Recent happenings...

Character words up for Social Studies, not too interesting. :/
Our Map to track our USA Postcard Exchange. We have LOT more postcards to get to, but it is hard to fit the time in!!!
Group Sparkle Points! My kiddies LOVE this!! The groups can earn points throughout the week and the group with the most points on Friday gets a prize! :)
Power word poster! Very handy!

Division anchor chart that the kids can remove the words and the put them in the correct place..
Anyone played this game? I just got it in the mail today! Looks like it is a good one! Basically clock dominoes!

I got this pencil sharpener for Christmas and I LOVE IT!!!! It works great, plus has a 10 year warranty...
Even better, when the pencil is sharp the light turns blue!!!!!!

Our Class Rocks Jar! Again my friend Mandy Flanders made this for me! Anything crafty she can do for me! We earn rocks for compliments, no names in the book, everyone doing their homework, etc.... When it is full we get a prize!!! Check her out at, https://www.facebook.com/flandysfancycreations

These nifty posters came from The Teacher Wife! I purchased it this morning and have already done three activities from it! It has 58 pages of lots of goodies! Check it out here...
Another item from the pack! :)

And these OH so cute bookmarks that I'm giving the kiddies tomorrow! :)

Language Arts

As much as I enjoy only teaching one subject, sometimes I wish I taught others because of all the neat things that I find or hear about. For instance the Daily 5 sounds great and the book everyone was reading called the Book Whisperer made me jealous, too!

Another great thing I wanted to share with you is Grammar Jammar!!! My cousin's friend created this after trying to teach her third grade students rules about grammar! It started out as a drama and eventually turned into this SUPER DVD!!! You can go read the reviews and other information for yourself at www.grammarjammar.com.


Trailer: Grammar Jammar from James Hedrick on Vimeo.


LASTLY, I wanted to share with you all that my project was selected for MATCH FUNDING on Donors Choose! It says that if I were to raise half the money that Lakeshore will most likely fund the rest!! Please help us get these tubs! My students would LOVE them!! I only need $204 for the matching funding!! http://www.donorschoose.org/amberlazenby



Feel free to share it with bloggers, friends and family- whomever! THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!! :)

**UPDATE! MY PROJECT WAS FULLY FUNDED TODAY!!!!! I'M SOO STINKIN' EXCITED! :)

Accelerated Reader

After a few months into my teaching career I started noticing that my students were lacking in the READING area. Although I am the Science teacher, I still encourage students to read daily!!! I asked the media specialist and the reading teacher at my school about Accelerated Reader and found out my school doesn't put emphasis into the program. Motivation for the students would have to come from within the classroom, which is different from ALL my field experiences/student teaching. Anyways, I needed to come up with something QUICK to get my students on the READING TRAIN.

The first thing I did was implemented a DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time for the last 15 minutes of our day. Not only do I have students reading, but I have time to get last minute papers signed and returned to go home.

The SECOND thing I did was make this poster. I wrote all my students names down and put a little square to write their points. I got the poster laminated and hung it up in my room. I update the points weekly and move the star post-it notes to the high ranking students. So that was a little motivation for my kids, a friendly competition. HOWEVER, that was NOT enough. So I thought back to one of my experiences and remembered a teacher had brown paper bags with each students name on it hanging above their heads on the ceiling. As students reached AR goals they received the prize that was in their bags! The contents were a SECRET and not to be shared with those who had not made their goals!

So here is what I came up with, since my ceilings are too high for me to reach, I tacked them above our board. (This is only half of the bags.) When students reach goals they receive the prizes and are to keep it a secret. The first prize was a sucker, bookmark, and pencil. The second prize is free cheesy bread from Little Caesars, a pack of gum, and a McDonald's toy.
To keep track of what "bag" the student is on, I just simply put a tally mark on the bottom as I hang it back up.

This was definitely the motivation that MOST of my students needed to get those points up!