27 Teacher of the Year Application - Innovative Classroom

I work hard to incorporate STEM, hands-on, collaborative learning into my classroom every day. Incorporating the 4 Cs during lessons and application help to build independence and confidence in my students. My students get to learn about new concepts through exploration. This helps them gain confidence to learn new things and take risks during our lessons.

Some of these STEM examples show the use of technology to create stop motion videos to act out a scene in our novel. You will also see some unplugged coding and hands-on investigations in science.

Cross-curricular activities -- When learning about American Indians in social studies, we have the students learn about how the tribes in different regions find food, while incorporating our current math skills into the activity. The students use bows and arrows to shoot buffalo and have to represent a multiplication equation using an array, repeated addition, equal groups picture, and number lines. They have to catch a fish and solve a math fact, and then display an array on an ear of corn.

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During our history unit, we learn about the Boston Tea Party. The students are given a specific set of materials and have to create a raft that will keep their bag of tea safe and dry. We test the rafts together and the ones that survive will compete against the survivors from the other third grade classes.

Our team held an ILEARN Carnival where students reviewed ELA and Math concepts through carnival games. We always try to make learning (or reviewing) fun! The kids certainly enjoyed earning tokens to vote on which teacher would get pied after testing. Lucky me!

Creek Stomp Day in Clarks Creek

Book Tasting Days

Perimeter and Area Construction Zone

I like to help students set attainable goals throughout the year. One way we do this is through our One Word Project. When we come back to school in January, we talk about resolutions. The students reflect on the past year and choose one word to be their focus for the new year. This is a word we'll reference for the rest of the school to check in on their new goals.

I enjoy letting my students explore their creativity, whether that is through a class project or during soft start time in the morning. My students come into class in the morning and get to choose to work in a creative way. They can use legos or magnet tiles to build something. They can draw pictures or color. This lets our day start in a calm and relaxed way and helps the students get ready for a day full of learning.

3rd Grade Math Egg Hunt

Dinosaur Area and Perimeter Museum

Hands-on Learning about Area

Oreo Moon Phases

Using our inferencing skills to find "Who Kidnapped the Principal?"

67 Day -- connecting their "interests" to learning

3rd Grade Market -- we teach the kids about supply and demand and opportunity cost. They have to purchase materials for the items they sell at the market and pay for advertising. It's a great learning experience!

3rd Grade Flashlight Reading Day -- we ended the day with book giveaways!