Speeding Ticket

I just saw a post on making speeding tickets for your students. I love the idea and wish I had it last year for my Speedy Gonzalo kiddos from my third grade class. I don't know about you but every year I get those student that think it is more important to be the first one done rather than get the answers correct. I had two students last year that drove me crazy doing this! I wish I would have had these tickets to give them. Maybe they would have melted down less seeing it on this paper verses me telling them.

I plan on printing these on colored paper, yellow probably, but we will see. I want to make four on a page to save copies. My new school has way more copies than I used to have but I don't want to waste any if I don't have to.
 
Here is the original post that I found. Her tickets were very cute but I had to add my own twist. I use Turtle Bucks in my class (fake money) which is a twist off my own 3rd grade teacher who used Zoo Bucks. Miss Jenkins was my favorite childhood teacher and the reason I wanted to teach 3rd grade.

Anyhow I just load my version for FREE in my TPT Store if you want to grab them :) Have a great day.

Poetry RL 3.5

 I spent the last 9 years at a Title 1 low income school were we were told to follow the reading series. I HATE following the reading series. I feel like it is a waste of 5 years of college. Anyone could follow the step by step directions that come with a reading series. I am a teacher that teaches to standards not a reading series. I use my reading series, don't get me wrong, but I use it by the standards (now Common Core) it covers.

Anyhow that little rant leads to this post. I felt like poetry was not important to focus on before Common Core. The state test didn't have much poetry on it so why bother teaching it right. Now I am starting a new school district that is all about the standards and not a reading series! I was so excited to hear this statement. I am now trying to figure out how I am going to incorporate poetry and came across this list of poetry sites while taking an online Common Core class. I wanted to share with all the people that struggle with poetry resources like me.

Poetry for kids http://www.poetry4kids.com/
Fizzy Funny Fuzzy Poetry http://www.fizzyfunnyfuzzy.com/
Giggle Poetry http://www.gigglepoetry.com/
Mother Goose Caboose  http://www.mothergoosecaboose.com/rp.html
Children's Poetry Archive  http://www.poetryarchive.org/childrensarchive/home.do
Links to online poems  http://www.storyit.com/Classics/JustPoems/classicpoems.htm

If you like Shel Silverstein here is a link to some activities to go with his books. http://www.shelsilverstein.com/learning/#lessons-and-activities
Also here are some poems by him http://faculty.weber.edu/chansen/humanweb/projects/MeghanUng/poems.htm

My personal favorite is Jack Prelutsky. The kids love him and he is very entertaining.
http://jackprelutsky.com/jacks-poems/

Hopefully this gives you a starting place. If you know any good poem links please post them in the comments and I will add them to this post. Thanks for reading :)

Mastering a Topic one day at a time

So I am trying something new this year with my ELA time. I feel like we are always in such a rush to get through the material that we never really get a chance to master topics. So I decided to add 30 mins a day to my schedule to "master" a topic. I pick a subject. Then plan out a week or more if needed to concentrate on a topic.

One I focused on was Cause and Effect. I noticed that my students struggled with this concept so I made a pre and post test so I could see if my efforts helped the students master the concept.
I figured since I was making the test I would put them on Teachers Pay Teachers. You can find them here.  I had looked on there first to see if I could find one so I wouldn't have to make them but no luck, so to the drawing board. I made test with three different ways to answer the cause effect questions because its more accurate to see if they truly understand instead of having figured out a given formula or getting lucky and guessing.

So as I expected many did not do well on the pre test. So I found songs, videos, powerpoints, worksheets, stories, the works with cause and effect strategies. I really do believe that you should teach in as many ways as possible to hit all learning styles. Technology is huge now days so any way I can get that in with the subject I do. I spent two weeks, 30 mins a day on the subject. The post test showed that a majority of the students understood the concept. YAY! Of course I had a few that still did not get it but at least many of them did.

I have tried this with a few different topics and I am seeing some good results. It is a lot of work on my part because I have to find all the resources and materials to use. However I feel it is important to spend some serious time on some of the harder concepts.

Hope you find this interesting or it inspires you to try something new. Have a great day!!

Must Do May Do

This is a very simple thing that I learned while going through the BTSA program that I really liked.

 I write on the white board in front of class two lists. One for math and the other for Lang. Arts. I list the students work there so they can see page numbers and make sure they have turned in all in.

 I made a poster for their may do activities since my board in front is not very big.

 My school is very old and still has chalkboards everywhere. There was just ugly chalkboard under here before I added sheet rock on top of it then bought this white board at GW and attached it to the wall. It works.