Third Grade Rocks!!!

Hi! I'm Nicole. I am a 3rd grade teacher who just absolutely LOVES LOVES LOVES her job. I did a lot of thinking this summer on how I could better use the Daily 5 strategies without my 3rd graders being confused and myself staying organized. Here are my plans. I hope I can help someone with these ideas. I'd love to hear your feedback and anything that might help me too! Thanks for looking.

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Read to Self is simple and a wonderful strategy to have the students reading on a daily basis. I am very fortunate that my team leader and colleague ordered a class set of book boxes. They look great and are so colorful!

In each box are the following: a child's magazine, an animal related fiction book, a humorous fiction book, a poem or fairy tale book,  and a non-fiction book. I picked the books for the first week and every Friday students will pick their new good fit books and magazine. My goal is to only remind them for a month or two to pick their new books on Friday, then it should just happen without me having to say anything. Worked last year and I wasn't nearly this organized. So... fingers crossed!

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Read to Someone is also simple. The students take their book boxes and a partner to read together. They must sit EEKK (elbow elbow knee knee). Gail Boushey and Joan Moser suggest having the student who is listening hold a “check mark” so they can check the reader’s understanding when the passage is finished. I found these check marks that I have printed for all of my students that way they can have some prompts to check their partners understanding after each page. Here is the link to print them if you'd like: Check for Understanding Book Mark

I print mine on colored paper and laminate. Each student stores it in their book box.

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Listen to Reading is my favorite because my students last year LOVED it and it ran so smoothly. I found that it was easier and more effective if the students had their own personal CD players and a huge selection of listening material to choose from.

I was lucky and found CD players for $9.98 at Wal-Mart. I found a ton of books and CD's at Scholastic, so I bought 5 CD players and too many books and now I have a perfectly functioning listening station with over 100 books to choose from.

If you plan on doing this just make sure you TEACH the students how to properly use the CD players and handle CD's. None of my materials were damaged with a whole year of use!

I also expect the students to complete a task card for each book they listen to.There are many sites with free task cards, but here is an example of a good one: Listening Station Task Cards

Personal CD players $11.99  - Select the FREE site to store shipping.

5 Personal CD Players and my multiple-listener listening station. 

The leveled readers came with CD's so I organized them, 
taught the students how to use them, and BAM... over 50 book selections!

All the books I got from Scholastic, organized into two different bins.

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Word Work is where I made a lot of changes from last year. I focus on either spelling or vocabulary that we are currently working on in class as the Word Work. My team uses something that is called Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe, which is a free resource to us from StoryTown. I used the Tic-Tac-Toe (if Link doesn't work, search Pinterest for Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe) as my Word Work. What I did was cut apart the 8 different spelling practice tasks from the Tic-Tac-Toe, put them in bags with enough supplies for that specific activity, and the students would do them in their reading journals. This provided great spelling practice.

This year I wanted the selection of their Word Work to be more anonymous, because I know some kids were just picking the easier, more enjoyable tasks last year. So... I went to my beloved Wal-Mart and bought 14 black pencil cases and a bin to hold them all. Each case now holds a specific task to be completed. Some of the tasks are from the Tic-Tac-Toe and some are ones I made up or have borrowed from others. This way all of the Word Work selections will be random and everyone has the same chance of pulling a super fun activity or a so-so fun activity.

Before we even start Word Work though, I will go over every single box to make sure everyone knows how to do each activity. These will be what we use while building our stamina. I never give anything with explaining it first. Plus, that would defeat the purpose of using the Daily 5 if students have to get up to ask me how to do something, or if they aren't getting any meaningful knowledge from the activity.

A bag full of spelling words is right on the front. This is the 
only thing I have to change out every week or two.

Some boxes may say "Get a pan" or "Get the keyboard". 
This is stored right behind the Word Work box.

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Work on Writing will be new for me this year. I only did Daily 4 last year, but I am actually excited to add this new piece. I found a 1st grade blog that gave me this amazing idea. My plan is to allow the students to "free write" during their Work on Writing time. I will have 5 spiral notebooks and on the outside of each will be a specific topic. Only writing on that topic is allowed in the journal.

So, I am allowing free writing but I will give the general focus.Now... to make it more educational, each week will have a different skill. For example, the first week I am only looking to make sure they are using proper conventions. Then the next week, I might be looking for the proper use of nouns PLUS conventions. The following week, I could be looking for compound sentences PLUS conventions and proper use of nouns. The skills will keep building until all skills are mastered... or as close as we can get.

I will be reviewing the writing with each child the following morning before we start our reading block. Should be simple enough, but I know things don't always work according to planned. So I'll just go with it for now!

Example made in Microsoft Paint

I hope this was fun/helpful for you! Remember that you don't have to do Daily 5 just like the book, or like anyone else in your school. It will be more useful to you if you tweak it to your classrooms needs. The goal is the same across the world in education; to educate. Daily 5 is simply a management tool that really works! I love it, my team loves it, and my kids love it! What else could I ask for!

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Oh yeah... I am so proud of my AR board so I wanted to share that too!!! The theme is The Magical World of Reading. I move my students up based on the amount of points they have. The goal is 100 points... or higher! Email me if you want the cartoon-ish magic tricks. I have them saved to my computer.

• I named my board Reading is Magical. I cut out the letters from playing cards. 
• The square spiral is made from the back of playing cards (with the white edges cut off and cut in half).
• The different point levels are made from cartoon-ish magical tricks.
• I bought and decorated a top hat from Michaels ($3.99).
• I decorated a mask with puffy paint, glitter, and feathers.
• I made magic wands with dowels, black spray paint, and white paint. 
• A pink feather boa rests on the top of the board just to add some pink!

music mastering