Monday Made It

Ah, Christmas break... It comes and goes so fast. I hope everyone had a chance to relax and do something creative and fun! 

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This Christmas break, I got together with some friends to make lighted Christmas canvases. This was such a fun project to make as a group! We got the idea from Home Talk. I changed it up a bit using ideas from other projects I had seen on Pinterest.

I freehanded these letters with chalk, so I could erase easily if I made a mistake. Then I went over them with pencil. Last, I used a gold sharpie to trace over it. 

I also freehanded the snowflakes and used a metal skewer from the kitchen to poke holes in the middle of each one. I found a small string of 30 lights at Michael's which was perfect for my project. You could even use the battery powered ones if you wanted. A friend of mine made 100 snowflakes! with 100 lights! 

Here is a picture with no lights. 

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This Christmas I did a lot of doodling! I can't stop! I learned lettering from One Artsy Mama. I have also learned that with hand lettering your tools are so important! I used watercolor markers from Michael's. They were perfect. 

3

For the first week back, I decided to teach my kids about Growth Mindset. Its the perfect time to do so because I was able to tie it into New Year's resolutions. Most of my ideas came from this blog post from Third Grade Thoughts. She has several great blog posts about it. That is the one I would recommend starting with. My students LOVED the video of The Dot, and it sparked some really excellent discussion. My anchor chart for growth mindset is similar to hers, but I wanted to make it with speech and thought bubbles to show that these are things we think and say to ourselves. 

Also, who didn't decorate sugar cookies this break? Ugly sweater cookie anyone?

Happy Monday!

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Cyber Monday

Swing by Teachers Pay Teachers Monday through Wednesday for 20% off anything in my store!

Also, be on the lookout for my new Guided Math Binder. Coming soon! It's my first year teaching guided math, and I was desperate for some way to organize my small group lessons and student data. Creating this binder has helped me tremendously, and I hope it will help you too.

CAFE Conference with The Sisters

Last week, I had the opportunity to go with my coworker (another fun Jamie) to a CAFE conference hosted by the sisters, The Daily 5: Fostering Literacy in the Elementary Grades and The CAFE Book: Engaging All Students in Daily Literary Assessment and Instruction. I highly recommend reading these books if you haven't already.

           

There were a few key points that I want to remember: 

• Any assessment is only as good as the instruction that comes from it.

• We are all required to grade assignments and calculate cumulative grades for report cards. I just don't want grades to be the focus. I want my students to see that they each have strengths and weaknesses as readers, that they are all growing. We don't have "good readers" and "bad readers". I want them to have more of an intrinsic motivation and a growth mindset. 

• Don't teach curriculum. Teach Kids. 

• Okay, I'm not throwing my curriculum out the window here. I'm actually blessed to teach a really great literacy curriculum, Good Habits, Great Readers. What I do want is to assess my students' reading more often and to focus my energy on what they truly need. These sound great in theory but as it turns out, can also work in practice. 

• Use curriculum goals/strategies, but put them under CAFE headings. If something is not on the menu, add it.

• Let your assessment drive your instruction.

• I will continue to teach my Shared Reading lessons the same, but I want to put my kids into strategy groups, instead of traditional Guided Reading Groups because:

• Strategy groups can be truly fluid and flexible. Kids don't have to read with other kids who are at their level but can be grouped with anyone else working on the same skill. They don't have to wait till we finish a book to change groups.

• Students are more engaged because they are reading a book of their choosing. 

• I can teach what they need, when they need it. I can use my assessments to help me decide what to teach, instead of using the curriculum to decide when to teach things. 

• Kids anchor their learning when they help create things. If I fill out the CAFE Menu cards and hang them up, I'm the one who will remember the CAFE. If the students do it they remember it, and you can write their names on it so that they each are an expert at a strategy and can teach it to others.

• Students need short bursts of instruction (no more than 10 minutes) regularly. According to research, this is the longest that they can successfully use the top part of their brains.

Again, these are things I had learned, but I had no idea how to put them in place. Now I do! I can't wait to get started!

If you haven't read these books yet, you really need to!

http://www.the2sisters.com/

Any CAFE advice? This is so new to me! Do you still do Literature Studies or read a novel as a class together? After this conference, I feel pretty convinced that those things are not best teaching practice, but I've always enjoyed them. However, my enjoying something does not mean I should do it with my class. I need to look at best teaching practices and methods. What works?

100th Day of School

We had a crazy couple of weeks lately. 100th day of school and Valentine's Day!

For the 100th day of school we read for 100 minutes! Students brought their sleeping bags and pillows to lay around the room and read.

We also wrote about what life will be like in 100 years. The students got really creative and had lots of fun with it! This was made into a class book that they have enjoyed reading together.

My favorite activity was the idea of our other third grade teacher. Our classes worked together to come up with 100 acts of kindness. This made a great bulletin board that is also perfect for Valentine's Day!

Welcome to My Blog!

Hi there! So for the past year or so I've been obsessed with two things: teaching blogs and Pinterest.

I LOVE to read teaching blogs these days. Maybe that's because it's my fifth year teaching, and I finally have time to read something other than my own lesson plans and curriculum. All of my professors in college said that your first three years are all about survival. They were so right! And I survived! Now I'm loving my career like never before and not just wanting to take other people's ideas, but I'm also ready to share my own.

Now, let's be honest everybody. What teacher is not addicted to Pinterest? I have found so many wonderful ideas there AND used them. When it comes to recipes and crafts I find on Pinterest, I don't really use too many of them. Teaching ideas are a whole different story!

If you want to follow me on Pinterest click on the link!