Sunday's Words of the Week

It is November, the month of the harvest.

My prayer and my greatest desire is to reap the fruits of the spirit.

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

Galatians

Wishing you all a week of great abundance!

Using Thinking Maps

Can you relate?? We finished our first week of Benchmark Testing this past week. Our county does them at the end of each grading period. I have a love/hate relationship with these types of tests. I love getting the data. If the test was well constructed I think the information we get back can be meaningful and can help me make important decisions in regards to my future instruction. But I absolutely hate that it takes away from my teaching and destroys my schedule. Would love to hear from others. Do you do benchmarks? What do you think about them? Useful or useless?

In between tets we did manage to finish up our Cycles Unit in Science. I like using graphic organizers with my students so I was glad to read the research supporting their use. According to the experts in the field, when students elaborate on knowledge using nonlinguistic representations, not only do they understand the material in greater depth but they can recall it more easily.

Here I had my students use the Bridge Map to relate two different parts of a cycle. I give them the relating factor and they describe the relationship and construct the map. Here are two students working collaboratively to get the job done. This type of thinking map is similar to an analogy. It is read "Snow is to below 32 degrees as Rain is to above 32 degrees.
Here are some finished examples. After creating them my students used them to reteach each other and to prepare for the test.

Science: Earth Cycles

We are finishing up a study of Earth Cycles this week. During this time we took a look at the Earth rotating and revolving. Here are two Make and Takes we created for these. We first made the model of the Earth using model magic clay and a straw for the axis. We showed how the Earth rotates or "turns like a top" towards and away from the sun creating day and night. The next day we used the model again to show how the Earth revolves around the sun. We also made the paper study guide diagram below and labeled the seasons.

Students saw how the tilt stays the same as they positioned and glued each Earth down representing the seasons.

The corners flip up to create a square and each corner is labeled with the season's name.

Here a student is showing Earth rotating using her model of Earth made with model magic and a straw for the axis.

You can click the link below to see the Model Magic I used for this project.

Crayola; Model Magic; White Modeling Compound; Art Tools; 2 lb. Resealable Bucket; Perfect For Slime Supplies Kit">

I have bundled these resources and more in one pack. This includes the teaching slides I use to teach the content. It also includes note sheets for students to glue into their journals, vocabulary cards, and even math and reading sheets and activities connected to this study. I call it an "All in All" Integrated Unit because everything I use to teach this study is included. One click and it's all there!

If you are interested in using these materials, click the link below to head to my TPT store.

Earth and Moon Cycle: Models and More!

Sunday's Words for the Week

And an easy class never made a master teacher. (:

Some of us have been talking back and forth about the difficulties of our classes. Can we accept the challenges we have been given and see them as opportunities to grow as teachers?

Can you look back and see that it was teaching the struggling learner and dealing with the difficult student that helped to make you the strong teacher you are today? I know I've survived some tough years with hard to handle classes and although they were trying years I would not trade them in. They taught me a thing or two.

It's this mindset, plus accepting that many days won't be perfect and then laying the burdens down once in awhile that has gotten me through year after year. How about you? How can we help each other?

Teaching with a Sense of Urgency

OK, so I got a bit of a response from my last post. From your the emails (hello Fairfax friends!) there is no doubt that RTI is a hot topic in schools now. I do like the book I referred to in the last post, "What Really Matters in Response to Intervention". But if you are just starting out like us, I would highly recommend this one by Mary Howard:

In it she writes, "In the last decade, dedicated teachers have watched with sadness as a testing culture has put a stranglehold on education. We are at a crossroads. We can either use response to intervention as an opportuntity to rebuild a positive climate or allow it to devolve into something that takes us even further from the reason most of us became teachers."

I agree wholeheartedly. Talk about a slippery slope... I hope we can use it as it was designed. I believe in it. How about you? What's your experience? I get to listen to Tom Jenkins speak on the topic on Tuesday at an inservice. Can't wait!

It is teacher and author Regie Routman (love her!) who encourages us to "teach with a sense of urgency". Someone sent me this article below. Reading this just reconfirmed this for me!

Third Grade Reading Goal

A Fall Poem and Celebrating Reading Success

I can't believe we are into the next nine weeks of school...this year is flying by! We're running an RTI program this year and it forces us to stop and constantly look at the progress our kids are making. I know this third grade year is critical and if we are going to see any substantial growth is reading development it needs to happen by grade three. With such limited time left I know I have to pinpoint the most effective research based reading interventions that I can. This was a great read and helped me to identify what is really important. From all that I have learned I know that I must have my struggling readers engaged in lots and lots of reading.
I love poetry to teach grammar, vocabulary and reading strategies. I use it often during mini lesson time. After shared reading of the piece, I will have that poem become part of my Poetry Station during Literacy Station time. My students gain fluency practice by reading it three ways: with a partner, with the earphones and then by themselves. Here are students engaged in multiple readings of the poem:

Another activity they do is drawing meaningful illustrations of the poem in their Poetry Journal. Students must demonstrate comprehension of the poem through the illustration. I love to see them label words or write captions by their pictures.
Here is one we did this last week. It was a great one and we collected many words from it to put in our Words To Know section of our reading journal. Great for vocabulary development. They cut this paper and glue the poem in the Poetry journal and complete the follow up too. I tend not to use many worksheets for grammar review...look at all that can be reviewed here in the context of real reading!! The search and find part of the review forces them to go back and reread multiple times!

Poetry

We celebrated their reading success for the first grading period on Friday. I had most make their AR goal and was so thrilled and proud of them. This little girl received her AR prize and a note home from the principal all on the same day. She left saying, "This is the BEST DAY EVER!" Teachers, does it get any better than seeing your kids leave after a long week with a smile like that on their face??? It was a great way to end the week!

Their prize this grading period was a baggie of gummy worms with this certificate stapled to it:

Read in Gar Prize Worms
HAPPY READING!