Five for Frunday {Busy weeks with Gypsy; Math Games; Mentor Sentences; Looking forward to TpT Conference; Update on a Prayer Request}

The last few weeks have been very busy as my daughter has been performing in the musical Gypsy at our community college, in our brand new Performing Arts Center!  They had performances last weekend & this weekend...so some very late nights.  Grandma & Grandpa came to see her {bottom left} & the bottom right picture is with one of her dance teachers/dance studio owner...I am a very proud mommy!

I LOVE everything I have purchased from Blair Turner...she has so many great products!...this week we did some review that we really needed before our fraction test with a fun Number Line Bingo game from her 3rd Grade Math Center Bundle...I so appreciated a blog post she did titled Real Life Isn't Always Laminated~Celebrating the Struggle...I really appreciate her honesty that her classroom isn't always 'picture perfect' & there are challenges...BTW, a little tip for you...each of my table groups picks up a 'desk trash' basket to collect it all up when we are doing a cutting activity.

I am REALLY loving Ideas by Jivey's Mentor Sentences!!!!  This is my bulletin board with what we have done...I would highly recommend this & I wish I had bought the bundle instead of just the first 10 weeks!!!...my biggest challenge has been finding the books she uses...Patricia Polacco is my principal's favorite author and he owns My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother so he came & read it to my class {I was frustrated with myself for not getting a picture of him sharing it with the class!!}...I have found several books that I don't own on YouTube which I have to show on my camera over the doc cam since our district blocks it!...I see my students finding great synonyms, looking critically about the details of a sentence & its structure & SO excited to share their modified & imitation sentences!!!

I am SO looking forward to the TpT conference this summer!!!!  On the left are pictures of what I just ordered from Vistaprint...my countdown app showing how many days, hours, & minutes to the conference, a picture of the little badges/tags I had last year at the conference...I am a part of a closed Facebook group~you can request to join~that celebrates the fonts of Kimberly Geswein, Brittney Murphy, & Darcy Baldwin...Font it up...I created a badge/tag to share with others in the group for us to be able to find one another easier at the conference!

In my last post I shared a prayer request for baby Lizzy...below is the post they shared on Facebook this week, it was the day after Addisyn was able to give her an official name, Emma Leigh, in court...I HIGHLY recommend going to the blog post Risky Love, written by a neighbor of theirs! Please continue to pray for the Block family!

Five for Frunday {It's Spring; Twitter; GoNoodle Plus; Mentor Sentences; Library Redo}

In the past I had used Twitter to follow some celebrities {most of whom I have unfollowed now} & I rarely if ever 'tweeted'...since going to the Google Conference I am looking at Twitter differently & seeing all kinds of links & resources...Do you use Twitter?...Do you just follow or do you tweet?...Who do you follow?...Here are some that I am following...

      Some of my favorite teachers/bloggers/TpTers:

            Kristin from Ladybug's Teacher Files

                 @LadybugBlogger

             Kelly Malloy from An Apple for the Teacher

                  @Kellys3ps

             Erin Klein from Kleinspiration

                  @KleinErin

            Blair Turner from One Lesson at a Time

                  @blairkturner

             Shannon from Technology. Rocks. Seriously

                   @sweetblessshan

             Deanna Jump from Mrs. Jumps Classroom

                   @MrsJumpsClass

             Rachel Lynette from Minds in Bloom

                    @RachelLynette

            Michelle from The 3 AM Teacher

                    @3AMTeacher

            Amanda Nickerson from One Extra Degree

                    @OneExtraDegree

             Jen Jones from Hello Literacy

                     @hellojenjones

              Richard Bryne from Free Tech 4                                      Teachers

                      @rmbryne  

  Other Ed groups/companies/entities

              Class Dojo {loving them!!!}

                      @classdojo

               GoNoodle 

                      @gonoodle

                Dave Burgess author of Teach Like a                                     Pirate

                      @burgessdave

                Teachers pay Teachers

                       @TpTdotcom

                 Edutopia

                        @edutopia

So...my name on twitter is @thankfulndw

Let me know what you think of Twitter...has it made you a better teacher?...opened doors?...inspired you?...I'd LOVE to hear what you think!!

{BTW  :-( Twitter is BLOCKED by our district}

                     

My trial to GoNoodle Plus was too short!!!  I LOVED it & so did my students!!!  They have spelling that you can type in your list & the kids spell the words with their bodies...vocabulary that is grade appropriate...but I think their favorite was Montana James & the Palace of Peril...the class is in two teams & you {teacher} decide the skills that will be in the questions...we had been working on adverbs & adjectives so we used those...it has the team that is 'up' swipe off snakes, or smack of beetles, or stomp on scorpions, with movements that the kids don't even see as exercise, just a game...well,  I can't afford the $99 yearly fee so I got permission from my principal to ask if parents would like to donate $1-$5 dollars so we can purchase it for the class...I will let you know how that goes!!!

 From the beginning of my teaching career I have been kind of the odd ball teacher in one way {okay, maybe more than one way ;-) but this is the one I am addressing here}...I have always marked what is correct/right on the students work with a C never marking what is incorrect/wrong {usually at the beginning it is in green too...symbol of growth}...so I was really drawn to Jessica's {from Ideas by Jivey} Mentor Sentences...it focuses on what is RIGHT about sentences, not correcting what is wrong...

I purchased her Mentor Sentences: First 10 Weeks 3-5  & the first sentence comes from First Day Jitters, which we read at the beginning of the year...I went over how we will work with the sentence she choose for the week...then...oops...the second story is Enemy Pie...I have a HUGE library {see #5} but I don't own this...neither did our school library...I wrote on the white board in the lounge...none of my fellow teachers own it!!!...I was at my wit's end when I found it on Storytime Online!!! It is read by Camryn Manheim...so tomorrow we will move forward with Mentor sentences!!!

I am in my 27th year teaching 3rd grade, and so happy to have this career!!  I LOVE children's literature & through the years I have purchased A LOT of books!!! Four years ago I did an Extreme Library Makeover~you can read/see more about it here ...this is what my library has looked like for the last several years...the books have been leveled using Book Wizard from Scholastic...

This year our school purchased AR {Accelerated Reader} & I started pulling books from my library & adding the AR level to the back...

This was across the room from my library & just not enough books...so...over 600 books have now been looked up, labeled, & organized!!!!{I still have a couple hundred more to go!}

I will be adding to my AR Management Product & changing it to be a Library labeling as well...it will include all levels of book tags & basket/bin labels...a quick shout out...the first time I did a library makeover I was thankful for Kristin of Ladybug's Teacher File...they were her alphabet labels I used...well she gets a great big 'Thank you!' once again...if it hadn't been for her tips to change pictures {the different apple colors for me} I would still be working on the labels for the next few weeks!!! 

Off to bed...testing begins tomorrow!!!