lightbulbsandlaughter.com
Light Bulbs and Laughter: May 2015
http://www.lightbulbsandlaughter.com/2015/05
Teaching Kids to Give. Before I became a teacher I thought teachers taught subjects. Like reading, writing, math, science, and music. Boy, was I wrong. And we don't just teach them the usual stuff. Some of the subjects are highly specialized! Here's a list of a few of the things I have taught my third graders this year:. Not to run around screaming if a bee flies into the classroom. Not to whack people on the head with (insert any noun imaginable). How to chew with your mouth closed. The students wrote l...
lightbulbsandlaughter.com
Light Bulbs and Laughter: Earth Day in the Classroom
http://www.lightbulbsandlaughter.com/2016/04/earth-day-in-classroom.html
Earth Day in the Classroom. How do you celebrate Earth Day in your classroom? Here are a few fun and easy ways that we reduce, reuse, and recycle in ours. 1 Have students bring empty plastic or cardboard containers from home. Challenge them to look around their house for one special item that they think could be reused in the classroom. Then lay them all out on a table and brainstorm ideas. Bonus points if you give students duct tape or washi tape to match your classroom decor! 5 Remember the days of ove...
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Light Bulbs and Laughter: Metacognition: Helping Students Assess Their Own Learning
http://www.lightbulbsandlaughter.com/2014/12/metacognition-helping-students-assess.html
Metacognition: Helping Students Assess Their Own Learning. Click on the picture for free download from TpT. I've been thinking a lot about formative assessments lately. Formative assessments are all about gathering information from your students - during instruction - in order to inform your teaching. The most obvious place to gather that information is from student work (click HERE. To see a post about that), and it can be a lot of fun. And why is it important? Here's the good news. Metacognition ca...
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Light Bulbs and Laughter: September 2016
http://www.lightbulbsandlaughter.com/2016/09
Back To School Night - What I Don't Want Parents To Know. The floors have been vacuumed, and the tables cleaned. The art work and "All About Me" banners are hanging on the wall. Student binders with work samples are ready to be placed at each student's "home base" spot for parents to look through. Our student-written Class Motto is front and center, and music is playing softly in the background. My sign-in sheet is printed, and my donation cards are ready, because it's. Back To School Night. Hopefully, a...
lightbulbsandlaughter.com
Light Bulbs and Laughter: 2016
http://www.lightbulbsandlaughter.com/2016
Back To School Night - What I Don't Want Parents To Know. The floors have been vacuumed, and the tables cleaned. The art work and "All About Me" banners are hanging on the wall. Student binders with work samples are ready to be placed at each student's "home base" spot for parents to look through. Our student-written Class Motto is front and center, and music is playing softly in the background. My sign-in sheet is printed, and my donation cards are ready, because it's. Back To School Night. Hopefully, a...
lightbulbsandlaughter.com
Light Bulbs and Laughter: How to Play Sparkle in the Classroom
http://www.lightbulbsandlaughter.com/2014/12/how-to-play-sparkle-in-classroom.html
How to Play Sparkle in the Classroom. I've been blogging about teaching multiplication lately, and have mentioned playing a game called Sparkle as part of our memorization process. Today I thought I would explain how we do this in my classroom. Basically we are skip counting by ones, twos, etc. We call this "Secret Code Sparkle," because we're just cool like that. =). Here are the basic rules:. 1 Have your students stand in a large circle around the outside of the classroom. 9 The last student (or studen...
lightbulbsandlaughter.com
Light Bulbs and Laughter: February 2016
http://www.lightbulbsandlaughter.com/2016/02
The struggle is real, people! Third graders can be so sweet and kind. or not. Many are the times that I have opened the classroom door to be greeted with a group of kiddos, all trying to tell me their side of a particular recess story. They seem to do okay most of the time. Give them a ball to kick or throw, and they're happy. But my eight-year-old girls? Today they're best friends forever. Tomorrow? Not so much. Feelings get hurt, friends get left out, tears are shed. and that's just the teacher! Ive be...
lightbulbsandlaughter.com
Light Bulbs and Laughter: Unlocking the "Secret Code" of Multiplication Memorization
http://www.lightbulbsandlaughter.com/2014/11/unlocking-secret-code-of-multiplication.html
Unlocking the "Secret Code" of Multiplication Memorization. Important for third grade. It is imperative that students know the facts so that they can focus on higher level math tasks in fourth grade and beyond. We've already discussed some of the key ways to ensure that students understand how multiplication works (see the post and get a freebie HERE. Now the question is. how do we get them to memorize 8 x 7 = 56? See how I used the word memorize? Think about riding a bike. It took work to learn how,...
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Light Bulbs and Laughter: 2017
http://www.lightbulbsandlaughter.com/2017
Kindness In the Classroom Freebie. On the first day of school somewhere between twenty and thirty students walk in to my third grade classroom. They're all a little bit nervous. What kind of teacher will they have? Are they going to like the other kids? Will they make new friends? I look out at this new group of kiddos, and wonder about their stories. Who has divorced parents and goes back and forth between them? Who has older siblings who bully them? Seriously. I explicitly teach my students what it...
