Comprehension Interventions

I've been researching some interventions for comprehension and I found some from www.jimwrightonline.com that I felt would be effective for the needs of my students! This week I'm going to implement the "Click or Clunk" method.  Basically it is teaching the student how to self-monitor comprehension while reading. After every sentence the student reads, the student says "Click" if he understands or "Clunk" if he doesn't. I think I'm going to make a card that says "click" on one side and "Clunk" on the other. Or, because I LOVE stamping, I may stamp a heart on one side to represent "Click," and an "N" on the other side to represent "Clunk." I'll take pics of the finished products and post them soon! Anybody else have ideas for comprehension interventions, especially if they're research based??

Happy Mardi Gras, Third Grade!

Happy Mardi Gras! Hope you had a wonderful Fat Tuesday! We celebrated with King Cake, Beads, Zydeco Music, and all things Mardi Gras! The kids really enjoyed learning about the culture of Mardi Gras! We made an acrostic of the words Mardi Gras and we wrote an expository short essay explaining what Mardi Gras is and how someone can celebrate it. I had so many beads I was handing them out to all the teachers to get them in the spirit! Have a great Mardi Gras!

Mardi Gras Place Value and Subtraction/Addition Game

Happy Mardi Gras!!!!!!!! Let's take it easy and take a "field trip" to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras!  When I was teaching 5th Grade, I greeted the kids with a "Happy Mardi Gras" and the kids thought I was speaking Chinese (at least they got the foreign language part correct...). This greatly saddened me because throughout my schooling in elementary, Mardi Gras was a huge holiday and celebration! (Granted I did attend a Catholic Elementary School). Also, my fiancee's family is FROM New Orleans so the celebrations continue year after year!

I feel the problem with a lot of our students today is that they are not exposed to culture, so I decided to celebrate Mardi Gras! Plus, if you have a bag of these stuffed in your closet or garage

you might as well use them, right! So for Mardi Gras, I wear a mask all day along with my green skirt, yellow belt, and purple shirt! I stand at the door greeting my students by throwing beads at them (the look of shock on their faces makes it totally worthwhile acting a fool, hehe) and blast Zydeco music as they walk in! 

I explain the colors of Mardi Gras, the purpose of the King Cake (I actually buy one so they can taste it, yum yum!), and we learn how to do the Charleston to the Maple Leaf Rag! 

Well, my absolutely wonderful fiancee caught a WHOLE BUNCH of beads this year at the parades (my absolute FAVORITE part of Mardi Gras) so I decided to make some math games.

I cut up strings of 10 beads to make groups of ten. Then I cut single ones for single units. From here, I will use them to support my kiddos who are having trouble with place value (tens and ones). Also, I will use them for the game Subraction Game "Race to Zero" and Addition Game "Race to a Flat."

Rules for "Race to a Flat"

Materials: One Dice, Base Ten Blocks, Tens Ones Mat, Pencil, Paper

Directions: 

1. Choose a Partner.

2. Put all "tens" blocks in one pile and "ones" in another to make it easy to grab quickly.

3. One person rolls a dice and grabs that many single ones and records on scratch paper.

4. Then the partner does the same.

5. Taking turns, roll the dice adding the number rolled to the previous number rolled. Trade out 10 Single Ones for a Group of Ten. 

6. Keep going until one person gets to a flat, or ten groups of ten!

7. Make sure to record all addition problems created.

"Race to Zero" is similar to "Race to a Flat" but starting with 10 groups of ten and subtracting all the way down to Zero. First person to get to Zero Wins!

Differentiation: Have higher students use 2 or 3 dice and race to 1,000 or race 999 to 0!

Comprehension Pin Wheels!

I was at the Dollar Tree looking for Valentine's stuff, and I came across some garden pin wheels! I was so excited I had to buy them! Well, they've been sitting in my trunk for the past 2 weeks because I couldn't decide what on earth to do with them. Some of my lower students have been struggling with comprehension, so my mind has been thinking of creative ways to help support them more. So, I came up with this idea! Something simple, and it's probably been done before. I made one that can be used in a primary classroom and one that can be used in an intermediate classroom.

Valentine's Day Activities!

Happy Belated Valentine's Day! So, Thanks to Babbling Abby at The Inspired Apple, I was able to do some fun activities for Valentine's Day! I slightly tweaked her idea because I'm obsessed with Papersource and stamping galore! So I got deep red card stock and stamped white hearts at the bottom of each page. They came out so cute! Of course the students simply overlooked the stamps, BUT it made me happy to put that love in their Valentine for their parents. So anyway, Here is my finished project!

Also, We did tissue paper owls! My teacher friend, Ms. Piatt, last year taught me how to make tissue paper rainbows by cutting square pieces of tissue paper, wrapping it around a pencil eraser, and glueing it to the paper. Instead, I did an owl! "You're a hoot, Valentine!" Some of them came out really cute! Check them out! I haven't finished mine...(it takes so long!!!) I'll see if I can put the drawing of the owl in another post! Here are some! They came out so cute!

Posters galore! READING!

More posters added to the collection! This is from a different teacher but can I just say I'm jealous of BOTH of them because they have such PRECIOUS and NEAT handwriting! Ok, Here they are!

Posters Galore! (Cont'd) SCIENCE

Here are some posters she made about Science concepts! She is so awesome for putting so much time, thought, and creativity into them to make them eye catching and fun for the students to look at!

Posters Galore! Math

So, my wonderful co-teachers of third grade are absolutely excellent at creating "clouding" (PEAK strategy) posters for new concepts that are absolutely FABULOUS!  Here are posters all about MATH concepts that we've learned so far in third grade!