A Peek at My Week {9*15*14}

Here we are,

Sunday again! 

Man, it sure comes fast!

I'm excited today to be linking up with Jennifer

from Mrs. Laffin's Laughings

for another edition of 

A Peek at My Week. 

Be sure to stop by and say hello to Jennifer, 

and link up or check out some great ideas 

that other bloggers are sharing from their 

week ahead!

Reading:  This week in reading, we're still using whole class read alouds to talk about story elements and summary. This is giving me the opportunity to finish up Daily 5 training and finish up assessments so I can hopefully start small groups next week.  Our book this week is Enemy Pie by Derek Munson.  

This is what Amazon has to say about the book, 

"It was the perfect summer. 

That is until Jeremy Ross moved into the house down the street

 and became neighborhood enemy number one.  

Luckily Dad had a surefire way to get rid of enemies: 

Enemy Pie! 

But part of the secret recipe

 is spending an entire day playing with the enemy. 

In this funny yet endearing story, 

one little boy learns an effective recipes

 for turning your best enemy into your best friend."  

Click for Amazon

I will also use this book for my mentor sentence of the week and focus on several writing elements that we will be doing in workshop, which I'll share later. 

Math: This week in math we will be starting our math journals to get used to doing them during our intervention time.  I will start with some easier prompts for students to copy and answer, and as the week goes on they will get more challenging. Our focus this week is on division strategies, and building fluency with 2's and 10's for multiplication. 

Writing- In launching our workshop this week the focus is on narrowing down a topic (small moments), gathering ideas (a review from last week) and building proper sentences.  We'll really use our mentor sentence this week to practice putting a subject and verb together to answer the who and what what in our sentences.  I also plan on using this freebie from Lovin' Lit to help out with our sentence writing. I think with all of our talk on sentence structure and learning the parts of the sentence that I can use this with my 3rd graders!

Source

Wordwork- I plan on introducing spelling contracts this week to students. This is a new thing for me, that I'm really excited to use. I purchased it this summer from Fourth and Ten.  Basically it is a month long assignment where students do different activities to practice their spelling words (instead of just spelling them to a parent aloud or writing them down over and over for practice).  I've been looking for something new and fun for awhile, and I'm hoping this is it. We use Sitton Spelling in our school so we don't necessarily have a new word list to send home each unit. It's a list of core words for the year that are introduced and a list that they come to the grade with that they should also know. So I've broken apart those lists to spiral the words through the year over the course of each month.  Their job is to complete several activities with their words for the month to practice. 

Source

I hope everyone has a great week!

Tried it Tuesday- Homework

It's Tuesday, so that brings me to another edition of 'Tried it Tuesday' and linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper.   I had to laugh when I decided to do this post, because today was NOT a good day for turning in homework in third grade land.... tomorrow is a new day though.  So here we go.......

I've officially hit the point of the school year where I feel like we aren't looking forward, but looking back to where we were on day 1.  It may be the long winter we've had, or the fact that my students are just way to comfortable with one another right now and we need Spring Break to come fast..... or it could just be that natural dip in the year where you feel like progress is going nowhere!  Whatever it is, I am really feeling it this year, so I decided to do something about it and tackle one of the biggest problems head on....HOMEWORK! {Or should I say lack thereof???} 

I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off, not knowing what was late, who was missing what, what was already put in the grade book, who was behind, and who was needing to stay back from recess to finish their work.  I thought I was keeping track of what was missing, but then I realized that I was working harder, my kids weren't doing what they needed to do and I'm guessing their parents had no clue that it was becoming such a chronic problem.  

Well, I started where anyone else would.... with a rant!  Good thing Jennifer, from Mrs. Laffin's Laughings teaches the grade above me, and appreciates all the hard work that goes into prepping kiddos for 4th grade.... she was the lucky one that caught my rant.  Lucky Her! :)  I thought talking to 4th grade would be a good idea, because after all I'm trying to get my students ready for 4th grade...as well as expectations!She actually helped me out in more ways than one.  Be sure to stop by her blog for great ideas on everything!!!!

1- First, several weeks prior she gave me the 'Late Notice' red sheet that they use in 4th grade. She passed it along and I filed it away, because I didn't really need it at the time.  Well...I pulled it out and we officially started FOURTH GRADE in my classroom.  I sent a note home in my newsletter explaining what the expectation was (just as a reminder) and then what we were going to do to improve this to be ready for 4th. Whenever a student has a late or missing assignment (even not filling out their reading log) a red late notice sheet goes home stapled to the assignment that was not complete.  They are required to fill out the basic assignment information, write down the due date, and also say why they didn't do it. They also owe be $5 from their Bentin Money for each late assignment. They don't like giving up their money, and they also don't like when they don't get paid. So if they don't get their homework it's a double whammy to their bank accounts!  In order to earn their free time or recess back they must bring the late notice back signed.  It's worked wonderfully! (except today...we won't talk about today!!!) I still have my homework offenders, however it's much more managed and out of my hands! I also like that now students are more in charge of their actions. 



I love this quote, because it is true of many students who decide not to do homework.  Saying "I don't get it" doesn't always cut it.... I respond with.. "Well, what have you tried???! Show me!"

Source: Bing Images

2- I invited Jen to come into my room and say something about the long list of missing assignments on the board.  She even questioned students about it and asked why they didn't have it done.  It was an eye opener for kids to realize that others were noticing if they weren't doing their job, and they wanted to impress their possible 4th grade teacher.  She even sent down her "Good Job" jar full of sweet treats several days later to give to any student who wasn't on the list of 'No Homework!' 



**Man, this post got long, sorry for that! I'll save my fun math trick for next time. Thanks for stopping by.  Any other suggestion on late or missing work.....I'm all ears! Send them this way!

Spark Student Motivation---- Homework

Happy Saturday!!!  I have to say that currently, it's FREEZING here, and I have not had much motivation today at all, but am super excited to be linking up to share some student motivation tidbits. The polar vortex is in full swing again, and I'm reluctant to head outside.  I am happy that I got some motivation to share this post and also read some great ideas from this linky party! I'm linking for the first time with Head Over Heels for Teaching to show what I'm doing to 'Spark Student Motivation' in my classroom.

I've hit the point in the school year where I feel like we all need some motivation.  I can for sure see it in my students, and with the countless days of indoor recess and lack of fresh air and exercise I need to do whatever I can to keep things running smoothly in the classroom.  Something that I have started to do is a Homework Club.  In the past, I've done a homework club where a student would have to stay with me at a free time, a recess or even after school if they weren't able to finish any work at home that needed to be done. Let me tell you that got to be quite the production and more work for myself.  So I decided to flip around what I did for homework club to put a positive spin on it.  So I created a different homework club.

Each week students start with their number in homework club.  It's a club that they want to be in....it means that they have done their homework each night! If they are still in the club on Friday before they go home I let them have a sweet treat.  I have a basket of jolly ranchers, starburst and smarties.  They get one, and LOVE it.  It's amazing how one little piece of candy can get them so excited.  I don't usually pass out candy so it's a special treat for them. Also, if I forget to pass out the treat, they will most definitely remind me! If they can keep their paw/number in for the whole month then we celebrate with a lunch date.  That's another easy/fun/free way to keep students motivated.  They sure do love to have free time or special time with you. I think it's been helping to keep homework coming in, especially at this time of the year.  I still have some students that I need to spend additional time with that don't complete their work --- but this has helped so much!



How else do you get students to hand in their homework or keep up with their reading?  I would love to hear your ideas!

Stay warm & have a great night-----