New Placement-3rd Grade! And my Adjectives Lesson, Martin Luther King Jr, and President's Day

Finally got my second placement for the year today! I will be teaching in a 3rd grade classroom next quarter and I am beyond excited to get started! I am hoping to implement some of the same ideas and lessons I brought into my first grade classroom and cater it to 3rd grade.

Here are some of the things I implemented with my first graders. 

First, I created a mini-unit on adjectives that was centered around popcorn called "Let's Get Poppin' For Adjectives!"

The kids LOVED it! I focused the lesson on using the five senses to describe popcorn. The students got really excited when they found out they were going to get to do a little taste testing during the lesson to help them come up with descriptive words. I popped popcorn in a pan in front of class as a demonstration and had bags of popcorn already popped and placed in cups. Let's just say the kids senses went off the charts!

I had this poster pre-made and made popcorn cut outs. After the students had their taste test, they shared out all the words they could think of that described popcorn! My mind was blown! Look what they came up with:

Next, the students got to create their own popcorn boxes, filling in their own descriptive words!

They had a blast! The final portion on the 3rd day consisted of the students writing a poem about popcorn  using a template (I will upload and post) where they plugged in adjectives used to describe popcorn.


Another min-unit I did was centered on Martin Luther King Jr.

I found this quote online and with inspiration from Pinterest, came up with doing A Box of Crayons Lesson.

(Not the best picture) but after reading and discussing the quote about, I had a blank box of crayons (above) that I wanted the students to fill with their own crayons! I made a crayon template (googles crayons and found a black and white picture and made copies), gave each student a sheet, and had them create a crayon that represented themselves. Room 32 has their own box of crayons!

Lastly, I did a mini-unit on Presidents' Day. Since there are so many amazing children's books on Presidents' Day I had a hard time reading just one. We read:

 Both incredible reads centered around primary grade children!

The mini-unit consisted of learning about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln where we sorted facts and looked at artifacts!

I created these charts for our whole group discussions about the President's to clearly sort facts. 

I am beyond excited to venture into 3rd grade and see what creative elements and mini-units I can bring into the classroom after testing is over! I will be sure to post as soon as I am able too!