Thanksgiving thoughts ...

Okay, I swear I was just typing in my blog about how it was October, and then all of a sudden the first of November. And now, here we are, the end of November, and almost the beginning of December. We are one week away from December 2013. Holy smokes! 

Recent Pictures :

Okay, so where are we at in room 9? Crazy is where we are at! We are wrapping up quarter 2, which means we are starting to wind down and prepare for Galileo benchmark testing. Scary stuff, but I think we are making progress. 
In math, we are working on rules, and sequencing numbers, with in and out tables, skip counting, and missing numbers. Crazy stuff that is very overwhelming but we are making progress. Hopefully, we are learning the skills necessary to really hit this one. 
In reading, we have been focusing on fact and opinion which is a much tougher concept than I originally had planned for. We are using what we know about fact and opinion to move into persuasive text, and how to find the opinion of the author. Phew! Lots of stuff going on there. 

We finished Indian in the Cupboard and completed the concept by watching the movie. It ended up tying in great with our unit on comparing and contrasting. We were able to compare and contrast characters, but we were also able to compare and contrast the movie and the book. It was refreshing to hear third graders talk about how they liked the book better because the movie missed important details! :) Music to my ears and makes my heart happy to know how much they truly enjoyed that book. 
Thanks to suggestions from our new friends in Oklahoma, we have started a new book, which is the first in a new series called Olivia Brophie. The kiddos LOVE it so far. We can't wait to see what happens, and they are already excited to know that there is a second book coming soon! :) 


We completed our first Mystery Number Skype this week. We had so much fun! What a great experience that was. We were able to skype for two days with Mr. Gogol's sixth grade technology class back in Grass Lake, Michigan. This was very special experience for me because I was able to see some kiddos that I worked with back home, and Mr. Gogol and I have worked together, and he was a teacher for 5 of my siblings. What a fun two days. We made it super personal, and my kids LOVE those 6th graders. We can't wait to continue our adventures in Mystery Skyping.

We were able to make a page for a Global Thanksgiving book this week also. I found the idea on twitter, and thought it was fantastic! We shared our thanks with the 2nd graders putting the book together, and can't wait to see the final product when it is completed! Following this theme, we were able to tweet about some things we are thankful for. I have included screen shots of our twitter feed. I just love these kids so much!! 

Please feel free to follow our classroom twitter page: @ThirdGradeRoom9 

With that said, I want to end with a few things I am thankful for. Really, truly, I am so blessed. I could go on for days about all the things I have to be thankful for. Instead, I want to keep it as relevant as I can to the last 4 months of my life. 

I am thankful for my impulse. I moved 2,000 miles away from home, by myself, with only what would fit in my Nissan Sentra on an impulse. I had no idea what I was getting into, and no idea where my life was taking me. But here I am, surviving on my impulse. 

I am thankful for my compassion. I found friends, we clicked, we save each other, keep each other sane, and entertain each other. We are all so different, and come from such different backgrounds, and cultures, but we all know how it feels to be in the positions we are in, and we can relate in ways that no one else outside of our circle could even begin to understand. 

I am thankful for my heart. It has been full my whole life, even when I feel empty. It is sometimes, the only thing that gets me through the days in this classroom, my love for these kids and their hearts. I am able to see the good in others, the intentions of good people, the souls of those who love, and the pain in my students' eyes. My heart and my compassion make this job both painful and joyous. 

I am thankful for Grass Lake, Michigan. My hometown. The best place on Earth. The people in my life from Grass Lake have been overwhelmingly and extraordinarily supportive and helpful along this journey of mine. I am so forever blessed and grateful for every single person who has touched my life. 

I am thankful for Twitter. Twitter has been a place for me to share, vent, collaborate, find, and explore. I can share what we are doing in room 9, find ideas for what we can do, or should be doing, ask questions when I don't understand, make friends, make connections, find happiness, read articles, share pictures, and just read. 

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you all have a great long weekend with your families and truly are able to reflect on what it is that you are thankful for this year. <3 

~Ms. Niehaus 

Happy Birthday to me! :)

So, last week, we celebrated my 26th birthday in room 9. There is no other place in the world that I would rather be on my birthday than in my classroom with students who love me unconditionally. I was so surprised and shocked to receive the extra love and attention from my kiddos. I have to share and brag about some of the goodies I received. We ate cake, and cookies, drank juice, and had a great day! I am so lucky!! 

Before my birthday though, we did have some fun in room 9. We were focusing a lot on inverse relationships and the properties of multiplication. I am very proud of how well the kiddos did on the assessment on Friday, and am excited to see how they continue to grow and learn to be fluent in their multiplication and division facts. We did a scavenger hunt to practice division and using the inverse to help us solve multiplication and division problems. This helped us to prepare for our test on Friday of last week! :)

 

This week, we had Monday off of school for Veteran's day. We have been busy already during this short week. We are playing a lot of math games including bingo, I have, who has, Top it, and Tic-Tac-Toe. We are using this week to practice our fluency of multiplication facts. We have also been watching the old School House Rock movie, "Multiplication Rock". I have to share some pictures of our games and fun, but I also want to share this picture of Kevin. Kevin missed all of last week because he was in Mexico with his family. He has come back gracefully but Multiplication Rock was very new to him (I introduced it last week) He did not know what to think of it --- and this face shows it all! :) 

Here are some pictures of our writing time, daily five time, hang man during daily five to practice spelling words, and math games and practice! :) 

They are convinced that Clay Matthews would fall in love with me if he ever met me. My students are so sweet, and I wish they were right. They also are very concerned that he would be too rough with me, and would be mean to me because he is scary and hits people so hard! :) These kids seriously crack me up! It amazes me how much they truly pick up about you when you build relationships with them. I received 3 bouquets of flowers for my birthday, including a dozen roses. I have NEVER told them that flowers are my favorite gift to receive but somehow, they knew that I would love those the most! :) 

We did a Mystery Skype today with a class in Iowa. I am so proud of these kids and how much they have grown and continue to grow. I am also so excited to share with them that we have a Skype set up next week for 2 days where we will be skyping with 6th graders from my hometown in Michigan, and we will be trying to guess Mystery Numbers. The kiddos are going to be so excited to know that we are skyping with 6th graders, AND That they will be kids from my hometown. I can't wait to see some of the kiddos that I have been blessed to teach in the past. It will be very heartwarming for me, and I am looking forward to the challenge of solving the puzzles. :) 

We are also hoping to set up another Mystery number Skype next week with another classroom. Learning globally is so fun, and engaging! :) 

I also wanted to share one more new thing that I am doing in my classroom after seeing Harry Wong speak ... We have a morning warm up and an afternoon warm up. We have eliminated some wasted time, and the kids can see their schedule broken down by the morning and the afternoon. The warm up is short and sweet, but gives them something to work on and get started on right away to engage themselves and their brains. :) 

14 days until Thanksgiving break, and I can not wait for the surprises I have in store during that break!! :)

~Ms. Niehaus 

Building arrays, state report projects, and more ...

This week was a crazy week, as you can see from the previous posts I've already made. My brain has been going so crazy with ideas, reflections, thoughts, and concerns. We have so many things going on in room 9, and we are learning so much. We are having fun, and we are also ready to "start over" on Monday. We will spend a significant amount of time re-learning procedures and policies and practicing them over and over again. I think it's always a good idea to revisit these procedures and to practice again, but I think now is a perfect time for us. We are comfortable with who we are, our classroom community is fabulous, and we love each other, BUT, we are also wasting time because we have forgotten about some of the procedures and I have not done a great job of reinforcing, so hence ... Monday - we start over! :) 

This week, we finished our "day in the life of" books which focused on writing a schedule. We had to write a rough draft schedule of our day, it could be real, or made up. We, then turned our schedule into a book titled "A day in my life". They turned out super cute, and for the most part, the majority of students grasped the concept of the functional text - schedules. 

We also spent some time learning about the specific multiplication properties. We have touched on these as we have been learning multiplication and division, but we haven't really broken the properties down until this week. I have to share this picture of the board. I am NOT an artist, but I was pretty proud of my art work to display and show the connections between properties this week! :) 

Next up --- Multiplication by arrays. We have been doing a lot with arrays and equal groups and I think the kiddos are finally starting to really reach that mastery point. (hopefully --- we get there for fluency eventually too!) We built arrays with marshmallows this week, and had a lot of fun doing so! Some kiddos really challenged themselves with some BIG numbers! :) 

Most of all -- they LOVED seeing them on the wall, and finding their own array, and pointing them out to their friends. This made my heart happy. I LOVE when they take and show pride in their work and their learning. It's something truly special when a child LOVES what they are learning, how they are showing what they are learning, AND can explain it to their peers. Happy Teaching moment! 

We have been working so hard at Mystery Skypes lately, and I wanted to take it to another level... we have found Mystery Number skyping and are very excited to find some classrooms to join us in this challenge and adventure. I am hoping to get a classroom from my home town in Michigan to join us! It will be a great challenge and very fun opportunity for my kiddos to use their skills and knowledge to find mystery numbers with new friends from all over the country! Thank you #MysterySkypes and #SkypeInTheClassroom Here are some pictures from our AWESOME skype with a class from Clinton, Oklahoma this week! :) 

 Going along with our Mystery Skype challenges lately, I wanted the kiddos to take their learning a lit bit farther. We have been focusing so hard on functional text the last few weeks and non-fiction functional text that provides a purpose and gives us information. We decided we would use these concepts together with our Mystery Skype projects and we would chose a state to research, and make an informational poster about our states. We had a lot of fun reading, and finding information to accomplish this task. Here are some pictures from the beginning states of the poster making, I'll have to share final results next week--- we are going to display our state posters in the library! Thanks to our fabulous librarian for the suggestion -- yet ANOTHER way for my kiddos to feel such a great sense of pride and accomplishment in their learning! Here is a link to the rubric I used for the assignment -- I gave the students complete control of their project outcome -- they had to check off each part of the assignment as they completed it. US States Project Rubric 

We will also be presenting these this week before we place them in the library, maybe we will record our presentations and make another video! :) 

Of course, as a teacher, sometimes you have GREAT days, and sometimes, you have rough days. It's not secret that I have had my fair share of rough days this year. I have a great set of students who respond so well to my rough days though. They are so caring, and honest, and can certainly turn my day around with one hug or smile. BUT, I have a few girls who are SO loving, and even when I'm having a great day, they can find a way to make the day EVEN greater! I have to share the notes they left for me Thursday! Love love love these kiddos! 

I am so so so lucky to have been blessed with this group of kiddos. They make my job, and my life so much easier.. which is weird, because it's not easy. But, I can't imagine my job, or my life if I didn't LOVE these kiddos the way I do. 

So, What's coming up next week?

Well.....

We are continuing with multiplication and division, only this week we are focusing specifically on using the inverse property to help us solve and check our answers when multiplying and dividing. We will be doing some problem solving, and work with story problems. I am hoping this will help us to distinguish when we are reading story problems if we need to multiply or divide (This was pretty confusing during our last CFA). We will also focus more on the properties of multiplication and division again, and how we can use those to help us solve problems. We take a big CFA on Friday and I am really hoping for some positive growth and learning! :) 

In reading/writing, we are moving our focus back to fiction in a sense. We are learning about plot, and how to compare and contrast plots across stories. We are also simultaneously learning about graphic organizers and how to use them to help us better understand and comprehend the text we are reading. We will be filling out graphic organizers, answering questions, re-visiting character traits, identify setting, and problem/solution in stories, and will end the week with being able to correctly sequence a story with a graphic organizer! 

Phew! Lots of learning left in Quarter 2. Welcome November, I can't wait to see what kind of fun we can have, how much learning we have ahead of us, and how much personal growth we can attain! 

Happy November!

~Ms. Niehaus