State Testing - Try this short response resource!

Good morning!

We're in it. And by it I mean testing season. As an instructional coach, I'm helping kids AND teachers prepare for upcoming state assessments in New York. I made testing survival kits for my teachers - motivational coloring pages, secret parent notes for encouragement, testing treats, letters to the students for support, and these short response checklists!

I love using pens with my kids to color code their Restate, Answer, and two pieces of Text-based evidence. When they become automatic at it, they will write with one color and use different colored highlighters to check their response. It's difficult to get full credit on the written response without a strategy like this!

While kids can't use them on the test, they can use this leading up to the test and we can hope it sticks! I have several strategies - RATT, RATTS, RAPP, and RAPPS - depending on the strategy different teachers use in my school. What strategy do YOU use successfully for short response questions?

Click here for this resource!

Making Inferences

We did one of my favorite inference lessons recently! I bring in my new neighbor's garbage. Of course I play it up, explaining how mysterious they are and how I haven't seen them since they moved in a few weeks ago. Then, I tell my sweet little third graders that I took some of their garbage to try to get to know them better. The kids always come up with the best inferences as I show them the garbage. I usually have a lot of food wrappers, receipts, toiletries, etc. The receipt from grocery shopping at Wal-Mart was highly analyzed this year! It was really great that the kids were so focused and excited. After this, we relate our inferences with the garbage to actual trade books!

Hi there! I'll be linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday today. So, let's get started! :)

I've been experimenting with new ways to incorporate our secret agents day into the year. My second graders had a blast with this room transformation last year! I created secret agents days focused on area, multiplication, addition, subtraction, and time to make this year memorable for my third graders!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Secret-Agents-Day-AREA-2989107

Have you ever made a deep dish pizza in a crock pot? It really works! Just use Pillsbury pizza dough and layer your toppings! It was DELICIOUS!

Yet again, the Valentines science kits I found on TPT were a hit with my students as a Valentines day gift! And so easy! I bought the materials for less than $15 and packaged them in an hour!

I became a Seesaw ambassador recently! Seesaw has transformed my parent communication and I LOVE IT! Email me for more information. I also have a Seesaw ambassador code to get you some free Seesaw Plus, which is an amazing formative assessment tool.

http://web.seesaw.me

I started a new bulletin board in my classroom recently. I began pulling mentor sentences and paragraphs from my students' writing journals and posting them on the bulletin board as inspiration for the class. The kids love reading each other's writing and using this variation of a mentor text.

How To Writing

Our third grade class used Amy Lemons and Hope King's Write On unit to help us through procedural writing. The kiddos LOVED  making Pie In a Cup! We discussed the materials, made it ourselves, used sequence words to write a paragraph, and saw our writing through to publishing! It was a lot of fun and something different. All third graders have done How To Writing before, but none of them had made Pie In a Cup before!

Writing Narratives

Our class revisited our old anchor charts about personal narratives this week because we are starting narratives! We are writing descriptions of our own personal Neverland as we read the novel, Peter Pan.

Our third graders are LOVING the book, Peter Pan, which is part of the EngageNY English Language Arts Modules that our school district is using.  Last week we warmed up our brains to the idea of writing about our own Neverland. I demonstrated writing with a timer. The class put a 3 minute timer on me and I wrote about my own Neverland in front of them. I didn't stop writing AT ALL. Then, the class got a five minute timer and had to write about their own Neverland for five minutes WITHOUT STOPPING. It was really amazing how much they got done...much more writing than a laid back writer's workshop day!

Check out the anchor charts we revisited this week: