Regie Routman Writing!

My grade 3/4 students wrote letters to youth new comers to Canada that I work with! To write these letters I followed the Regie Routman steps! 

Step 1: Front loading

• Introduced why they are writing the letter
• Talked about how they'd feel about coming to a new country
• Reviewed parts of a letter
• Brainstormed things we could tell in our letters

 Step 2: I write

• Demonstrated how to write the letter, saying my thinking out loud to show students habits I want them to use when writing.
• Ie. underlining words they think are not spelled correctly
• Rereading 

Step 3:  We (Shared) Write

• As an entire class write a letter
• Get all the ideas from the students

Step 4: You (Students) Write

• Now that the students have many examples and gathered plenty of information to write their own letter you can pick a couple students to help get started 
• Have a student come up in front of the class and ask them how'd they like to start their letter, and a few ideas they'd like to include in it and jot it down on a sticky note
• Do this with a few students then send them all off to start their rough draft letters 

* Once students are starting to finish their letters I had some share to the class to celebrate their work and also some give tips/suggestions

* When students are done rough draft and all the editing routines I had them all type them up!

Review Centers

Before the final assessment in my 2-D and 3-D shape unit (a pencil/paper- show what you know test) I created 6 review centers. The students traveled in groups of 3-4 students and spending 10-11 minutes at each center reviewing topics we have covered in the unit so far!

The 6 centers were:

1. Memory Game #1

2. Memory Game #2 ( real life objects to name of it's shape)

3. Shape Head Band Game

4. Tangrams

5. Ipads- App "Geo Boards"

6. "KWL"- filling out the "Learned" section

The students loved these centers! It was a great way to review the material and help practice certain topics students maybe struggling with!

Marshmallow Activity

For one of my assessment pieces in my 2-D and 3-D Shapes unit I had the students build some 3-D objects out of toothpicks and marshmallows! The students had so much fun constructing the shapes! 

How I assessed the products was the students completed a worksheet as they built the objects and then after I photographed the finished pieces

Then for something to show the students their hard work I created a video that displays their work!

Positive Self-Talk

Many students have habits have of putting themselves down, I so often hear " I suck," I am stupid," This is horrible," "I can't do it!" As a teacher, I find those comments are difficult to hear. More than anything I want my students to feel confident in trying and making mistakes. I want my students to feel proud and satisfied about themselves and their work.

This year in my practicum I heard my cooperating teacher say something that really stuck with me. When she heard the students talking negatively towards themselves, she asked,  "Would you ever say that to your friends or about them or their work?"  The whole class said "No they would never," so then she asked, "Why would you say it about yourself?" That really hit home for some of the class, they are more aware of how they are talking to themselves which is nice to see.

My cooperating teacher also showed them this chart and demonstrated how the students can use it. This is now hung up in the classroom and referred to as a reminder to use positive self-talk! It is a great tool to use if students are struggling with being to hard or negative on themselves.

Introduction to 3-D Shapes

This is a great lesson to have students explore attributes of 3-D shapes!

For this lesson I wanted it be very hands on and have the students learn through discovering. I started the lesson by introducing the 3-D shapes and talking about their attributes (Vertices, Edges and Faces). After that each table group was given a 3-D net to build, after it was built, as a group they needed to discover what 3-D shape it was an how many vertices, edges and faces it had.



Once every group was done they each had a chance to present their findings to the class and I filled in the chart with the answers!