Achieve Your Goals: Create a Vision Board

What's your dream? 

As teachers we tend to keep our focus on others.... students, teammates, kids, husband, families.  Caregiving is what we do and caretakers are what we are.
But are we carving out time to take care of ourselves?
How would you describe your relationship with yourself? 

Through the years I have learned that my most important relationships are with myself and my Maker. I have discovered that I am most content and satisfied with my life when I am contributing, but I can't give what I don't have. I need to fill myself up so I can pour out onto others. 

  Becoming the best version of ME helps me become a better contributor.   

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My word of 2018 is

The idea was sprouted from this piece of scripture: 

I don't believe I was meant to just survive year after year, I believe I was meant to thrive. 

I was not given breath to just grow...God's intention is that I BLOOM. 

 Creating a vision board is a powerful practice that will help me project and visualize my dreams and goals for the new year.

Visualizing is an amazingly powerful practice.  Highly successful people swear by it. 

It can be a game changer in achieving your goals.  

"Seeing" your future as you wish it to be and declaring it as "done" can go a long way to making it happen. The creation of a vision board and it's daily reminders fill you with the fuel to take massive action towards the goals you set. 

Goal getters don't just allow life to happen to them...they know what they want and they go get it. 

So my vision board depicts the life I want to live, the one that God says I deserve. 

I choose not to fill mine with pictures of material possessions, rather I include images of what I want my life to look like, what I want it to feel like. 

I pick images that evoke feeling within me...feelings that will move me into action. 

My board is a reflection of my dreams related to my job, finances, health, fitness, spirituality and relationships.

The creation of it is an important part of the process. So if you are going to make one, don't just slap some pictures on a board and call it done.  Take time to enjoy the process. 

Find a place to work that is uncluttered and uplifting, light a candle, turn on some music. 

Gather pictures you have taken that remind you of where you want to go and who you want to be.  

Cut them out of magazines or find them on the internet. 

Let these images remind you of all you have been blessed with. 

Thank God for all that he has given you in your life. 

Speak to Him your desires for 2018. 

Ask for His strength and guidance in achieving them. 

Creating your vision board doesn't need to be costly. 

I simply use a cheap cork board I bought from Target. I covered it with material from Hobby Lobby. 

I gathered my photos, pictures and inspirational sayings and worked on arranging them on my board. 

Don't overthink the process. 

Limiting the number of items I add to the board helps me to keep things simple.

I like leaving some blank spaces too...it allows me to add on as the year goes by. 

I will hang this in my office where I can be reminded of the life I am creating for myself. 

So how about you? 

What are your dreams for 2018?  How do you work towards achieving them? 

I would love to hear!

Comment or email me at youngdor8@gmail.com. 

Show Me the Money Skills : Counting Coins and Making Change

Show me the money! 

I can't say that enough to my third graders. They have been struggling with their accuracy when counting a collection of coins. There is no taking shortcuts when working with this skill.  I find they are much more successful when they show the money by drawing it and adding it.  We practice the counting on strategy too, but when faced with problems on tests (especially on the computer), I require them to use this alternative approach. 

Can we talk a minute about how crazy hard the money standards and problems are these days? 

The example above is actually easy compared to something like this: 

Or how about this: 

These multistep problems are the ones our third graders are supposed to be able to solve by the end of the year.  

Needless to say, we have some practicing to do! 

I'm running guided math groups several days a week which gives me an opportunity to squeeze in more practice of skills we have already covered. 

If we leave it for too long, they'll forget it!

Playing games takes the drudgery out of it and can make the practice fun. 

Here is one that we like called "Packing Lunch". This game comes with a set of lunch food cards. 

Kids draw two cards and place it in their lunch bag.  Then they figure out how much change they would get back if they paid with a $5.00.  The person who has saved the most money wins the round. 

They like playing it and seeing what lunches they get to pack.

I like seeing them cross those pesky zeroes when they do the subtraction problem. 

Another skill we can never practice enough!

I've uploaded a file with a bunch of money practice pages and games that I like using with my kids.

It's now in my TPT store. 

You can check here if interested in using it with your third graders. 

Click the link below. 

Money Skills: Counting Coins and Making Change

21st Century Learning and Essential Skills

OH, Calvin! Actually, he may have a point. According to the World Forum Economic Report: New Vision for Education, employers are suggesting that there may be a gap between what students are learning and what they need to learn in order to make it in today's workforce. Some are questioning if our schools today are doing enough to equip our young people with the skills needed to thrive and contribute in the 21st century workplace. 

The three R's may no longer cut it. Along with a good reading, writing, and arithmetic foundation, our young people may need more experience with the three C's: collaboration, communication and creativity.  We are living in a rapidly changing world. Employers are looking to hire people who are curious, flexible thinkers and good problem solvers. 

Third graders are naturally curious, talkative and creative sorts. They are never more engaged than when they are working on some sort of problem solving project with one another. 

I'm trying to hold myself accountable for giving them weekly, if not daily, opportunities to explore their creativity as they collaborate and communicate with others through problem solving situations, projects or activities.  

I've created a set of posters that highlight these four skills. They serve as a reminder of the importance of developing these traits. We refer to them all the time in so many different subject areas. 

I've added this set to my TPT store if anyone else is interested in using it. 

21st Century Essential Skills Poster Set

Are you working on ways to incorporate the 21st Century Learning Skills in your classroom? 

I would love to hear how it is going for you!

Let it Snow! A Writing Activity

We've been off from school for the last four days but looks like temperatures are on the rise and we'll be heading back tomorrow. I can't lie...it can be tough coming back after a break. To make it easier, I like having plans ready to go and I always pick something that will be fun for me to teach and that my third graders will enjoy working on.  I'm sure my kids will want to tell me all about their little snow vacation so we will spend time sharing what we did on our snow days using this writing project. 

We will start day one with brainstorming. 

Here students will brain dump all the possible fun things you can do on a snow day. 

Looks a bit different from what mine would look like....binge watching The Crown, lounging on the couch, eating snacks, searching pinterest, drinking hot beverages, etc, etc.....

HMM...maybe it's a good thing this break is over!

The next step is to further plan out their writing by using a sequence flow chart. They will draw their visualization and add a verb to tell what they did first, second, third, etc. 

One of our reading goals has been to be able to read and comprehend procedural texts. We have read a bunch of "How To's": craft directions and recipes.  We will set this writing up using a procedural text format.  They will write an introduction, list the materials needed for a fun snow day, then write directions for someone to follow.  

I will  have them design a pair of paper boots for an art activity.  It is amazing how creative third graders are...each pair will be unique. 

Click the link below if you are interested in trying out this lesson with your kiddos. 

How To Spend a Snow Day Writing Project

Enjoy your time with your students!  Have a great week!

Back From Break Activity: Happy New Years Freebies

Can you believe Christmas has come and gone already? 

I hope everyone had a great one!
I awoke to this scene this morning...

Very unexpected and very pretty...but just about 5 days too early!

I will be back at school next week so the prepping and planning has begun. 

I love starting the first day back with something that will make my kids smile...and think a little too.  One of my very favorite children's poets is Kenn Nesbitt. 

Nesbitt’s poetry for children is “irrepressible, unpredictable, and raucously popular,” in the words of former Children’s Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis. 

Kenn Nesbitt has created a site especially for kids called Poetry4Kids.  I have it on my students' class website and they love visiting it.  You can check it out here: 

Poetry For Kids

I will be using one of his fun poems on our first day back after break. We will glue the poem, 

Hooray!  Hooray! It's New Year's Day inside our poetry journals.  My students can work on their fluency by reading it three ways and then can illustrate and label their visualizations. We'll add some pizzazzy words from this poem to our word wall .  Words like: galore, distant, wondrous, anew all help to expand my kids' reading, writing and speaking vocabularies. 

I created a quick poetry follow up to go along with this poem.  Students will dig back into the text to locate proper nouns, compound words, etc. 

After reading all of the ridiculous resolutions listed in this poem, we'll have a more serious discussion about more realistic goals that my kids can make for themselves. By third grade, students are better able to understand that they are in control of their future.  We've been talking about mindset all year long and add a new mindset message each month.
You can find these in my TPT store.


Monthly Mindset Messages

Goal setting is an important part of  our third grade day. 

I'll give my students time to think and write about some attainable goals for the year ahead. 

I'll have them fill it out on this balloon shaped paper.  Add a string to the bottom and it makes a great display. 

I'll keep the New Year's theme going during math center time.  Students continue to need practice in reading and writing six digit numbers in standard, expanded and word forms. 

I'll have them work with a partner on this activity.  That way they can help "coach" each other. 

We'll end math time with a problem solving partners session.  Here students will answer a two step word problem, work on elapsed time and rounding.  These are all skills that have already been taught but that kids need extra review and practice with. 

I've updated my New Year's File on Teacher Pay Teacher.  You can access all these activity pages there. I've made it a FREE item so just click the link below if you are interested. 

Be sure to follow my blog / store.  I'm working on new files that will be upload soon!

New Years File: 2018

Please visit me at my Youtube channel where I will share more from my classroom!

Youtube Channel

Virginia SOLs and Ancient China: Learning About the Past

Third graders in Virginia now will learn about the ancient civilizations. Much of our social studies time will focus on a look at how these people lived and the contributions they made.  We started with Ancient China and my students are loving the learning connected to this unit. Of course we are starting with books....lots and lots of books! I checked out a ton of both fiction and nonfiction.

Here is our nonfiction browsing wall: 

And our classroom library: 

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We began our unit by recording our prior knowledge and then questions we had about this ancient civilization. 

Students are reading and researching during their "Read to Self" or "Read with a Partner" reading rounds during my small group time. 

We are dividing our learning log into sections for each of the Ancient Civilizations that we will cover. 

Students cut and glue note sheets that correspond with a teaching slide show I use.

Our learning gets documented along with maps we make and vocabulary word cards that students can use to study with.


We will work on some craft making this week and I'll be back to post how that fits into my day.
In the meantime, those interested in checking out the materials I use to teach this unit can head here:

Ancient China Bundle