Guided Math

I dabbled with this whole idea of Guided Math last year and love the bits of it I did. I'm planning to go full force with it next year and this is the book I'm reading to get a better handle on all of it.
Has anyone out there read this? I'm going to pick up the Diller Math Stations Book too. We only have an hour scheduled for math next year and it is at the end of the day right after recess. Yikes! I must not run over on recess time and will be fighting the afternoon slump myself!



Last year I started organizing my math games/stations by math strands. I used this drawer set from Target. They were actually only three to each so I took them apart to stack by four. I might go back and stack one more shelf per unit since my floor space is limited.

Would love to hear from other third grade teachers running guided math next year!

Love This

I love this....want to post it in my classroom next year!

Sidenote,

I'm in an RTI inservice for the next two days. Does anyone out there do RTI and use AIMSWEB?

Word Walls in Third Grade

I'm wondering how other third grade teachers handle all the words we teach. I have multiple word walls up in my room. I like the idea of my content words being grouped according to unit or theme. I think this helps students connect certain words. Here is my social studies words to know board. I have it set up like a tree map with topic specific words falling under each branch.
We play "Search and Find" or "Twenty Questions" with these words as you would with any word wall. Kids have to know these words to do well on state tests so we refer to them as often as we can.

Here are my "No Excuse" words for writing. They are the trouble makers as we like to call them. My kids are taught to use this reference to check spellings. If I find these words misspelled on papers, it goes right back to the writer with NE written in the margin by the line that includes the mistake. It's about accountability, kids!

This final poster of words are our "JUICY" words. We follow CAFE and are always on the look out for pizzazzy words when we read. This poster is pinned to my blinds and is right next to my reading chair - hey, I use any space I can get! We gather here for shared reading or read alouds. I like to have them up close to me. The sheet of paper has been blocked into squares for each letter of the alphabet. When we get to a great word, we write it on the post it along with a kid friendly definition and stick it onto the appropriate square. My kids really used this poster during writing time to make their sentences sparkle!
So how do you handle word walls in your room? I'd love to hear!!

Science Experiment

I was at Five and Below the other day with my kids and found some growing animals. You know the kind that grows huge after being in water. I started to think of how I could use these in the classroom and decided it fit nicely into my unit on Matter. During this unit we learn about how we can describe physical characteristics of matter and also how matter can change. I love experimenting with kids and believe in teaching the scientific method. I figure this is time well spent since I know my high school son is still working through this sequence in science now.

Click on the links below to get the experiment to go with these animals. I run the two pages back to back and then have students fold to make a lab report! Happy investigating!

Matter Experiment Page One

Matter Experiment Page Two

Shared Writing

I believe in doing alot of shared writing. Writer's Workshop is great and I use that too but for some third graders, WW time is HARD! They need support in organizing ideas, formulating sentences and composing paragraphs. One way to help them along is with thinking maps or organizers. Here is an example of a shared writing we did about the Declaration of Independence. We first used the mind map and then took those basic ideas to create a paragraph using the hamburger template.

Five Finger Retell

By third grade much of our reading time is focused on comprehension. I'm constantly checking to be sure students are reading for meaning and one way we do this is with the Five Finger Retell. Here is my retell glove. It was simply a winter mitten that was missing its match. I used velcro to attach the pictures that represent the parts of the retell. Someone put back on the wrong way, the correct sequence is characters, setting, problem, events, conclusion. I introduced this during shared reading and then it moved to the guided reading table, then finally students were able to use this strategy independently during reading response time.