Editable Station Checklists!

I'm so excited to finally share my station checklists with you! Last year, I tried out all different versions. Thankfully, the kids stuck with me! I love that kids are resilient! I combined my favorites into an editable pack to share. 

There are four different checklist options available! 

See below for the explanations!

Remember: All text on these checklists are editable. 

So, if you want to change one to math, or call your reading stations something else, you can!

The four choices include:

The Daily 5 Tracker

This can be changed to any time of literacy or math station tracker. It keeps track of where the students go each day. It also has space provided for students to write their words for the week!

My Daily Stations

(AKA-The Reading Choice Board)

This is the one I used quite a bit in third grade.

Just has a new name now! :-)

This one has options! This one is perfect if you don't have to visit 5 stations a day. I've created checklists that have slots for 2-5 station visits a day. Their is also space for you to determine how frequently students visit each station throughout the week.

The Daily 5 (reading stations) Checklist

This is just a simple checklist. Students check off the stations they visited that day. Don't forget, if you don't do Daily 5, you can change the station names!

Picture Checklist

This checklist includes pictures!! Students color in the picture of the station they visited that day. Unfortunately, this one could not be editable due to copyright. I did provide you with two options.

As a little present for you, I also included little posters!

I hope you can find these useful this year!

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Getting Started in Third Grade!

Even thought I won't be teaching third grade again this year, I do have a TON of ideas that I didn't get to share with you last year! We'll start by sharing what I did at the beginning of the school year to get us going! 

The students and I began our first day getting to know each other. The students decorated an All About Me T-shirt!

The students and I first brainstormed some of our favorite things to get our minds going.

You can grab the T-shirt pattern and letters here.

Another get to know each other activity that we did was this one you see here:

Students used this form to fill out information about themselves.

After students filled out information about themselves, I told them that they were going to get to know a classmate by comparing and contrasting their information.

The principal stopped in for this lesson, and we modeled how to use two papers to compare and contrast ourselves with our partner.

Then, students worked with a partner to complete their own Venn Diagram

To get to know me a little bit better, I gave the students a truth and lie quiz!

I came up with 10 things about myself that were either true or false (like 5 true/5 false).

I gave the students a half sheet of paper (you can sort of see it at the top left corner of the picture below). Students wrote true or false after I told them something about myself. Then, students got to create their own quiz. They gave it to multiple partners. It was so much fun!

You an grab those printables here.

On the first day of school, we also came up rules that we thought were important to have in the classroom.

First, we read the book, "Grody's Not So Golden Rules."

Afterwards, the students were able to pair up with a partner and pick one rule that they felt was important to have in the classroom. Together, the students made a poster. Then, students shared their rule with the class. (sorry no picture) :-(

I do have to be honest though... my class last year really, really, really liked to talk...A LOT! lol

So, about two days after our rules lesson, I had to pull out some pre-made rules. We talked about each one (not fun, but necessary).

Then, I had my students complete little rule booklets.

This was totally a last minute idea that I had one day, and it worked like a charm.

I posted the rule posters around the room, created blank paper booklets and modeled what I expected of the students.

Before I sent the students off to actually do the activity, we 'acted' like we did each one in my own little book. Lots and lots of reinforcement.

Here are some of the student's booklets.

For our read-aloud, we read the book, "How to be Cool Third Grade."

We began putting entries in our reading response notebooks right away.

I had come up with two pre-made questions each day. One question we answered together. We worked on 'how' to answer the questions. Then, students worked on their own to answer the other question in their reading response notebooks.

On the third day of third grade, we had a huge celebration!!

We were having a tad bit too much fun for me to take a ton of pictures, but you can find all of the fun here!

***********************Academics TIME************************

If I were teaching third this year, I would be pulling these response slips out right away!

 Perfect time to start off a routine!

-You can find these here-

On day one, we also began working on our independent reading skills. This was SO EASY to do with my class. As much as they loved to talk, they loved to read even more!

We went over what independent reading looks/sounds/feels like.

 We also kept track of our time using a stamina chart.

Here are a few ideas I found on Pinterest for stamina charts.

This one I love because each kid can have one of their own.

I love, love, love this one from Mrs. Beattie's Classroom!

I didn't take a picture of my chart, but I LOVE this expectation chart from, Creating Readers and Writers.

I love the without stamina side! ha ha! It's so true!

The second week of school we finished up our first read-aloud and then we began another one called, "How Not to Start Third Grade." THE KIDS LOVED THIS BOOK!!

We began working on more comprehension focused reading tasks.

You can find the full reading workshop unit here.

The students and I worked with our read aloud to learn how to ask and answer questions about the text, and how to cite the text when answering questions. We wasted 0 time! :-)

We completed many of the activities with partners.

Here is a glimpse at some more activities that we completed that week in reading workshop!

You can find all of this here.

In reading, we also started working on literacy stations within the second week of school.

When I taught third grade, we did about 3 stations a day.

Students filled out one of these sheets each week.

Each day they had to do read to self. I told them when they had to meet with me. Then, they were able to fill in the blanks with word study, spelling or read to someone.

As you can see on the slips, they had to visit a station a certain number of times each week.

Everything they did for the week was kept in their folder.

We didn't start off with the choice board right away. We learned expectations of each station one step at a time.

Here is what I considered word study:

Lots of sorts and grammar activities.

You can find these back to school literacy stations here.

When we began spelling words, we used these activities at the spelling station. 

Students chose a task card to complete and used their spelling words to complete the task.

Here was one of their favorite activities at the beginning of the year.

In math we used these games and activities to start our year:

These stations were used to review 2nd grade concepts.

In third grade, I used the math workshop approach and used this packet to help get us started (I'll be using it in first too-it rocks)!

When we began math stations, we did not do full blown rotations. We did whole group lessons, then I assigned pairs of students a bucket to complete.

It looked like this:

The tubs were numbers 1-13. There were really only 5-6 different activities in all 13 buckets. Students repeated the activities. 

I put in activities we did whole group in the buckets, football math stations and some freebies I found on tpt!

Once, we got math workshop really going, the board looked more like this.

I hope you stuck with me through this post! It was a long one, but I really hope it helps you get going!!

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Quick Visual Plans & Freebie!

I'm here to share what we are up to this week in third grade. It's a four day week - so, that's always a positive!! We are still going strong with Charlotte's Web and I hope that we finish the book this week. I'm itching the start something new!

I basically just wrote out a rough outline of what we are doing this week. I always throw more stuff in throughout the week as I think of it! (with Charlotte's Web) ;) I'll be back very soon to share what concepts we've covered with good ol' Charlotte. In the meantime, here are my 'basic' plans!

Just click on any of the pictures to get a closer look - all pictures are clickable... except for the telling time one.. I know, I know - you might need that one. It's almost done and I'll let you know when it's posted!! :)

My social studies is bare... I have a teacher guide that I'm following. We are learning about hemispheres, communities and maps.

These are our word study activities. They have two Must Do activities and when they finish they can do the Can do ones! :) It's all about synonyms this week. I pulled out a synonym packet I made last year for my firsties to help my third graders review! It still works great! I love it!

Here is your freebie this week! I do quick math about 3-4 times a week - it's great review and so fun!

Click below to grab!

I've got lots to share this week so stay tuned for all kinds of updates from my classroom!!! :)

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The Newspaper Station

The Newspaper Station is something new that I introduced to my students this week and they're loving it. I've been trying different things with my reading block this year to see what works for me and hopefully this sticks. Right now we are back doing stations for our reading block. I was getting bored with just reading workshop-I like to give students more hands-on experiences-I felt like I was becoming more of a worksheet teacher to quickly teach grammar and expose students to other types of literature... that's not me at all! I'm all about hands-on learning.

I find that the Newspaper Station is extremely beneficial for my students because it exposes them to non-fiction text on a regular basis and they will be learning information relating to our social studies curriculum. I haven't made crazy activities to go with the Newspaper Station (I'm sure that'll come eventually), but I did find task cards that are easy for students to understand and purposeful (and easy maintenance for me).

So, here it is:

I got this little table from big lots and there are two beanbags beside the table for comfortable seating. (It's like a have a while bunch of old little people in my room)-it's so cute!

You may notice that I don't keep the newspapers at the newspaper station. This is because on Monday I passed out the newspapers and specifically taught one task card to the students and allowed them to practice. I plan to do this each Monday so they have experience with each task card. Throughout the week students keep their newspapers in their reading binder and pull it out when they go to the Newspaper Station.

You may also notice I have *Extras* at the station. I will be keeping a basket of books that relate to our social studies curriculum that we are currently covering. This will allow students to further explore non-fiction text and learn more about a topic that may interest them.

We also get times for kids: so I've thrown those in the basket as well for students to use for their task card activities. You'll notice there is also a globe. We are talking about hemispheres and maps in social studies so this can help intrigue interest and allow students to explore.

I have taped their task cards right on the wall so we don't have any chance of losing them or saying, "I can't find them..." The fun stuff!! ;) I have color coded them and I will probably re-color code so that the before reading, during reading and after reading are all different colors and easy to differentiate between. The red cards focus on other concepts such as grammar, facts and opinions.

You can find the task cards HERE at this webpage (free).

They are originally from Debbie Dillers, "Practice with Purpose." I LOVE THIS BOOK!

It's all about different work stations for grades 3-6. Here is an informative PDF that scratches the surface of other work stations. 

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Now, onto the tasks. This is the newspaper we get. Yes, we get a new one each week! (awesomeness)! This newspaper is specific to Ohio but this company prints newspapers for ALL states! Check it out here.

If you're not able to buy a subscription to the newspaper than you could always find news articles online or grab free non-fiction passages from readworks.org

Now, time to let to you see how awesome this station really is. Just look at this student work:

This student read the article you see here and an article about physical and political maps. It looks like he is beginning to write a summary about his learning. Students can cut out a picture, glue it into their reading binder and complete their task card activity.

 The newspaper has fun activities on the back like you would see in a real newspaper. This little gal' was completing a crossword puzzle (she had to learn this information to complete it *SCORE*)! Then, another student was underlining important information and new learning.

Like seriously... can this station be any more purposeful? Warms my heart!

This article was a favorite of the majority of my class because it was all about how a ROBOT can bring you food! The students learned SO MUCH cool information about current technology and they responded to it in meaningful ways. I love the way this students showed his thinking and provided *reasoning* for why you can't just have food from the robot.. you've got to buy it first ya know?!

 This student also responded to the robot article. He obviously loves it and wants one really bad! He was really displaying his ability to connect to the text in a meaningful way.

So, there you have it. A little snapshot of many great things to come from the newspaper station! I hope you can take something from this post!

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