Week Three Accomplished!!

It has been a crazy three weeks. My students have done such a great job with projects and with stations. I am so proud of them and they have so much to be excited about. It is shaping up to be a great year so far (knock on wood). 

We have been learning about place value up to the 999,999 and comparing up to the 100,000. We made these really neat riddle cards but they are to advance for most of my students. I may just use these as a warm-up and if they get them right, they can get a Pride Paw. It is an award system the school has as a whole and the students love it. 

In Science, we have been working with all things matter. 

Is it matter or non-matter. Most students got it. Plus, they decorated their pages. The students worked really well together. 

We also worked on mass. This is the start of what we will be working on in the upcoming week. Students received mystery items and had to be the balance scale and make a prediction on which was heavier. Then they balanced their items to see if they are correct. Monday we will actually weight our items with gram stackers. 

Another activity students had to do was classify matter. I had soft items,  rough items,  green items, etc. for students to classify. They did very well!

After we had classified matter, the students did sink or float with some of the same items they had classified. They really enjoyed this. Me too!!

Here are the students acting to be balance scales and writing down their prediction on how much they think their secret items weigh.  

One of my favorite activities is Number Talks. The students have learned 10 strings. They are not pros yet but thought it was time to introduce a new strategy, friendly numbers. Great job to them!!! I wish this one was on an anchor chart. 

I have learned a lot this week as well. I have learned that I am not perfect and I will never be perfect at teaching. I have gotten to know a lot of my students and know that a lot of them need some extra help. That is where I have been learning how to make effective stations. I currently have my small guided station, computer station, addition station, subtraction stations, and place value/comparing station. I need to find a way to make the place value/comparing station more fun. I found a really neat Math Boggle station on the TPT store that I will implement this week. It aligns perfectly with next weeks math unit. I will share pictures as they come. 

I have been writing lessons for my team and I try to make them as effective for my students as possible. It is hard to have every lesson to be hands on, fun, and group/partner work. Sometimes we have to just have a quiz. I need grades. Plus, it lets me see what they know. The problem I am facing right now is getting the students to read the questions. They are not looking to see what the questions are asking them to do. They just raise their hand and expect me to help them. Some students of course I need to read to but everyone? This is where I am in a pickle. So, I had them start to use question strategies. We need to start circling KEY WORDS!! Half do, the other half don't and some don't even show their work. I have to break this habit ASAP! Advice!?!?

I have been planning every weekend and I try to only plan one day or a couple of hours out of each day on the weekends. I do not want to get burnt out. I love to plan and find new ways or tweak things that would be more beneficial to my students. I love math foldables and the students do too. I allow them to use their foldables as help and a guide. That is why they are there and why I had them do it. 

Time for some planning and setting up my Math Boggle worksheets. 

Until next time,

-PFons-

It has been forever!

  It has been crazy crazy since school has started this year. I have officially survived two full weeks of teaching and planning. I absolutely love my school, students and co-workers. Here are a few pictures of what we/I have been doing.

A great way to end the second week of teaching! Proud of my students! #NumberTalks #lionslove2learn @RoyalwoodLions pic.twitter.com/CzHFYzia5Z
— Patricia Fonseca (@Tricia_F) September 7, 2013

They started getting it on the 2nd day of school. #10strings #NumberTalks @RoyalwoodLions #lionslove2learn pic.twitter.com/mg8iirs2W1
— Patricia Fonseca (@Tricia_F) August 28, 2013

Meet the teacher night. @RoyalwoodLions #lionslove2learn #3rdgradeteam #teachers #teaching pic.twitter.com/koRLQRVpLs
— Patricia Fonseca (@Tricia_F) August 23, 2013

These pictures are in order, almost. The lion is new and a new addition to my classroom and family. The picture of my desk is after one of the school days. Majority are in order of how the events in the beginning of the year happened. I have spent the past two weekends planning. This weekend I went over the beginning of the year assessment and it is subtraction time 2-digit and 3 digits by 1 and 2-digits. I have been making groups and now looking for a fun but effective reteaching ideas for subtraction.

I want to give away a freebie. It is division cards! I went up to 6x6. It starts from the 2s. I ended making multiplication cards too. I will upload those at another time since they are saved to my work computer. I use these as a station. The students use popsicle stick or tiles to help with counting. They fold their paper in fours and do four problems at this station. In each section they have to have ___ groups of ___, a picture, and repeated addition. Students love it. Here it is for you..... FREE!!! They format is the same for multiplication. If you want the editable version email me, fonsecap9679@gmail.com or comment below! I will gladly give both to you for free!!

Click the picture for the division cards!

Here is the picture of what it will look like while students are working.

Time to get back to planning!

Until next time,
PFons

Hanging in there!

It has been crazy the last couple of weeks and I am trying so hard to hang in there with a smile on my face. I have things to do such as writing full week lesson plans for math, science, and social studies. Oh yea forgot to mention, I teach social studies now. That is exciting. I finally made a procedures PowerPoint for the first day of school, that's tomorrow ahhh. I did not cover all my procedures but enough to get through tomorrow. Its a jamed packed day. I am the teacher responsible for take the students outside but I am unsure if I am supposed to take them out tomorrow. That will throw my schedule off. By 20-25 minutes. Hmmmmm. Be a flexible teacher I will be!

I want to introduce stations tomorrow and with that I need to make some station graphic organizers today. If I can get them all complete, I will update my blog and add them. Students will be doing stations that involve place value, greater/less than, multiplication, and adding. Noogle is the name for the adding game. Its a new game I saw on pinterest. 

I uploaded some pictures of my classroom. We are doing Number Talks everyday. YouTube it if you never heard of it. It is amazing! My objectives corner. It seems tiny but I don't have any other place for it. Unlike other teachers I want a lot of white board space.

I was given, to borrow, for the school year two iPads. I also have an Apple Tv. Yes I will be utilizing tomorrow. Straight out the gate. I also found this app where I can record what I write and say. This will be perfect for students who are absent.  I am going to try it out soon. I was thinking about using it for my guided math time. Soooo many ideas and things I want to do, but not enough energy or time.

This posting is very choppy and goes from one thing to another quickly.  I will elaborate later when I am not using my phone to write my blog.  Sorry :-(

Until next time,
-PFons

Early Post, But Bad Blogger

I have not been a great blogger so I thought I would quickly write. I woke up thinking away at all the projects I need to do. They are not little things they are big. Decorating is pretty much done, its now organization and planning. Who knew I had to plan which bathroom my kids will use. It is just the simplest things. Plus, all the paper work. I have done everything but lesson planning. Really, this is teaching? Haha. They left all this out in school. I am enjoying every minute of it though.

I am glad that my trainings are done so that I can focus only on the things I need to get done. The time flys by when your in your room working away. Plus, I have tons of questions so I am constantly getting clarification. Which take tons of time.

I set up my school website. Yeah exciting! My district is huge on technology and I want to use my website weekly.  I hope it will work and I stay on top of it. I just want once a week at least to update and add things. I will post link later.

Tomorrow (well today) I am doing a rough of my lesson plan, cutting out all my laminating materials, and getting my manipulatives. Oh, and of course all my paper work. I have the entire day as a work day and I am afraid I will get maybe half done. I wish I can get started now. Lol. I left everything at the school to force myself to not do anything, but yea of course was busy away making things at home. Spent the whole night.

I am going to add some pictures. I have a few templates I will update too like labels, circle dotes, sign in sheets, and caddy labels.  I think something else. These are all things I used in my classroom that I have gotten huge compliments on.

Until next time,

-PFons-

This was at a traing my school. We are the lions and are doing a sports theme.

coworkers and I at I our convocation. Twitter #sisdconvo13 to see what we takked about.

Colors And More Colors - Decorating

I went to my classroom today to do my Instagram of #TeacherTourTuesday from iTEACH5TH. It is coming along nicely.  I think pictures are the best way to explain my new room upgrades. Instagram video first.

Here is the sink area with my new rug I made. I sewed on the monster. My own template. It looks great. 

This is what is in every groups buckets. Markers, crayons, eraser, glues, pencils, red checking pencils, a highlighter (might need more), and sticky notes. This may change but as of right now I like that they have things at their finger tips.

This is my resource center (still need to add the letters to the flags. I made these too, it is called bunting). That shelf is where I will keep some science mags and books. Also, where I will keep my manipulatives. 

This is not a great picture but this is my desk (as of today) arrangement. I saw a peers room and thought I like some of your placements. I tried some group styles and love it. So lets see if they stay.

Here is my calendar. I still want to add some more decorations to this. Underneath the calendar you can see where the paper separates gross. 

My son Hunter put this together all by himself. He did such a great job. 

Here is one station. The little rolly table I got from the Goodwill store for $4.99. I also made these pillows. I will be making two red pillows too. The pillows are not necessary but I love them.

Here is my desk. I was not sure if I was going to keep one and I decided to keep my desk. I covered it with wrapping paper that I found at Target in the dollar section for a $1. I bought two roles because I thought there would not be enough but there is way more than I needed. 

Here is where I write my objectives. I am not sure still about how it looks but I love the idea. I call this my cute girly area but boyed up with my bug books. Perfect mixture. 

This is my buckets. It came out so cute and looks great on the tables. I just need to buy one more because I have 6 groups when I planned for 5.

On another exciting note, I got a new car. It is a fully loaded Toyota Avalon. I am in love. It is a great car and it has so many gadgets that I keep finding new things. 

Leather seats!! I am going to get the windows tented and I am about to get that done hopefully in the next few months.

Work starts Monday and I cannot wait. I am ready. I need to go ahead and start planning my first unit which is place value. Here it begins... :-)

*This week I will be making scratch offs for the first day of school. I got this idea from Saddle up for Second Grade. She is also my Slantbox buddy. 

Until next time,
     -PFons-

Crafty Matty

 I am still buying everything I see. lol. I really need to slow down. I think I have more stuff then what I need. Oh well. I have been very crafty this weekend and needed to share some things I have made and things I still need to make. 

I made this rug that I will put by my sink. I saw it on Teaching Madness. My rug is similar but different. I liked her monster face so yes I copied that. I could not find a cute bright green circular rug so I got the rectangle one. I first made templates of the pieces on white paper and then cut them out of the felt (I had to make my own template since there was not one. I then sewed the felt to the rug. CUTE CUTE!! This is my second favorite thing in my room. First is my bunting. Oh, and I did make my Halloween/Fall bunting banner already. Will post that soon. I don't have a picture of it.

I then made this pillow. I put buttons on it. Cute. I do not have a reading center but students can use it during centers and can be an incentive. 

I also made these cute labels to for my new boxes for each group. Click Here for the free template. I used scrapbook paper to print the labels on and since I could not find my laminating covers I used clear packing tape to laminate them and stick them to my boxes. I put the labels on both sides of the boxes. Cute!!

Here is a 16inch by 16inch pillow I made as well. I will be using the red material for  two other pillows. Love it!

I should be in my room tomorrow and Tuesday, hopefully. I was not sure about buying a calendar and I decided I should. It will match perfectly and I hope it will go up tomorrow. Also, our school is doing an All-Star sports theme this year and our outside bulletin boards will be sports related. I have the perfect board idea and slogan. I will hopefully work on that tomorrow and get it done, if not Tuesday. I cannot wait to share.

Until Next Time,
   -PFons-

Decorating My First 3rd Grade Math/Science Room!

I went to my room today and did some decorating!!! It is no where finished and it is really plain and simple. I am going to end up having a lot of anchor charts, I am sure, when the students arrive. I did not take a picture of the inside of my cabinet but it is full of stuff still. I cannot wait to go back.

Now for the pictures and the #TeacherTourTuesday Instagram video.

There is tons of stuff you cannot see. The bags are full full full. 

Our district and school classroom management system.

Even 3rd graders need to be reminded. 

My number line. Cute!! I can also use these when we talk about number lines because they are  dry erasable. 

I bought an old used roller drawer thing from the Goodwill that I will put here and this will be a station. 

I tried messing with my desks, but they are so big. I really need to research what to do with these types of desk.

This is by the door and this is my resource center. I need to add the letters to the banner. I should have turned the lights on and took the picture. One of my favorite areas. 

This is my room as of today. I know that it is not #TeacherTourTuesday but I have training tomorrow and cannot go back until maybe Wednesday.

Until next time,
    -PFons-