Non-Fiction Unit

This unit is going great! My kids love reading about things that actually happened. We are reading a great read aloud book about Anne Frank and the discussions about her and what happened in her life are amazing. I checked out a bunch of books that are non-fiction and we have been reading and researching these. All of my students picked a topic, either a person, animal, or thing, and we are writing All About books. We could probably spend a long time on this unit but we will probably wrap it up by the end of the month.

Getting Back in the Groove

Well we are back to school and my students are finally getting back into the swing of things. We have been practicing like crazy to get our routines back on track. I am glad to be back in school for the most part. The best part about it is we just started our non-fiction unit on Monday and the kids are loving it. We have now completely submerged ourselves into it and we are having some fantastic conversations. Next week we are starting to research a topic of choice and we have checked out a bunch of books from our library and the public library to read over and take notes over. Next week we are going to the computer lab and researching our topics and take notes off of the computer. The kids are super excited and so am I. I can't wait to see what they come up with.

Happy Holidays!!!

Last week when we all went to the computer lab and I showed them how to use the basic functions of Microsoft Publisher. We made greeting cards for our families for Christmas. They thought it was so much fun. All we did was pick our own background, play with different colors (even though it prints out black and white), worked with word art and then typed in a message. We will be coloring these next week and sending them home to give their parents with a special ornament that we will be making too!

Guest Speaker =)

We had a guest speaker visit our classroom and he was amazing. He was a 78 year old blind man who told several funny jokes and taught my kids a lot about what it is like to be blind. He did all of my students names in Braille and gave them each a copy; they loved it. After he left we went to the computer lab and typed him some friendly letters. I showed them how to use some different parts of Microsoft Word. We then mailed him all of our friendly letters. He loved them and he plans on writing us all back.

Things have been crazy with school and teaching, that I am so thankful I had this Thanksgiving break! I have been working really hard with my kids and with all of the things due for fellows that I have not had much time to do much of anything. I have nothing new to add from the last blog, just hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!!!

Well you know how things go and things always change, well I have changed my mind! Instead of typing our personal narratives (we were not ready for that yet in our writing) we started typing our 100 No Excuse Words. The kids love it. I taught them how to make a grid on their paper with multiple rows and columns. I also taught them how to create a header for the top of their paper. We are printing these out and turning them into me at first and then I will give them back so that they can use them. As third graders, they needed a lot of help with some of these words so this not only gives them practice with the words, but also a chance to make them personal and to use some different applications that Microsoft Word has to offer. Some of the kids I found out are a lot faster typist then even myself. It is fun to watch the kids actually engage in spelling on the computer, its sad that we only have 30 minutes in the computer lab though.
In addition, for Halloween yesterday, instead of carving real pumpkins in class we carved virtual pumpkins on the SMART Board. I loved it and so did my students. Here it is..be careful it is addictive.
http://www.cubpack81.com/images/carve_pumpkin.swf

Wow how does time fly in third grade! We have been working so hard that I must have forgotten about my blog! Recently I began having my students type up their 100 No Excuse words in the computer lab. I have taught them how to put in a Header and how to create a chart with rows and columns. They love this stuff. We have been working for 2 weeks on this project and they are just learning so much more from typing these words instead of just writing them over and over. Next thing I have planned is to type up our final copy of our Personal Narrative. They have been working so hard on this story and I can not wait to see the end result!