First Days of School

I seriously love my job!! Especially since my week is already over! ;) I got to meet some of the sweetest kiddos this week and we had a lot of fun getting to know each other!

Here are a couple of things that we started on this week...

Making Books

Definitely my favorite way to start writing. A blank stapled book.  I had books sitting at their seats when they came in and told them to write about something they did this summer. I learned lots about them as writers. The different responses to the task is always precious and the look in their eyes as their ideas start forming is WONDERFUL! I can't wait to jump into our writer's workshop next week. 

Who Am I as a Reader/Writer

I made these sheets specifically for the first days of school. It was a helpful way to get to the kiddos--their interests in reading, what they like to write, what kind of read alouds will hold their attention the best, what genres they know.

I had several of the following response...

It makes perfect sense! :)

Marshmallow Challenge

I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this, but was so glad I decided too! Any opportunity to see kids have to collaborate and work together is great! I did this last year, but waited until we had been in school a week or two. We had the best discussion afterwards about teamwork and I loved watching how hard the kids worked and that they persevered through the task!

They all agreed that the task was difficult, especially because they didn't always get to use their idea, they had to think about other people's ideas too. If you want more info about the marshmallow challenge go {here}.

iBooks

We call our interactive notebooks iBooks here. I told the kids they were getting iBooks and they got all excited...and then I told them to pull out the black notebook in their backpacks... ;) We got started on our Literature iBook as we started talking about characters. 

I really do like using them to help us keep up with our notes and learning! Tuesday we read a couple chapters of Because of Winn Dixie and then talked about the characters while we worked on the pages. On Wednesday we continued to talk about characters in our different read alouds and it was good to keep the connection going! I'm still in the process of finishing the first unit, but once it is done I will be adding it to my TPT store! :)

Read Alouds

Here's a peek at the read alouds we used this week to celebrate being Back and School and to brainstorm before writing our Essential Agreements. 

Always a fun one!

Just because they need to get to know my favorite author! ;)

I haven't used this book before, but it is a Beautiful story and the kids really thought through how we should treat others.

It's not back to school time unless we read this one! :)

Of course, back to school days would not be complete unless I find out what the kids want to learn about this year! :) It's a great way to get them used to my quick check/exit slip system too! :)

There's a snapshot of our back to school fun! Next week we dive deeper into characters and setting and we will get started with Writer's Workshop!

Hope your back to school was fabulous too!

Planning for 3rd grade!

This past week has been a busy one! Thanks to the teacher meetings and spending more time with my coworkers, I am starting to feel more ready for everything. Having people answer your 100 million questions is always great! ;)

I've kept busy with planning too! I'm finally making some headway in what I will do with Literature and Writing. :)

Literature

I finally figured out the units of study I want to accomplish with each novel we read. Each unit is a question and I broke down some of the elements I want to cover in each unit. 

 

It is not all inclusive because I only have 2 mornings a week with them, nor I am finished with my list, but I feel much better knowing where I am going. I'm also going to split up some of those units over two books... AND, I've started working on my Interactive Notebook pages! We use interactive notebooks to help scaffold their learning as they apply it at home as well.

I'm excited for how the first pages have come out!

 We will use our novel for the examples in our interactive notebooks (or iBooks as we call them! :) ) but use these pages for our notes. I left the pages pretty basic, because we are going to build off our class discussions and ideas a lot. 

Our first unit is What Makes a Story a Story? We will cover the story elements in this first unit... I'm still in the process of finishing that up! 

I'm also loving Reading in the Wild! It has been helpful in thinking through reading in the upper grades!

Writing

I have more of a framework to follow for writing, but was struggling to figure out how to bring all my ideas together (6-traits, genre writing, setting up workshop etc). I was looking through some resource ideas that a friend shared with me, and discovered this helpful book:  

I love how it walks you through all the ideas of what you want/need to teach and then to think about how to bring it all together.

I had fun on pinterest and at the library choosing some books I wanted to use as mentor texts to teach about ideas!

Another book i want to read again is Mentor Texts. I read some of it several years ago, but I think this will be a helpful resource too!

I will share all of our back to school plans after I finish them on Wednesday! I am repeating some ideas from last year so if you check out the collaboration label at the side you will get a preview. ;) 

Oh, and don't forget that TPT is having an SPECIAL back to school sale on Wednesday! Just in time to pick up all the things you need to have a great start to the school year! :)

Hope you all have a great first day of school! 

Back to School Tired!

First day back to school... Well, teacher meetings that is! ;)

My boys had a load of fun while I sat through some training and got to know the other ladies who will be working at Arrows this year! Today made me so much more excited for this year. 

Next Tuesday I meet the kids! :) Can't wait! 

When do you start school? 

Five For Friday: Hello August!

I can't believe we are already in August! Will is at school doing all the back to school meetings and the boys and I have been keeping busy at home! 

{one}

This child. He is a mischievous one! I can't keep my eyes off of him for too long or he has spilled, climbed, eaten, but mostly just destroyed something. I love listening to him talk though, his language explosion is amazing. 

And then there's this one, who won't ever look at the camera! ;) We had a fun day at the library reading construction stories and making dump trucks out of egg cartons! His quest for learning makes me so happy and I love seeing all the the new things he loves to share with us on a daily basis!

{two}

As I get to know my kids this year I want to know who they think they are as readers and writers. I added this to my TPT store earlier this week! 

{three}

I took the boys to the zoo this week! We went early enough in the day I decided we could feed the birds because they hopefully wouldn't be overfed yet! They certainly don't jump at the chance to eat as much as they did a couple of years ago, but Liam loved the experience!

{four}

We often host international students during school breaks, but this year we hosted two students before they went into their resident houses. One was with us for about a week and the other just a couple of days. We love getting to know more about them and their culture!  One of them had this cup and I found it quite hilarious. :) It reminds me of stuff that we see in Japan too. We have lots of fun snacks to try and I have some black and green tea to test out as well! It was really sweet of them to bring treats for us! 

{five}

I've been getting questions about what I am doing next year! :) It is definitely unique! I have written a couple different posts about what my year in third grade will look like... you can check them out {here} or click on the picture to read my lastest post about it!

Well that sums up my week! Next week I have three days of teacher meetings so I'm definitely going to be getting into back to school mode!

Be sure to check out what other teachers are up to at Kacey's Five for Friday!

Where are you teaching?!?

The cool thing about education is that is has so many faces. Even when you look more closely at the options of public school, homeschool, private, charter, virtual... the choices and variety within each of those are great too. 

Nothing gets me more riled then one someone claims that their form of education is the best and only way. Do all systems have problems? YES! Can you judge a type of school by one example? NO!

Because education is all about the kids. And parents make choices for the kids that best suits them. I have to admit, some parents have made choices that I don't necessarily agree with, but in the end, its not up to me. 

The choice of where we as educators teach is enormous too! I taught in a public school for the last 7 years. In my seven years there I saw the school go through lots of change, but each change only made the school a better place. Those seven years have helped to shape who I am as an educator. 

BUT, this past year I left like change was in the air for ME! I wanted the chance to be at home more while my boys were still young and the pace of life needed to slow down a bit.

So as one door closed, another one opened! :)

I looked into a couple different options to still keep my feet in the teaching world, yet having more time with my boys. One stood out. 

It is a homeschool academy. What's that, you ask? All the kids in the school receive the majority of their instruction at home, but two days a week they come to a school setting for instruction with their peers. It allows us to do some more hands-on and group activities that they would not get as much of at home. It allows for some structure. The teachers all have classroom experience. But we have a partnership with parents because they are still the main educators of their children.

We meet in a church, so share the rooms with the normal church activities. So I don't have to worry about setting up my classroom aside from a bulletin board and organizing my closet for storage. The kids carry their supplies with them.  My focus this whole summer has been on what I am teaching, not having to worry about a room! I'm kind of excited about that.

In 3rd grade they do all their math at home, so I am responsible to teach literature, writing, and history. History I will team teach with the 4th and 5th grade teachers.  You can read a little more about what I am teaching here, although I have already reworked my units because I am using the Courage of Sarah Noble as one of my novels instead of Frindle.

I had the opportunity to observe one day and I was so amazed by the structure, yet the freedom. I'm really looking forward to this year. I'm also looking forward to the fact that Liam and Alex will both be in classes while I am teaching too! Alex did 3K there last year and he has been asking for weeks to go back! :) 

So from now on, if anyone asks I will probably direct them here! It takes a while to explain, but I think it is a wonderful way to do school! :)

Currently August

I'm a little late to the party, but August definitely crept up on me! ;)

{listening}

we had a really fun morning out at the zoo, but the heat totally wore me out, and we have watched a little too much TV this afternoon. #mommyfail #keeping it real Every once nice in a while it's okay though! 

{loving}

It's so fun to watch my boys at this stage! There is definitely lots of refereeing but life is fun with those too. We are hosting a Chinese high schooler for a couple of days and he was commenting on how he never had anyone to play with at home. It made me realize how fortunate my boys are to have each other as playmates!

{thinking}

Since I am teaching only two days a week at a homeschool academy this year, we jump into the curriculum a little faster than I am used to. My kids will have also spent the last several years together so I will be the newbie coming in getting to know them! I have been thinking a lot about how I want to jump in to the first days, but still use lots of time to get to know the kids too!

{wanting}

I have a huge pile of books to read, but by the time the boys are tucked in I am exhausted too and don't have the brain power to really dive in to some of the professional books I want to read. I need to figure out our schedule better to work in some reading time for me during the day! How do you think independent reading would look with a 4 year old and 2 year old? ;) I think my 4 year old could give me 20 minutes looking at books, but my 2 year old, not so much!

{needing}

I love the quiet hours after the boys are tucked in... but during summer they always seem to go to bed later which makes me go to bed later! I need to make myself go to bed much earlier than I have been!

{b2s rak}

This is such a great idea! :) My new teammates (the 4th and 5th grade teachers) have been especially wonderful. My boys will be going to the same school as well. Anyways, the bananas are piling up in my freezer so a special loaf for the first day of school would be a fun treat! :)

I'm linking up with Farley's Currently! See what all the teachers are up too! :)

Who we are as Readers and Writers

Planning for this year back to school is definitely a little different than years past. First off it's 3rd grade and Secondly I only see the kiddos two mornings a week. We have to jump into our learning pretty quickly so as I was thinking about the first week of school and getting to know my kids, I decided to also use the lens of who they were as readers and writers. I have done interest inventories with kids and their parents in the past, but decided to make it a little more fun this year!

I love doing these too! It's a great way to reflect as a teacher reader and writer too! 

I will often give one or two of my answers as an example, but save a lot to share after the kids are done... Just to make sure I don't influence their answers. ;)

You can find it {here} at teachers pay teachers!

Start filling up your cart but wait to buy it until Monday when the back to school sale starts! My store will be 20% off and then enter the promo code BTS15 for even more savings! :) Be sure to check out some of my back to school freebies as well!