Gettin' Muddy!

So I have the time/energy to post two times in one day, because we are out for flooding!  I always feel a little guilty for being happy about being out of school because I really do enjoy my job (and other people with normal jobs don't get out of work).  But, I see it as one of the perks of being a teacher...you maintain that kid-like excitement about lots of things.  I, at least, have been using some of my time off to look on pinterest, teacherspayteachers, and data from some of my recent assessments.

I am hoping to do data conferences with my students when we get back because I made each of them a little packet containing their important test scores in Reading and Language (an idea I got from our reading specialist).  It is just so hard for them to understand the importance of standardized testing.  I want them to care and try their best, but it's hard for them to see why it matters, because they are in third grade for goodness sake! But, I also don't want to make them feel like failures or freak them out.  Even my best students who try hard have trouble with all of the tests.  I mean I see why they're important but I wish they could be administered individually or something. Maybe all of this Common Core stuff will do some good eventually.

Anyway, back to the title of this post...I decided to use the rainy day (before the flood) to teach about compare and contrast!  I made a bowl of mud and a bowl of potting soil, and we simply compared them using a venn diagram.  Our story this week was about landforms so I thought it was at least a little thematic.  Then we used hula hoops to diagram their responses (another steal from pinterest).  It was a pretty fun lesson, but next time I will try to make it more challenging.  It think I'm going to have them compare character traits next time and use three hula hoops.  But, we did have fun!

2 unrelated photos...my students (and teacher buddies) have been bringing me lots of owl stuff because I'm obsessed...the mug is adorable!  Below is a pic of how I'm going to try to organize my library...I get so frustrated with them not knowing their book levels, but all of the CAFE stuff says to make books more appealing by organizing them by genre...blah, blah, blah.  I've organized my library at least 3 times a year for 5 years...so I'm just going to try to do it like the real library does it- by level and also make one of my kids the librarian!  I'll let you know how it turns out ;) Looks pretty ghetto now...