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!

Longest. Week. Ever... With a fun ending!!!

Happy Friday Night! I swear I've opened my computer a hundred million times today to write this post and it never happened. Here I am at nearly 9PM finally getting to it.  It's Friday, or so everyone keeps telling me (man, am I going to struggle when school starts...) so that can only mean one thing: Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs Teaching!  Be sure to stop by and check out the new blog design for our Five for Friday host. It's awesome!

So here's my quick... 5 for Friday! :) Happy Weekend Y'all. 

This week I had a two day professional development class on Google.  My brain was fried.  I mean, I literally couldn't look at a computer for days.... which is why I've been a bit absent this week.  I learned some new things, and have a few more things to take with me on my new adventure with using more Google products, including Chromebooks but I am on overload! I felt like I could have used a two day pinterest professional development class after. 

Source

I made a fun new product this week that I'm going to be using the first weeks of school in math.  Just a basic math center that has students practice addition with regrouping. I plan to make a subtraction one, and then a place value one as well.  If you're interested check it out! I made it with QR codes and without so you can pick what you want.  Look at me using my PD from earlier in the week!

August... where did the time fly??? I'm excited to be participating in my first ever SLANT box for the month of August.  SLANT stands for 'Sending Love Across the Nation to Teachers! If you're not familiar with what a SLANT box is, head over to Jameson's blog: Lessons With Coffee to get some more info.  I'm excited to get to know two new bloggers!!

Speaking of Pinterest again.... I finally got serious and organized my Pinterest boards this week.  I have a lot to do in terms of weeding the garden so to speak, but I'm feeling good about new boards for various subject areas! It's the little things that just make you feel so accomplished. 

Source

I reached a milestone on my blog tonight... 75...hold that 76 followers!! Pretty awesome and I'm amazed each day to where this journey has taken me in such a short amount of time.  To celebrate, the first 5 people to comment on this post with their email address and go follow my TpT store will receive a copy of my math center that I posted earlier to use in their classroom.  :)  Thanks for coming along with me on this journey. 

Have an awesome weekend!