Reading Journals Revisited! Brand New Unit!

For those of you who haven't seen this post, last summer I blogged about how I've integrated the Common Core Standards into a Reading Journal Format that my kids are absolutely loving. For the past two years, we have used composition notebooks and units, printables, and prompts that I have written to help us learn to analyze and respond to higher level texts. We no longer have basal sets at my school. Instead, we have class sets of some really great books..(Many of which I had to buy myself). Yeah, they were costly--unless I found them in the Scholastic $1.00 flyers, but my kids have absolutely outdone themselves with their journals and I love seeing their work.

I just finished up tweaking a unit that I've actually used for the past two years. At the beginning of the year, we read Because of Winn Dixie, and later on, we add in another of Kate DiCamillo's books called "The Tiger Rising". It is great for comparing parallel texts because there are so many similarities between the two books. It's also a bit emotional, and sometimes there are tears at the end, but the kids really learn to love her stories.

Here are a few excerpts and explanations of what we like to do with our texts!

For each unit, there is always a cover page. We also stick in one of those 3M sticky tabs so that it is easy for us to look back at all of the different units that we have completed. The pictures you see are from my own personal journal. I have found that my kids are more engaged and take a bit more pride in their work when I am doing the work myself! 

These are our vocabulary organizers. We take a word or two from each chapter (we read one or two per day, depending on the length), discuss that word, and students add it to their journals. I have lots of ELL students so we also draw to help solidify the meaning.

We also do a lot of work with Character Analysis. We work with the basics, who they are, what we think they may look like, and some of their character traits that are prominent throughout the story. But we also go further into the text and work with the skill of pulling facts and details out and using them to get to know our characters a bit better.

Settings are always evident in our studies as well. We like to watch how the settings in a story change and discuss how things might have been different had the setting been different. For this unit, we did a fun little flippable and then a larger drawing of the primary setting to accompany it. Underneath each flap we wrote what the setting was, and a few descriptive adjectives about each of the places we visited in the story.

I also always try to bring in some sort of art project into each of the units that we complete. For Winn Dixie, we created dogs out of TP rolls, for this one, since our main character was named Sistine, we painted like Michelangelo did. Students taped their papers underneath their desks and had to try to paint upside down. It was tough, and we got messy. But then we had to write! I always try to write after an activity like this one. We also did a bit of sculpturing with this unit as well!

And this is where our writing skills really start to bloom. Throughout the unit, there are several prompts and other writing opportunities that my kids participate in. All of those are done in our reading journals, and the prompts are added as well using a little tiny tag in the corner of each prompt. That way, kids who are absent, or do not finish will still be able to complete their assignments without having to wonder what it was they were supposed to write about. 

The writing portions take up much of the room in our Reading Journals but seeing my students grow as writers is well worth the time and cost of teaching reading in this manner. I love it, my kids love it, and the growth I've seen is tremendous. Not to brag, but I had 100% of my class pass our state Reading exam this year...and my room was home to 13 EIP students, and 12 ESOL kids. Our reading journals hold all of our precious work for the entire year and the kids love to share them when we have Parent Night. 

Hopefully, you have come away with a few ideas for integrating a Reading Journal into your classroom. My units are all available in my TPT store at great prices if you are interested in purchasing one of them. The one you see in the photos can be found by clicking the photo you see below!

As always, thanks for visiting and I hope you all have a GREAT summer break! We all deserve a little rest and relaxation!

The Sun will come out...Maybe next week...

If the sun doesn't come out soon I am going to go completely insane! It has rained every day for the past week and I am sick and tired of being cooped up at home. My six year old is too. We have tried it all to keep ourselves sane and I thought I would share a little of what we've been doing. 

Summer is a great time to work on all of those fun little crafty things that you've been meaning to get around to. I've done a few new things to my home office, made a couple of things for my school desk, and painted my ears off with my daughter. She loves to paint, despite my avid dislike for the medium. Here are just a few of our little projects.

This is a little gumball machine-ish paper clip holder that I made for my desk at school. It doesn't match my home office, but it will match my red and black at school. It was really easy to make and pretty cheap...Only $3.00! I grabbed my coupons and headed to Joann's (in the rain) and picked up the smallest clay pot and lid that they had ($1.49) and the smallest glass fishbowl they had ($1.49). The rest of the stuff I had on hand--Acrylic paint, large wooden bead, and E6000 heavy duty glue. I brought it all home, and despite my husband's strange looks at my creation, it turned out kind of cute! I've got to get a black paint pen and add a few decorative accents to it to really tie it in to my classroom theme.. GO DAWGS!

 My home office is still under redecoration. If this weather would cooperate, I could finish it up by painting my existing bookshelves. But alas, Mother Nature has plotted against me and that won't be happening any time soon. So I resorted to doing the little things. I wanted some bulletin board space on the walls for photos and such, but I didn't want to spend the money on cork tiles, scrapbook paper, and such. But I went to the Dollar Tree on a whim and found a roll of contact paper and some thick foam sheets and put them to work in my office. All I had to do was cover the foam in the contact paper and hang! I used Sticky Tack to hang them because they are so lightweight.

I actually found a bulletin board in my office, while I was cleaning out my office. I had no idea it was even there, and it was brand new--never even unwrapped the thing. So I used the same contact paper to cover the cork and added some ribbon and fabric. I'm not really happy with the blue ribbon but it's all I had at the time. I may change it out after my next trip to the store. I may also paint the frame black one of these days.

The cabin fever has gotten so bad that I actually emailed my administrator asking when I could get into the building to work. Yeah..it was bad. But, my daughter and I decided to brave the rain today and headed out with a teacher-friend and her son to visit an awesome museum in our area. If you live in North Georgia and have never visited the Tellus Science Museum, you must go! And if you are a third grade teacher in Georgia, this place will teach EVERY science standard you have. It was fantastic! My daughter is six and was completely enthralled the entire time. Dinosaur bones, fossils, magnets, light and sound displays, it had it all. We had a blast and it couldn't have come at a better time. And to top it off, the sun decided to shine for about five minutes as we were leaving. Then the bottom fell out and it POURED rain the whole way home. 

I've also been burning the midnight oil working on some new products for my classroom and  TPT store. There's something really relaxing about sitting in a quiet house, listening to the hum of the refrigerator, and thinking about nothing but what I can do for my kids next year. My most recent products have all been sets of task cards! I love using them...Scoot Games, Workstations, Independent math practice, they're so versatile. I've also sent them home with parents asking for additional practice. Here are my newest sets in case you'd like to take a peek. 

      

As always, thanks for visiting and following my wee little blog. I hope you continue to stop in from time to time and see what's happening in my neck of the North Georgia woods. And keep your eyes peeled, something big is coming!

Have a great week!

Randi

Closing Out The School Year..With some fun!

I thought the day would never come. Here in North Georgia, we finally made it through the last day of school. We attend for half a day on the last day of school and I absolutely LOVE it. Something about knowing that there are only four hours to go when I get to work in the morning makes the day seem a bit sweeter. There were tears and sadness that quickly turned into cheers and happiness as the kids boarded those buses on the way home today. Teachers were crying, kids were crying and then it happened...silence. The race was on...who could hit the door first? It was me!!.

We have spent our last week together as third graders having as much fun as possible. I wanted the kids to remember their third grade years with some fond memories so I planned out a week full of fun activities. I thought here would be a great place to share some of those ideas. Maybe you can bring some fun into your last weeks as well.

Day One- Creative Classroom Crafts

Since this was a Monday, I decided to start with something low key and easy to prep. A while back ago, I was trolling TPT for some fun ideas when I ran across the neatest end-of-year memory project I have ever seen! Mr. Hughes, a fantastic seller on TPT has created a series of projects called 3-D Dodecahedrons. He has them for all sorts of applications and they run about five bucks a set. I couldn't pass up the project so I snapped it up as fast as I could key in my password. I did splurge and print the sets on cardstock, which I would recommend because it helps with assembly. We took all day on Monday to create these awesome projects and display them in our classroom. You can find the link to the product here.

The kids LOVED them and they were so fun to make! Here are a few shots of how they turned out.

Pardon the clutter...I was packing up stuff for the floor crew to come in. :-)

Day Two-Outdoor Sports Day

Bring on the sunblock because we set our sights on being outdoors ALL day long. We made it most of the day but the temps got a little too high and my little girls started sweating and it was just terrible. They were like wilted flowers. My kids all brought in their sports equipment/outdoor games/etc and we headed for the ball field out back. Bubbles, soccer, football, kickball, and several other sports were represented. We even held a kickball tourney against one of the other classes. By the end of the day, we were all worn out and my classroom smelled like a men's locker room but it was fun!

After the wilting girls decided we just had to go inside, we set out to make a fun little craftivity to decorate our desks during our class party..and we ended up with Perry the Platypus! And friends! I drew out the template and the kids went to town with paper bags. We also used all the junk paper from our desks to stuff them. Score! Two tasks in one!

 Day Three-Game Day

This day was the easiest and by far the quietest. On this day, the kids got to bring in their games (electronic or board games) and play ALL day. Well, maybe not all day. We had our school talent show in the afternoon. I was actually really surprised at the number of kids that had multiple portable gaming systems at their disposal. I never had one as a child...and my own daughter doesn't have one. Personally, I'm not a fan of video games myself, I find more value in a good book. But overall, this day was a HUGE hit with the kids.

Day Four- Classroom Competition Day

We spent an entire day competing against each other in all sorts of competitions. Many of them were academic games with a Jeopardy theme, going through some of our curriculum highlights from the year. You can find some of what we used here. We also headed outside for relay games and other races. The highlight of the day was when we had a Minute to Win It competition. If you are not familiar with the game, you must check out NBC's website and see all of the awesomeness that you can bring in with nominal materials.

There are even videos on the site for directions. We just played them in class!

These are a few that we did together..the kids worked in teams to compete for small prizes from the prize bin.

Chocolate Unicorn- (requires 21 cookies/snack cakes for 3 teams) Hilarious!

Face the Cookie- Kids have to move a cookie from their forehead to their mouth using only facial muscles. Again...HILARIOUS!

Hanky Race- Requires 3 boxes of tissues and masking tape if you are running 3 teams. Tissue boxes are taped around students waists.

Junk in Your Trunk- Reuses empty tissue boxes from Hanky race and ping pong balls.Students have to try to bounce the ping pong balls out of the tissue boxes using their backsides. The kids rolled with laughter.

Nose Dive- Requires cotton balls, vaseline and three containers. Kids have vaselined noses and have to transport cotton balls into their container the fastest. Here we are playing!

Dizzy Mummy- Requires three rolls of toilet paper. They loved this one!

Day Five- Movie Day

It was a long week...it was a half day. We also scheduled our classroom party for today as well. To rest up for our imminent summer vacation, we settled in with blankets and pillows and watched a good movie. But not before we celebrated with our Red Carpet Celebration. Each month, two students from each class get chosen for good deeds, attitudes, etc. and they get to walk the red carpet in front of the whole school whilst being cheered for. 

Overall, the week was a success. My kids and I had a blast together and they will most definitely remember being wrapped in toilet paper and trying to eat a cookie off of their forehead in the third grade. As a teacher, it is times like these that I remember. Not benchmarking, not behavior problems, not even state testing. Making memories is what really matters and I feel like we might have made a few this week. For those of you still in the swing of things, take the time to have some fun with your kids. Before too long, you'll be getting graduation invitations from them.

Have a great summer!

Randi

The Teacher From the Black Lagoon

As I sit here flipping through last year's lesson plan book, I still wonder how I was able to bring my kiddoes so far in such a short period of time. I will admit, some of my "friends" had some serious behavior and home issues last year. It is very sad to see a kid constantly in trouble when there isn't much you can do about it. We had office referrals, ISS sessions, identification sessions while watching bus surveillance videos, the whole nine yards. It was very disheartening to try an get some of them to see the value in their education, instead of the thrill they get from negative attention. My goal for this year, is to refrain from giving negative attention as much as possible

. Many kids in our district come from high-poverty homes and are quite often latchkey kids at the tender age of 8.How much can I expect from a child whose parents aren't at home until eleven at night? I hope to bring a little sparkle to my teaching instruction and interactive demeanor so that my students feel more welcome than before and more excited to be learning the curriculum. New standards, new programs, new everything will make this year very unlike the last. But one thing stays the same from year to year...the kids. No matter how mean, or unlikable, or poor, or rich these kids are, I want them to all feel equal. By the end of the school year last year, I felt like the teacher from the Black Lagoon. And personally, I didnt like it one bit. This year will be a change for me, both professionally and personally. I am going to attempt to set aside the demeanor that last year's fiasco engrained into my personality and create a new one, a gentler one, a smilier one, and a more enthusiastic one. Will I be able to change my personality that easily? My demeanor? My way of teaching? I do not know...but I know one thing..I WILL TRY.