Week 4: Sticky Note News

Week 4 was super busy with getting into our "Reading is Thinking" Unit.  One of the best things you can do at home is use our Sticky Strategies!  If you have sticky notes around the house try this: As the kids are reading have them jot their thoughts down while reading.  Examples could be:

• Predictions
• Connections
• Funny parts
• Is the character doing what I would do?
• Opinions

This can be done with any genre, from poetry to fiction to informational!  Get STUCK in a good book! :)

 Adrian filling out his stickys!

 Jiselle holding up her "sticky" book after reading Bad Kitty.

Everyone worked really hard getting their thoughts down on their stickys.  At the end of the week we glued our stickys in our reading journals for a grade: "Reading is Thinking."

Week 3: Reading while Thinking!

Week 3 started getting into our curriculum so I had less time to snap photos. But here are two fun activities we did this week.

1) We introduced Spelling-Word Work games.  The kids roll the dice and each number has a specific task that the whole table must complete.

 1) Write a sentence with that word.

 2) Draw a picture of your word.

 3) Write a synonym for your word.

 4) Write an antonym for your word.

5) Write the definition of your word.

6) Write the word three times.

The kids seemed to have a fun time with our big dice and spelling words!  (The spelling test grades were good, too! Just saying) :)

2) The other activity we introduced this week has to do with our 

READING IS THINKING unit!

To begin our lesson we used our THINKING BUBBLE to share our thoughts while we read aloud various books for the week.

Brandon 

Jayla 

Nicole 

Merrick

Two of the books we used for our READING IS THINKING bubble...

My week ended on a positive note!  One of my old third graders/Spanish student and dance partners from the Talent Show brought me a special morning treat!  I miss her so much but I just love seeing all my old students in the morning!!  Thank you, Em!  Talk about Rule 5: Keep Your Dear Teacher Happy! :)

Week 4 coming soon!

Week 2: Super Citizens, Buddy Reading, and Boosterthon!

Week 2 was a very fun week!  We used a lot of time to get going in our Reading/Writing Workshop schedule.  I'll try and post our schedule for you on here soon.  Enjoy our video!

1) We began our library check-out days with Mrs. Casas.  She showed us funny videos of our principals showing us good ways to use library behavior.  Then we got to check out our two books.  

Library days will be Tuesdays each week!!

2) We worked on finding Just Right Books.  We did this by reading: 

The author, Jackie Mims Hopkins is a former Cy-Fair librarian and we just love her book!  For those students who attended Lamkin last year we got to meet her.

3) We began practicing our reading skills by partner reading.  By doing this we have a chance to focus reading out-loud with FLUENCY.  We focused on:

• Stopping at periods and commas
• Reading with expression (especially when we see question marks and exclamation marks)
• Reading at a quick speed like we are having a conversation

We first watched Tim Tebow read Green Eggs and Ham on YouTube here.

4) After the AMAZING Boosterthon on Friday, we spent our whole day learning about the magnificent Helen Keller.  We began by watching the Animated History series video on www.discoveryeducation.com.  Then I brought in books from the public library with Braille.  These picture books had the Braille words and on the corresponding page had the words that the kids could read.  They loved reading through the stories in this unique way.  Then we read the picture book of Helen Keller's life: 

And we wrapped up the day answering 10 multiple choice questions about all the information we had learned during the day.

Thanks for another wonderful week with your kiddos!!

Scholastic Book Orders Due Friday!

www.scholastic.com/bookclubs

If you are fan of keeping your children in a book, you may want to try ordering from Scholastic Book Orders.  We order each month so if we miss you this month it's no problem!  I do it because it was one of the best parts of my month in elementary school and it helps keep fresh books in our classroom to fsoter that love of reading!

And please don't forget, ordering online earns us an instant free book!

Miss Alexander

Welcome Back to School!! Week 1

Week 1 of the school year was a blast!  We spent a lot of time getting to know each other and our reading classroom.  We began our week by playing a Get to Know You Game where we found other classmates who had different qualities-like someone who went on a vacation, someone who can play the piano, etc.

We also began our writing workshop program by looking up children's authors: Patricia Polacco, Tomie dePaola, Marc Brown, Doreen Cronin and Ezra Jack Keats.  It was fun to read about how they came from different backgrounds but all reached their writing goals.  

Usually I don't let kids "Shop for Books" until the second week of school but so many of the kiddos kept asking me, "When do we get to pick our own books?!?" that I couldn't resist and by the 4th day we had our own book bags and started filling them with books to read.

My get to know you bag has my UT snow globe, my passport, my Brighton charm bracelets and my camera!

Getting to Know You Bags were something fun we did the first week, too. Everyone brought 4 things that fit in the bag to share with their class.  It was really neat to see everyone's interests and see how much we have in common.  You can see from my bag that I love to travel, UT football, scrapbooking/crafting, my friends and my family.

And Friday we ended our week by decorating our writing journals.  I was AMAZED at how crafty our kids are.  

Please give a huge THANK YOU!!!! to Mrs. Vasquez who donated ribbon to add to our journals and for wrapping them with contact paper to help keep the covers on and protected from rips/tears.  

Welcome to our class!!  We're going to have a fantastic year!!

WBT Class Rules and Class/Yes!

My class showing off our class rules!

My class and Mrs. Spelock's both are Whole Brain Teaching classroom.  The first thing we are focusing on are the 5 rules:

1-Follow Directions Quickly

2-Raise Your Hands for Permission to Speak

3-Raise Your Hands for Permission to Leave Your Seat

4-Make Smart Choices

5-Make Your Dear Teacher Happy

The rules come along with kinesthetic, hand movements which help stimulate our brains.  Mrs. Spelock's video showing the class rules won't load...silly technology but I'd like to introduce next, the Class/Yes.  It's very important to our classroom and we are loving how fun it is to get the kids' attention very easily.

Mrs. Spelock's class showing off the Class/Yes!

The next step in a WBT classroom is the attention getter.  Whenever I want the class's attention I say, "Class" and they respond, "Yes."  But the fun comes in the tone/style of saying "Class".  The class must mimic in whichever way I saw, "Class."  You can see Mrs. Spelock's class enjoying the fun of Whole Brain Teaching's attention getter.

If you have any questions about WBT please check out the website address or contact me at brandy.alexander@cfisd.net and I'll be happy help!

Meet Miss Alexander

Hi, I'm Miss Alexander and welcome to our classroom blog!  I invite you learn a little bit about me.  This is a picture of my Aunt Beverly and I before we left on a tour of Natchez, Mississippi.  She introduced me to my favorite past time-TRAVELING!  She took me to Italy (any place of my choice) after I graduated high school and it stuck.  Now I have been bitten by the travel bug and have a hard time staying in town. :)

I LOVE the Longhorns!  I'm currently looking at graduate programs at the University of North Texas.  I love everything about the campus and the esteem they have in the education world. 

I also love the Texans.  What a great season they had last year-very exciting.  I love spending time with my friends, too.  I go bowling with them a lot, and go to the movies and out to dinner.

I love Disney and especially Disneyland in California!  Yes, Disney World is more exciting but I love the one in California more.  I got to meet the whole Winnie the Pooh gang when I was there last summer.  I can't wait to go back again some day!

My Summer Travels:

This summer I went on two big trips.  I went to St. Louis, Missouri for a teacher conference on Whole Brain Teaching.  I had the opportunity of going to the Gateway Arch.  It's amazing and you should totally put it on your travel plans if you've never been.

 My big trip for the summer was IRELAND!  I went with a friend of mine and we toured the whole country, including Northern Ireland.  Here is a picture of the Blarney Castle which I climbed up to...

 ... Kiss the Blarney Stone!!  It was amazingly scary but completely exciting.  

While on the trip we stayed at two different castles-Dromoland and Ashford.  This would be Dromoland Castle at dusk, around 10:30pm (so late!).  

Hookin' em at the Cliffs of Moher.  Everywhere I go I take pictures of the hook 'em horns.  The Cliffs of Moher on the Western Coast of Ireland was breathtaking.

Ashford Castle was just as beautiful as any other place I've been.  I had a WONDERFUL trip!!  Ireland is an amazing country to visit. :)

Family:

This is my mom with my nephew Reuben.  We were at the airport to welcome my brother home from Afghanistan.  He's a marine.  

This is my nephew Lucas.  He just started kindergarten this year.  I love him and Reuben so much!!!!!

This is my brother and his wife.  They are both marines who are stationed in North Carolina.  I see them whenever I can...

My Childhood:

I know it's hard to believe but I was once a kid too!  This is me when I was a baby.

This is me when I broke my arm in kindergarten.  I fell off the carousel at Burger King, lol.  But it wasn't so bad.  I loved being a kid and I'm so glad I teach because it lets me be as close to a kid as possible!

I hope you learned a little bit more about me.  Comment below to let me know some things about you!

Welcome Third Graders!!!

Welcome back to school everyone!  And welcome to our class website!  Here you'll find homework resources, pictures of our activities and updates about the class.  I will be attempting to post videos of what we're learning as well, but that will be after I get permission from you, the parents.

You may want to BOOKMARK this site and check back in.  There will be fun incentives for commenting on our posts, too.

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First, let me show you a bit of our classroom to those who couldn't make it to Meet the Teacher.

 

The most noticeable part of our classroom is the extensive, organized library. I love to collect books and have them in various bins based on author, genre and series.  This is our series/author section with some Dr. Seuss characters on top.  The book bins line the entire left wall of our room.  

The back of our classroom hold our student computers and our travel theme. Each of the planes and globes have a student's name.  Miss McMeekin and I made the "Where learning takes flight!" posters.  

Our calendar is at the front of the room on our white board.

                                      

My area is at the back corner of our room behind the filing cabinet that I decorated thanks to ideas from Pinterest.  Pink is my favorite color and I'm a HUGE Longhorns fan!

And the end of our tour is at the left front of our room, on the white board.  This will be our schedule area where we keep track of all the important things going on with assignments and important dates.  These will be copied in the Time Tracker.  The desk you see will be where I'll work with each student in our small group.

All parents are welcome in the classroom to observe at anytime!  Just make sure to email me to set up a time.  

Welcome to Alexander Airways!!!!!

We had a great time yesterday for our Beach Day!  We reviewed our editing/revising material and practiced a reading passage on Honeybees.  After we did our work we passed around beach balls to sign encouraging words to our friends.  I'm so proud of how hard the kiddos worked!!  They have done a great job reviewing everything for our benchmark days.  We will be testing the rest of this week and next week so please keep with us during this time that we showcase all we've been working towards this year! 

MAHALO (Thank you!)

Thank you to the following families for their wonderful donations that have made our review time so much more special.

The Zientek family

The Lynn family

The Whitley family

The Rivich family

The Powell family

The Scoble family

The Chandrabose family

The Szell family

The Harris family

The Autry/Campbell family

The Slaughter famiy

If I missed anyone please let me know and I'll be glad to add your name!

Weekly Update

Hi all,
I hope your week is going well! Here are some updates to our curriculum this week.

Last week we found that we struggle more with sequencing our stories, being able to tell what happened before or after an event. So we've begun working on a story timeline. This can be done with any book you want at home. Create 4-8 boxes and have your child write the main events in the story. Our second graders are having difficulty picking out which events are just details and which are really important to the story. When we are finished reviewing sequence we will be taking our 2nd reading stamina practice with another 5-passage practice. During this time we'll be talking again about taking breaks and what to do when we're tired of working but must keep going.

In writing we have begun our Fantasy Unit. We are in the planning stages of our stories! We have chosen whether we want to write a: fairy tale, fable, folktale or tall tale. We also planned four traits we will have that pertain to each of those units. (I.E. if I'm writing a fairy tale I'm going to have a princess who is a teacher, a magical sorcerer, a pet dragon, and an enchanted forest. If I were writing a fable I would need some animal characters like maybe a fox and a giraffe, these animals will have human traits like trying to trick their teacher from giving them homework, and my story will teach a lesson like how it's better to be honest than lie.) This story will take up much of our time for the next 3-4 weeks. We look forward to sharing them with you afterwards!

And in social studies we have switched to our economy unit with the help of Mrs. Sampson and Mrs. Martinez through Junior Achievement. We are focusing on learning the difference between producers and consumers, and then the different between goods and services.

Homeworks are as usual! 1) Reading comprehension, 2) Writing a short fable, 3) Reading "The Softball Game" twice, and 4) a spelling activity.

If you have any questions feel free to post on here or email me! Have a wonderful week!

Homework and Terrific Tuesdays

Hi everyone, hope you had a blessed Easter! It appears the flu is now hitting the morning class with another 7 absent today. Please rest up you guys and feel better soon!

We're going to carry on here as we have our end of the year benchmarks in about a month!

Starting this week we are going to begin growing our stamina of taking longer reading passage practices each Tuesday. Our schedule is so busy, I think it will be better to do them on a regular basis to help everyone out. Wednesdays are library days, Thursdays are computer lab and Fridays are spelling tests and checking homework. So Tuesdays we are going to begin taking a practice reading passage assortment and using that data to drive what we work on in class.

Homework:
Reading Comprehension homework
Spelling Activity
Writing Homework (over fairy tales)
Home Reader

What a Crazy Week, Happy Easter!!!

Ok, I wanted to post a quick note that I went ahead and canceled our spelling words for this week. We'll use the same words next week so if you did your spelling activity already just hold on to it so you can turn it in next Friday!

Secondly, I wanted to address the flu that seems to be going through our classroom. We have had up to 10 children out per day. We have made sure to use hand sanitizer hourly and have cloroxed our tables, chairs and even our pencils! For those of you who are out we hope you'll concentrate on feeling better! For those who may not know yet about all our illnesses I hope you'll stay healthy and make sure to get plenty of sleep and those other healthy choices we make each day!

Because of so many absenses I have not taught extra content this week. We reviewed the skills of distinguishing between fact and opinion and worked on our book reviews and Flag Day books. None of those are assignments that will be sent home for "make-up work." We'll take care of it when any students who missed the assignment come back. It's just too hard to explain the directions and it's something that should be completed in class as the books we use are in our classroom library.

For the book commercials: I will only post the commercials that I have consent for from the yellow sheet. (You can find an extra copy on the first few posts of the blog if you haven't yet returned one.) I will try my best to post all 20-30 students that I can but we will see if I can get them formatted correctly, because I'll have to learn a bit about Blogspot first :)

And lastly, I hope you enjoy your Good Friday. I hope you'll get to spend time with family and cherish the day however your family chooses. It's a very special weekend and I hope you'll enjoy the time with family and friends in the best ways possible.

Literary Nonfiction and Book Reviews

This week we began reading "literary nonfiction" which are true stories that really took place. We began by reading Nubs: A story of a mutt, marine and a miracle. Then we read Two Bobbies. These are two amazing stories that the kids really enjoyed!

You can watch a video of Nubs at:

You can find the website for Two Bobbies at:

http://www.twobobbies.com/ The kids may enjoy looking at it.
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And our next writing project will be writing book reviews. After writing commercials we will then videotape them to put online (after permission slips are signed!) Stay Tuned!