves, I take a picture and put it on the bulletin board in our classroom library.  The pictures stays up all year long.  If possible, I also place the book our Mystery Reader read in a special place in the classroom.  This quickly becomes the most popular and wanted book of the week.

Mystery Readers pack a wallop!  The kids think it is great and it makes my job of getting students to love reading a lot easier.  What are some of the ways you get your kiddos become lovers of reading?

Sandwich

Dollar store find!

Yes, I am a teacher and I often find myself sucked into the cheap finds at The Dollar Tree.

In my class, we play a game called "Sandwich", which is just another version of "hamburger".  Well, shout out for the The Dollar Tree, because today they had coasters in the shape of sandwich makings.  Perfect for playing "Sandwich".

Isn't it a cute little sandwich?

The package comes with nine different pieces.  

To play "Sandwich", I pass out a package of sandwich makings for every table.  I usually put a math problem on the board, and the first table to come up with the answer on their own white boards gets a point.  A point means they get to add one sandwich making to their bread.  The first table with a whole sandwich (all the makings on the bread) stands up and enthusiastically yells out "SANDWICH!".

 It's a winner, the kiddos love playing Sandwich!!  

Think I am going to go back to The Dollar Tree and buy the little plastic sandwich holders to keep the pieces in.  Cute, right?

P.S. Right after purchasing the sandwich coasters at The Dollar Tree, I saw very similar hamburger coasters at Target.  So, you can take your pick, is it going to be a "Sandwich" or a "Hamburger" :) ? 

  

Ribbit Roos

In my classroom Ribbit Roos are all the rage.  What is a Ribbit Roo you are wondering?  Well, it is our classroom money system.  When I first started teaching 3rd grade I made some basic Ribbit Roos.  For 5 years I have wanted to make some new Ribbit Roos and this week with the help of my amazing sister Sarah, I finally did!!!

Students earn whole Ribbit Roos for good behavior.  Expectations are set and students know how they can earn classroom money.  I use the clip chart system.  If a student makes it to the top of the chart they earn 3 Ribbit Roos.  Students can also earn Ribbit Roos by doing classroom jobs.

I use 1/2 Ribbit Roos (tadpole) to pass out for other things like answering questions and being caught doing something extra special.  I love the 1/2 Ribbit Roo because it is a great way to start teaching fractions at the beginning of the year.

These are available on my Teachers Pay Teachers website 

When students earn 10 Ribbit Roos they can trade it in for a classroom incentive.  In my room I have a classroom incentive menu:

You can download this incentive menu and definitions of each item for free by clicking on the photo.  

My students love the teacher chair option because they get my chair with rollers and I sit in their short little chair for the day.  Anything to keep the kiddos happy, right?

I also charge 10 Ribbit Roos to buy a new pencil.  Ohhh!  This was the best decision of my life.  Pencils were my worst nightmare!  I felt I spent half my day sharpening pencils and listening to students complain they couldn't find a pencil.  Now, the sun has come out again in my life as a teacher, and they take more responsibility for their things and know just what to do if they don't have a pencil.

Yay for Ribbit Roos!

  

Geometric Shapes

Every year I order large craft sticks for my P.E. chart.  They arrived yesterday, and when I opened them I had an idea for Geometry.  

I am going to give each of my students a set of 8 craft sticks to keep in their pencil boxes.  Anytime I call out, "Show me a shape" they will know to pull out their craft sticks.  I will either tell them the name of the shape or the attributes of the shape.  They will use the craft sticks to build the geometric shape.

  

This could totally be made into a game to see who can make the shape first.

Each of my students are given a class number, so I am going to write the given class number on each student's craft sticks.  When (not if) a student loses a stick somewhere around the classroom, we will know who it belongs to.


Any other ideas for uses of these great little craft sticks?

Algebraic Equations

I had the awesome opportunity to go to a two day education conference this year.  One of our keynote speakers at the conference was Ron Clark, the founder of Ron Clark Academy in Georgia!  Holy MOLY, loved this man!!  He was a little ball of energy that inspired me to want to be a better teacher.  You have to check out his school.

While at the conference, Ron talked about teaching his students algebraic equations with balloons.  He did this by writing the equation on a balloon and if a student got it right they could pop the balloon.  Talk about motivational!

I LOVE, HEART, ADORE Amazon.com.  It is where I do 80% of my shopping for school supplies, books and other "necessary" items.  Because of this, I have a steady supply of boxes and packing bubbles coming in.  Amazon usually packs with little air pouches.  Heaven knows I have a lot of little air pouches.  Being a teacher who thinks everything can be reused (you know what I mean), I have always wondered what I could use these little air pouches for.  So the other day when a box came from Amazon, I had an idea!  Algebraic equations with air pouches!

First I took some acrylic paint and painted the tops of the air pouches (the side that does not have writing on it).

After the bubbles dried, I wrote algebraic equations on the bubbles with a Sharpe marker.  

 

Voila!  We have bubble equations!

Another great thing about these bubbles, they have tear marks to be easily pulled apart and handed out to students.    

I am going to give my students an equation bubble and have them solve it on their white boards.  When they solve the problem they get to pop the bubble!   So excited to try this next year.  I am going to make a whole box of equation bubbles ready to go.

Any other ideas for these equation bubbles?  

Reading Stamina

I have to show you my favorite tool for reading stamina. It's just a little tool, with a big attitude. Okay, it doesn't really have an attitude, but it helped change my students attitude towards recording our reading stamina time. I like it for the following reasons:

1. It has a large magnet on the back and sticks right to the white board. The amount of time remaining is visible to the entire class.

2. The minutes are posted in 5 minute increments like a clock. I point this out to my students and it helps with learning to tell time.

3. It has a slight ticking sound that helps cue my students that it is time for reading. It just lulls them right into reading time. They become accustomed to the sound and even during DEAR time they beg to have the timer on. I love things that are cues for my students and help establish procedures.

I found this on Amazon.com.

As our class increases our reading stamina time, I write the number of minutes we have read on the white board next to the clock. I made this simple box to record minutes with. I just tape it to my white board next to the clock. Each day we add a few more minutes. We decide as a class how long we want to read for that day, and then write the actual minutes read in the box.

Click here to download a free copy: 

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0tk6JUgU7jqNzFvc0lLSVZTWU0/edit?usp=sharing

My Students love taking turns being in charge of setting the timer and changing our recorded minutes. It's simple, but I love it and so do the kiddos.

About Me

Hey there! I am a third grade teacher and love my job! I have taught for over six years, my first year in fourth grade and the remaining in third! I absolutely love working with the kiddos and can't imagine my life without teaching.

When I am not teaching or searching Pintrest for new ideas, I am either reading, cooking, spending time with my niece and nephews, or frantically finding a way to get myself to a beach (which takes a little creativity considering I live in Utah, the beaches of Salt Lake don't count). I love to travel. I dream to one day travel the world, and constantly joke with my students about chartering an airbus to take my students with me. A teacher can dream, right?




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