Erupting with Science! *Freebies! And Winners!

First of all,


WINNER! YEYAH!



These are the three lovely winners of my 200 follower giveaway!Natalie from Teacher Tidbits with comment #12Staci from Let's Teach Something with comment #33Misty from Think, Wonder, and Teach with comment #48
I'll be emailing you ladies so you can choose any two items from my TPT store! 
And on to the new news. This is the post I've been promising for, like, a month. Our fast changes to the earth unit took forever. This is because I don't know how to keep things simple. I group as many millions of standards as possible together and teach stuff into the ground. You're gonna learn the heck about volcanoes! Until forever.
So these are some of the things we did. At the bottom of this post is the product where you can do many of these activities, too, including the writing pieces, and a freebie! So stay tuned, at least till the bottom of the page.
We started off by watching (of course) a Brain Pop and using the basic information there to identify the causes of changes to Earth's surface. Plate tectonics. The kids had some background knowledge from when they did their whole continents hoopla (you can read about that here), so they at least remembered the terms "continental drift" and "tectonic plates" and "Pangea".
Then we introduced some of the changes that these shifting plates can cause and recorded them on a foldable about volcanoes, earthquakes, and landslides. This foldable is included in the pack below.

We read several articles about volcanoes, including this one about Pompeii. We practiced identifying important ideas and using context clues.

Then I thought, "Hey! I have to teach all these poetry standards. Why not do it in a poem about..." you guessed it. Volcanoes!!

So we read a poem from a Safari reader called "Lava and Ash." we used it to identify stanza, rhyme pattern, rhythm, meter, and poetic language.
We made a poster of all of that here:

We labeled the different characteristics of a poem and identified the main ideas of each stanza.

This is our figurative language foldable. On the outside, there are lines from the poem.

On the inside, we used specific language to talk about
why the poet chose to do different things with language.

I didn't include the poetry stuff in the pack, because I didn't think I could use the poem! obviously - I didn't write it, lol.
THEN, nope, still not done yet. never gonna be done with these darn volcanoes and stuffwe did a TON of activities with earthquake and landslide vocabulary and causes and effects. You can see these here, where we glued them onto posters.

Each one includes the title, diagram of a volcano (see freebie below!) most devastating earthquakes chart (included in pack), causes and effects of landslides (a different version is in the pack) earthquake vocabulary foldable (included in pack) and types of volcanoes foldable (a different version of this is included in the pack; it's a chart instead of a foldable).

Earthquake vocabulary foldable

Types of volcanoes foldable

Not done yet! I still had to stretch it into a three-week-long writing project! So, here's what we did. We started out by charting the positive and negative language used to describe volcanoes. This is what we noticed through our wide reading and video watching.

 Then students had to decide: do volcanoes save the world or destroy the world? We planned out our writing using this graphic organizer

This is also included in the Science Pack at TPT or Teacher's Notebook.

After we planned, I noticed some students were having difficulty staying focused within their paragraphs. Some of their paragraphs were also redundant, or repeated. So I had them cut and glue to reorganize based on main ideas. It helped. 

This is what that looked like:

First draft writing is never pretty. We cut a sentence at a time and marked their main ideas in a color so they could make sure they were connected.

They drafted, revised again, using STAR revision (see post here) and edited.

Then we published! This writing project is all included in my Science Pack.

After that, I had my lovely intern stick it all up on the wall in the hallway with the creative *sarcastic* title "Volcano World" that I came up with. Let's just say that by then, I was kind of done.

She did, however, make it more creative than I would have by making the letters look all lava-y. I can only imagine how much time that took.

The kids had a blast 

no pun intended

well, yeah, I guess it was a little intended

once I realized it was a pun

and you can do a lot of these activities, too! 

Just grab my Fast Changes to the Earth Science Pack at TPT or Teacher's Notebook!

At least grab the freebies at TPT. Both pages are part of the same document. Leave me some love, here or there!

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Tasty Fractions *Fractions Freebie!

So we're still working with fractions.
And we'll probably be working fractionsforever cause when I mentioned it and said, "Remember this from second grade?" about a third of my kids said, "Nope."
Soooo, we're only working with identifying them. We've watched a lot of BrainPop and used lots of different activities to practice this concept, including the Giant Fractions Foldable from my Furry Friends Fractions Pack, at TPT and Teacher's Notebook. 
Today, I introduced fractional parts of sets. It actually went reeeeeeaaaalllly well.
Why? 
Cause chocolate.That's why.
Chocolate makes everything better.
First, we opened our package of M&Ms....
mmmmm....

chocolately gooodness.....
Then, kids sorted by color 

and recorded their data.

Then we identified the fractional parts for each color, and some color combinations.

Then, of course, we wrote about it.
But guess what.
I took a picture, I thought, of a kid's writing.
But then, I opened the picture just now
and it was a picture of my shoes.
Which I deleted.

So I don't have a picture of that.
It was just "I learned..." and "What I still don't understand is..."

This is what we used, and you can get it for FREE at TPT! Just drop me a comment here or some feedback or a rating there!

Tomorrow we're gonna do some cool fraction station stuff with a pizza fractions thingy I made. I'm going to test it out and put it up on TPT after I find out how it goes! I'll try to do pictures.

And don't forget about my 200+ follower giveaway! Check it out here!

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Writing Collections *Linky Party!

Courtney at Swimming into Second is having a writing portfolio linky party!
I'm on Spring Break!  I will have to continue to mention this daily But I made sure to take some pictures before I left. 
This year, our campus began a bunch of new writing initiatives. Stuff to keep us aligned. One of these was a writing porftolio. Not a fancy one; just a record of student writing samples in different genre so we can send it to their next teacher.
This is the way I do mine (and a lot of us do it this way, too). Each student has a file folder with a checklist on the cover. These are the genre our kids have to write in (standards based) Personal Narrative, Imaginative Narrative, Poetry, Expository, Procedural, Letter, Text Response, and Persuasive. We call it their "Writing Collection."

I only have Procedural and Persuasive left.

The pieces go inside. When we've written more than one piece in a genre, 

I have them choose the best one. It's good for evaluating their own writing.

Bonus info!

While we are working on a writing piece, we use our Writing Process Folders.
Some of our teachers went to a training over the summer and saw this cool way to organize student writing. I'll probably change it up a little next year to have a special publishing pocket, but this is the way they look now.

They're pretty worn- we use them all the time!

You take two pocket folders and put one inside the other. Using a giant stapler, staple them together. It's like a giant folder with four pockets.

One is prewriting. We put our plans and quickwrites here. 

Then there's drafting and revising. Some have the S.T.A.R. graphic here as well.

You can read about STAR revising here.

Then there's my five-finger editing hand. Each finger represents a different component of editing. I change it every year, depending on what that group of kids needs. Four are consistent: spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar. Sometimes the fifth represents spaces between words, handwriting, or paragraphs (indent).

Next year, I guess I'll combine revising & editing, but a piece of me really doesn't want to do it. Kids already mix them up, and there are big differences and each one is necessary. So I'll have to think about what to do. Because now, we have to use our Editing pocket for Publishing, too, and I'm not crazy about that.

Suggestions?

So another initiative that's new this year is our school-wide writing picture prompts. Each month (sometimes we combine two months, like November & December) the entire school (office staff and administration included) responds to the same picture. You can respond in any genre (whatever genre you're supposed to be writing in) as long as it connects to the picture. Then, every teacher posts the entire class' responses in the hallway along with the picture.

This is my December response. January is a text response about a lion article.
I'll post up the latest one when we go back from Spring Break and I actually take a picture.

They're poems about winter, because the picture has a family dressed in winter clothes,

 next to a snowman they built.

My kids really enjoy seeing how other classes respond to the pictures. 

Grab the  tools you need to make your own writing collection folders and writing process folders here in my Writer's Workshop Resource on TpT!

So, how do you collect your student's writing? Visit Courtney at Swimming into Second and link up!

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Dun Dun Dunnnn. Fractions. *Freebie!

Today was exactly 18,000 times better than yesterday.

I didn't post yesterday
cause I didn't want to sound bitter
and anything at all I could've written yesterday
would have been bitter.

But today was a GREAT day,
despite two office referrals for hitting other kids on the bus.
(Not me. My kids)

This is what we did today that went so well.
We've been working on author's purpose using my Author's Purpose Pack.
Today, during Reader's Workshop, we reviewed the four author's purposes we've been working with
*to explain how
*to inform
*to persuade
*to entertain.

I put kids into partners and we set up a tree map with the four headings.

Then I gave them a sheet from my pack that had a short text from each of these four purposes. The topic was the same (birds) but there was a story about birds, a procedural on how to take care of birds, an informative piece about birds, and a persuasive piece convincing you to buy a bird.

I read each piece out loud and had the kids talk to their partners about what evidence they could find to support the author's purpose.
We sorted.
We checked.
We did well!

Grab this as part of my Author's Purpose Pack from TPT or Teacher's Notebook.

Incidentally, it would also make a pretty great foldable. I didn't think of that till just now. Oh well.

So for partner practice, I had them practice the same skill with other pieces; these were about snowmen (how to make a snowman, information about snowmen, a story about a snowman, and a persuasive about building a snowman.

I was so relieved- as I listened to the conversations kids had with their buddies, I was finally able to find evidence of my teaching.

I heard things like
Well, the author's not asking the reader to DO anything, so it's not to persuade.
I see a character, so I think it's an entertaining story.
Oh! These are steps on how to take care of a bird, so it's to explain how.

I almost cried.

But then, later in math, I almost cried for a different reason.

Fractions.

This standard is introduced before third grade, but when we started working with fractions on Monday, (most of) my kids stared at me like I was speaking Greek.
Or Math, which I have found is a new language to them as well.

So I needed them to get some basic practice with identifying fractions and using equal parts in one whole to identify denominators.

So I spent some time putting together a fractions foldable for them to sort and identify fractional parts of wholes. This is what it looked like.








I was hoping to help kids use it to hunt for examples of fractions in anything we did during math.

For example, after they finished a handout on fractions, they could cut it up and sort them into halves, third, fourths, etc., and glue them into their foldable.

It's a great fast finisher activity, too, once you've got it all set up!

So, some of us are pretty good at fractions.

Some of us were writing some pretty weird stuff in this foldable, despite the modeling.

So we're going to spend tomorrow in two groups - I kinda know what's goin on

...and I kinda don't.

I'll let you know how it goes.

In case you're interested (purpose: to persuade) I am posting my Furry Friends Fractions Pack, which includes instructions and pieces to cut out for the giant fractions foldable above. It's a big one - 46 pages of fractiony goodness.



 Grab it at TPT!

And here's a rectangle fractions freebie for you.
Grab it at TPT.

Clipart from GingerSnaps Treats for Teachers and KPM Doodles

Fonts from Kevin & Amanda

Happy Fractioning!

Saturday School Boo Hoo and Area!

I hope you enjoyed your Dr. Shoosh Day today! There was a lot of Shooshiness at our school, but in third grade, we don't really get to do anything.

I do have Saturday School tomorrow, though, so there you go.
I know, I didn't even do anything wrong. And I'm still being punished.

We do Saturday School for kids who are struggling to prepare the The Test. That's really what it is.
We do get paid.
We don't HAVE to do it, but we kind of HAVE to do it, because if we don't, somebody else has to work with our kids, and what creep dumps their kids on somebody else and doesn't show up? AND if the kid doesn't pass, it's like, "And she didn't do Saturday School and let him fail?!"

This year, we also have additional Saturday School days to address "Summer School." Why? Cause there's not enough $$ for summer school this year.
Personally, I think Summer School is a bunch of bologna
(Have you noticed it's not satisfying to spell it 'bologna'? It feels better baloney).
It's baloney the way we do it, anyway.

It's, like, ten half-days of a super structured curriculum.
But let's stop and think about why kids are in summer school.....
1. They can't read.
2. They can't focus.
3. They can't take a test.

If they can't take a test, maybe the curriculum will help. Probably not. Test-taking strategies might.
If they can't focus, a boring worksheet curriculum won't help at all, for sure.
If they can't read, the only thing that will help is reading instruction focused at filling in the gaps they have. Not a boring worksheet curriculum written at grade level.
And ten days? We couldn't do it in 180. 10 isn't gonna make a dent.
SO it's baloney.

This is what we did this week. Stuff like this MIGHT help. For math, at least. For reading, I think I already addressed it in my "Guided Reading" vegetables or whatever post.
So that's my rant.


This week, we were working with area. In our Math Notebooks, we did a little writing about area, including my area song.
Ready?
Super easy.
To the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell."

Area is inside.
Area is inside.
Count the squares inside the shape
cause area is inside.

I know, right? It all makes sense now.

It addresses the standard for third graders where I live - they have to be able to count up square units including half-units. But you could easily change the third line to something, "Find the space inside the shape," or something else.

We, by which I mean, my student teacher, (oh, the blessings of someone else to crawl around the floor) taped off various areas in the classroom using masking tape. We labeled these as Area Stations, A-E. Some were simple arrays, and some were more complicated, using half-squares that had to be combined.

The kids circulated through the stations in teams, sketched, and recorded the area of each shape on the output side of their notebooks. Yes, graph paper would have been ideal.
Shocker: I was not prepared. So we did without. 
Everybody was ok.

We kept it simple because that's where they are at this stage of the concept.
The best part? Kids could stand in the squares, move through the squares, count them by touching. Their little fingers could DO something. And they got to 'help' each other - I LOVE to hear kids actually helping and demonstrating, rather than just telling an answer.
Verbalizing thought processes=learning :)

They got a kick out of it, it was suuuuuuppppper easy and everybody learned something! :) Of course, the last step in their notebooks was to write about what they learned.

AND! Ta-DA!
My Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato Literacy Pack! YAY!
This is why I did a pack for both Jamie O'Rourkes: I found my Pooka book first, so I did it first. Then, I found my Big Potato book, and thought.... yup, I'm doing this one. So the week before Spring Break (a.k.a. Thank God Week), we're going to do some work with the Big Potato book, but either one would be cool.  You can get it at TPT or Teacher's Notebook! 

Warning: No value to this post whatsoever *Freebie

Ah, bacon and eggs. The staples of my diet.
And a glass of wine.
I'm not much fancy.

On a post the other day, Laura asked me "How do you find the time?" because I've posted a lot of products in a short amount of time.

I'm just going to speak honestly.
This is mostly because I'm nuts.
I'm nuts in that I am perfectly happy working till 5:30, coming home after work, sitting on the couch while shoving eggs and bacon in my face, watching Sarah Silverman while blogging/making stuff/planning/complaining to friends on the phone.

I think that might make me sound bitter.

My mother always says, "You always have time for the things you do first."
She makes up a lot of stuff, but this one is true.
What do I do first? Sit and work on my laptop.

I do other stuff too.
These things include...
going to my mom's house and looking in the fridge.
avoiding taking my brother to Barnes & Noble because he's too expensive.
going to my other brother's house and demanding free stuff they've gotten from extreme couponing
watching movies while eating enormous amounts of butter with a little popcorn
sitting at my hunny's house watching Fringe or Mad Men
playing board games
watching my dogs bother the cats
reading
visiting friends and drinking quantities of wine

Okay, I just realized I do WAY less stuff than I used to do.
I used to have adventures all the time. I think my hunny made me more content to stay home.


In case you're interested in other mother-isms, (things my mother says) here are a couple:

• "Nobody knows what I know." said in a very spooky voice.
• "Neither a leader nor a follower be." Sound familiar? It's modified from Shakespeare's "Neither a lender nor a borrower be." But she thinks she has it right.
• "Nobody knows how dumb you are until you open your mouth." She's not talking to "you" exactly; it's more of a generalization.

There are lots more. These are the first three I thought of when I thought of my mother. She's very quotable.

Can you tell I don't want to talk about work?

I will say two things:
1. I'm working on another Jamie O'Rourke unit, but this one is for Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato.
2. Today, I had a walk-through from my principal. Two of my kids actually approached the guided reading table during a guided reading lesson. This is forbidden. You never come to the table unless you're already at the table. I nearly lost it. I was furious, because these two were being deliberately naughty! Then I read my evaluation. "Great job multitasking between guided reading group and the rest of the class. Good job redirecting." Phwew. Not what I would've written, but I'm thankful.

Sorry about this valueless post. I've had quantities of wine that will go unwritten. Tomorrow should be better.

I was about to write, "And at least it's Friday!" but I have to teach Saturday School for nine Saturdays.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Want a March calendar? Grab it at TPT.