New Week, New Activities, New News

I hope everyone had a great weekend! It was a nice weekend to kick back and relax. The kids usually come back on a Monday a little tired, but that was not the situation today. The students came in anxious and ready - and a little chatty. But we worked through it. The hardest part of the first few weeks of school is building the routine and stamina that will come into play the rest of the year. Currently, with our Daily 5 in literacy, we have made our "Read to Self" stamina up to 11 minutes! Yippee! We started "Read to Someone" today and that was a little more challenging, so we will continue to build that stamina as well. The other three components of the Daily 5 are Work on Writing, Word Works, and Listen to Reading. We should be through all five in the next few weeks and set for the year continually building our stamina in all areas. The Daily 5 replaces the traditional "centers" your child may have done in kindergarten, first, and second grade. I will also be doing Dibels assessments this week which involve students reading for a minute and retelling their reading. This assessment is done three times a year.
We have also thrown in a new part of our Morning Meeting and that is "sharing". Students are assigned a day of the week in which they can share something. Classmates can then raise their hands to ask questions about the sharing and encourage discussion. Again the purpose being to create a classroom community. The students seem to enjoy and benefit from the Morning Meeting, as do I.
So, as you can see, every thing is going very well. Be sure to check the daily blog that the students post. We'd love to have more followers and comments! Thank you also for checking my blog, which would love to have more followers also. Have a great week! Oh yeah, thank you to those parents who sent snacks. Our tummies than you also!

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac - Stevie Nicks

Today was another great day! The students are really into a super routine and we got a lot accomplished. Here are just some of the topics/activities we covered today:
* We learned how to pick books based on purpose, interest, comprehension, and knowing the words. We can remember this by "I PICK"- P is purpose, I is interest, C is comprehension, and K is knowing words. Students will soon be picking new books for their bookbins as well as books to take home.
* We have built our read to self stamina up to 7 minutes. I think we can make it to 10 tomorrow if we try hard. :)
* Buzzing may be what bees do, but we also learned how to "buzz" as a way to discuss so that it is done quietly. Kids really enjoyed doing this to discuss books.
* The smartboard was again a hit in science with students going up to move digits to create numbers I would state as well as manipulating a number grid. Pages from our math journal are also scanned in and now can be used on the smartboard.
Those are just a few of the skills/strategies we are working on to lay the foundation for the year. A lot of time is spent the first month of school building muscle memory and routines to guide the rest of the year. Thus, we are busy establishing these routines. Next week we will learn "read to someone" as part of our literacy Daily 5.

I was shown this YouTube video at an inservice last week and fell in love with it. The background is that these kids in the video live in a very low income area. Many of their parents don't show up at their performances, parent-teacher conferences, etc. So their music teacher taped the students singing "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac/Stevie Nicks as dedication to a teacher (you will see at the beginning of the video). To make the story short, Stevie Nicks herself heard about the video and saw it on YouTube. She invited the kids to her concert at Madison Square Gardens in New York!!! Not only did they go to the concert, they went up on stage and performed with her in front of thousands! Touching story. These kids or this school, PS22, have gone on to be on the Today show and sing various other songs on YouTube because of one teacher showing the world, through YouTube, how talented these kids are. Wow!

Thoughts from Today and "Welcome to the Future"

Well, we are back at it for a whole week! If it goes like today went, even for a Monday, we are on the right track! The students were very anxious to get going today, even though we have a few bugs to work out. I love to see their surprises when I tell them that it is almost lunch time and they say, "Already? Wow! The day is going by so quickly!" While so much has changed for them from 2nd grade to 3rd grade, a lot has changed for me also. I have restructured my classroom, getting rid of the traditional desk to create more of a "community" approach to learning. So far it is working wonderfully, and I think most of the students would agree. Many of us at Crestwood Elementary are restructuring our literacy to revolve around the routine of the Daily Five. Not throwing out the good of balanced literacy, but simply structuring it in a different way. The "Morning Meeting" has also become a great starting point for the day in 3B in making everyone know they are valuable and have much to offer! What is a "Habitude" you ask? Ask a 3B student from my room about imagination and what we have started to discuss about it's importance in all of us. Pull in the activities with our new Smartboard and stand back. . . a room full of learners, including the teacher! With all of this in place, the motivation to learn is contagious!

I wanted to include a video off of YouTube by Brad Paisley that I fellow "Twitter" friend of mine sent out, but it would not let me embed it into my blog page. So, if you have time, go to Brad Paisley's YouTube site and select/watch the video for "Welcome to the Future". The neatest thing about the video is that today, during our Morning Meeting, we discussed what imagination was and why even older kids, and adults for that matter, need to remember to imagine. The kids then shared something they imagine themselves doing when they grow up. The video is powerful; yet, I think it is most powerful for us, the parents and teachers of the kids of today. Sit back, click the link, and enjoy!

First Day Fun Pictures

Here are a few pictures of activities. Enjoy!

First Day Wordle

Wow! What a wonderful day! I am amazed at the talent, enthusiasm, and excitement I have in my class this year. It is going to be great! Today was spent mostly getting to know each other and doing various activities to start a routine in the classroom. We ended the day with me reading aloud First Day Jitters which leads the students to assume the character in the book is a student, but it is really the teacher on the first day! Cute book! The highlight of the day was when I had the students brainstorm words to describe the day and activities. I typed in the words and then created what is called a "wordle". I printed a black and white copy of the wordle but it looks really cool in color. If you'd like to see it, click on the following link: First Day Wordle The students were amazed and thought it was the best! I told them I would post some photos from day also. . . which I plan on doing tonight. Check in later. Thanks for sharing your kids with me!

Open House Success

It was wonderful to meet my new 3rd graders this evening at Open House! Looks like I will have a super bunch to work with this year, of course!! :) Thank you to the parents who took the time to bring in their child to meet me, drop off supplies, and help their child become acquainted with the classroom. It makes the transition much easier so thank you very much! One comment, on my letter about parent school communication I have listed my school webpage. Well, it is listed incorrectly. 3B's webpage is http://www.howard-winn.k12.ia.us/kerian/3BsWebSite. Sorry about that. It is written correctly on your magnet though so look there for contact information, webpage address, and blog addresses. Now I need to go over my plans for our first day tomorrow! Very, very excited!!!!!

New Web Page for 3B - CHANGE with Frustrations!

Wouldn't life be sweet if when you are sitting in a tech class everything goes as planned? Yeah, well not for me today! I am sure I could be tearing my hair out, but I guess that is with everything. Along with learning comes frustrations to work through and solve. There has been a lot of that today! We are using iWeb to create or update web pages. My previous web page was created on Adobe Go Live through a "Windows" machine. Not anymore! I'd like to introduce 3B's new web page: http://www.howard-winn.k12.ia.us/kerian/3BsWebSite. It is in the "production" stages as I am transferring activities and information from my old webpage and working on adding the new. The frustrating part has been when viewing the web site through various search engines, some pages are perfect while others mix up. Hence, my frustrations! So, if you notice some things "off", bear with me! Otherwise, explore the web site and visit frequently!

Thank You to Donaldsons Corporation

I just wanted to send a quick thank you out to Donaldsons for granting my classroom $2500.00! With that grant, we are able to purchase a Smartboard, a new Elmo, and another new laptop! YIPPEE!!!! Your support for education is once again commendable and I thank you so much from 3B at Crestwood Elementary!! (I know the students will thank you also. . .)

Back to Reality and Summers End - for Me

I am sitting here at our family cabin enjoying the morning sunshine thinking about what tomorrow brings. . . .a class and return to school to prepare for a new year! Am I excited? Yes. Am I sad to see summer end? Yes. Even though we, as teachers, have a summer vacation, I doubt any of us would say school is never on our mind during the break. With classes to take and books to read, there is really never a break for a teacher in my mind. I am excited about this upcoming year as I have been building my "learning" this summer and will be trying various new activities, techniques, and structures with my class of 3rd graders. Four of the many professional books that I read recently are The Morning Meeting Book, Habitudes, and The Daily Five/The Cafe. Each with wonderful ideas and messages in them about various aspects of education. The other component of education that I am very excited about is the use of technology and all it has to offer! As you can see, I have ventured into blogging and love it! The students in my class this year will be blogging through a "bloggers cafe" I plan to set up in the classroom, hopefully blogging with other 3rd graders around the US or world. We will also utilize a "Blogger of the Day" to blog about what's happening in our classroom for parents and friends to read and follow. Exciting! We will continue using podcast as well, with the hope of using videocasting (cross your fingers we figure that out). I am also eagerly hunting for different grants to apply for as I would love to get some iTouches for the students to use in the classroom. There is just so much out there that it is an exciting time to be in education! And yes, truth be told, I am a "twitter" junky- but there is so much information out there to be shared among PLNs! Love it!

So, as I sit here watching my children on the lake (delaying cleaning the cabin and finishing the laundry), I am teary eyed to see the great week we have had at the family cabin come to an end but am motivated and excited to start a new school year! It has been a superb summer and I know it will be a wonderful school year. Enjoying every moment - that's what life is about!