October Currently

I am finally linking up with Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for October's currently. I am just a few days late...

Listening- to the same Mickey Mouse episode we have seen all week! You would think they could have made more than 2 Halloween related episodes. Pretty soon my 1 year old is going to be able to act out the parts!

Loving- I finally got to wear comfy pants and a hoodie yesterday! I swear I would be the happiest person in the world if I could dress like that for work every day.

Thinking- I have about 3 hours before our friends get here and I am sitting here blogging instead of straightening up and getting things ready.

Wanting- I am reading the High Heel murder mystery series by Gemma Halliday. I am on book 5 of what I thought was a six book series but just found out book 7 will be out around Christmas time. And she also has a few novellas that go with the series. The books are hysterical.

Needing- easy enough to understand- more sleep. Especially since our daughter has been waking up super early (read 4am) and coming in our room.

Book- I am a slacker and don't have any favorite fall/halloween/oct books that I read aloud. I have lots that we read to our daughter but none for my class. I am going to have to look at everyone else's currently and make a list!

Go link up and join the fun!

Science Notebooks and a bulletin board...

Our bulletin boards were due yesterday. For once, I was prepared in advance! I knew what I was planning to put up there and I had the kids work on it a couple weeks ago. I had the kids work on the How to Blow a Bubble sequence activity found at The Teacher Wife. First, I had the students tell me what I needed to do to blow a bubble and I followed their directions. So as soon as they said "chew the gum" (without telling me to unwrap it) I started to put it in my mouth. They all immediately shouted to stop. Once we got all the steps down, I gave everyone some gum and we all practiced blowing bubbles. Then, we made a pictograph (I hardly ever have time to teach these so I figured I would throw it in and make each bubble equal 2 students..gotta get it in there somehow) showing how many students could and couldn't blow a bubble. Students then used their first, next, last page to write a paragraph. I mounted their paragraphs onto pink paper... and that is where the lesson stopped.

Of course we ran out of time and never got to do the cute craft to go with the writing. And next thing I knew, bulletin boards were due and all I had was some writing and nothing cute to decorate it with. So yesterday I went to get out my stash of paper plates to have students make their faces... only to find I had only 4 plates! And no planning time to run to the store... which left me to have 4 students put together a craft for me to hang on my board. And so I give you our bulletin board (don't mind the "under construction" sign- we have to hang a project description and rubric and I couldn't get it printed yesterday so my sign is still hanging. also don't mind the tiny piece of missing border- it was stolen and I need to remember to put another piece in).

And now a quick mention of science notebooks. I have seen all these cute ideas on pinterest and blogs about science notebooks. I decided to give them a try (without doing a stitch of research) with my class. I am learning with them as I continue researching how to do them and cute things to include.... but I just have to say, my students love them! I am doing the same things I would normally do in science but instead of reading from the book they get to read something I typed and {whoa} use highlighters! And then they get to use colored pencils/crayons to complete activities in their notebooks. They LOVE the notebooks and get so excited when I tell them to take them out. Who knew a simple notebook would make science so much fun?!

I need some help!

Alright teachers! I am in need of help. I know I haven't been the best blogger here but if you would be so kind to comment on this to help me out I would really appreciate it. I have seen and thought of all of these cute ideas that relate to teaching lessons with stories. However, here is my dilemma. I don't have class sets of any of these books. So what do you do? Do you do read alouds and teach skills with the read aloud? Or do you have class sets of books? If you do read alouds, what do you do for students to practice reading? Please before you say independent reading time, know that my students do NOT read independently. If I ask them to do that, they just flip pages and/or have no idea what they are reading. We do not have AR or any other way to level students so students have no clue what level books to pick so often times they pick a "typical third grade book" from the library that is often times too hard for them. I am not a fan of our reading series stories however it is all that we have that EVERYONE has a copy of. I would rather do more interesting lessons but I am in a rut. Help me out please!

And I know I blogged twice in one day but this is just been driving me crazy for too long.

I made my goal!

I just barely made my goal that I set myself on my TpT store. It wasn't a big goal but it makes me happy regardless. I said that if I got to my goal I would do a giveaway. My plan is to make something this week/weekend and will offer it for free for a couple days before listing it for sale. I will be sure to post here when it gets created! But... our grading period ends on Friday and no matter how hard I tried, I am STILL behind on the mountain of papers to grade. So until I get rid of that (and get my bulletin board switched out-also due on Friday) I can not even think about creating anything. But I have a couple ideas floating around in my head. We will see what I come up with! Thank you to everyone who reads and follows along. I know I don't post a lot and sometimes (ok a lot of times) my posts are non monumental, but I definitely appreciate it!

Off to attack the mountain of papers....

Addition Properties in action

A couple weeks ago, I posted about an addition properties freebie that I created here. I took pictures of my students working on these and thought I would share.

After they completed the sorting part, I made them write their own example of each property. Most of the students did great on this (the associative property really trips them up).

If you want to grab a copy of this activity, it can be found here.

What's Working Wednesday

Last week I mentioned that my few readers should start thinking of things they wanted to share that have been working for them. I am attempting to do a link up but I am not really sure what I am doing, so if this doesn't work, forgive me. If you have something that is working well for you (whether it is new or tried and true), share it. You never know who you might help! If I did this right, this should be available for two weeks. If not... well I will try to figure it out. If it doesn't work PLEASE let me know :)

So what has been working for me?

1. The highlight your name step in turning in papers. I have had MAYBE a handful of papers without a name. Last year, I would have a good handful each time an assignment was turned in. No matter how many times I would say PUT YOUR NAME ON IT! But this year... this highlighting your name thing is fantastic!

2. The incomplete work folder/bucket and late work bucket. I know the folder says "While You Were Out" but after my first year doing this,  I quickly decided that these need to be incomplete folders. I will probably be making a new set after this year because a few kids have written on them. But they lasted 5 years and aren't ruined other than 3 people having drawn on them at one point or another. Any time students don't finish an assignment, they put it in this folder and the entire folder goes in the incomplete work bucket. Each folder has a number on it to match their class numbers. (I have a hanging file thing that these are all stored in when they are empty but I forgot to take a picture of that.) If someone is absent we put all their work in here for them. When students have free time, they grab their folder and work on their incomplete work. When they finish something from their folder, it goes in the late work bucket. So much easier than me trying to keep track of who is missing something. When all work from their folder is done and turned in, they put their folder back in the hanging wall organizers. I love it!

3. Turning in work drawers- I can't remember if this is my second or third year doing this but it is the perfect method for me. Instead of wasting time collecting papers, students simply go to the shelf, highlight their name on their paper, put the paper in the correct drawer, and then cross their name off the assignment list. Any time we have an assignment, I take a pre-typed class list (I type 5 to a sheet and run about 40 copies... lasts a long time) and write the assignment on the bottom. The slip then goes in the drawer for that subject. Students cross their name off the list when it is turned it. I then use these slips to record grades as I grade the papers until I transfer them to my grade book. It is also easy for me to see who is missing something because their name isn't crossed off.

So what is working for you? Link up and share! And urge others to link up! You never know when you will find something that just may work for you!

What's the matter?

We have finally finished up our unit on matter. It took a LOT longer than I wanted it to. But I really feel like my kids learned so much that it was worth it. We reviewed for their test and even things that we only mentioned briefly they knew! I was so proud. Now if only we could take the test... But that is another story...

One of the activities that we did was from this unit What's The Matter. Before completing the activity I am going to show, I showed the dancing raisins activity to get students to discuss why the raisins moved in the ginger ale and not water. We also acted out the particles of matter. Then, I let them make models of the molecules with cocoa puffs. They had a BLAST! They couldn't wait to take them home! Just look at their smarts!