Geometry Castles

Our school mascot is the Knight, and every Knight needs a castle, so our class decided to become castle architects. I got the initial idea from blog stalking, and it was just in time for our unit. Love it when that happens! I just realized the file I downloaded doesn't have a copyright attached, so I'm not sure whose blog it was. If it was yours, let me know and I'll give you a shout out.


Before jumping into the castles, I passed around our wooden geometric solids to let students get a closer look at the shapes. I also made a quick table for them to record their data. After that, we checked and debated our answers. Then, it was time to get busy building our own shapes.


Saxon provides the cube, so we all started with that. Most of the students were able to construct them easily, so we quickly moved on to other shapes. I used senteacher.org to print a mix of shapes and passed them out randomly. The cylinder was probably the hardest, with the cone coming in a close second. Finally, students selected their own third shape from a the back table. We wrote our names on the shapes and let them dry overnight.


The best part was Friday afternoon when students began to construct their castles. I randomly mixed students into five groups. With each student having 3 pieces, they had approximately 15 pieces to work with. After brainstorming and designing, they could print off an additional two shapes from senteacher.org. I love the conversations that took place as they worked together. Some were set on having the tallest castle, while others wanted theirs to be totally symmetrical. One group ended up with only a single tower as the rest of the castle fell apart when moved and another managed to glue theirs to the table, but for the most part they held together. :) When each group finished, they named their castle and recorded the total number of faced, edges, and vertices. This mostly required addition as each student already knew how many faces, edges, and vertices were in their original three shapes.

 
When you're finished puzzling over all the castles you're going to make with your students, head on over to Michelle's blog Making It As A Middle School Teacher to see which blog she wrote about for her Share-A-Blog Sunday post today. I'll give you a hint... it's me! ;)

You can also find more math ideas in this linky party.

 

Promoting Parent/Community Involvement

Our school is pretty lucky. For the most part, we have involved parents and community support. As with many other schools though, our population has changed quite a bit within the last few years. We're constantly looking for additional ways to strengthen the home/school bond because it really does make a positive impact on student performance.


This topic came to my mind because Friday night was our annual school carnival. It's a big event! Leading up to the carnival, each classroom builds a themed basket for the silent auction. Ours was "Sweet Treats" this year, but other popular ideas have involved pets, game night, babies, etc. Students contribute items to the basket and parents bid against each other all night at the carnival to win. 

Each classroom also competes in a door decorating contest before the carnival. This year's carnival theme was Dr. Seuss so I printed images from his books and had students cut them out and glue their faces on. They also wrote cute notes using my polka dot freebie that all started "I love the carnival because..." to tape to the door next to their character. I wanted to post a picture, but I'm afraid the Dr. Seuss copyright people will get me (did you hear about all that?!). Instead, here's a picture of my husband and me sporting our carnival shirts in my friend's classroom. Everyone wore them while working the game booths, which were sponsored by area businesses. The bank in town even sent their mascot over to the carnival for a while. In addition to traditional carnival games, there are also big blow up bounce houses and obstacle courses.


Yes, the carnival makes for one long, exhausting day. However, I think it's totally worth it. Watching the students and their families come to play together for an entire evening is priceless. I love seeing former students too. They move to the other end of our building after they leave third grade, so I don't see them very often during regular school days. I miss seeing their little faces! The carnival is also a great way to get families who usually wouldn't come to school under more traditional circumstances into the building. It takes a team effort, but it is definitely doable. I'd encourage you to try something similar at your school. You can do it!

Oh, and one more thing... April at A Modern Teacher is doing a fun series of posts called Classroom Crashers! If you're in her area, she will literally come crash your classroom and then blog about all of your fabulous ideas. If you aren't near her in Texas, you can do it via email. Click here to see her post about our room! 

Making Science Fun

I don't love teaching science. I know, I know. I just posted not too long ago about not being super excited about math either, but that has really improved as I've changed my instructional methods. It has taken a lot of time researching, finding, and creating new materials to supplement the worksheets I'm given through our Saxon textbook adoption, but it is so worth it because everyone is more excited about math now (including me!). I have a similar problem with science because our workbook is so blah. We were fortunate enough to get science kits for some experiments this year though, so I think we're moving in the right direction.

Our space unit starts next week, and it's my favorite science unit to teach. I hang the planets from our ceiling with a couple rockets, have my students apply for their space mission, and then we all get lost in the solar system for the final month of school. Science doesn't feel boring or dry at all when I do it that way. 

You can purchase a copy of some of the forms I use for this project in my stores too, or just look at the preview to get an idea for making your own. My success with math is really rubbing off because I'm going to work hard to revamp my other science units this summer to make them just as engaging next year.

I'm starting by joining The Teaching Bank's science linky party with my brand new I Have, Who Has Outer Space Cards. Vocabulary review is so much more engaging when it's in game form. You can get the set for $2.00 in my stores. I hope they help spark a little bit of fun in your science review! 

Mother's Day Ideas

Mother's Day is May 13th. That means it's time to start thinking about what we'll do for our moms this year instead of waiting until the last minute (you know who you are!). I try to mix things up instead of doing the same thing each year because I get so many siblings. Here are some of my favorites.

Fingerprint Flowerpots 

I love Ed Emberly's books and have found ways to use them throughout our curriculum (more on that in the future, promise), but this next idea is just for fun. We dip our fingerprints into colorful paint, let them dry, and then turn the fingerprints into cute little images. The bigger one is a keepsake from my first class of students, but it shows how the fingerprints were turned into faces. The smaller one is a Mother's Day example that was unfortunately broken along the way. It shows how the fingerprints can be turned into bugs and other critters. We write messages along the edges and then add tissue paper flowers (usually two). Mine are a little crushed from living in the closet, but they are really cute when they're all fluffy and new.

If you want to grab your own books, I'd love it if you used my links.

Tissue Paper Stained Glass Frames

In other years, I've made stained glass frames that look really pretty when hung in a window or on sliding glass doors. This one is even easier than the flower pots. You'll need clear contact paper, tissue paper scraps, popsicle sticks, and yarn or ribbon. I precut two pieces of contact paper the size of the popsicle frames for each student. Then students cut a large shape (usually a heart) out of tissue paper and stick it to the first piece of contact paper. After that, the fill up the rest of the contact paper with tissue paper scraps in different colors. When they're finished, they seal the design with the second piece of contact paper. This gets glued to the frame, and then I hot glue a ribbon or yarn loop for hanging. Sometimes I include the suction cups too.

Tissue Paper Butterflies

Here's another stained glass tissue paper project. I found the butterfly template in a teacher magazine, but any black and white lined image would work. Sometimes I even let students draw out their own designs when we have more time. Flowers are really cute ones to make. Using black construction paper, cut out the main design. On the back, cover the holes with tissue paper. I laminate them for durability. Sometimes we add bright pieces of paper on the front too, like the pink one for the butterfly's body. The rest of the pieces are tissue paper that sunlight will sign through.

Ladybug Cards

This one is just too sweet not to share. I found this template in a teacher magazine too. I have students write poems or thoughtful notes inside.

Foam Fun

Finally, when you're in a pinch you can never go wrong with foam stickers and shapes. My mother-in-law picked up really pretty glittery ones last year that I knew would be perfect for Mother's Day. I added my own foam craft stick frames and letters. Some students wrote names, others did "Mom" or "I love you." I took a picture of each student outside on our playground and hot glued it into the frame for them.

I have a few printable poems that I let students pick from for their moms too. You can grab them for free here. For more great Mother's Day ideas, click over to a linky party at Kinder-Craze. You can find even more spring ideas at Mrs. Lirette's Learning Detectives linky party.

 

This next part is just for bloggers. Have you seen the 5-Star Blogger Challenge taking place over at The Organized Classroom Blog? Charity Preston has challenged teacher-bloggers to reflect on their style of blogging. I know there have been mixed feelings about it and I debated adding this next part, but here it goes.

I like the tag posts because I enjoy getting to know the bloggers I follow personally as well as professionally. Why do I enjoy going to work every day? A lot of it has to do with the wonderful teachers I work beside. I have a personality and I'm going to let it show through my blog. However, I want mostly teaching content from my blogs and if we're tagging and awarding all the time, that's a problem. So, you will find posts like that here, but they're going to be few and far between.

Also, I love it when bloggers I follow give the scoop on awesome websites they've found or super ideas from other teachers I might have missed. That's all about promoting collaboration and sharing to me. It's also how I found new blogs to follow. However, I follow bloggers who personally appeal to me and I think it's hard to show yourself when you're pushing ideas you've found somewhere else most of the time. So, you will find posts here with other ideas and resources, but they aren't the primary focus of my blog. I personally don't consider Linky Parties as part of that because you're writing your own post, with your own ideas. I think the great thing about Linky Parties is that you're able to get a whole bunch of original ideas about the same topic.

I guess my point is... it's all about balance. I was happy to take the time to reflect on what I might be able to do to give even more content to my little community of teacher friends here. Please don't ever hesitate to let me know how you feel!

Parent Communication Linky Party

Lorraine from Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies is hosting a linky party about parent communication. I love that because I think we all know how important it is to communicate with parents. Here are a few things I do in our classroom to make sure I keep everyone up to date.

First, there's our classroom website and Facebook page. I already blogged about those, so I'll spare you a repeat. It's my favorite format, but I will say that in our smaller community many houses don't have reliable or fast internet at home. When I surveyed parents, most wanted paper copies. That's definitely something to keep in mind when you're trying to decide primarily how to keep in contact with your families.

Second, there's our classroom Weekly Reports. I love them! I learned about them from my cooperating teacher during student teaching. I put our classroom expectations down the side and the days of the week across the top. I use tally marks and short notes to mark in the boxes when expectations aren't met. Fortunately, I usually get to draw a big smiley face over the whole grid to show students had great weeks. Then there's a comment space at the bottom. I love writing positive notes there or things like, "Ask Student to tell you about her poetry unit!" to get conversations going at home. Parents sign the reports every Friday night and students return the forms on Monday morning to earn raffle tickets for our classroom auction. It's such a great system! You can grab an editable copy of mine in my TpT store if you like the idea but don't want to start your own from scratch.

Third, we have student planners/assignment books. All intermediate students are required to copy our agenda every day. Parents are required to sign the planner every night and I check their signatures every morning. This is supposed to be a way for students to talk to their parents about what we did in class every day. It's also supposed to be a guaranteed way to make sure any notes to/from school are seen every day. Unfortunately, a few planners have been lost and many of them are never signed at home. I don't really rely on them for those reasons.

Finally, I send home Reading Strategy Newsletters once a month to highlight our comprehension strategies. You can see individual ones in my TpT store or a bundle in my TN store if you don't want to create your own. I also send home general class letters about once a month to update parents with upcoming events and summarize our next units. Again, these aren't super reliable because they often don't get read. I'm not sure why that happens as we have binders with Friday Folders and set routines each week. For some reason, so many papers just get tossed. I hate to admit how many extra copies I have to send home for permission slips and things. Those poor trees!! 

All of this has me thinking... What is your favorite way to comment with parents? Leave a comment below because I'd love to hear from you!

Mentor Books Boost Writing Workshop

I had so much fun sharing my innovations with you. I actually learned about the concept of mentor texts and genre studies from a Katie Wood Ray workshop I attended several years ago. She inspired me to create a mentor basket of books to help teach writing workshop. Using the mentor texts to teach craft and structure has made such a difference.


I've grouped all of my reading and writing workshop units into genres, which I've blogged about before. My favorite unit is the fantasy one. We read and write fantasy for nearly four weeks to produce our own picture books. As we read a variety of fantasy picture books, my students really get it! By the time they're ready to write their own books, the ideas are flowing and they don't want to stop when time is up each day. If you're having trouble with writing workshop, I would recommend genre studies 1000%. You can purchase a copy of my fantasy unit in my store to get you started if you need to. After I taught a few genre studies, it was so much easier to plan future ones.

I also learned to weave craft lessons into writing workshop using the mentor books. For example, I use Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel to teach word choice. I usually pull my students back to our meeting area to read the book and do a short lesson. After that, they are off and writing extensions at their desks. The best part is the transfer of these lessons to students' every day writing. Again, I have craft writing units using mentor texts in my store if you need some to get you started.


Gathering mentor books can take some time (and money!), but you can always borrow them from your library at first. After I figured out which books were my favorites and worked best for our room, I purchased copies so I'd always have them nearby for quick reference during conferences. Be careful though, hunting for mentor books is addicting and I'm always on the look out for more!

You can grab a copy of my mentor book spreadsheet. What are some of your favorite mentor books and how do you use them?

These are some of my favorite writing resources for teachers. They are all on my bookshelf with sticky notes sticking out. That's the sign of a good book to me!

Furry Friends Linky

Sandy over at Soaring Through Second Grade is hosting a linky party about a subject that is near and dear to my heart. No, it isn't reading or writing workshop (or math, haha if you read yesterday's post). It's our furry friends! She's even making this educational by asking us to include what our beloved pets have taught us. If I had to site objectives on top of that, I'd reference by previously stated goal to include more of "me" in some of my posts. Am I justified yet? ;)

When I left for college, I had to leave my first dog, Kerrigan, at home with my parents. We had practically grown up together after I saved my allowance to buy her when I was in fifth grade. She loved our family house and her time outside on the deck, and I knew she'd never adjust well to apartment life with me fresh out of college and working long hours as a first year teacher. In that way, Kerrigan taught me about doing the right thing, even when it's hard, and putting the needs of others ahead of my own.

She helps with school work.

We currently have three furry friends at our house. The first is my dear, sweet Isabelle. She was a rescue, but in truth she probably rescued me. I was commuting an hour each way to work as a first year teacher, working long hours, and not taking enough time for myself when I adopted her. It broke my heart to see her emotionally and physically damaged (she had a bright pink cast on a broken leg when I found her) and I knew I had to take her home. We've been pretty inseparable ever since. It was a long road to work her through some of her fears, but she really is the best dog now. I can't imagine there ever being another Isabelle for me. She's taught me about the power of unconditional love and patience. I think we can all apply that one to our students, especially the ones who seem a little broken.

Play, play, play, sleep!

Next is Gracie, my timid little Chihuahua who rules the house when no one is looking. She lives for snuggle time and loves to spend her days completely invisible inside her blankets. I brought her home two years after I adopted Isabelle. I had been looking for a playmate for Izzy, and there was just something about Gracie's little tail wag that made me want to add her to our family. Gracie has taught me the importance of taking time to stop and play (or nap!) when I need it. She's also taught me not to judge a book by its cover or believe in reputations because this little dog is like no other Chihuahua I've met. I think that's another one we can apply to our students, right?

She takes prisoners.

Finally, we have our newest addition Lily. My husband had never had a dog. Shortly after we were married, we tossed around the idea of adding another dog to the family that would be ours since my other two were pretty set on loving me more (haha). While "just looking" at the mall one day, we stumbled across Lily. I had never bought a dog at a pet store before and had definite feelings against it. However, we just couldn't leave her there. We went back the next day to bring her home. Ryan even called the pet store repeatedly until they opened, determined not to let her get away. She is so smart and learns tricks quickly, but she is WILD. We jokingly call her the Terrorist because she's always destroying her toys, bothering her older sisters, or tearing up and down the stairs. She's taught me to appreciate the more active members of my class and find ways to channel their energy into positive behaviors. I think that's an important lesson that can sometimes be overlooked while dealing with the frustrating feelings that come along with the negative behaviors.


I've had fun sharing my furry friends with you while reflecting on the lessons they've taught me that can carry over into my classroom too. For more furry friends, click on over to Sandy's linky party.

Motivating Math Ideas

If you read my guest post over at Think, Wonder, and Teach last week, you learned a little more about my journey to love math. Math was always my favorite subject as a student until I hit high school geometry sophomore year. I'm great with numbers, but anything to do with spacial reasoning and shapes just isn't my thing. As I look back at what when wrong on my education journey, I also realized that my geometry teacher wasn't really excited about math either. When my weakness was paired with a less-than-enthusiastic teacher, my motivation to learn went out the window. Recognizing that, I've made it my personal goal this year to do more with math engagement in our classroom. Fortunately, I don't have to reinvent the wheel every day because there are lots of fabulous teachers out there with motivating math ideas.

The first idea has been challenging for my students, but because I teach the highest ability class, I wanted to try it. Math Spies is blog set up as math puzzles. Students navigate through the blog as they solve the problems. It reminds me of the Choose Your Own Adventure chapter books and the format is extremely motivating. If you teach older students, I think they'd love Math Spies!

The second idea is one I briefly shared with you last week as I was gearing up for my Innovation series. It didn't get its own post, so I wanted to touch on it again. Symbaloo is a free website that lets you turn your computer's bookmarks into a game board. I saw Adrienne at Unless Teaching using it for her math workshop and just had to try it with my students. I was able to grab her board to get me started and then add and remove tiles to personalize the board for my students. My favorite tile is a free flashcard program called Xtramath.org. You can give each student a free account to practice their facts. The program tracks their progress to move them through addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The website will even email you when a student completes a level so you can print out a certificate. My students are LOVING the board. You can have them play from the Symbaloo website itself or you can copy/paste the game board onto your own class website. If you like my board, feel free to grab it for your class and make changes as needed.

Finally, I just found a new fraction lesson last week. Amanda at The Teaching Thief made fun Fraction Me people with her students. Students used colorful squares to create self-portraits. Then they used fractions to describe their creations. I plan to work with ordering fractions, equivalent fractions, and numerator/denominator review when I teach this lesson next week. I grabbed one of her images to tease you into going over to her blog to see all of her cute examples. You'll be glad you did!




I have more motivating math ideas to share with you in the future. Until then, what are some of your favorites?

You've Filled My Bucket!

Oh. My. Goodness. I honestly have to pinch myself every day when I open my blog or Facebook page. Seeing new followers, newsletter subscribers, and all of the thoughtful comments you leave makes me feel so loved. Before I started blogging myself, I was a blog-follower. Reading all of the other teachers' ideas and seeing their fabulous classrooms and projects made me want to share my own. I thought I might be talking to myself when I started this blog, but I started it anyway as a place to record my ideas. Knowing that other teachers and students are getting something out of my blog is so inspiring.


All of the rambling was to say that I reached my goal of having 250 followers by the end of my Innovation Series (Hi, everyone!). I compiled all of my pages into one free download to make it easier for you to grab the files. Also, to celebrate and say thank you, I used random.org to select one follower to receive my $25 gift card and then dutifully counted to find the winner. Congratulations, Mrs. H from Third Grade ROCKS! It looks like she has a brand new blog, so you should hop over to show her some love too. =)

Best of all... no one goes away empty-handed because I'm making two of my paid items free in my store until Tuesday night. Hurry and grab my Level Two Reading Leads and Level One Spelling/Vocabulary Contract now so you don't miss out.

If there's anything else you've had your eye on, I'm throwing a 15% off sale in my Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook stores until Tuesday night too. 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Truly.

Innovations Day 5: My Teacher's Secret Life

Today is the fifth and final day of my five-day series on using innovations in your classroom during writing workshop. For today's post, I'm highlighting My Teacher's Secret Life by Stephen Krensky.

I always save this innovation for the end of our series because it provides the least scaffolding. Like many of our kiddos, the main character in this book is surprised to find out that his teacher is a real person who has a life outside of school. When we read along together, we giggle as the cafeteria serves dinner to the teachers and the librarian reads bedtime stories. You can relate the little boy's surprise when he sees his teacher at the super market.


After reading, I always let the students share their funny teacher memories. Almost every single one can relate to the ideas the little boy had about his teacher. It's so cute to hear my third graders say, "A long time ago, when I was in kindergarten, I thought..." Adore! 

For publishing this innovation, I try to move my students away from the templates and onto notebook paper or the lined publishing paper we'll use throughout the year. I keep mailboxes full of cute thematic paper so students can pick and choose for their projects during the year. Since I don't have paper for every imaginable book, I also keep colored copies of plain lined paper. If you don't already have something similar, here's a freebie of my vertical and horizontal paper options.  They're nothing fancy, but they bind better than notebook paper. Some years I also collect each student's individual story and turn it into a class book. It's cute to set out for parent/teacher conferences when parents have to wait in the hallway. You can also grab a copy of the covers too.

Our Writing Center

As a side organizational note, I keep masters of my paper on the bottom of each stack in the mailboxes with a sticky note that says "Last One- Give to Ms. Fultz!" Just in case those accidentally get used, I also keep masters of my paper in a binder, sorted by theme.





I hope you've enjoyed my Innovation Series. Don't forget we're working our way toward a $25 Amazon gift card giveaway for one randomly chosen follower if my blog reaches 250 followers by the end of this series on Sunday! If you decide to purchase this book for your classroom, I'd love it if you used my link.