It's exciting...

I am getting very excited because very soon my blog will be changing!!

I decided this summer that a new name and look was needed since my life will not always be in a 3rd grade classroom - and I would like my blog to reflect me as a person as well as me as a teacher. I haven't felt that my blog, as it is, has leant itself very well to personal reflections and, although I may not do it often, I would like to be able to sometimes share things that are maybe not so classroom oriented.

So I thought long and hard about what I wanted; I harassed friends for ideas and words and titles; I dithered over colors and quotes; I tried to explain what I really wanted - and Christi of both Design by Christi and Ms. Fultz's Corner fame, made it all happen!!

She used artwork by Crystal aka The Library Fox and tied everything together in a wonderful new design which I absolutely love.

At this time of writing I'm not exactly sure when my new look will appear but that's kind of exciting in itself! I like the anticipation - it's a bit like patting the empty Christmas stockings before going to sleep and then waking up half way through the night and patting them again! It's so exciting to feel all those  mysterious lumps and bumps and know that something magical happened in the night! :)

So I'm waiting for the magic! :) And honestly, I almost don't want to know when it will happen! :) I'd like to click on blogger one day and just see the new look.

In the meantime, while I'm waiting, I thought I'd share some of our artwork from this past week. :) This idea came from Kathy Barbro at Art Projects for Kids.

It was awesome. We did it step by step and the kiddies had no idea what they were drawing until about halfway through. They were SO excited when they saw what they had done!!

We start drawing

Adding some details

Outlined and ready to paint

I love how they all have their own character!

Painting begins

  

Just waiting to be outlined in black sharpie
but pretty cute anyway!!

We have one more week of school before our mid-term break - and in this week we'll be presenting our class assembly (always a nerve-wracking undertaking!!) having our sugar-filled, arts and crafts and pumpkin carving afternoon, trying to finish the first science unit (eek - has to be done so we can start unit 2 after half term!!) finishing our Halloween writing assignment, getting some Math done!!! (planning a fun, seasonal open-ended Math project for my girls!)  - oh, and I still have one more parent/teacher conference and a couple of lunch time meetings. I will be VERY ready for my holiday!! 

I'll post about our assembly when it's safely over :) - at the moment it needs some serious work. We're making a small movie for the opening and since I have never used iMovie before it is proving to be somewhat challenging. I think that perhaps this is a time to make use of our ICT teacher - I don't think I have time to really play around and figure it all out. And I NEED to have my voice deleted from all the clips! :)

Hope everyone enjoys the coming week - and for all those headed to fall break have a wonderful time. :)

Time to spend...

... at the TpT flash sale!!

On until midnight Hawaii time on the 14th October. Remember to use the promo code for the extra discount - I'm filling up my basket :)

The cute little banner is from the talented Whimsy Workshop Teaching. :)

Alligator!

I'm at a conference in Florida right now which has been absolutely inspirational and awesome for the entire week of very long (7.30 a.m. - 9.30 p.m. ) days.
Today, however, we all went to the Everglades! 6 busloads of students and teachers from all over the globe - it was great!

And I saw this guy! A nice big alligator, lounging around in Florida sunshine. A bit battle scarred but he was obviously quite content.

Gorgeous place!!

Checking out the boat!

And losing interest in us :)

I'll have to blog later about some of the amazing speakers I heard at this conference - they have been truly phenomenal and have really made me think about what it means to be a teacher. Not so much from the academic perspective but from the holistic side of life. When I get all my thoughts together I'll share some of it :) but for now...

enjoy the upcoming weekend :)

Mentor Text - Reading "The Pumpkin Runner"

This year I have decided to have a monthly mentor text in my classroom - a story that we will read together and really explore in depth.

I've done guided reading with mentor texts before but I've never really felt like I spend enough time on them. It's always been a rush trying to squeeze in some good reading in between all the other things our curriculum requires. So this year I thought I would take one book a month and schedule literature centers once a week so that I can work with small groups every week on specific skills.

We'll still do our whole class reader but I know my kids will get a lot more out of the small group reading - and some of them really need that time and attention.

This month's pick is "The Pumpkin Runner", by Marsha Diane Arnold.

Find it here

It's a great story based on the true tale of Cliff Young, an Australian sheep farmer who, at the age of 61 in 1983, won the 900 kilometer race from Melbourne to Sydney, beating the record time by nearly two days.

Joshua Summerhayes likes to run, with Yellow Dog trailing behind him. People laugh when he decides to enter the race and they laugh still more when he shows up in overalls, gumboots and with a slice of pumpkin in his hands. The laughter changes to admiration when the oldest runner, supplied along the route with pumpkin energy in the form of Aunt Milly's delicious recipes, shuffles his way to victory - demonstrating kindness, humility and generosity along the way.

In our study of the book we're going to look at the vocabulary (there are some great words!), think about the text in the form of reading response questions, making connections, and making predictions, look at how the author's writing helps us visualize scenes, ask questions, do story sequencing and mapping activities, look at character traits and finally write a book review.

Some of these activities will become my anchor activities for the month; some will be part of our guided reading; some will be morning work - the possibilities are endless and I'll be interested to see how the children approach it all. I have some little people who love to work independently and others who have to be coaxed but the beauty of this is I can differentiate the packs so that everyone gets what they can succeed with.

Some of our worksheets :)

Last week we read the story for the first time and, in groups, tackled the first reading response. I was really pleased with the way my girls discussed the question and they came up with wonderful ideas that we shared as a class. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens as we continue to explore the book - and of course, thinking about what text to use next month.

There are so many wonderful books that the only problem is going to be figuring out which one to use!! :)

Positives to start the week

Last week was a little stressful what with preparing a whole week's worth of sub plans in advance - as well as trying to cover the week's regular plans...

... so today is a good time to focus on the positives!

1. I made it through the week and got everything ready for my sub :)

2. My kiddies were very well behaved, got ALL their work finished to a good standard and we even spent an entire afternoon painting with NO spills! That has got to be a record!!

3. I managed to get packed for my conference - and found something halfway decent to wear, that fits somewhat comfortably, for the formal requirements. This is an enormous positive because my wardrobe is decidedly sparse at the moment thanks to a "slight" increase in body size. (Well, okay, it's more than slight but I'm working on it!!)

4. I will enjoy being in Florida for a week - I will, even if it IS 90 degrees. I realize that a lot of people would love to have hot weather but I am a cold weather person so I am trying really, really, really hard to believe that 90 degrees will be wonderful.

5. I am looking forward IMMENSELY to meeting students and teachers from around the world and sharing ideas with them. (I am trying to look forward to the possibility of "adventures" for which I am entirely unfit - like possibly "slogging through the Everglades", according to our schedule. It will be exciting, right? Yes, of course it will. It will!)

6. Although I will miss my daughter's trip home for Canadian thanksgiving, she will at least be here in time to look after my dad's dog, as well as my own two. This will be a huge blessing for my husband who looked at me in horror when I told him that he would have three dogs to look after while I was away. (He's not a dog person :) )

Lots of positives - and I'm sure I'll have many to share next week :) Have a wonderful week everyone!!

Starry Pumpkins

I'm going to be away from school next week at a conference so I've spent the whole week getting ready for my sub - stayed at school till nearly 7 every night photocopying, writing reams of notes, trying to remember where each child was supposed to be each day... I think I'm a controlling person :)

Anyway, I got  it all done and walked out today leaving a pile of neat little folders marked with each day of the week and all the plans for every day, plus every supply possible needed, piled on the counter.

So since everything was done and my kiddies have been so good this week we painted all afternoon on Friday :)

I found this awesome idea on Deep Space Sparkle, which is one of my new finds in the art blogging world :) and adapted it slightly for my third graders. I think our pumpkins turned out beautifully and it was such a peaceful afternoon!!

We begin by drawing a pumpkin, paying attention to
the lines and trying to make them curve. :)

Then we started to paint

Getting the hang of lightly brushing and blending
different colors took a while...

... but we got there eventually

We also painted green paper for leaves
and stems, then hand-drew our pumpkin
vines and cut them out

Once the pieces were cut out and place to our liking
we glued everything onto the black background

We added a moon...

... and stars...

   

... and voila - a starry pumpkin patch!!

I think my kiddies did an awesome job on these - and they look SO pretty out on the corridor bulletin board!!

So I probably won't be able to post while I'm away since I looked at the schedule of this conference and realized it begins at 7.30 every morning and ends at 10.00 at night!!! 

Oh well... next week is another week and hopefully I'll have lots of amazing photos of the Everglades to share :)

Have a great weekend everyone - and enjoy next week. :)

Catapults, marshmallows and acorns

We had an awesome day today!!

We continued with our science unit in the morning - solids and liquids - by watching ice cubes melt. :) I froze them in muffin cups with "surprises" in them so the solids were avidly watched for 2 hours and 15 minutes until they released their prizes. We checked and documented every 30 minutes in between discussions and exploring a fun Bitesize science interactive demo on the smartboard. I had a surprise walk-in observation but since the kiddies were thoroughly enjoying themselves AND were super engaged in the lesson I didn't mind at all! Always a good thing when that happens!!

Here are our ice cubes melting - with lots of eager little hands crowded around. :)

After recess we moved on to Math and had a team game to practice rounding to the nearest ten - Acorn Round Up!!

It was unbelievably noisy but the girls LOVED it and actually asked to play it again tomorrow!!

Each team got several squirrels with numbers under them - 2-digit, 3-digit and 4-digit numbers. The acorns had rounded numbers that matched the squirrels' numbers and I stuck these onto two large trees that I drew on the white board.
The kids had to take turns to round a squirrel number, race to harvest the acorn, return the acorn to their team table and pass the squirrel to the next team player to round her number. They recorded their results on sheets so that I could check them at the end.

It was GREAT!! The shrieking had to be heard to be believed but the rounding was pretty good!! Only one team member could move at a time and they could only help each other by providing the strategies - no doing the work FOR each other!

Watching some of the smaller people jump up and down trying to reach an acorn (before thinking of getting a chair to help them) was hysterical. :)

Trees waiting to be harvested

Helping the squirrel find an acorn

Racing to round!

This child was jumping to get an acorn!

And we ended our day by making catapults! Yep - this was our writing activity this week: practicing writing up an experiment. :)

And it doubled as a topic activity since the ancient Romans used catapults so we were investigating this aspect of Roman warfare a little early. Mind you, the Romans didn't get to use mini-marshmallows as their ammunition! :)

Construction begins

Adding the vertical supports

This pair used a LOT of tape to secure
their catapult

Almost ready to fire!!

One lethal marshmallow ready to launch!

 

It's too bad you can't see their faces because they
were LOVING this!! On the other side of the room are
all the people under "attack" with their mouths
wide open to catch the falling "rocks".

And in between all this excitement we had our photos taken for the year book. When it was all over one of my kiddies kindly told me that I really should have brushed my hair before my photo!! Oh well... I'll just make sure to put catapult pictures in the year book so everyone can see the reason I look a mess! :)