March Reading Challenge

Hello to Spring!

I love this time of year as the flowers emerge from their winter beds and cherry blossoms bloom with such eye-catching colors. Spring is a time for renewal and possibilities. The school year isn't quite over, so why not catch your students' interests in a Reading Challenge? March is National Reading Month, by the way.

I have an idea to share with you that I usually start at the beginning of the year to help the students branch out with their reading interests. But it will be perfect for this time of year to get them thinking outside of the Reading Box.

If you click on the image below it will take you to a Google Doc that you can download and share with your kiddos.

You can set a time limit, such as by the end of the month, in order to complete the challenge. There are several genres with various numbers of circles to fill in for each. I have mine write the title of the books they read and then color in to show they have completed it. If you'd like, they can start thinking of some books they'd like to read and maybe write in the titles ahead of time and then be able to color them in when they've read them. Remind them not to color too darkly to cover over their titles.

You could create a class chart to hang in the room. Students can color in a graph with different colors for each genre above their name to challenge each other to read more.

Prizes such as a small take-home book you can pick up at Goodwill, or Dollar Store treats can be handed out for those students who complete so many books by the end of the time you set.

Let me know how this works out for you. I'd love to hear what creative ways you encouraged your students to read this month!

              

Something to pin...

 

A Teaching Pot of Gold: National PI Day

 
Hello! It's ScrappyGuy. I've found a fun March idea for you to try out in your Math class. Last year was the perfect year to celebrate

National PI Day

You can still make use of this idea though. Pi is a Greek symbol that is used in mathematics to describe the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

 

March 14 (3.14) is known as National Pi Day. If you build up your day of activities to the final 1:59:26 time on that day, your students will be able to be a part of PI. Your students will get a huge kick out of these fun math ideas.

 

This first one I found over at TinkerLab where you can download this easy art activity to keep your kids engaged.

 

 

There's a great book from the same author as Sir Cumference and the Round table. This one is called Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi. WiseOwl has a great free printable for you!

 

 

 

 

There are also TONS of fun ideas you could do with actual pies on Pi Day. Have a Pi Eating Contest. Throw cream pies at a teacher, measure the circumference of your pie and checking it against the actual measurement of Pi.

 

Be sure to post your super fun ideas here.

 

Don't forget to check out Primary Peach and follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook to catch all the latest news and updates!

 

The Eraser Monster

Hey Friends! It's Theresa from True Life I'm a Teacher! The Peaches are sharing are best tips, tricks, and ideas to help you make your teaching magical! Here's what we've shared so far:

Erin | Learning About Insects

Meghan | Women in History

Kristin | Managing a Chatty Class

Jivey | St. Patrick's Day Mentor Texts and Leprechaun Traps

Anyone besides me have monsters in their classroom?

Seriously...pencil monsters, homework monsters, crayon monsters, dry erase marker monsters, sock monsters (oh, wait, that's just at home, I hope)...anyway, these monsters eat pencils, send homework into the abyss, break crayons in half, and mysteriously eat only the caps of dry erase markers and glue sticks leaving only marker and glue to dry out before it's day has truly come.

Oh, and erasers? Those babies never stood a chance. 

I don't know how to fight off all the monsters (please let me know if you've won the war), but I do know how to make the most of your last remaining erasers!

I started using this little trick my very first year teaching, and have been doing it ever since!

I hate cap erasers. You know, the ones that go on the end of a pencil. Seriously, they're outlawed in my classroom. 

Aside from not using cap erasers, this tip is really quite simple...just cut the erasers in half. That's it. Ta-da!!!!

Perhaps a bit anticlimactic, and no it won't actually keep the eraser monster gone, but it will "double" the amount of erasers you have.

I keep mine in a cute container near my "pencil station" that I think came from Target's One Spot quite a few years ago.

For even more ideas from The Primary Peach, be sure to follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, and
Facebook to catch all the latest news and updates!

Don't forget to head back throughout March as the Peaches continue to share the magic!

St. Patrick's Day for the BIGGER Lads and Lassies

Hey Peaches! Top o' the mornin' to ya! It's Jivey, here. Unfortunately, the St. Patrick's Day magic often stops in the classroom after second or third grade... Fortunately, I'm here to share some great resources with you that will help the magic continue with those bigger lads and lassies! :)

St. Patrick's Day just so happens to be one of my favorite holidays because it's also my BIRTHDAY!

So, of course, I find any excuse to help celebrate my day a little more... here are some great resources you can use with your kiddos in the upper grades!

Mentor Texts

Here are some great books you can use for mentor texts or read-alouds this month!

The Leprechaun's Gold is a classic Irish legend that your kiddos will love! You can use this great mentor sentence freebie with the book, too!

Tie in some nonfiction reading with Gail Gibbons's book, St. Patrick's Day.

Get in some hilarious Irish blarney with the book, O'Sullivan's Stew!

Tim O'Toole and the Wee-Folk is a story about the wee-folk: leprechauns! 

And of course, everyone needs to learn How to Catch a Leprechaun!

Science

After reading How to Catch a Leprechaun, how about a little tie-in to STEM with a leprechaun trap? Use this freebie from my store to have students make a leprechaun trap using simple machines! 

Read this post from last year to see the leprechaun traps my fourth graders created, and what the leprechaun left behind after he visited (but no one caught him)!

I hope you'll enjoy making learning magical with these great resources for your upper grades classroom! Happy St. Pat's, friends! :)
 

A Teaching Pot of Gold: Amazing Women

Who is one amazing American woman who has impacted your life?  I'm sure you can think of someone!  This is a question that I always use to start my Amazing Women unit with my students the month of March.  Welcome back to The Primary Peach!  This month, we are diving in and sharing "golden tidbits" of how we engage our students the month of March.

I'm Meghan from Keeping Up with Mrs. Harris and I'm going to share with you a few of my favorite picture books to read during this month to celebrate Women's History Month.   There are so many inspirational and amazing women that it is hard to just pick a few to study.  So to open up my unit, I like to see who the kids can name by themselves.

Then I read A is for Abigail.  You might want to break the book into parts to read, it is a long one, full of information and women.  Using this book, I let each student pick an amazing American woman to research.  We break into groups depending on how the students pick.  (For example First Ladies, Singers, Athletes, Women's Rights Fighters, etc.) This way the students can bounce ideas off of each other and have a group to share their work with.

As the kiddos are busy researching their Amazing Women, I pull my own books and write a few reports about them that I can share.  Students love that while they are working, I am too.  I explain that if I can write 5, they can write one.  There was one year that a sweetheart said, "Mrs. Harris, why don't you just write three instead of being so ambitious."  #blessit After I share my reports, I also read the picture books as well.  I do this so the students will know that there are so many great books in the library about women that they should go and find to read independently.  

So, what amazing American woman has impacted your life?  Comment below with who you would study with your students.  I would love to add to my list!