Pin-STRESSED?

Bahahahaha!

I read this article a few days ago related to parenthood. The article talks about all the great things we find on pinterest and how it can sometimes add stress because we try so hard to do all the things we pin, so some might become pin-stressed.  Do I love pinterest?  YES!  Does it stress me out?  No! I realize from the moment I start pinning that most of the things I pin are projects I will never actually complete, places I will never visit, books I will never have time to read, and houses I will never be able to afford. However, pinning things to my school related boards is my favorite thing to do because almost all of those pins are things I might actually bring to fruition.  Here are some of the latest pins that I hope to use in my new third grade classroom!

Word Wall Inspired:

I know I am going to have to let a lot of my favorite classroom things go as I transition from K-2 to 3rd grade but I think asking me to give up my word wall is asking a bit too much, LOL!  I have NEVER had a room without a word wall, I refer to the word wall(s) constantly and just know that I will feel completely lost without one...especially during writing conferences.  So I have been searching and googling "third grade word walls" and found two awesome linky parties devoted entirely to word walls: 

                 

These two linky parties helped me find a great way to use word walls in a third grade classroom.  Thanks to Doris over at Third Grade Thinkers I now feel inspired and excited about using one or more word wall(s) in my classroom: 

add words by subject- this is a social studies word wall

My FAVORITE IDEA: the NO EXCUSE WORDS- these are the words our 3rd graders have no excuse to spell wrong! 

Reading Workshop:

I love this idea of using velcro strips with individual name strips.  I have a folder VERY similar to this already set up in my classroom but I have always used an erasable marker to move kids names around.  This is so much easier and cleaner! 

Classroom Library:

I will definitely need to spend some time in my classroom library over the next few weeks.  I was super excited to find a HUGE box packed with chapter books (I have been hanging on to it for years), I even put them in the reading center already but they have not been categorized or leveled.  So I went searching for different ideas on how to organize a 3rd grade classroom library and found another linky party!....

Classroom Show Off Linky Party

She even includes her book basket labels...Woot! Woot!

...hosted by:

     

Bright Ideas:

And of course I have been stumbling upon all kinds of great classroom management and organization ideas.  Check out some of these great ideas from 

25 Clever Classroom Tips For Elementary School Teachers

Have a reading fair instead of a science fair!

No more tennis balls!  Pieces of felt and some rubber bands instead:)

Make quick and easy reminder bracelets with strips of construction paper and tape.  I am going to keep strips already cut and put in a drawer right by the door so it will be close by on our way out.  I envision myself making a few of these bad boys while walking to the bus at the end of the day!  

Hope you found these ideas to be as great and as inspiring as I did!