I'm Back!

Blogging world, I'm back!

I have finally gotten back into the swing of things!  After a long (and very restful) summer, it is time to think about school again.  For my school, teachers don't have to report back for another two weeks, and school starts a week or so after that.

This week I attended a three-day conference about implementing Core Knowledge into your classroom instruction.  My teaching partner and I got some great ideas and were able to map out our year's curriculum!  What I like about our map is that we are using our language arts block to teach science and social studies content.  It should be (fingers crossed!) a very nicely integrated time of the day.  If you want to know more about Core Knowledge, visit their website here.  I am excited to challenge my students this year!

The conference ended yesterday, and now I am just PUMPED to get back into the classroom and implement all of these new ideas I have.  So.... I spent my day at school today!  My partner and I got a lot done!

First, we copied, cut, and bound 65 of these lovely spelling dictionaries.  It was quite the undertaking!  This is one of my favorite purchases from TpT... check it out here!  

What I liked about this dictionary is that, along with the a-z pages, it included pages for special categories of words, like "family", "pets", and "friends".  I think this book will be awesome for my ELL lovelies to ensure that they are spelling common words correctly.

We also looked at each of our classroom libraries and labeled our books using the Accelerated Reading scale.  I just used a sticky note for now.  Later, I will go back and add colored circle labels that the students will look at to find their "just right" book.

It's been quite a day!  I am excited to start re-arranging and decorating my classroom... but, there is a small chance 3rd grade might be moving to different classrooms.  Crossing my fingers that that's not the case... I don't want to move all of my stuff!

Until next time,

-Miss Woodward