Sunday, September 15, 2013

Kid President's Pep Talk to Teachers and Students!



I love Kid President! He is always so funny and I always get a laugh from him but he always has someting great to say. He is AWESOME!

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Sunday, September 08, 2013

Technology Links for Class


I am adding over on the left in the sidebar links that the students can access quickly since we use them in class. Below I will be showing you the programs quickly if you haven't heard of them.



Class Dojo
This is a behavior management system that several well known bloggers in education have been using for a while and I decided to try it in my class. I have noticed that the kids improved pretty quickly once I introduced it and seemed really interested. I will see if this continues over the long term. Some things I have thought about while using it:

1. I have to keep my phone, ipad or computer on and ready.
2. Not as quick to give points as I thought but the more I have used it the quicker it has been.
3. Is there a way to start over each month and keep the points in a list but accrue new points each month?
4. No editing of comments! Big problem since parents will see the comments and can't change them!
5. You have to switch classes if you want to do individual and groups. Tech support is working on this!
6. They seem willing to take suggestions and try to make it the most effective tool for teachers that is free!


XtraMath logo

This is a fact practice site. You can do it at any level and do multiple classes and students. I usually have 2 classes. One for addition/subtraction and another for multiplication/division. I do this because I want students to still be practicing/mastering addition and subtraction once we go into multiplication. I know this sounds complicated but it's not. I open the program with 2 tabs, one for the student to do practice, and the other to check their password. That way they don't need to remember them both. I found though that the kids remembered them despite the numerous passwords they had for other programs. It helped that I gave them a sheet with all the passwords and programs on it.

Spelling City

This link goes to my list page and  is for homework practice. There is also a spelling site for our book but I am at home so will add it later! You don't need to be a premium member in order to play games! Just use the free stuff.



Think Central is the textbook connection for our current Math and Reading book.  You can open the textbook and look at it like you see it in the room as well as see ancillary documents that the teacher can assign or run off for practice. For the reading you can also see the mini readers that we use in Guided Reading. Since a lot of the material we don't get to for a variety of reasons (one being the sheer volume of stuff) this has a lot of great stuff for review. The ancillary documents the teacher must assign before it can be accessed.  I am not sure how long this will be active due to our getting a new Math textbook. It will probably go until the end of this school year.

The link is the log in page so bookmark this page not any other.

For parents I have sent a September email to those of you who provided me with an email!

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Monday, September 02, 2013

Hectic but Happy and Productive First Week


Well the first week went great! It was fun meeting the new students and saying hello to the ones that I saw while taking bathroom breaks with my students last year. We didn't get a lot of academics stuff done due to getting to know everyone, setting up the class, and practicing routines and procedures. This week we will start our regular schedule and academics despite the short week.

This Tuesday is Parent Orientation at 5:45. If you come please leave your child at home if possible since there will be limited room. I will be giving out homework passes to students whose parent or guardians show up!

I plan to use this blog to keep parents connected to what is going on in our class. I plan to have pictures, artwork, and other work posted if your consent was given. I also plan to have a class reporter/photographer so stay tuned for A Day in the Life of a Third Grade Student!

I also plan to add things done in class that students may want to see again such as the book trailers I will be posting below! Most of my book trailers come from Mr. Shu at Watch, Connect, Read.

Journey by Aaron Becker



New Book in the always popular Origami Yoda

From Kate DiCamillo



Magic Tricks from the Magic Tree House
This one came at a great time since I saw someone in class trying to do this trick! I also tried it on a friend of mine's son and he thought it was funny.




Crankenstein




I showed these because we were talking about how we choose books. This is one way many teens and I myself choose teen or children's books a lot of the time. We discussed how some were better than others and why (Like while Crankenstein is funny what is it about?).

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