graphic organizers for writing

When I moved from kindergarten to 3rd grade, teaching writing was the biggest adjustment I had to make. I suddenly went from teaching kids letter formation to teaching kids how to form paragraphs and write in multiple styles.
Let's all face it: teaching writing is hard.
My first year, I honestly just winged it. I did my best but I know I did a disservice to my students by not giving them strong explicit writing instruction. Writing is a skill that must be honed and it does not come naturally to many people. So, I set about trying to come up with ways to streamline writing in my classroom and make it strong. Our classroom started engaging in a 5-step writing process.

Each writing project takes us two weeks. Students work on writing assignments twice a week during stations and they meet with me for conferencing on Fridays. This means they have 2 station times the first week to complete pre-write & first draft. They meet with me the first Friday to check their pre-write/first draft and make notes. They have 2 station times the second week to complete edit/revise & final draft. They meet with me the last Friday to assess themselves based on the rubric and publish on SeeSaw! 

Let's walk through each step we take.

1. Pre-Write

Each time we start a new writing project, students receive a pre-write organizer on Monday. I model how to fill it in by doing one of my own. I have found that especially in third grade, students need some kind of template to help show them how the writing should flow. Writing instruction from 2nd to 3rd is a HUGE leap. Often we expect students to pull out a notebook or lined paper and start writing with a beautiful flow, and it just doesn't happen that way. An organizer can help students collect their writing ideas & thoughts and organize them (imagine that!). Eventually, they will be organizing their writing with less and less assistance.

2. First Draft

There are many different ways to move to the first draft stage. You can have students write drafts in their writer's notebook or on a sheet of paper. My student's free-write in their journals so our writing process drafts are on plain notebook paper. Again, you must model how to transfer writing from graphic organizer to paper. Students aren't going to just know how to take what they've compiled and turn it into paragraphs. I pull out my pre-write organizer and write mine for them.   I have students bring theirs to the carpet and write the first few lines altogether so I can monitor and assist. It takes several weeks for students to be even a little independent moving step to step. Then, you start a new type of writing and start again. The great news is that students already have their writing in order with a topic sentence, transition words, and conclusion sentence. Once my students had completed a few months of these writing projects, I began to notice them transferring these skills to their own independent writing. 

3. Edit & Revise 

Editing and revising is a weekly lesson. It is always our Monday morning mini-lesson, all year. That's because the mechanics of writing are ridiculously difficult. No matter how many grammar lessons you do, students don't always transfer that information to their own writing. That is why it is important to have students edit and revise their writing with you. I edit and revise MY writing but I also have students share out pieces of their writing to edit & revise as well. We utilize my favorite instructional app, Nearpod, to do this work. Here are the checklists my students use for editing & revising their work.

We spend several weeks going over every step of the checklists and practicing with actual writing from our work. These laminated checklists are available to students when they are at writing station working on step 3: edit and revise. 

4. Final Draft

Now that they've collected their ideas, organized their writing, written it out in paragraph form, met with the teacher, edited and revised, students are ready to write their very final draft. I try my best to offer my students "fancy" paper for their final drafts. This makes publishing feel more important and special.

Meeting with the Teacher 

There are many ways to set up your writing conferences. For my first year, I used a simple slideshow that rotated through student numbers. When a student's number popped up on the screen, they brought their writing materials to my table to meet with me. Students have the writing rubrics in a photo album on their iPad. This makes it easy for them to bring the iPad and look at the rubric as we have our discussion. I encourage students to score themselves based on the rubric. This really helps them start to analyze their own writing. 

This last year, I started having students sign up for a conference group based on what they thought they needed to work on. 

The groups change based upon the skills I notice students struggling with or the specific skills needed for the type of writing. Students place a sticky note with their name under the group they choose. Then, I create groups and call them over a bit at a time. I love this system because it allows me to help the kids assist each other and peer edit in a small group setting. 

It doesn't really matter how you set up your conference times, as long as you have set aside time to sit with students and their writing. Each conference, I pull out a bright lined sticky note to stick on the student's pre-write. Every adjustment we talk about gets added to the sticky note. This way, the student has all their advice right in front of them when they move to their editing phase. I can also look back to the sticky note when we are doing our final scoring and make sure students made the adjustments we discussed. 

Some common advice I find myself giving my students? 

• capitals/ending marks (forever!!)
• when to start a new sentence (this one comes up a lot!)
• interesting words
• transition words
• adding important details/deleting unimportant details
• picking facts for informational writing

Are you ready to start helping your students feel confident about writing? 

Let me know in the comments below how the writing process works in your classroom!

nonfiction book studies

It's no secret I've absolutely fallen in love with novel studies in my classroom. Small group novel studies are an amazing way to get my kids diving into authentic texts, discussing them, and writing in response. I was noticing tremendous gains in my students' ability to think deeply and write about fiction texts. However, this knowledge was not always transferring to non-fiction texts. So I set out to get the same kind of results with non-fiction.

We know students need to be spending more time in the non-fiction world. It's in all the research and standards. But there is a reason we struggle with it. It's TOUGH! I knew that the success behind novel studies was the buy-in with my kiddos. I needed to get them to buy-in to non-fiction. So I started looking for non-fiction chapter books that are engaging for students.

Once you find the titles your kids will love, start building up. I have built my novel/book study library through Donors Choose. I've done this successfully twice. In my experience, people are willing to pay for books. Even non-educators know that books are vital, and books are sustainable. I can use book sets from year to year and reach so many kids. 

Want to start building your classroom book study library? 

• Use Donors Choose
• Check your local thrift stores: once you know the titles to look for, you can find copies here and there and everywhere.
• Ask friends on social media to donate (people always want to help!)
• Use Scholastic: this is the big one. Almost all of my novel studies/book studies are built around titles I got through Scholastic when they were on sale for a dollar. Scholastic always has titles for a dollar which saves you a ton and still allows you to build points. If you use their program for students/parents in your class to buy books, you earn points. Points can go toward books and Scholastic obviously always has quality titles. 

What non-fiction books have been engaging for my students? Here's the list and the best part is...they're all series! 

• Magic Tree House Fact Tracker 
• Ken Jennings Genius Guides 
• Who Is/What Is 

So, once you've begun building a library with quality titles, you're ready to start getting them in the hands of your kids! I do novel/book studies with my kids during guided reading time. My goal is to get students reading, thinking, talking, and writing. I love our leveled libraries and use them often. But I have found such buy-in handing books (chapter books) to my kids. If it makes you nervous, do what I did and start with one group. Your higher level kids would probably be a good choice, but I use these units with my on-level or "bubble" kids and can really tell the difference. A lot of times those bubble kids just need a push toward wanting to read. I got the Magic Tree House Fact Tracker: Soccer book specifically because I had a handful of kids obsessed with soccer. They actually screamed when I pulled the book out. They were so excited to get started and asked to work on their book study during independent time. This is the buy-in you need. This buy-in leads to learning. 

When I set out to create the book study units for these new titles, I started by listing the big goals I had for my students. I wanted them to focus on 

• vocabulary
• text features
• close reading/critical thinking skills
• comprehension (with a focus on information!)

That is why these units include 

• prior knowledge inventory
• schema page
• genre & author's purpose analysis 
• anticipation guide for each chapter 
• literary vocabulary for each chapter
• academic (content-specific) vocabulary for each chapter
• critical thinking/close reading questions
• text feature hunt
• comprehension graphic organizers

I started using these units with my kids and it worked exactly how I wanted! My students were excited to read non-fiction titles, they completely bought into their learning, and they were successfully navigating the world of non-fiction.

And your students can do it too!

Happy Teaching!

multiplication strategies for 3rd grade

Hello, blogosphere!

Long time, no talk.

I'm not good with introductions so I am going to dive right into the content (which is what you came for anyway, right?)

In 3rd grade, we are knee deep in multiplication and LOVING it (not a joke, not an exaggeration - we LOVE math in my class!) One of the major complaints I hear from colleagues, other teachers, and even parents is that their kids just aren't GETTING their facts. And when I probe or dig deeper, they usually mean they aren't memorizing them.

Which, could be a problem. But is most likely the symptom of a deeper problem.

Lack of understanding.

Other teachers that get this stand-up and say things like

"My kids totally GET multiplication. They draw out their groups and count them up."

This is better. I totally believe that students should understand multiplication anything before they move toward memorization. I am all for circles and stars, the 4 ways to show multiplication (number lines, skip counting, etc. - we use all these in my class).

BUT (did you see that coming?) at some point students need to move toward strategies (hopefully mental) that help them arrive at facts without the need for drawings or number lines.

Often times we go straight from circles with dots to flashcards. We miss that middle ground where students are really building strategies to recall facts permanently. 

Rote memorization may get them to recall for now, but it is not a strategy.

Do I need to say that louder for the people in the back?

When I was researching these strategies, something that often happens to me came up. I was learning strategies that were never taught to me as a kid. And I was getting better at multiplication - as an adult!

For example, a strategy for x9 would be to multiply the number by 10 and then take that number away. Here is a visual I use to show my kids.

We fill in the bottom part, 6 tens is 60. Then I tell them to "turn the tens into nines". They cross out one block from each ten. That leaves us with 60 - 6. Eventually, students begin to notice the pattern (20-2, 30-3, 40-4, 50-5, 60-6, etc.)

I NEVER learned that. Well into my college and adult life I would try to count by 9's all the way up to the answer. Was it effective? Usually, yes. Was it annoying? YES. I struggled with my 9 facts and now I get this quickly. 

My kids do too.

Intrigued? Good. I'm going to walk through the routine we use when learning a new strategy and then all the strategies I use with my kids and include visuals for how I introduce them. AND they are in the order I introduce them to kids. Good, yeah?

I pose problems to the kids in a simple table like this:

Most of the time they come to a conclusion themselves!

Then we can name the strategy, practice it, and add it to our charts!

Here are the strategies: 

1. x0 and x1

I highly suggest you lump these together because the time it'll take your kids to catch onto x0 will be laughable (if not, there's a bigger problem). 

For these, I do use the good old circles and stars method (linked here if you have no idea what I'm talking about). We fill in an organizer (I do this for each multiplication fact we go through) until students get the pattern and can express it. Then, I add it to our anchor chart. 

2. x2

From there, we move onto x2 or as we call it in my class - DOUBLING! (My kids love to shout this out for whatever reason but it sticks!) This was the point I realized my students were desperately behind on their doubles facts (ahem, why they are important!) but through our x2 lessons, they got them down. I would suggest going over them a lot or learning the rap (at least show it). Maybe that'll be just enough to trigger kids memory and get them used to DOUBLING. Again, we fill in an organizer and I hope that students begin to notice all the numbers are EVEN (we add any valid notices to the anchor chart). Now, anytime there is a x2 problem, I just point to the 2 and the kids say "DOUBLE it" and they're all over it. 

3. x5

I go to the 5 facts next. This is a natural progression because kids know how to count by 5's. This is also a good time to pull out your old clock and make some good connections (in case you forgot, analog clocks count by 5's.)

I give each student a clock on a paper (well, we actually do it on Nearpod and iPads but you could use paper) and we go around the clock counting by 5's. I then show students how the clock actually gives them x5 answers. If the problem is 4 x 5 we can look at the 4 on the clock and see the 4 really stands for 20. 4x5=20. For this reason, my kids call the 5 facts the clock facts. They love to take their clock and do a quiz, quiz, trade asking other students x5 facts. 

We add to our chart that all of these end with 0 or 5.

4. x10 

Multiplying by 10 is about the same process - students know how to count by 10's (we hope) and groups of 10's. Again, we do enough until I hope students begin to notice that you keep the number and add a 0. I only want that connection to happen after I am sure they understand they are counting by 10's/groups of tens. 

All of these end with 0.

5. x9

I do the 9's strategy right after the tens because we use our tens to do it! Again, I use base ten rods like in the picture. We create tens, turn them into 9's and figure out the problem. Students arrive at the idea that it's just the number x10 minus the number (20-2, 30-3, etc.) so we add that to the chart. 

My students also noticed that all the 9's facts are similar in this way

(x2, x9) 18, 81

(x3, x8) 27, 72

(x4, x7) 36, 63

(x5, x6) 45, 54

They don't and won't quite understand why this is yet but it's a great thing to notice AND they begin to remember that all 9's facts have those digits. Some of them even do the "lower" fact and then just reverse it. Whatever works and makes sense, ya'll!

6. x3

After the 9's it gets a bit tricky. When it comes to 3, 4, 6, and 8 I suggest using VISUALS. Like, a lot of visuals.

The 3's strategy basically works like this.

You double it (remember that kids!?) and then add ONE more group.

when I first taught this, I began to realize my kids could internalize that but they had no idea why. OOPS. This is when I started using visuals and BANG! Lightbulbs everywhere.

7. x4

x4 works much the same way. Except for this time, we just double and double again.

Which for whatever reason, is really fun for my kids. 

I teach my kids (in addition and multiplication) to connect numbers with those triangle type things and put the answer underneath. This is useful when they are adding a lot of numbers because they can't keep all of those in their head (until later). 

8. Squared numbers

I put this one in because it's just FUN. My kids have practiced and practiced and practiced arrays. They understand that multiplication facts can be expressed in rectangles (rows and columns). So, I challenge them to find all the multiplication facts that make SQUARES. We use inch tiles to do this. Kids think all the even numbers are going to produce squares and quickly debunk that theory. At the end, students generate the list - 1, 2, 4, 9, 16, 25, etc.

I tell my kiddos that these are called (you'll never remember it, it's SO hard) - Square numbers (my kids didn't fall for this...I use it too much..)

 I usually write these on the board (1x1, 2x2, 3x3, etc). I teach my kids that when someone wants you to square something, you need to multiply it by itself. The answer will always be a square number.

It's a good concept for kids to understand and buys me a day before getting into dreaded x6.

9. x6

Times 6 is just. plain. hard. There's little way around it. Hopefully, kids can use one of the other tricks to find the problem but that still leaves 6x7 and 6x8 (7x6 and 8x6). ARGH!

There are two ways people teach the x6 strategy.

Double, double, double

OR

triple, triple (double, one more and double, one more)

If your students are master doublers or master triplers I would go with whichever one you think would work for them. Again, this one takes a LOT of modeling and visuals. SHOW students how 6 can be broken into the 2 groups of 3 or 3 groups of 2. 

10. x8

Double, double, double, double? YIKES.

Important to note that for x7 and x8, students will need automaticity of smaller facts they can use. For example, x8 can become x4+x4 or x5 + x3!

11. x7

x6 and 1 more group

OR

just use the other number's strategy (my go to! lol)

I have noticed a tremendous improvement in my students' multiplicative skills through explicit instruction of STRATEGIES.

Now you're going to have to remember like any other skill students need a lot of time to internalize these strategies. It may seem like it's just faster to have them memorize them and whip those flashcards out. BUT, our ultimate goal for our math students should be solid conceptual understanding. We should strive for them to have lifelong skills that rely on number sense, help them think flexibly, and make SENSE!

How do we do it? One strategy at a time. It's very helpful to create a chart for every strategy. Students can keep these, physically in a notebook or digitally, and refer to them when they get stuck.

Fortunately, I have all the charts ready to go for you!

Every chart has a space for the strategy, facts, and a word problem!

Happy teaching!

First Week Third Grade Lesson Plans : TUESDAY (day two!)

Welcome back! Today, I am giving you all the details on our SECOND day! Some things to note before you dive in: my classroom is 1:1 iPad and we utilize the technology A LOT. 

Most of the activities could be adapted to be paper/pencil. Also, our classroom uses an adapted version of Daily 5 for small groups so you will see a lot of those components mixed in. 

If you missed Monday/Day 1 click HERE

FOR MORE DETAILED INFORMATION ON THESE LESSON PLANS, SCROLL DOWN!

Happy Teaching!

8:20: Morning Activity - Writer's Notebook 

Students enter the room after I greet them at the door. I remind them to check the morning slide for directions. I take the time to point out students who remember to hang their backpack, unplug their iPad, and check the board. I set student's notebooks out for them (they will put them in their table bins to live after this activity).

This frees up some time to take attendance and do other housekeeping things. 

8:40: Morning Meeting - Home Reading Routine

My students do not have homework pages. The only thing I expect them to do each night is READ. Take it from the reading guru herself, Jen Jones, students need to read at night to develop a healthy habit of reading. Our school has an amazing library/librarian so students constantly take home library books. I require them to take one book a night from the leveled library. I use these envelopes from Amazon for students' home reading sheets and their book. 

Students get their own book as part of our morning routine.

Morning routine: Enter, hang backpack, trade out home reading book (return the old book to the correct bin, pick out another book you haven't read yet), unplug iPad, check the board. 

I have a leveled library with bins of leveled books J-R. I have a dry erase label on the front of the bins where I write student names. They then know that is the bin they pick a book from. I change the labels as necessary. Students turn in their home reading sheet on Fridays. I just place a sticker on it and return it Monday. I use gentle reminders (and parents guilt) if student's are not returning their sheet/reading but I don't punish students. The goal is to make reading a positive part of a family's life. 

Because we practice this routine, our morning meeting runs a little long. But, after this, the home reading station is up and running independently, which makes it worth it!

9:00ish: Blobs & Lines  

Blobs and Lines is not my activity, it's just a standard good one. I create slides of different blob situations (grouping) and line situations (line....ing?). Here are some I use. 

• Gather with people who have the same favorite part of school as you
• Line up by birthdays (January-December)
• Gather with people who have the same favorite season as you
• Line up by height (shortest-tallest)
• Gather with people who get to school the same way as you

It's fun to see students' problem-solving skills and it gets them thinking even more about connections they have with their classmates. 

9:20: SeeSaw Practice: Mad Lib 

You'll notice a pattern happening here. I try to use every important classroom app in the first few weeks in a fun way. I need students to get used to using them and I like to make it fun. SeeSaw is another app my students will need to use. To get them familiar with the app and comfortable creating videos, I have them get in partners and fill out a funny back to school mad lib. Then, they and their partner take turns reading the mad lib for a SeeSaw video. I also have plans to make SeeSaw task cards to get my kids practicing with more of the tools when they finish. But the mad lib videos are so cute and a great thing to show on the last day of school (they think it's a hoot!) 

I use this mad lib from The Sweetest Thing 

10:00: Reading Lesson: Picking a Book/Stamina

The second day is the day I start transitioning to our "normal" routine and therefore we begin our first reading mini-lesson.

We talk about picking out good books, create an anchor chart for read to self, and discuss the importance of reading. I have some kids help me model "fake" and "real" reading. We discuss which one actually helps our brains and the reasons people might "fake" read but why they shouldn't.  The kids love watching the "fake reader" and laughing at how silly they are (looking around the room, flipping pages really fast, getting up 8 times a minute...etc.). We add REAL READING to our expectations chart. 

I call students in small groups to shop for books and point out students using the tools we just discussed.

Once everybody has shopped and has books in their book box, I get our reading stamina chart out.

Students pick a good spot and take their book box with them. When everybody is real reading, I start the timer. I've told students I will stop the timer when I see anybody "fake" reading or distracted. Our goal is to get our brains to be focused on reading for 20-30 minutes. 

I time them and stop the timer when I see 3-4 kids distracted. We mark the time on our chart and then we do a brain break.  

10:30: PicCollage Writing Activity

We use PicCollage for our weekly digital anchor charts. Students keep the charts in the appropriate albums on their iPad. I need students to know how to use PicCollage for this and other future writing projects, so it's a perfect back to school activity. I use this template: 

Students love taking a selfie and the projects turn out so cute! I will usually print them and hang them in the hall. 

11:00: There are Rules Game/Social Contract

This game leads into the writing of our social contract perfectly. Get kids in groups of 2-3 and give them dice, a spinner, and a piece of paper. Tell them to start playing (no further instructions) and prepare for their puzzled looks. It's best if you jokingly berate a few kids for not playing like you said to! Eventually, stop the class and lead into a discussion about the importance of rules, or as I like to call them, expectations. People need to know how things work and how they should behave in certain situations. 

After this discussion, we create our social contract. I like to pull out the posters from the carousel of expectations activity on day 1. I ask the students to tell me how they would like to be treated in class this year. 

We come up with 4-5 important expectations we all agree will help our class run smoothly. I guide the conversation to include responsibility/hard work (after all, WHY do we go to school?)

It's important to me that anything we put on the social contract has a valid reason behind it and the students are able to articulate it. 

After the contract is created, students and I sign it. Now, they are bound to it (contractually!) and it's hung in our room. Whenever someone breaks it, I refer to the chart. 

1:30: Math Lesson: Conjectures 

Our class uses Nearpod for all our math lessons, so I spend some time introducing students to the "after recess" procedure

Come inside, get a drink, grab iPad, find carpet spot, log on to Nearpod, start quiz 

I always start the lesson with a short review quiz that gives students something to do and allows us to spiral review. For the first lesson, I include very simple concepts from 2nd grade just to ease the kids in. We go over the quiz and then start our lesson. My goal for the first math lesson is to get kids used to talking about math. We review the mathematical processes. Then, I introduce the students to

conjecture, revise, agree, challenge 

The first conjecture I give to the students is this.

I know a dog is an animal.

I know an elephant is an animal.

Dogs and elephants have 4 legs.

So, therefore, all animals have 4 legs.

We practice either agreeing or challenging and what it means to revise our thinking. My first idea wasn't necessarily dumb, I just didn't have all the information. Through our discourse, I was able to revise my thinking and come to a stronger conclusion.

Then, I like to pose this one

All numbers are the sum of their digits.

(i.e. 47 is 4 + 7, 183 is 1 + 8 + 3) 

Getting the kids comfortable with discussing math will be very important when we start number/math talks. 

After this, we go into our place value review lesson. 

3:00: Pack Up/Jobs

Again, we have our class meeting. This time we create our first class goal. We talk about something we all did very well and one thing we think we could work on to make class better. I write the goal up on our board. I let different students try out different jobs (everybody is doing a job this week) and we practice packing up & lining up. 

And that is DAY TWO!

Happy Teaching!

First Week Third Grade Lesson Plans : MONDAY (day ONE!)

I am now entering my third year of teaching third grade (isn't that a golden birthday or something? I should have a party...). Because I have a bit of experience behind me now, I have a pretty solid idea of what I like to do the first week of school with my brand new third graders.

For the first time this coming school year, we are starting on a Monday. We usually start on a Thursday which gives us two good days to fall back into the routine of school, get to know each other, and do some fun fluffy stuff before diving into the rigor of things. So when I found out we were starting on Monday, I was a bit thrown off. But I have come to think of it as a (possibly) good thing! It gives me more time to stretch out those relaxed, first time, procedure filled days that are so important.

But you didn't come here to listen to me ramble like a recipe blog before the goods. So, here you have it. This is what I plan to do with my kids the first week. 

Note: all of these activities are tried & true in my classroom and they all serve a purpose.

FOR MORE DETAILED INFORMATION ON THESE LESSON PLANS, SCROLL DOWN!

Happy Teaching!

8:20: Morning Activity

Students enter the room after I greet them at the door. I have met most of them at Meet the Teacher but the few I haven't met, I make sure to get their names. Inevitably, I will need to deal with student supplies and I will also need to make sure I know their home transportation so that I can get them the correct wristband (our school's transportation system the first few weeks of school.) 

While I deal with these things, students find their name poster and begin working. I show them how the directions are on the morning slide (a routine that will carry all year) so they can get started right away. The good news about third graders is that most of them can read directions on the first day. Enough of them that they can help each other which frees you up to walk around and collect stuff and information. 

8:50: Morning Meeting

 I instruct students to leave their name posters at the table (I will do something with them later), push in their chairs, and meet in the morning meeting area I start morning meeting day one because it is the main way I build our classroom community and it's another thing we will do every day of the year. Our morning meeting is held in the heart of our room, the library space right in the middle. The leader and I sit on the couch and the students sit around on the rug. For the first day, I won't have a leader so I will run morning meeting. 

We greet each other, introduce all our names (repeating them to make sure we've got them right), and I let kids who are comfortable sharing on the first day share out. Then, we do an activity.

An activity I love to do for our first morning meeting is called The Line Activity (better name pending). I put a big piece of butcher paper in the middle of us. Everybody sits around the edge of the paper and writes their name on the edge in front of them with a marker. Then, we take turns saying a fact about ourselves. If anyone else in the circle shares that fact with us, they draw a line from their name to the name of the person who shared. I usually start. So, I may say something like "I have a little brother" and everybody with a little brother will connect their name to mine. Students can share things like "I love video games", "I went on a vacation this summer", "I like math", "I have 2 dogs", etc. By the end of the activity, we can see all the connections our class has. I usually put the paper up for the first week to remind us that we are now a family, we all have connections, and we are here for the year to help each other. 

9:20: About Mrs. Hurt/About the Class Slides

A fact you need to know about my classroom is that I do not assign seats. Ever.

Occasionally, a student may need their own space and that can happen (and it has!) but mostly, I do not assign spots. Our room has 3 tables, a teacher table, and a large central library area with a couch and rug. We also have a class set of clipboards, 3 lapboards, pillows, and chairs (and not the traditional sterile school ones - comfy ones). The amount of time my students sit all at tables is...minimal. In fact, after that first day, they only all sit at tables for the first ten minutes of the day. After that, we are either broken into small groups (with students sitting all over the room in different ways) or at the carpet for a mini-lesson (yes, I have 3rd graders sit at a carpet for lessons. No, none of them ever balk about it, they still need the focused space, and it works!) 

So, while I go through the slides about me and our class, I let students sit around the room. Every few slides, a colorful MOVE slide will pop up, prompting students to get up and move in a certain way to another space. This does a few things. 1. It gets the kids moving which helps them pay attention to the information I need to give them and 2. It helps me see who my inherently responsible/calm kids are, who my bossy leaders are (they don't hide long), and who my troublemakers (they hide even less long) are. 

After I've talked about me (and answered a million very personal questions), and gone over some procedures, I get out the iPads.

YES, I check out student iPads on day one for a very good reason.

Our class simply doesn't run without them...I don't know how to get my kids practicing our procedures and routines without the iPads...because we use iPads. 

I will cover iPad check-out in another post. My one bit of advice is to make a specific set of iPad expectations and have students sign them. 

9:40: Carousel of Expectations 

This is one of my favorite activities for getting back to school. I put a question on 8 posters and tape them up around the room. Some good questions to use are:

• What are you excited to learn this year
• What is your favorite thing about school?
• What is a very important school rule?
• What was your favorite thing you did this summer?
• What did you love about ___ grade? 
• What are you a little nervous about this year? 
• What makes a good teacher?
• Why is school important?

As long as you pick some good, thought-provoking questions you are ready to go. I give students a small stack of sticky notes and explain the directions. I give them 1 minute at each poster and play music as they walk around. It's a great way to get kids engaged in something and get information about your class. Plus, you get a sense of student's writing abilities on day one. 

After we finish, I gather the posters and we have a good conversation about some popular answers and how we want out class/year to run. 

10:20: Icebreaker Quizizz

This is an activity for those of us with classroom technology (why oh why can't that be everyone!?) I love using apps that students will use all year for fun back to school activities. It gets them familiar with the apps/technology and also lets us have fun!

Quizizz is a wonderful app very similar to Kahoot...but with funny memes. Plus, students work through questions at their own pace. We use Quizizz all year for math and it's a relatively easy app for students to use. I like to get them on the app day one for a fun icebreaker quiz. I throw in a few easy academic questions they should know from the year before, some things about our school, some jokes, and even some procedures we have covered (to see who is paying attention! Prcoedure quizizz/kahoot is also another great idea for week 1)

10:45: Scramble Sentences

You can read about this year-long vocabulary activity here. This is another activity my kids will do every week of the school year, so it is good to practice early. I created 10 sentences under the title "Things I Want You To Know"

• I expect you to do your very best.
• We will do hard things and learn every day. 
• You can always get better by practicing.
• What you think and feel matters to me.
• When things are hard, your brain is growing.
• We will spend a lot of time reading.
• I will expect you to work together.
• We will talk about our learning.
• I am so excited to be your teacher. 

Each sentence has a missing word. Students work in pairs or groups of 3 and try to solve the sentences. Of course, I model and we do one together. Afterward, we go over each. sentence (because these really are things I want my kids to know!)

At this point, my students go to special classes, lunch, and recess (back to back to back) so we will spend some time practicing hallway, lunch, and recess. 

1:30: Math - Figure Me Out

I like to keep our first afternoon simple. You'll notice I packed a lot of activity into the morning (and sometimes those things get pushed into the afternoon....you never know about time!). This is for a few reasons. Students aren't used to being back in school a whole day yet, and by the afternoon they are a little antsy. Plus, the dreaded end of the day transportation dismissal time is coming and it is stressful for everyone (and long on day one!) 

My favorite activity that incorporates math but isn't too dauting is Figure Me Out. You've seen it before! First, I have students figure me out. 

Students love to know personal information about their new teacher (seriously, that's like their currency) so there's a lot of buy-in. And again, I get some quick anecdotal information on student's math skills (as well as their working skills!). 

After students figure ME out, they get their work on their own. I let them use sticky notes to first write down their answers (learned this the hard way, they need it written down somewhere) and then encourage them to get creative with their math (an important skill in my philosophy of mathematics education)!

Once enough of them have finished, I let them walk around and trade to see how many classmates they can figure out. 

3:00: Read Aloud

We always end our day with read aloud and the first day isn't any different. I love reading How Not to Start Third Grade. It's a funny book and students relate to it. Plus, they've nearly already survived the first day so they can feel much better than the character in the book.

After our read aloud, we start dismissal (after some prayers) and get the kiddos home safe, hoping they had a great first day!

There are my plans for the very first day of school!
COME BACK SOON FOR DAYS TWO, THREE, FOUR, AND FIVE!

Happy Teaching!