First Full Week... I'm tired! Five for Friday {9-12-14}

T.G.I.F.! 

Welcome back to the blog for another edition of Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching. 

Here's what I've been up to this week! 

S.L.A.N.T

I got my slant box this week from my amazing slantbox partner, Jenna.
Her teaching blog is Passionate About Primary.

Check out her blog as she starts her first year in a 1/2 combo class. 

Jenna really took the time to get to know me over the month of August. 

I was very impressed with the things that she decided to send me

and the time that she took to make the box special. 

If you're interested in signing up check out Jameson's Blog

to her how to "Send Love Across the Nation to Teachers!"

MATH

Sometimes know as the other 4 letter word....

but not all of the time :)  (I kid, I kid....)

We've hit the ground running this week with math and so far so good.

We've started our multiplication concepts 

and have used a lot of different activities to help us along the way. 

Here are a few samples....

Book Themes:

Teaching themes of books to third graders is hard in my opinion. 

I have yet to find a great way to do it through the year. 

I've seen different things done in the past, and am finally trying something different. 

I've made a theme spot in  my room for all of our class read alouds. 

I'm hoping it helps us narrow down what theme or message we get from the books the we read.

A colleague of mine did this a year or two ago, so I can't take credit for the idea, 

but I'm thankful that I remembered what she did so I can try too!

Any other thoughts or ideas????

Writing

We started our writer's workshop this week and

I. AM. So. EXCITED!

We're doing something a bit different this year, 

so it's newer to me, but my whole hallways is a buzz over it. 

One lesson this week was idea hearts. We changed them into inspiration hearts thanks to an awesome teammate of mine! So after we read some stories and talked about how authors get ideas, they got to make their own idea hearts in their writing notebooks. 

Finally today, Friday, there was a little bit of time to write. 

I picked an idea from my inspiration heart and wrote as the kids wrote. 

It felt great. 

A couple things to note....

1. This was a quick draft/first write sketch for us

2. It was not prompted at all, but free choice

3. Kids had 15 minutes to write and couldn't stop until I told them to

4. Not ONE student complained and everyone wrote!!!!

Now, some stories were much more developed than others but this quick write will really give me some beginning ideas for working with students as we continue with our workshop!!! I'm so excited. 

Arm Candy

I ordered and received my Harry Potter bracelet from Kimberly aka the Trashy Crafter!!
SWOON!!!

I am so in love with this piece, that I've already gotten my eye on a necklace too. If you haven't checked out 

First of all she was so great to work with. Her product came super fast, and it was packaged using recycled paper as well. I just loved everything about it!

I decided on the Harry Potter bracelet but she has so many to choose from. It was hard to just pick one. :) 

Hope everyone had a great week. 

I am just glad that I survived my first 5 day week!

Happy Weekend!