New Product: Reading Talking Sticks

This is a great guided reading or whole group reading product! Print these thought bubbles out onto cardstock and attach them to sticks. Use these Reading Talking Sticks create discussion in your whole group or guided reading group about a passage/book.

Ex.
I want to remember ____ from this because…
The setting is ______, I know this because…
The character changed when…

Local Library Book Sale

Our county library system had a book sale. All the children's books were $0.50 (paperback) or $1.00 (hardback). I was SO EXCITED to be at the sale, I even got there ten minutes early so I could be one of the first in the room. I ended up spending just $38 and look at all I got!

Beginning of a Decorated Classroom

I am trying to choose one day a week this summer to work on my classroom. I have my bulletin boards up on our large walls. Two of the walls in each classroom are bulletin/cork material so we can build bulletin boards any size we would like. It is great to have this option when decorating! Here are the fabrics I am using to go along with my fish theme:

This is the view from my desk:

This is the view from the classroom door:

New CCSS Standards for 3rd Grade Science

At the end of the school year, each of the elementary schools in our district had a representative get together to create a new grade card that aligns with the CCSS curriculum. We have had meetings for the last two years to help up learn more about math and reading CCSS. In my opinion, the Science curriculum is where most of the changes will be.

Keep: Forces & Motion, Investigations/Experiments, Impacts on the Environment

Out with: Matter, Sound, & Rocks

In with: Hazardous Weather, Animal/Plant Survival, Magnetic & Static Electricity

I have been Pinterest-ing and TpT-ing to find some resources for these new standards. I hope this help those 3rd grade teachers out there!

Hazardous Weather

Tornado in a Jar

How Does It Rain?

Make a Cloud Rain

Animal/Plant Survival

Self-Watering Seed Starters

Fossil Rock Song

YouTube: Time Lapse of Plants Following Light

TpT: Inherited Traits vs. Learned Traits

TpT: Four Types of Fossils

Magnetic Electricity

Magnetic & Non-Magnetic Sort

Magnetic Strength

Magnet Lab

Strong or Weak Magnets

Static Electricity

Static Electricity Activities

Static Electricity Discovery Tube

Static Electricity: Stationary Charges

MIA Blogger

Wow! It's been a while since I have written!! I took a couple weeks off to decompress after the school year ended.

Next school year, I am moving back into our actual school building and out of the modular unit that has been my home for the last two years. My class will be a fish/ocean theme and I am SO excited to get started decorating. I have some fishie fabric up on my classroom walls already, but need to liven it up a bit. I have pinned lots of ideas on Pinterest to liven up my fish/ocean theme. More on this later :)

On a personal note, during the first week of June, my husband and I went to California to visit my sister and her family. My niece was being baptized and we are the Godparents of Mila. I also surprised my darling husband with a day at Disneyland!