Beginning of Year: Shoe Poem and Graphing Idea

I love it when I can make a Reading to Math connection and you all know how much I love teaching through poetry. So when I found: "Choosing Shoes" by Frida Wolfe I knew I wanted my kids to have it in their poetry anthologies. This one is great for the beginning of the year because most kids have just experienced shopping for new shoes and can make a self-to-text connection about the process. I love the chanting sound of this poem read aloud. It's fun to read so kids want to reread it multiple times. Great for fluency practice! How about all those adjectives! Many teaching points to cover through this one! Here it is below: Choosing Shoes







After enjoying the poem, we then connected it to our study of data collection and creating pictographs. I wish I had taken pictures of the kids doing this, but didn't so here is the process I used. I had everyone sit in a huge circle and take off one shoe and set it in the middle so all could see the collection. Then I asked kids to try to find ways we could sort/classify the shoes. Many suggestions emerged: by color, by type, etc. etc. etc. There was no lack of ideas. Then we settled on the categories of: slip ons / laces/ buckles/ I wrote those on index cards and then we made the "object" graph with the actual shoes on the floor. We analyzed our findings and made observations like: "Most people wore shoes with laces today." We practiced counting them by twos. I gave the students the graphing paper below and they transferred that information to a tally chart and then to a pictograph. If you give it a try, let me know how it goes!




Graphing Shoe Type

Sunday's Words For the Week

Plato. So true.

Me Museum Project

Well we made it through our first full week of school! We spent quite a bit of time learning the routines and expectations. I believe in taking time to train them in the beginning, it so pays off in the end. We ended the week with our ME MUSEUM presentations. This is a super simple project but kids love doing it and showing it off. I like it because it is quick yet effective. I begin by showing them my ME MUSEUM on Monday. I show them items I would put in a museum display about me: a map: because I like to travel, my running shoes: because I love to run, a picture of my family. I include index cards that explain what each item tells about me. Writing explanations is one of our first writing objectives so this gives me a chance to see what they already know about this type of writing. Then they are assigned finding objects and writing one card each day for homework. They create a sign to use as well. Then on Friday they brought it all in and we took turns touring museums and explaining our museums. We found out so much about each other and kids made connections with others who have similar hobbies and interests.

Here are some pictures:

I took pictures of my kiddos in front of their museums.  This made a fantastic display outside of our door.  Parents loved seeing it on Back to School Night!

I've developed this idea into a paragraph writing lesson and an introduction to brainstorming through the use of the four square or brainstorming web.  

I have included these materials and a three step explanation in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.

ME MUSEUM

Check out more ideas about what I like to do on the first week of school.
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More Back to School Ideas

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Off Topic

This post goes out to my running club especially Liz (TechyTeach) who is running a 5K this weekend. Run hard girl! She wanted us to post our favorite running tunes. Here's what's on my shuffle play list right now, lots of TRAIN, Van Morrison, my new favorite band; NeedtoBreathe....saw them in concert and now I'm a huge fan!, also must throw in some inspirational like Lovely or Indescribable by Chris Tomlin.

Not sure what my low energy slump is about (couldn't be school, could it???) All that great music is NOT helping my time. so I've adopted this attitude:

Heck, yeah!

Will be getting back to school posting soon, will also answer the emails. Sorry for the delay!

Sunday's Words For the Week

I'm hoping everyone made it safely through the storms this weekend!

Nothing left to say. Wishing everyone a peaceful week.

Word Closets

We are having WILD weather this afternoon! Hurricane Irene is on our doorstep and we may be in for a stormy night. Hope everyone on the East Coast is hunkering down, safe and sound!

We've only been in school for two days but we have already begun collecting words. I thought today I'd share an idea that goes well with the EXPAND VOCABULARY section of the CAFE board.
We have a "Word Closet" in my third grade classroom. This is where we hang our collections of word posters. I take a full piece of chart paper and cut it in half and fold it. Then we hang them on hangers. During read aloud, shared reading or guided reading we listen out for what we call "Pizzazzy Words". These are words that we can use to replace tired words when we write. We categorize them and write them on posters.

Here is a picture of my word closet from last year. I will not reuse these but will start fresh ones with this new class. I want these kids to feel ownership..I believe they will use the words more if they are the ones who found them.



Here is the poster unfolded and displayed during Writer's Workshop time. They were writing small moment stories describing a happy time so the "Positive Feeling Words" poster came out of the closet. I love having them on hangers, so easy to pull out different ones when needed.

Other categories of words we collect are: Negative Feeling Words, Movement Words, Texture Words, Taste Words, Instead of Said Words, etc. Many times we also write a child-friendly definition or explanation beside the word so they can remember what it means. Kids really begin tuning into new words. Let the hunt begin!

Earthquake,Tornado and Hurricane, OH MY!

I had no idea how appropriate Sunday's Words of the Week were going to be! Those of you on the East Coast are well aware of the Earthquake we had here on Wednesday. We are located less than an hour from the center of that earthquake. I was in school in a classroom talking with teacher friends when it happened. I know folks in CA think what we had was minor but let me tell you, it was SCARY!! What a bizzare and terrifying feeling!

My highschool son was home alone when it happened. Teachers ran from the building not entirely sure of what to do. As soon as I got outside my phone rang. It was my highschooler saying, "Mom, I think you need to come home, something's wrong with our washing machine!" God, love him! We just don't get quakes here in VA!

Schools stayed closed on Wednesday so they could check for damage. We've already used our first snowday and it's August!! Yesterday we had late afternoon storms and tornadoes. A teacher had a tree fall on her house and boats thrown about! Now we are awaiting the hurricane spinning up the coast! So crazy...what a week!

In the midst of all the weather, we did open on Thursday and I've had two days with my new third graders. I read aloud the first chapter of : Stuart Goes To School and we followed up the reading with this pictograph of our First Day Feelings!

Glad to see many felt excited and happy when they came to school! It's a big class with 26 students but we had a fun day and I am looking forward to the year! Hope your first day went well!

After introducing graphing with Stuart, we will continue to study graphing as we explore the picture graph, bar graph and line plot. You can check out the graphing sets on my TPT store page. 

Click the link below!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Journal-Notes-and-Practice-Pages-Picture-Graphs-Bar-Graphs-and-Line-Plots-3298968