Hello October! and a FREEBIE!

Hello October, I have no idea where September went!  Is anyone else in the same boat?  I feel like back to school arrived, I blinked, and now it's October.  We are off and running with another great school year, and my third grade kiddos have definitely been busy.  I can hardly remember what my teaching/planning days were like pre-Pinterest and following teacher bloggers!  I am truly thankful for all of the amazing teachers out there that inspire me and get my creative juices flowing.  Here are a few snap shots of the beginning of our school year.

Remember this beauty floating around Pinterest?

 Well, we created out own version of these charts in our classroom, and we had some amazing results...the culmination of this activity lead to this beauty:

The class created their own classroom pledge based on the ideas that we pulled out of our created charts.  It was a wonderful, authentic learning experience for my class, and they really took ownership of it. =)

  We worked on my Kicking Off a New School Year! goal setting unit, which they really enjoyed.  They completed the soccer ball writing activity, which prompted them about what they were looking forward to and different things they liked.  I loved this particular student's response.  She said her favorite part of the day was playing with play dough...thank you Clutter Free Classroom!  They loved the back to school working with play dough activity!  I also finally got around to snapping a picture of my WBT classroom rules and direction cards...

We've done a lot of work with choosing just right books, ways we choose books, and talking about our reading and thinking.  We're working hard now to build a strong foundation for accountable talk in our classroom, and we've been having some great discussions.

It's hard to see, but in the bottom left corner you can see our mathematicians we made our first week of school as well.  The class had some great ideas of what mathematicians are/do, and they were surprised to learn that they are all mathematicians themselves.

 We are spending a lot of time focusing on conversational moves and body language as we build our accountable talk in our classroom discussions.  Our class also learned a new, very LONG word: METACOGNITION.  I had to smile as they were so determined in their efforts to first just read that word, let alone comprehend what it means and begin to monitor themselves.  

On the home front, our youngest son fell in love with soccer over the summer, and he is now playing on a travel team.  We are newbies when it comes to fall sports.  Our other son has only played baseball, so I am definitely not used to these games early on Saturday mornings when the weather is cold and raw.  The hubs laughed at me this past weekend when I said that for the next game I am going to bring a blanket to wrap up in!

 This is his "Hey Granny, over here!  Check out my uniform!" pose, lol.  So, on top of transitioning back into school mode, planning mode, correcting mode,(my least favorite), and soccer family mode, we are dealing with Mr. I am grumpy that I have to spend my days without my favorite people, puppy.  Needless to say, we have to keep plenty of toys in the house so that what you see below is toys only, and not furniture! lol

 Our living room looks like this just about every.single.day.  Seriously.  Fortunately for us, he ONLY does this to toys, or his dog bed, as is the case here.

Doesn't he just seem to be saying "What?  You know if you'd stay home with me I wouldn't have to do this!" ??  I love that little bugger!

Finally, I'd like to leave you with a little freebie.  I created this to use with student work folders that I will be sending home with completed assignments.  I'm using it as another tool to increase school-home communication.

Click on the picture to download your free copy! =)  Have a great rest of the week!

~Heather~