Mystery Walker

As students get older, it gets harder and harder to find ways to keep them walking in straight lines quietly. It has gotten a little easier for me in my class with the help of the "Mystery Walker." I have a cup with slips of paper with each student's name on them by the classroom door. Before we go out into the hall to go to recess or lunch or anywhere else, I secretly choose a name of the person who will be our "Mystery Walker" for that trip down the hall. No one knows who it is, so everyone tries to do their best to walk quietly down the hall with their arms folded. If the "Mystery Walker" is following all our hall habits all the way to our destination, they earn a quarter in class money.
I got this idea from a school magazine. There was also a poem in that magazine that I have typed up and is posted right by my "Mystery Walker" cup with names. This serves as a reminder to the students as to what I am looking for as they go down the hall. The poem goes like this:

Who Will Be the Mystery Walker?

I'm choosing someone in my head
To see if you face straight ahead.

Are your hands down by your side?
Do you walk with a quiet stride?

Is your voice off as you walk,
Not a bit of any talk?

If I see the answer's yes,
A special prize for your success.

This works like a charm!

Pen Pals

My daughter is also a 3rd grade teacher. We thought it would be great fun to have our students be pen pals with each other this past year. It was an amazing experience! We started at the beginning of the year and continued on until the end of the year. Pictures, cards, and small gifts were exchanged while friendships were made. I have long been looking for a good way to give more meaning to letter-writing instruction, and this did it. We plan to continue doing this each year. I would recommend this to any 3rd grade teacher. Find another class your students can write to and see how much fun they can have while they are learning the art of letter-writing.

Graphing Lesson

I love to combine data collecting, graphing, and technology into one lesson. I have my students work with a partner, collect data about something of their choice, and figure out which type of graph would be best to show their data. Once the data is collected and the partners have decided which graph type to use, I take them to the computer lab, and I teach them how to use Excel to make a graph from their data. In the past, I have used my own computer hooked up to the projector to show the students how to do this. I have just learned how to use a new tutorial program (Adobe Captivate 5.5) that could also be used to illustrate the steps from data to graph. A link to my tutorial can be found on my UEN page at this link: http://my.uen.org/82232.
The students love this lesson, and it is a great tie-in to technology.