Getting Started!

For the first post to this new blog, which will focus primarily on elementary education, I wanted to look through another educational blog in order to gain some inspiration.  After browsing several teaching blogs I settled on 3rd Grade Thoughts, a blog run by Stephanie Van Horn, a third grade teacher with over ten years of teaching experience.

The 3rd Grade Thoughts blog stuck out to me for a few reasons.  The site was really visually appealing with very clear and easy to navigate categories (Literacy, Math, My Classroom, Class Management, etc.).  In addition, third grade is the grade level which I am most interested in teaching if I were to start tomorrow.  For this reason, I was trying to find a resource that would provide insights that were specific to that particular grade level.  Lastly, as I read through the About Me portion of the blog I saw that Stephanie lives in Colorado, which is where I was born, and that she got a Master's in Elementary Education, which I am currently doing myself.  So overall the 3rd Grade Thoughts blog seemed to be a really good place for me to begin my educational blogging journey.

I began looking through the blog by reading through some of the class management posts.  As someone who has never formally taught in a class before, the class management side to teaching is what makes me more nervous than anything else.  I am certainly looking to get as much advice on how to best set up systems in my classroom to allow me the best chance to be successful.  One post in the class management section that I found particularly useful was "5 Ways to Randomly Call on Students".  This is something that I have given some thought to previously, but didn't have any great ideas that I was excited about.  Stephanie provided some easy to implement solutions like writing the student's names on popsicle sticks and picking them out of a cup rather than cold calling on kids yourself.  She made this idea more fun by suggesting that you allow each child to decorate their stick at the beginning of the year so that they are involved in the process as well.  In addition, Stephanie provided some technology based options like Tiny Decisions App and Flippity.net which I had never heard of, but seem like great alternatives that could entertain the students as well.  Some other posts that I found helpful within the Class Management section of the 3rd Grade Thoughts blog include: Attention Getters, Celebrating Birthdays, and Saying Farewell with Goodbye Circle (for students who have to leave the class during the school year).  All of these posts had great advice for situations that arise in a typical classroom, but that you might not get as much knowledge about in a teaching Master's program.  

  

Another section of the blog that I really enjoyed reading through was the Organization section.  For anyone who knows me, they know that I am a very organized person who likes to have everything in its place.  I understand that as a teacher of young kids I can't expect my classroom to be spotless, but I do want to set up an environment where everyone can be comfortable while also knowing where to find anything they need.  Stephanie had a very helpful series of posts called the Classroom Organizing Challenge. Each month she would focus on a specific part of the classroom (student's desk, teacher's desk, class library, etc.) to try and get rid of clutter, to make the classroom more stress-free.  

I found this blog really helpful, and I definitely plan to continue to visit it in order to try and help better prepare me for my future classroom.  The more I read the more confident and excited I felt about teaching and setting up my classroom to be a safe and enjoyable place where all of my future students will feel comfortable and ready to learn. 

Image References:

[Untitled photograph of Denver Skyline]. Denver Colorado Tourist & Vacation Information.             https://www.denver.org/partners/news-resources/gdpr/

Van Horn, S. (2019). 3rd Grade Thoughts. https://www.3rdgradethoughts.com/2019/02/five-ways-to-randomly-call-on-students.html

Van Horn, S. (2019). 3rd Grade Thoughts. https://www.3rdgradethoughts.com/2019/03/classroom-organizing-challenge-march.html