Growing up on 20 acres in East Texas was an amazing experience. My father raised just about every bird you can think of. He had everything from racing pigeons to ducks.
I loved every minute of it! But, I always joked that I needed a peacock to complete the total experience. Well I popped off one too many times. After years of asking for peafowl, my dad made it a reality. They are everything I imagined they´d be & more! Check out Pascal!
Here is a few more of our lawn ornaments!
As the standardized tests creeps closer I have been adding more independent reading passages into the school day. While I understand that test strategies are not the most interesting thing in the world, it is a necessity. I have found over the last few days that throwing in a brain break about every 45 minutes has really improved my students attention and added some motivation.
Our favorite website is GoNoodle! Seriously, it’s awesome and free to sign up! You can’t beat that! It has math and reading practice built into dance moves and songs. I put on the Word Jam vocabulary practice every morning.
Another favorite is just finding YouTube videos of Just Dance. We love the Super Mario song!
Next time you see your students starting to zone out give GoNoodle a try! They’ll love it and you can get them engaged again!
Dr Seuss Week is one of my favorites! I look forward to it every year. Our librarian does such an awesome job of planning enrichment activities throughout the week. Plus, she turns to whole school into Seussville! Every detail is so well planned out. The students enjoy every moment and hopefully will motivate them to open more books! 
This year’s schedule-
Monday: Cat in the Hat Day. Student’s wore their favorite hats and a guest read the Cat in the Hat to every grade level.
Tuesday: Fox in Socks Day. Students wore crazy socks!
Wednesday: One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish Day. Students wore red or blue and a special guest read the book. She did the dancing milk activity and explained how having a fun positive attitude will spread out to everyone you meet. 
Directions: Pour a thin layer of milk into the bottom of the tray. Add the drops of food coloring. Dip the q-tip into the dish soap. Last, dip the dish soap q-tip into the the milk and watch the colors spread out and dance!
Thursday: Green Eggs and Ham Day. The cafeteria served green eggs and ham for breakfast. Then, we had a guest come read to every grade level.
Friday: Hop on Pop Day. Wear pajamas for popcorn and movie during specials rotation.
Next year, I hope we can fit in Oh, the Places You’ll Go and have students dress for what they want to be when they grow up.
Some of our classroom activities:
We thought about what this Lorax quote meant to each student, then wrote a paragraph explaining how we could show we care a whole awful lot everyday.
We had a blast this week! Thank you to everyone who made this week possible. I can’t wait until next year!
Check back! I’ll add more Dr Seuss activities as I find them!
One of my favorite childhood memories is whenever a large rainstorm would hit, my brothers and I would race down to the pond to catch the tiny fish caught in the overflow. My mom’s favorite story to tell is how we snuck one of those tiny bass into my dad’s tropical fish tank. Well the poor little guy ate every one of the guppies for breakfast. To say my dad wasn’t amused would be an understatement.
Well, the last two weeks in Texas have been experiencing the little bitty stingin rain. Big ol fat rain. Rain that flew sideways and even rain that seemed to come from underneath. We were under numerous flash flood warnings.
Well today, the sun finally made an appearance. Hallelujah!!
With the kids dying to go outside, I decided to let them explore. On our walk about, it didn’t take long for them to notice the water overflowing out of the pond. Within minutes they were scooping the fish up and running to put them back in the pond.
I’m typically not an overly sentimental or emotional person, but I just had the best time watching my children make the same memories that I cherish.
For the past few years I’ve done the Christmas Around the World project where I had students draw a country, research it, and write a paper. Last year I decided to try something different.
I made a Facebook post asking for anyone living in a different country to send a letter to my students explaining holiday traditions in their country. I’m still overwhelmed with the response that we got. We received videos, letters, goodie boxes, Christmas cards, and emails from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Korea, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, Lithuania, Switzerland, and England. This was definitely one of those shining moments that make you realize there are still wonderful people all around!
We had biscuits and Christmas Crackers to open from London. Oh how I wish I would have caught the reactions on video when the firecrackers (Christmas crackers) started exploding. We had cookies from Australia, and we even got to watch a video of a Christmas parade in Switzerland. I have never seen students so excited over an assignment. I lost count how many times a day I heard, ¨Do we have any mail? Can I go check your box?¨ 
I’m introducing my new third grade class to this project tomorrow. I can’t wait to see where we’ll go this year.
¨Children who aren’t reading at grade level by the end of third grade are four times as likely to drop out of high school,¨ Donald J. Hernandez, Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation. The Annie E. Casey Foundation; Center
As a third grade teacher that statistic is worrisome to say the least. It can be challenging to motivate and engage students with drastically different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and personalities. I have spent the past couple months exploring some literacy websites to add to my classroom.
www.sciencea-z.com is my personal favorite. The multilevel readers are wonderful and the students love the videos.
www.frontrow.com is free and the multilevel articles range in topics. I like to assign social studies topics and find articles on individual reading levels.
www.readtheory.com is free and has assessments to help you identify reading levels and monitor growth.
www.newsela.com The news articles are relevant to what is going on and catches their attention. I am still in the 30 day trial, but if any more MineCraft articles pop up, it would be well worth the money.
www.gonoodle.com is awesome for a quick brain break or concept review. The videos get the children up and active. I love the vocabulary games.
Most of these websites can be accessed at home. Hopefully at least one of these tools will catch their attention and help them grow as readers.
I think the color purple is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of the need for connection around the globe. -Alice Walker
