TCEA 2012

Hey everyone! I'm so excited about being here in Austin, TX for the annual TCEA convention! I get the opportunity to learn all about technology and how to help my kids become 21st Century Learners. It's always a great time of learning and collaboration with other teachers. I thought I'd mention on this blog that I post all the info I learn on my technology blog. Feel free to stop by to learn about new technology tools you can start using in your classroom today!

Taylor's Technology Tidbits

Have a great day!

 

Summary - Cactus Hotel

We've been exploring summary the past few days in my classroom. Summary is always one of the more difficult skills to teach to eight year olds! We are required to teach summary of fiction texts and literary nonfiction texts. We started with sequencing first and then discussed what a "retell" is. After exploring those, we moved into summary. My students are really understanding it better than they have in the past!

We started learning about summary with 'Into the Book'. If you've never used this site it is a great tool to teach different reading strategies! It has great interactive lessons for the kids as long as a variety of teacher resources. It has quite a bit of stuff for summarizing and my kids absolutely love it! If you don't have computers in your room for kids to explore this site, you can always do it as a whole group lesson too. :)

My class seemed to grasp summary of fiction much easier than literary nonfiction. Literary nonfiction is a new genre to them in third grade and sometimes they have a harder time with the story. We read Cactus Hotel by Brenda Z. Guiberson. It's a great story about the life of a saguaro cactus. We made the anchor chart below, summarizing the story of the cactus hotel. I hope you don't mind my drawing skills, I'm not much of an artist! The kids really enjoyed the book and I encourage you to use it for a summary lesson or even a general lesson on literary nonfiction texts.

Happy summarizing!

Shape Madness!

We are in the midst of our measurement unit and I've decided we need some fun measuring activities that involve shapes too! My students are not very familiar with their basic shapes this year and I'm just a bit worried since we are quickly approaching our yearly assessment. I shopped around and found the most adorable clipart involving shapes by KPMDoodles. I love how she gives the shapes personality! My students will love it! I created a unit called Shape Madness which involves identifying attributes of basic shapes including hexagon, octagon, ellipse, and more. I also added in different activities involving problem solving, measuring,and perimeter. In all there are five activities in the unit so that it'll fit nicely into a week long unit. I hope you take a moment to hop over to my TPT store and download it! 

 

Martin Luther King Jr.

Our students have tomorrow off in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. In the past couple of weeks, we have been studying characters in different genres. Our main focus has been on how and why characters change in the books we read. In honor of Martin Luther King Jr., I created a 'Characters Change' graphic organizer for students to fill out when reading a biography of Martin Luther King Jr.  We will most likely read the following biography on Tuesday:

We will focus on how Martin Luther King Jr. changed throughout his life and what caused him to change. Feel free to download the graphic organizer free on TPT in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day by clicking on the image below.

Making Inferences About Character Traits

I can't believe we are already nine days into January!  It's been a while since my last post and things have been a bit busy around here. I'm hoping to start posting a minimum of once a week. I've been creating some great tools but just haven't had time to post them. I'm sure everyone has the same busy, chaotic lives!

The last couple of week we have been studying characters in fiction genres. We've been exploring character traits and discussing how we can determine character traits through the text and the clues the author gives us.  I saw a few different types of graphic organizers around on different blogs but needed something all in one place for my kids to use. I created this all-in-one chart where students can jot down character traits and the evidence the text provided to help them infer that specific character trait. I included three different columns (dialogue, actions, other clues) so my kids could really think about different ways the author can help us with inferencing about characters. It's available to download for free on my TPT store. Click here to download now. Happy inferring!

Christmas Reader's Theatre

Wow, it's been quite a while since my last post! These past few weeks have been busy with meetings, district benchmarks, and more. I can hardly believe winter break is only a week ahead!  As many of you will agree, kids are very antsy the week before Christmas break. All they can think about is two weeks off of school and of course Christmas!  I did a little searching and found some great Reader's Theatre scripts to use in my room this week.

My kids absolutely love Reader's Theatre! I have quite a few good actors in my room and they love the chance to show it! It's also a great way to practice fluency so I think this is the perfect week to include some holiday fun in the form of Reader's Theatre. Here are a few that I found that are just right for third grade.

The Baker's Dozen: A Saint Nicholas Tale
This is a Christmas story retold by Aaron Shepard that tells about the meaning behind thirteen being the 'Baker's Dozen'. It is written for 6 or more readers.

Goldilocks and the Christmas Elves

This is a Christmas tale about Goldilocks and Sleeping Beauty taking the Polar Express to the North Pole to escape the wicked stepmother. It is written for 15 readers.

Arthur's Christmas

This reader's theatre script is based on Marc Brown's book, Arthur's Christmas. It is written for 10 readers.

I'm looking forward to some great Reader's Theatre in my room this week!

Thanksgiving is almost here!

Thanksgiving is just a week away and I think I may be more excited than my students! I love the holidays, especially Thanksgiving. It's a time to reflect on what I'm thankful for...and this year I have so much to be thankful for! My husband and I will be hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year. The recipes have been chosen and I'm working on the seemingly long grocery list!

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I decided to make a fun math activity for my students to complete the day before Thanksgiving break. We are currently working on division so I created a few Thanksgiving themed word problems. Since division is fairly new to us, I included some turkey 'counters' the students can use to help them divide the larger numbers. I can't wait to see what they think about this activity!  If you'd like to take a look, head over to my TPT store and check it out!

Thanksgiving Division Word Problems

I also got a great idea for a division/multiplication fact family turkey from a coworker of mine. I'll be making a sample tomorrow and I'll upload it on a new post for you. Happy Thanksgiving!