Organizing Our Calendar: Tricks and Tips for Teachers Linky Party

I have a nice, big white board in my classroom, the only problem is, IT ISN'T MAGNETIC! What?.... Who bought this and why? I have been in this room for 3 years now and it still perplexes me as to why the school would buy a non-magnetic white board. For the first two years, I used the board for random things and I would tape my anchor charts to it...yes, I know.

This summer I got smart. I took to Pinterest and found a way to make it work. Washi tape and colorful dry-erase markers! This was one of the first projects I tackled when I got back into my classroom this year. I used black Washi tape to separate my board into a calendar and left room on either side to list my guided reading and math groups.

At first, I just thought the calendar would just make a cute addition to my classroom, but it has actually turned out to be functional than aesthetic. My 3rd graders stick to that calendar more than I could have imagined and it has really helped me avoid a lot of the organization issues I had with all of my previous third grade classes. By posting the calendar at the beginning of the month, I am putting the responsibility on them to keep up with things, and they are definitely up to the challenge. They record the events in their agenda and stay on top of it.

Things Posted On Our Calendar (besides the date):

-Helpers of the Day: One boy and one girl name are written in green at the bottom of each day. These are my helpers for the day and do everything. They know when their day is coming up so I don't have to hear, "When is it my turn? Why don't I ever get picked?"

-Specials/Encore: I have our encore schedule written in light blue at the bottom of each day. No more, "I forgot my shoes for PE!" Well, there is some of that, but they are still eight. For some reason, my kids love to argue about if it is a music day or an art day, the calendar solves this problem. Small victories. (You can see that I only put the specials or the first 2 weeks, this is because I am anticipating snow which throws off our schedule and the kids get SO confused.)

-Testing Dates: I post unit tests, mid year testing, and our bi-weekly ice cream multiplication tests. Students know where to look and how long they have to study. They still may not study, but at least they don't tell their parents that they didn't know when the test was.

-Retesting Dates: Every time we take a unit test I print a label to stick in the student's agenda that has the test name, date taken, their score, a box to check if the parent/child would like to retest, and the retesting date. I let students retest unit tests because I know if they or their parent requests it, they are actually going to study, work hard, and learn. However, I'm not that nice when it comes to the retesting date. One year, I had parents who wanted to retest often (which is fine), but also wanted to pick specific dates for their child (think: at least 6-7 kids every time....NOT fine). This year my parents are awesome, but my policy still stands, students have to be prepared by the retest date indicated on the label and my calendar.

-My Absences: I don't take a lot of personal or sick days, in fact, this is my first one this year. But, I am out at least once a month for meetings or trainings. I like to write these dates on the calendar so students know what to expect. I have found they have better behavior when they are prepared. It also reminds me the day before to run through what their day with the sub will look like.

-Celebrations: Every Monday at our class meeting we vote for a Fun Friday activity that the students earn. I write these days on our calendar as well. For example, this Friday we have a Post-Super Bowl Party (we had to make a snow date from last Friday) and we have our Valentine's Day party on the 12th (since I am out for meetings the 13th).

-Birthdays: I also record student birthdays with a picture of a balloon or something by it. The students LOVE this and if they see me putting up the calendar for the new month, they will keep reminding me about their birthday until I put it up.

-Holidays and other No-School Days

-Assemblies and Field Trips

-After School Activities: Our school has a lot of after school activities like clubs, tutoring, parent nights, programs, PTCO movie nights, etc.

-Buddy Class Days: We have a kindergarten class as our buddy class and we try to get together with them once a month to read, do a science experiment, do math practice, etc. All the students love it and my third graders really take on the "mentor" role. It is the best behavior I ever see from them.

Well that's it. The calendar is wonderful and it has made my life so much easier! No more redundant house keeping questions or student squabbling. Let me know what you think and how you keep your students informed. Below are some more pictures of the calendar from this school year, enjoy!

Last Month:

(I use student numbers for math groups since they change so often and it is a lot quicker to write. As you can see, my reading groups are missing, oops! These groups don't change as often so students know their group.)

September: Before I started maximizing the full potential of the calendar.

Don't forget to stop by First Grade in Foxwell Forest to read more organization ideas.

How I Plan...

So I wanted to stop by today and talk about how I plan. I love to read about how other teachers plan because I am always up for something easier or more organized. I actually planned this post for about a week ago, but as you know report cards + snow days + testing + PD + planning + TPT creating + grading papers  = one busy teacher!

My students and I received a student teacher who joined us right after winter break and will be with us until May. I have had teachers and students come and observe before, but never teach...by themselves...for a whole month...right before state testing. I am a tad nervous because I have been told I can be all "mama bear" with my students and have a hard time giving them up. But, no worries! This experience has already been great for me and my students. I will keep you posted and please, Please, PLEASE leave me any tips or comments or advice you have for student teachers. I honestly want to make sure I help her become the best teacher she can be.

Ok, So for me, it really all starts with the team plan. My team splits planning weekly and we each take a subject, I have Science/Social Studies. At first this made me nervous because of that control issue I mentioned above, but now I love it! We have gotten to the point where we know how to modify plans for our specific kids and what to include in our plans to better help the team. If you are considering switching to team planning, here are some things that have helped us stay on the same page.

1. Create a Template: Templates really help, otherwise you really have no idea what you will be getting week to week. Before we even started team planning (back in November), we discussed what we needed for each person. For example: I do science so we discussed that what they need from me is five 45 minute lessons, one content center for reading workshop, and unit tests with at least 2 technology-enhanced items. What we needed from the teacher doing math was five 30 minute lessons (at least one lesson from our state site), and ideas for math workshop stations.

We also wanted to make sure our template had everything our principal requires in our plans. It is so easy to turn in plans now, I just collect the plans everyone gives me at the meetings, clip them, and put them in my principal's box.

(As you can see, I'm still working on these. )

My team has also started adding pictures and anchor chart ideas from Pinterest to plans when it fits and it has been great!

Since I plan science and social studies, our units are 2-4 weeks long. I plan whole units at a time and then I don't have to plan for weeks.

2. Set a Timeline: Our goal is to have our plans for the following week emailed by Sunday night. So, I would have my plans for the week of February 9th emailed by Sunday, February 1st. That gives enough time to differentiate, make copies, and ask questions.

3. Come Prepared: This is actually one of our team norms. When you come to the meeting your plans should be done, you should have pulled all the resources listed in your plans, and you should have a copy of everything available for each team member.

4. Talk it Out: Because we have other things to talk about at meetings, we split up our planning days. Two of us present our plans at our Tuesday meeting and two of us present at our Thursday meeting. We typically have to set a timer because our time together is so precious, but this is when we run through our plans and describe the activities. We show copies of the worksheets, activities, or resources listed in our plans. We also give each team member a hard copy of the plans and one copy of each of the activities. Then we make the decision on who will need class sets of copies and that person puts it in the copy shop for everyone. Since the plans are emailed out by Sunday night, it is an expectation that you have at least looked at everyone's plans by Tuesday so you know the gist and can ask questions.

Alright, so after the team shares their plan, then what? Well, as class sets of assignments come rolling in throughout the week, I have to put them someplace safe...and that some place is my mailbox sorter in this picture of my messy desk area. (Just so you know, we had a workday yesterday and now my desk is much neater and my mailbox organizer has been cleaned out!)

1. The first column of slots is labeled by subject. When I get class sets, I place the piles in the subject slot.
2. The slots right beside the subject slot are where I put extras of work that I have already used and originals. At the end of every quarter I go through this slot to refile my originals and throw away extras that no one needed (which is rare).
3. Each of the stacked baskets has something in it. The red basket is where I keep homework. I copy for at least 2 weeks in advance.


Then...I map. I love having all of my plans detailed and typed nice and pretty for me, but in order for me to make sense of it, I have to write it down. Around Wednesday, I fill in my Erin Condren planner for the following week, so I can see it all laid out.

By Friday, I have all my copies made and I am ready to prep my bins. I lay out my planner and my daily bins. I place the papers in each bin in the order that I use them, so in my Monday bin, reading is on top because that is my first subject and homework is on the bottom because that is the last thing I will need.

Once I have filled all of my bins, I stack them neatly on my desk and I leave for a care-free weekend. Ha! I usually stay until at least 5 on Fridays, but at least my planning and copies are done so when I walk in Monday I don't have to scramble or wait for the copier.

Tell me how you plan or leave comments below with your thoughts. I can't wait to see what you do and steal some ideas. Thanks for stopping by!

Multiplication Interactive Notebooks: Humpday Highlight

I love teaching multiplication and I love interactive notebooks. The teacher part of me leaps for joy every year when this unit comes up. It definitely helps that the students are even more excited for learning multiplication than I am for teaching it (if that's possible). I decided Mrs. Stanford's Humpday Highlight Linky would be the perfect time to show off our work so far.

Before I get started, I have to add a disclaimer that we are not done with our unit yet. My goal for interactive notebooks during this unit is to create a resource that students can refer to for help and examples, not necessarily creating cutsey-lots-of-cutting-involved-activities. I tell my students all year to look in their math notebook first when they have a question, but this is the first unit that they finally catch on. It's awesome to watch them become problem solvers.

Our county has us teach this unit in the same order every year: single-digit multiplication, division, and then double by single digit multiplication. Since, I have low ESL students, I always start with vocabulary. I have students glue the vocabulary sheet into their notebooks and then we color code each feature and word as I explain and describe the vocabulary to them. These pages are one of the most referred to throughout the unit by my students. After introducing and practicing the vocabulary, the students will complete the guided sort below.

Every day or couple of days, I introduce a new strategy and have the students glue in a pre-typed notes strip.  I have the students extend the lines in between the practice problems along the bottom of the strip and we solve these problems together as practice. I have found that students benefit from having pre-typed notes already in their notebook to refer to, along with guided practice. For multiplication and division, I teach: number line, repeated addition (or subtraction), array, area model, sets (equal groups). For double by single digit multiplication, I teach: Sets, Number Line, and Repeated Addition.

We also do property sorts. Our county focuses on Commutative and Identity Property of Multiplication for third graders.

We solve journal prompts a lot during this unit too. Students have to be familiar with every strategy because on our state tests, they will have to figure out the equation from a representation of the problem (number line, equal sets, repeated addition, etc.).

If you are interested in any of the activities in the pictures, you can check it out here. It also comes with some activities not pictured. I will be sure to come back and post more once we finish the unit.

Ice Cream Multiplication is also a big part of my students learning their facts. I use this freebie, from Rachel Parlett, to quiz my students each Wednesday on their facts. If the pass, they advance to the next level and if they don't they repeat. It all leads up to a big ice cream party in June!

Division Cookies and Humpday Highlight

Today, we jumped into division and the kids had a blast! Equal sets is typically the first division strategy I teach, so I thought I'd kick it off with food. I started by reading The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins. Have you ever read this book? It's super cute and a quick read. I remember reading this book when I was in elementary school. Basically, the mom makes 12 cookies for her son and daughter to share and they are happy because they each get 6. Then two more people come and they have to split the cookies by four, then six, and finally twelve.

After I read the book, I gave the students a recording booklet for our math interactive notebooks and a baggie with 24 pieces of store brand Cookie Crisp cereal. I told my students to take out twelve cookies from the bag and we worked through the booklet together, one row at a time, sorting our twelve cookies each time. Some students really struggled with this portion. They didn't understand (yet) how to figure out the number of groups to make.

When our booklets were done and the student had practiced with only twelve cookies, I had them take the remaining cookies out of their Baggie. I called out random division problems (with quotients less than 24) and had them sort their cookies to find the quotient. Eventually we eased into drawing circles with tallies instead of using the cookies and the students got to have their snack.

I will definitely be doing this lesson again next year, the students loved it and I really got to see who was struggling with the concepts. If you would like to try this activity with your students, just click on the pictures above for a free download. Let me know what you think!

Head over to Mrs. Stanford's Class for more Humpday Highlights!

Top Five from 2014 and a SALE!

I love the idea of ending 2014 with a look back at my year in blogging. It was been a rough road for me trying to juggle school, home, mommy-duties, church, and creating products along with blogging; which is why I was absent for a lot of 2014. I think that I'm finally getting into the swing of things and I am excited for the road that lies ahead. My goal for 2015 is to blog once a week and connect to at least one of blogger through commenting or some other form of social media once a day.

I decided to let you all be the judge of which posts made it into my top five. I was actually shocked to see the page views that some of my posts have accumulated since I first published them. These were definitely not the five I had in mind when I first came across Jivey's Top Five Linky. Before I get into the list, I just want to say thank you. Teachers are really the best. You all have been a great support and source of inspiration this year, both through conversation and through the opening of your classroom. I appreciate you all.

Now...Let's Roll

Also, Don't miss the New Years SALE happening in my TPT store right now! Just click the TPT button below!

See you next year!

How We Do Fluency in 3rd Grade

This post was UPDATED in March 2018, please click HERE to be directed to the new post with updated links and products. 

Take me to the updated post and FREEBIE!

Here in third grade, we practice fluency daily with:

-Word Lists
-Phrase Lists
-Passages/Running Records

My Mental Journey

I have had a love-hate relationship with fluency. As a third grade teacher, my students are subject to end of year, high-stakes testing for the first time. Fluency is not tested on these exams, students have all day to read the passages and test if they want. Comprehension is key. Not just on the end of year tests, but all year long comprehsnion is what is assessed and measured for mastery. Fluency has just been something we've done on the side, an add-on. I mean, third grade is the year students move from "learning to read" to "reading to learn", right?

Wrong. Well, at least for most of my kiddos. See, this year I have a group of very hard-working students who happen to be below grade level or the low end of on grade level. What I have found is that even though they can take as long as they would like on grade level comprehension assessments, they don't. Either they don't want to be the last one working or they just flat out lack the stamina. Fluency has been a crucial part of my reading instruction this year to help students close the gap while they are building stamina with testing. If they can read the words fluently and with accuracy, they will be less frustrated and they can spend more time making meaning from text since less time will be spent decoding. 

Fluency Centers

At the beginning of the school year, I had a great idea for fluency centers. I assigned the students partners based on the DRA assessment. I planned an elaborate schedule for when partners would visit the fluency center during Daily 5, asked for timers to be sent in, set up the center with directions, and had the students glue passages into their reading notebook for practice. "What a great idea," I thought; "This is going to be wonderful," I thought; "Other teachers will use this idea for sure," I thought; and then, reality hit. There I was in the middle of a reading group and all of a sudden, timers. Timers chiming and buzzing and beeping and absolutely driving.me.crazy. So, I came up with a new rule, you have 5 seconds to turn off the timer after it starts buzzing. Nope, that didn't help, I couldn't do it, I shut the center down.

Whole Group Fluency, Sort-Of

So, I invested all this time in creating fluency centers, partnering the students, and setting up a routine to find that it just didn't work for me. That's okay, teachers are like kids, we're all different and one thing won't work for everyone. I am just not the kind of teacher that can stay focused and deal with loud beeping noises interrupting the flow of my small groups. I knew I didn't want to stop fluency, like I said above, my students this year are still learning to read and they need it. I started squeezing in 5-10 minutes of fluency after our whole group lesson and quickly realized that we had found what works. After daily five, students grab their reading notebook and sit in their "fluency seat", next to their fluency parter. I set the egg timer on the Promethean Board for 1 minute (30 seconds in between each measure) and we get started with our routine.

Our Routine *All links are listed below

1. Word List from easycbm.com - Student pairs are numbered "student one" and "student two". The students have one minute to read as many words as they can. Student one reads the first word, student two the second word, and they continue to alternate words for the minute. Afterward, they have 30 seconds to record their progress on the graph on the back of the word list before we move on. If we have time we will do the word list again, with student two reading the first word so both students have an opportunity to read all of the words. (1-2 minutes of practice, 30 sec.-1 min. of transition time)

2. Phrase List - Students do the same procedure as above. They have one minute to read alternating phrases and then 30 seconds to graph on the back. We will do it a second time with student two reading first if we have time, if not, student two will read first next time. We practice reading the phrases properly (as questions, statements, or exclamations). (1-2 minutes of practice, 30 sec.-1 min. of transition time)

3. Passages from Ashleigh - I taught my students how to do running records. While one partner reads, the other tracks the errors. At the end of one minute, they calculate the amount of words read correct, graph their results, and switch. (2 minutes of practice, 1 min. of transition time)
TOTAL TIME: 6-9 minutes a day (once students are trained), with less time if you choose not to do all 3 measures in a day

Our New Fluency Center

One day, after working on a passage for over a week, I decided to model how to do a running record again. I read for a minute, using the document camera, and the students tracked my errors. I ended up getting much farther in the passage than any of them had and by the time the minute was over they were much more interested in hearing the rest of the story than pointing out my mistakes (which speaks volumes). I was so suprised that after daily practice on the same passage for over a week, none of them had actually finished reading the passage. That's when I decided to bring back the fluency center. 

So...I know I just did all that over-the-top ranting about how timers drive me crazy and now I'm bringing back the fluency center. I had to think of a way to make it work. I decided that during their time at the fluency center, students would just read lesiurely. Fluency doesn't always have to be timed, studies show that repeated readings are one of the best ways to build fluency. At the center, students take their time to read through their passage, phrase list, word list, and weekly poem. The goal is to simply get to the end of each measure to build context and familiarity. Since my students view timed fluency as a race, they love this extra practice time. One of my kids said they are practicing to win the challenge. The best part is, they were talking about beating their own score and not their partner.

Our Progress

My class has grown in leaps and bounds since we first started squeezing in fluency after our whole group lesson. I measure many of my kids with formal fluency assessments through the Aims Web program every other week. Most of the students I track were below or near their personal fluency target and now, they are close, at, or above. If fluency is a concern for your class as well, I really encourage you to put some practice in place daily or multiple times a week. It really does make a difference.

Check out some of the pictures from our Fluency Pockets below and scroll down for a freebie. Don't hesitate to leave me some of your thoughts for fluency in the upper grades.

Poem from The Teaching Oasis
Fluency Passage from Ashleigh

This is a picture of the back of the passage, where the students track their progress. When the graph is full and it's time to move on to a new passage, this page goes into their data binder. The back of the word list and phrase list also has a graph for tracking progress.

 Fry's Sight Word Phrases (link below)

Word List from Easy CBM

Interested in trying this out in your classroom? Grab the free pockets by clicking the link below. Also, check out some of these free fluency resources:

Easy CBM: word lists and passages by grade level

Fry Phrases: six lists with 100 words each
2nd-5th Grade Passages: from Mrs. Hultenius' site
1st-6th Grade Passages: McGraw-Hill
Fluency Pockets, Graphs, and Center Bookmark: from Adrienne, ha! Click the link and enjoy!

Synthesis Interactive Notebook

I have been using interactive notebooks for everything these days and the kids and I are loving it! The new buzz word in my classroom is "pizazz"! One day, a student said that I always add pizazz to my notebook pages by coloring and writing neatly and now they have pizazz contests every time we work in our notebook. I don't think I've ever had a class that loves notebooking more than me, I have been on cloud nine!

I started the lesson by asking my third graders what they knew about synthesis. Some students had good guesses relating to photosynthesis, but no one knew what I was getting at. We have been talking a lot lately about “thinking about our thinking” and I told them synthesis was one way to do that. I brought in Russian nesting dolls and held the stacked dolls up. I asked if any students had ever seen them before and only a couple had. I told the students that the doll represented their thinking after they were done reading. Then, I opened up the doll and started unstacking the smaller dolls. The kids got SO excited, by the time I looked back up, they had all inched at least 2 feet closer! I held up the smallest doll and told the students that it represented their thinking at the beginning of reading a book, small. They don’t know much about the book yet and they can only connect to that little bit they know. Then I held up each doll as explained that as they read, they learn more, they can connect to more, their thinking gets bigger, and their ideas grow. They totally got this! I had them glue a title notes strip to a blank page in their reading notebook and we highlighted key words (this can be found here, if your are interested).

Next, I told the kiddos that we were going to practice synthesis together and I pulled out The Littlest Matryoshka by Corinne Demas Bliss. The students really enjoyed this book. I created paper stacking dolls for students to glue into their notebook as a flipbook. We stopped after the first page, dicussed/filled out the smallest doll, and glued it in the middle of the notebook page.Throughout the book, we stopped, discussed, and added pages to our doll flipbook. Each time, I reminded the students that their thinking was getting bigger, so the doll was getting bigger. 

After the book, when our flipbook was completely assembled, we wrote on the first page underneath the title strip. I had my students start their paragraph by telling me what synthesis was and then add their sentences from the dolls as their detail sentences. They were asked to make their closing sentence a feeling, thought, or opinion of the book. This lesson took 3 days to complete, but the students were engaged every day. After the first day, I had a group of pulled students re-enter the room and the rest of the kids immediately started telling them what synthesis was, what the dolls looked like, and how the two fit together. It was awesome!

Below are some pictures of our learning:

(The anchor below we used with the book Emma Kate by Patricia Polacco.)

I still have a week or more of teaching synthesis after we return from winter break and I would love any ideas you have! Thanks for stopping by!