This year I’m using more centers and cooperative groups than ever before and quickly realized I needed a new management system. I had previously used a typed sheet of paper with color-coded groups. It was too small for students to see from across the room and took me time to retype and print a new…
Johnny Appleseed’s birthday is this month! We celebrate by doing reading, writing, and social studies activities all about Johnny Appleseed and apples. We’re actually celebrating a little early in our classroom because his birthday falls right in the middle of my Amazing Animal unit. I’ve promised the students he won’t mind an early celebration though….
Reading workshop is well underway in our room. In addition to teaching routines and expectations, we’ve been working on visualizing. I like to introduce (or review) all of the reading strategies right away and then spiral back through them during minilessons all year long. I start with visualizing because it’s fairly concrete and the students…
Way back when I was a new blogger, I posted about using National Geographic Explorer with my students each month. We’re using September this week. One of the other third grade teachers made the coversheet with activities this time, so I can’t share that, but I wanted to pass along the vocabulary cards I made…
We’re working our way through our launching reading workshop unit and my third graders are having a lot of trouble identifying the different genres. I have posters in the room and they have a reference sheet in their reader’s notebooks, but it’s still difficult for them. I like to play educational games in class so…
I know many of us read First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg with our students during the beginning of the year. If you aren’t familiar with it I won’t give away the ending, but let me tell you… it’s adorable! If you don’t already have it, you’ll want to grab it. Trust me. =) Name…
The next parts of our room that I’m sharing are all about reading. When I think about reading, the library is the first thing that comes to mind. It’s truly the heart of our classroom and is essential for reading workshop. I just love how cozy it is! I wrote about our library organization and…
At this point every year, I begin to reflect on my units and think about what next year might look like. Which units worked well? Which units need to be tweaked? Which units need to be tossed entirely? Do my units need to be rearranged? Where should my focus go this summer (other than the…
Last week I posted a link to sign up for Laura Candler’s webinar using graphic organizers to create reading mini-lessons on my Facebook page. I’m excited to follow that up with a review of her new book Laura Candler’s Graphic Organizers for Reading: Teaching Tools Aligned with the Common Core and give away a digital…