Totally 3rd Grade Blog

Share your views about teaching 3rd grade

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Regular visitors to this site know that my wife, Cara, is a veteran 3rd and 4th grade teacher. As a seasoned pro, she’s often called upon to train both student teachers and other less experienced educators.

One of the early realizations that these newbies have is that teaching takes a ton of planning and it also requires access to a huge variety of resources so that the needs of individual students can be met.

One way that she can help educators who will never have the privilege of working directly under her supervision is to simply share her current resources via the Internet.

MrsMace.com is her personal website and it contains links to resources that she’s currently using in her classroom.  These change pretty often and they’re kept up-to-date.  They’re not stale and you’ll rarely find a broken link.

Organized and easy to scan, this site might be a good starting point for any lesson plans that need a little “something” to make them come alive.

I’ve known for a while that there are teachers who don’t teach 3rd grade that still like to use the resources on Totally3rdGrade.com.

So that older kids won’t feel slighted by working on “3rd grade” activities, I created a sister site that has no mention of grade level or achievement level.  It’s called FuriouslyCurious.com and it has lots of cool features that are sure to be a hit with kids and teachers.

• For a little fun, users can select one of four color schemes to suit their own tastes
• The navigation is much easier to work and creates an opportunity to more easily meet different teaching objectives
• Printable flash cards are now available for each song. This is a real time saver when  you need a ready way to help students who are struggling to “get it”
• There is also an “Easy Read” feature that makes the lyrics bigger. In this view, the lyrics absolutely dominate the page. No more problems for the kids in the back of the room!

Go check it out when you get a chance.

Take me to FuriouslyCurious.com!

Change is in the air.  Hope for a more unified world and a more balanced role in that world is upon us.

To help re-align our thinking with the demands of the new world, I suggest revisiting some of the forward-thinking tools from our recent past.

One of these tools is the Hobo-Dyer Projection World Map, which is the map that President Jimmy Carter used to display his agency’s efforts at his Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in December 2002.

The Hobo-Dyer Projection is an equal area design that displays countries by their true size in relation to one another.  The reverse side of the map shows the exact same projection, but with two somewhat startling changes: south is on top and Australia is shown in the middle of the map. (See a larger view)

Most Americans have never seen this projection and instead can only imagine a world in which the United States is a prominent country almost literally at the center.  While romantic and glamorous, that kind of distorted thinking hampers our ability to make rational and balanced judgements about our role and importance in the world. 

How does such a simple thing as reversing the poles or changing the “centering” influence your impression of what’s important?

(Shameless promo section ahead… )  Totally3rdGrade.com has partnered with ODT Maps for a special packaged deal; we are offering a Teacher and the Rockbots “World” CD bundled with an 11×17 Hobo-Dyer World Projection Map for $14.95 (a $4 savings).

If you are interested in acquiring modern resources that fit the modern era, click of the link below and it will take you to ODT Maps where you can make your purchase.

Take me to ODT Maps for my Hobo-Dyer/”World” CD offer