Bitmoji Classroom

We started our learning online and we needed a way to make the links easy to access enter, Bitmoji Classroom! I'll admit I was skeptical at first as I thought it was merely for a cute effect, but I was wrong! Here is what it looked like while we were learning from home.

This site has helped us stay organized. It helped immensely when we were learning in a remote setting becuase the kids were able to login to our Google Meet on their own and easily see what pictures we were asking them to click on while in class. Toggling between tabs was a whole other thing but moving on...  It was user friendly for our first graders and the fun factor of Bitmoji helps too. Ha!

Now tha we're back in the classroom I'm still finding it very useful. I've created slides for our Must Do May Do station time in both reading and math. I've also done a digital word wall, and am currently working on an intervention page. 

It's helping when students are absent too. The kid are able to access the Must Do May Do lists and can work on them from home if they have access to a device. The images are all links to these platforms and the kids can access the assignent from there.

If you're teaching remotely or in person I hope it's going well for you! 

How are you using Bitmoji in your classroom?

Mentor Text of the Month

There are tons of books out there and as Jen Jones says, you need to read tons and tons of books to get good enough to help kids. I stumbled upon this one last year and just have rediscovered how much I love it!

This one is a gem....

Teaching Points:

Plot

Summarizing

Setting

Settings can change.

Characters feelings change.

Illustrations help us understand the story.

Verbs

Lesson

Theme

Kevin is a Koala who likes his life the way it is in the savannah. People encourage him to try new things, but he doesn't like change so he stays in his safe tree. Then one day his tree is knocked down and he learns that trying something new can actually be the most fun!

The illustrtions are amazing, and the message is great. 

Your students will love it!

Happy reading!

Individual Supplies for Hands-on Activities

In the current situation our students can't have common supplies. Our team still wanted students to have hands on materials so we came up with a plan!

Indivudaly supply trays! The goal was to spend as little money as possible, but still give the kids items that could be used only by them. Many of the items we had in our classrooms, but some items we did have to purchase of Dolllar Tree and Amazon.

I had many skinny baskets for turning in papers, but I needed more so I ordered these from Oriental Trading. 

They fit perfectly in the one side of the students desk.

Inside the basket...

Small plastic conainer with 2 dice. You can always give different dice to students to differentiate.

Reusable makeup remover pad (From Dollar Tree) to be used as an eraser

Bag of 20 counters- used unifix blocks, foam squares, Target erasers erc. Each kid has their own object so if one falls on the floor we know who it belongs to and can return it without a problem.

Bumpy board- Orton Gilligham tool.

Play doh for word work.

Dry erase pocket with cardstock inserts for hands on math and reading practice.We have been able to use less paper because we turned a lot of the papers into cardstock inserts for the dry erase pockets.

Pencil Sharpener- works well for some students and others can't handle it so use your judgement here.

Magnet Letters

Number cards 1-20

Word wallet- we put our weekly word cards in here. To make: fold a sheet of cardstock in half long ways, fold in half the other way and stape the ends.

These items have become so helpful to us. 

If you have ideas share them in the comments below! We are better when we work together!

Mixed Math Fact Station

My favorite kind of math stations are those that can easily be implemented, have flexible uses, and can be differentiated. I like to be able to put something out and allow the kids to use it repeatedly if possible. This makes less prep for me, and allows the kids to feel like they can complete the task.

This station is one of the kids' favorites.
The kids can work together or independently on this station.

There are also 2 levels of practice which keeps everyone engaged. The purple ones are addition and subtraction. The yellow, pink and orange set have multipilcation and 3 addends.

After they practice this one a few times I give them blank templates of these petals and centers so they can create their own. This increases rigor, and the kids love creatiing stations that a peer must complete.

What stations do you find the most helpful to your students?
Interested in this one!? Here it is!

Read Alouds That Help You Teach 3rd Grade Skills

I always enjoy introducing a topic using a book. If it's the right book it can hook the kids immediately & honestly I really enjoy reading a great book out loud. It always makes me feel really connected to the class and I always walk away from it feeling joyful. I think that has a lot to do with how the kids respond too. If I like the book, it shows and they tend to enjoy it more when it seems I'm enjoying it. Some of my favorite memories are of us reading a book together as s class.
Here are just a few from this past year that caused fantastic class conversations and student "Ah-ha" moments...

Exclamation Mark
I read this one near the beginning of the year and it helped us review ending punctuation. This book is SO MUCH fun to read. The kids & I just laugh when the question mark shows up. Ha! I actually read this one a few times this year because we loved it so much & the extra exposure helped students that struggle pick up on the humor if they didn't understand it the first time.

Duck. Rabbit!
It's a Duck! No, It's a Rabbit! Haha! The kids were all talking during this read aloud that helped us to understand Point of View. I also was able to link this one to opinion writing & persuasive statements. After we read a few pages I stopped and had them jot down a couple reasons that supported their opinion of duck or rabbit. They shared those ideas with a neighbor to help them see their point of view and maybe even persuade their neighbor to change their mind. There were so many great conversations happening during this one. We read this one more than once as well to remind the kids of the skills learned.

Who Would Win? Lobster vs. Crab
This series is AMAZING! If you don't have these in your classroom library they are a must for your Scholastic wish list this year. The kids absolutely devoured these once I read one out loud. I had to require that they only keep 1 in their book box so others in the class could read them! This is the kind of problem I want to have in my classrooms always!
I used these books to teach opinion writing and persuasive statements. The kids would have a pencil and paper as I read the fact pages about each animal. When I do this I only read the fact pages that really help support their opinions so be sure you read through the book first and plan which  pages you'll read. They would jot down notes about each creature and naturally conversations began to occur. "The lobster will win because..." and "That trait will help the crab in a fight".  Now at the end of these books there is a "fight scene" between the two creatures and one ends up the "winner".  I stop just before the fight scene and we complete the following activity...
We would review how to write a strong opinion paragraph. Then using the facts they jotted down they wrote who they thought would win and why.  After everyone had created their paragraph I would read the end. When I read the endings they were on the edge of their seats people! You could hear a pin drop in my class & then when it's finally over TONS of conversation about their opinions would occur. Now I know this sounds like chaos, but if you listen closely you hear them sharing text evidence about why the ending has to be wrong or right. I had one student this past year who read the bull shark version with a partner and he was so adamant that the ending was wrong that he was referencing other books. It was great and also convincing. After hearing his evidence I even thought there might be a misprint in the book. I even encouraged him to write a letter to the author. :)  He was engaged, reading, researching, and thinking! It doesn't get much better than that does it!?

Amelia Bedelia 4 Mayor
Oh Amelia! This lady is always doing the craziest stuff! At first I thought these would be too childish, but really when you read Amelia Bedelia it takes a lot of word knowledge to fully understand the humor in her books. So I gave it a try this year to teach homonyms and figurative language. When I read these out loud it was a slow read in a way. Meaning, I had to pause a lot because there was so much humor they were missing. This book ended up taking us 3 read aloud sessions because we took the time to understand what was really happening in small sessions. I also had the class say whether it was figurative language or a confused homonym when we came across those classic "Amelia Moments". After reading this out loud the kids started picking these up on their own and pointing out confused homonyms to me or a neighbor. Success!

Oh The Places You'll Go!
I LOVE this book. It might be my all time favorite picture book after this year. It may have been the first time I read it and the kids really understood it. I used this book to teach figurative language this past year. I wrote some of the figurative phrases on a chart paper. As we read we paused and the students made sense of them together. Then we wrote what the phrase meant in kid friendly language next to the figurative phrase. I felt so proud of them after this lesson. Figurative language is so hard to understand and they really worked together & thought hard about each page. They walked away from the carpet feeling like they could do anything!

Books can connect our kids to so many concepts & it's important for us to remember how much our older elementary students enjoy hearing a story.
What are your go-to books to read out loud & teach skills?

The Reading Strategies Book: Goal 5

Thanks so much to Literacy Loving Gals for organizing this book study and getting the word out on this extremely helpful reading strategy resource. I love the way this book is set up and I know I'll be referring to it often this school year.

 Today I'm sharing some details on Goal 5 of The Reading Strategies Book, which is all about understanding plot and setting. Basically it's about understanding what is happening in the book. 

A big part of this is visualizing. Children must explicitly be taught this skill.

This Goal is perfect for me because I'm constantly saying the following phrase to my class...

 These visualizing skills are so important to develop and model to students. 

So often this step is skipped because it's a skill that is done automatically in mature readers. When this step is skipped children tend to become readers that finish books, but can never tell you about the book they're reading. As a child, I was one of these readers. My eyes would move and I was decoding words, but it wasn't going anywhere. Literally. Nowhere. I pictured very little as I read until I was a bit older and a wonderful teacher said, "You have to picture it. Put yourself in that book." From that day on I LOVED to read. Now I stress the importance of the skill in my own classroom. Seriously, by the end of the year they're all saying, "We know Mrs. M! Make a Movie in Your Mind!"

It makes me so happy when it sticks...

Here are a few strategies from the chapter that can help your students become active, thinking readers that are able to visualize.

Reactions Help You Find the Problem

This strategy is all about teaching students the importance of noticing how the character is reacting to a situation in the books. Further the author, Jennifer Seravello, encourages the teacher to use an extension prompt such as, "What does that reaction tell you about what he or she is feeling?" 

This strategy could be completed in a Double Entry Journal. You could also have the students put post-its in their books with an explanation of the character's reaction at that point.  

An example used in the book is from Charlotte's Web when Fawn is "shrieking" because she discovers Papa is planning, "to do away the pig". That word, "shrieking" can really make an impression on a reader and we want to teacher our young ones to pick up on clues like these.

Practice makes permanent!

Chapter-End Stop Signs

At the end of each chapter the students will write one important event from that chapter. This could be done on a post-it and placed at the end of the chapter. It could also be completed on a paper like the one they showed in the book below.  

This a great way to get students thinking and reflecting about what they read. 

It would also help them with retelling and summarizing skills.

Series Books Have Predictable Plots

The author suggests using this strategy with your book clubs or reading groups. Throughout the book the students would discuss similarities between the plots of the books in the same series. Then to extend on that encourage the students to use what they know about that pattern to predict what will happen in the current book they're reading. 

They use the example of The Magic Tree House, which is the perfect example in my opinion. After reading a couple of these the students should see the pattern of the book. The book club could create a poster like the one shown in the book. 

This poster shows how students were actively thinking and comparing throughout their book club. We then want this process to carry over into independent reading. Again, practice makes permanent!

Another idea I thought of to include some writing would be to create a story with a similar pattern as the series they're reading. It would be their own version of an adventure with those characters in a similar plot line.

You guys need to pick up this book! It's easy to utilize & implement the strategies listed.

Thanks for stopping by & Thanks to The Literacy Loving Gals for inviting me to join in!

BTS in a Flash! Student Engagement

Hello everyone! It's the final week of BTS in a Flash! This linky has been so much fun & I've found so many great ideas! Thanks to our hosts for setting all of this up! :)
This week's topic is student engagement...

These little traffic cones with positive sayings on them make my kids work SO hard. As soon as I start giving them out the participation in class shoots way up! I found them at the Dollar Tree. I've seen them each year around back to school time for about the past four years, but if you see them buy them! They go quickly! 

I give these out for exceptional answers, hard work, kind acts, and great effort! When the kids earn a cone they also write a note home to their parent to let them know they earned it and how they earned it. It sits on the corner of their desk for the day & then they're returned to be used again the next day. 

I didn't have a picture of the cones so I used this photo of the cones from Crockett's Classroom. She has a post about these where she adds a little something to spice them up. Check it out!

Behavior bucks were a huge hit this past year. The kids could earn $5.00 each day if they followed classroom rules, completed their work, got along with others etc. They would save the money and then they could spend it on reward coupons (see below). Also, once a quarter I would have a special event such as donut morning where they could spend the earned paper money to buy a donut. The kids were really motivated to stick to our rules so they could keep their money. They also got a lot of practice in trading money because they always wanted the higher bills. So it was helpful in two ways! I love it when that happens!

These are the coupons that I mentioned earlier. These were great because the rewards on the coupons cost me little to no money and the kids loved them! I'd say the favorites were, "Sit in the Teacher's Chair" and "Homework Pass". The kids really wanted to save their Behavior Bucks so they could purchase the coupons.

What are your tips for keeping students engaged?

An InLinkz Link-up