Five for Friday- November 14

It's Friday again, so I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the weekly Five for Friday!  Here's what happened this week in Miss Woodward's Class.

1.  Celebrating!

A good friend and coworker, Mrs. Elbert, celebrated her birthday this past weekend!  She is such a special lady, and I was excited to be able to share in her special day.  And now she is expecting her first child, so we had even more to celebrate!

Me, Mrs. Boos, Ms. Eichhorn, and Mrs. Elbert celebrating Mrs. Elber't's birthday.

2.  Pushing through the Polygons

 We started our unit on polygons in math this week.  For my ELL students, learning polygon names and characteristics is really hard.  One of the first things we did with polygons was create a foldable to help remember polygon names and qualities.

On the outside flap, we wrote the name of the polygon (triangle, square, rectangle, rhombus, parallelogram, pentagon, hexagon, octagon).  On the inside flaps, we cut out an example of the polygon, and wrote characteristics of the polygon.

The only materials we needed were large 11" by 17" paper, some shapes to cut out, scissors, glue, and a pencil!  It was a simple project to introduce polygons!

3.  You've Got Mail!

For writing this month, 3rd grade is working on writing letters.  My team and I decided to make the task into a grade-level project.  We set up each student with a pen-pal in one of the other classes.  Their job is to write a letter to their buddy and address it to the correct class.

Each classroom is going to have a mailbox outside their class.  Once students write their letters, they will give it to the "mail carrier" of the class.  The "mail carrier" will deliver the letters to the correct mailbox.  The "mail carrier" will then collect the mail from their class' mailbox and distribute it to the students.  

Here is my class' mailbox.  I made it out of a cereal box covered in paper.  I used velcro squares to attach it to the wall in the hallway.  Isn't it neat?!  Can't wait to see how this writing project turns out!

4.  Dia de los Muertos

At the end of the day, we mix up all of the 3rd graders and have an intervention time.  Some groups get extra help in reading, and some in math.  In my group, we have been reading about Dia de los Muertos lately.  A middle school teacher saw the book laying on my desk and offered to bring in some authentic sugar skulls.  The kids went nuts for them!  Lots of "oohs" and "ahhs" were heard.

5.  Best for Last… Curriculum Night!

Thursday night was Curriculum Night at our school, and I was the representative for 3rd grade.  The idea behind the event was giving students and parents ideas of reading and math activities to do together at home.

Time and time again at conferences, parents tell me that they don't have access to the public library, and don't have books at home.  In my room for curriculum night, I printed off a variety of books from Reading A-Z for parents and students to take to read together.  I made sure to have a variety of levels available.  Some parents took four or five books!

I am also a firm believer in having kids talk with their parents about what they are reading.  To get the conversation going, I had students create a "story cube".  I found it on superteacherworksheets.com.  I printed it on card stock for durability, and had them cut and tape it together themselves.  I also showed them how their parents can roll the cube, and the students can answer the question on the cube using the book they just read together.  I printed off 50 of these cubes, and I had less than 10 left at the end of the night!  At some points, my room was so busy that I couldn't even greet everyone in there!  It was awesome!  I really hope that parents and students start to read together at home.

What happened this week in your class?

Until next time,
-Miss Woodward