Moving Back To 3rd!

Back To 3rd! 




With a little help from SchoolGirlStyle!  OK so my decorating skills need some help and I'm sure Melannie of Schoolgirlstyle is  little embarrassed that this is my result so far! She has THE most AMAZING ideas for the cutest classrooms! You just have to go check this out-- SchoolGirlStyle!!

Aren't you in LOVE?!

The adorable lanterns are from her and also a few items you can't see. My favorite for this year are these cute clothes pins! I have added on by stealing this pushpin idea from my old teammate! A little hot glue and you have a perfect way to hang things up! We use reading and writing workshop - so that means charts, charts, and more charts that need to be changed. So this is much cuter than binder clips, but works just as well!

Math Thinking

Sharing Math Thinking

At our school we use a lot of SVMI (being so close to Silicon Valley it's hard not to!) We create posters of our thinking. This year I gave students in each group a sticker and if they agreed with the thinking and felt the group reached the correct conclusion they gave a sticker.

How else do you share your mathematical thinking/reasoning to get your class collaborating and stretching their math minds? We do number talks but I wanted more ways to look at word problems - thoughts? Please share!

Teacher Appreciation

Oh my goodness!! Feeling SO spoiled today!

This was such an amazing year looping with this group of kiddos. Thank you families and students for such an awesome year!  Happy Teacher Appreciation Week to all my fellow teacher bloggers!



Our PTO did a Super Hero theme...that's me and my class! What a great surprise!

Do You Use Donors Choose?

I am such a HUGE fan of DonorsChoose and I just want to make sure people are aware of this AMAZING resource! New teachers this is THE GREATEST SITE to get FREE RESOURCES for your classroom!

My school is high poverty and our salary isn't great - especially for CA- so having a way to get materials for my kiddos that isn't out of pocket? Fabulous!  It is one of my favorite things to tell *NEW* teachers about!

Ok so here's some of the amazing things I have gotten over the years -- totally free!

Multiplication Materials

Gold Rush Materials

Super Comfy Rug and Bean Bag Chair

   

Leveled Non Fiction Books/Bins

Supplies to start the year and make my huge B2School Shopping list MUCH easier- and cheaper! (We pay out of pocket in our district- no reimbursement either. Talk about a LIFE SAVER! I)


You shop online from DonorsChoose partners, tell people what you will do if you were lucky enough to have someone fund your project. That's it! Then if your project is funded you take some pictures of how happy your class is to have these resources and write a thank you letter. Easy-Peasy and SO worth it!


Do you use DonorsChoose? What projects have you posted? I love looking at other projects to spark my creativity!

The CA Gold Rush

CA Gold Rush is HUGE in California for 4th grade. I was shocked how hard it was to find resources in my classroom and on the web.  So I turned to Donorschoose and got really lucky to have wonderful donors support my project! Thank you Donors!! Now we can RESEARCH to learn about the Gold Rush.





 The most loved book we got was The California Gold Rush Interactive (You Choose) book from Amazon

By: Elizabeth Raum

This is like the old books I used to read in the dentist's office or even more recent Give Yourself Goosebumps by R.L. Stine. The students LOVED getting to pick what they would do and see the results. How to get out west? You choose! I would read the choices let them think of what they would pick and then turn and talk and try to convince their partner to agree with evidence from our social studies readings. The conversations were SO detailed and animated! Thank you Elizabeth Raum for such a great book to have students interact with history!

We used the books to complete our Workshop Unit on History to Life!