The Magic of Wordless Picture Books

Wordless books are pure magic! They are great for igniting students' imaginations. Students can have loads of fun writing down the words that the illustrators have left silent.

3 Little Pigs Project-Based Learning: Tried it!

I am linking up with Fourth Grade Flipper today for Tried it Tuesday! This happens on the second "Twosday" of each month!

Ever had a good idea that just kind of sparked your imagination?

That's what happened here! My friend and fellow 3rd grade teacher, Lora, and I were planning a simple STEM activity to go with a story in our reading series about a house. Lora suggested we do the 3 Little Pigs- houses blown down and all that jazz.  This "little" idea turned into a humongous project that included Project-Based learning, Problem-Based Learning, STEM, literacy comprehension activities, and persuasive writing! All rolled into one! Covering tons of our standards! Not to mention loads of learning fun!

The Launch: Reading The 3 Little Pigs to the students.  We read a slew of different versions!

The Problem: How do you build a house the Big Bad Wolf cannot blow down?  Engineering Design Process to the rescue!

The Solutions: Wow, our kiddos came up with some inventive houses!  Give kids some tape and paper and you are good to go! Obviously a few more materials were provided...

The test: Turning our hairdryers into the Big Bad Wolf!  Can your house withstand 1 wolf or how about 2 wolves (hairdryer on high)?

Not done yet! Students then had to persuade other "pigs" to buy their house with persuasive ads and posters!

They had to answer questions such as: Why would a pig buy my house over another one?  What would it cost to build my house?  What words and images can I use to entice buyers?  Can you all say rubrics?!

We continued the project by reading different versions of The 3 Little Pigs. We discussed sequencing, main idea and theme, cause and effect, fact and opinion, and characterization to name a few!

Tons of fun- oh, and learning- was had by all...well, maybe all except the Big Bad Wolf!

Check out the products I developed for this project! I divided the activities into a Literacy and Project Based products, and of course, a discounted BUNDLE!

          

Have you done anything exciting in your classrooms lately? We love to hear what you all are doing!

Two for Tuesday - Great resources at Great prices!

It's Tuesday again, and this summer, that means Two for Tuesday at The Teaching Tribune!

My newest resource is my TPT Business Planner. This is a one-stop-shop for keeping all of your product ideas, resources, blog plans, and stats together and organized!

Includes tons of pages to keep  your store and blog organized!

• monthly calendars
• weekly checklists
• sales and follower tracking for TPT, blogs, and social media
• giveaway planning
• linky parties
• blog post and series idea planning
• product planning
• product updates
• terms of use quick reference
• fonts & clip art organization

On sale today for just $4.50!

How many times do you hear students complain politely mention that they don't know what to write about? Here's your answer! Use these Writing Ideas in a Jar to give  your students an easy place to grab writing topic ideas.

 

Included are 60 very broad writing topics that students can choose from. There are a wide variety of topics sure to engage every student in your class! {Amusement parks, exercise, dessert, your favorite place, etc.} I laminate and cut apart these cards, and keep them in a large plastic jar in my classroom. Occasionally, I have everyone choose a topic from the jar for our Writing Circles, but most of the time, it's just there for students to use when they're having trouble coming up with a topic. On sale today for $1.50!

Remember to leave feedback for your purchases and earn TPT credits! Stop  by The Teaching Tribune for more great products at half price! I know I stocked up on some goodies last week!

Don't forget our Technology Thursday linky party! Link up your tech tips, tutorials, website and app reviews, and check out the other fabulous technology resources every Thursday!

Five for Saturday (10/19/2013)

I had all intentions of posting yesterday, but it just didn't happen. Little guy decided to wake up at 3am Friday morning, and didn't go back to sleep until 4:30. By that point, I was too awake to go back to sleep. It was a long day to say the least, and last night, it was all I could do to stay awake until his bedtime. Hubs and I were both asleep on the couch by 8:30.

Anyway, without further ado, here's my Saturday version of Doodlebugs' Five for Friday.

I popped in Wednesday to let you know that our Walking Classroom kit had arrived. Well, my teammate found out on Thursday that she's getting a set too! We are so excited about getting to start this adventure together, and it makes us both more comfortable walking off school property around the kids' neighborhood since there will be two adults instead of just one. My to-do list this weekend includes getting a pair of comfy shoes to keep at school for those days that I wear heels and we walk. We're going to introduce the program on Monday and hopefully start walking next week (as soon as her kit arrives)!

We got a new assistant principal this week. Having a new administrator in the building is always an uncertain time, but so far, so good! She's popped in a few times to get to know all of us and to see what's going on in our classes.

This was a short week for us, and I had something I really wanted to get done in Language Arts, so we skipped out on mentor sentences. Boy, was I unpopular for that decision! I had no idea after just one week, that my students would be so attached to them! Needless to say, we are back to doing a mentor sentence every week starting on Monday! I've never seen them so excited about ANYTHING in Language Arts before! If you're not already using them, Jivey's Mentor Sentence Units are AMAZING! (Eek! When I went to TPT to grab the link for you, I saw she has an American Revolution Mentor Sentence set too! These will be perfect when we get there in Social Studies in a month or so!)

In science, we worked on our scientific inquiry skills this week. After all the notes and discussions, we did a "guess the mystery item" activity. I passed out 5 boxes, each with a different item inside. Students had to "do" four different things with each box in order to try and determine what was inside. They lifted it to feel the weight, shook it and listened and felt how the item moved, smelled it, and more. They were so creative with how they tried to figure it out, and showed some really good critical thinking skills. I had them asking me all kinds of random questions, like "do you have a cat?" to try and figure out what kinds of items I might have had at home to put in the boxes. It was so much fun, and I HATE HATE HATE that I didn't take any pictures to share with  you!

On Wednesday, we had a parent meeting to explain the concept of our Flipped Classroom, and to tell parents how it's going to work in our classes. (We kind of already started flipping, but we wanted to save the parent meeting until we had figured a few things out!) It went really well, and overall, there was a lot of parent support. If you're flipping and want to see the PowerPoint we used or the letter we sent home to the families who didn't attend the meeting, I'm happy to share them! Just leave a comment, and make sure you're not a no-reply blogger.