Mrs. Ramsey's 3rd Grade Class

Today I went to Mrs. Ramsey's 3rd grade classroom at Tzouanakis Elementary school in Greencastle. It was such a treat to be in Mrs. Ramsey's class! She warmly greeted me and let me observe her class for a 4 hour block. When I first arrived the class was in the Library. I sat and observed how well behaved her class was. They were very good listeners and were quite and respectful while the librarian read to them. I was very impressed with their manners as they are only 3rd graders!!

After library, the class went back to Mrs. Ramsey's room and transitioned into English by singing 4 English songs by Shurley. The songs were so cute. Mrs. Ramsey gave me a copy of the songs which I will list below!

Un-Quigley, Un-Quigley

Un-Quigley, Un-Quigley
What are you going to do?
You've got a frown on your face,
And you're singing the blues!
You're not organized, Quigley;
You are not prepared.
You're not listening,
And your mind's not there.
You don't have plans, and you don't have goals.
Your homework's unfinished,
And you've been told.
You need to get your act together
'Cause you don't have a clue.
You've got the Study Skill Blues!

O-Quigley, O-Quigley
Now, you see what to do.
You've got a smile on your face,
And your lookin' cool!
You're so organized, Quigley;
You are so prepared.
You're listening carefully,
And your mind is there.
You've got plans, and you've got goals.
Your homework is finished;
You don't have to be told.
You've got your act together, Quigley.
'Cause you followed the clues.
And you're not singing the Study Skills Blues!


The Sentence Jingle

A sentence, sentence, sentence
Is complete, complete, complete
When five simple rules
It meets, meets, meets.

It has a subject, subject, subject
And a verb, verb, verb.
And it make sense, sense, sense
With every word, word word.

Add a capital letter
And a punctuation mark.
And now our sentence has all its parts!

But REMEMBER-
Subject and verb and complete sense.
With a a capital letter and an end mark, too.
Our sentence is complete,
And now we're through!


The Verb Jingle

A verb, a verb
What is a verb?
Haven't you heard?
There are two kinds of verbs:
The action verb
And the linking verb.

The action verb
Shows a state of action
Like stand and sit and smile.
The action verb is always in motion
Because it tells what the subject does.
We stand! We sit! We smile!

The linking verb shows a state of being.
Like am, is, are, was, and were,
Looks, becomes, grows, and feels.
The linking verb shows no action
Because it tells what the subject is.
He is a clown. He looks funny.


The Noun Jingle

This is a noun jingle, my friend,
A noun jingle, my friend.
You can shake it to the left
And shake it to the right.
Find yourself a noun,
And then recite:

A noun names a person.
A noun names a thing.
A noun names a person,
Place, thing,
And sometimes an idea.

Person, place, thing, idea!
Person, place, thing, idea!

So shake it to the left,
And shake it to the right.
Find yourself a noun,
And feel just right!

I thought these songs were so cute and served as a great transition tool after being away from the classroom. After the songs, Mrs. Ramsey worked on identifying nouns and verbs with her students. She made it very interactive and used the smart board as seen below.


The smart board is a great classroom tool! I think that more classrooms should be equip with these! It's great that a teacher can save his or her board work to his or her computer. I would imagine that this makes it much easier for students who missed class to catch up!

After the English activity, the students went to lunch. After lunch they pulled out their library books and read silently for 10 minutes. This time allowed Mrs. Ramsey to finish putting up the drawing that the students had made onto the bulletin board. Also during this time, Mrs. Ramsey rotated students to do "fast math" on the computer. I thought this was a very effective time management tacit.

After silent reading, the students gathered on the classroom rug to listen to a girl name Rose read a story she wrote and submitted to reading rainbow. Apparently the class had seen a reading rainbow video the week before with Rose talking about the book she submitted last year that one 3rd place out of 400 entries. The story was so cute and the illustrations that she did herself were AMAZING!! One thing I quickly noticed in Mrs. Ramsey's class was that she was very good at pointing out the talents of each of her students! Allowing Rose to share her story with the class was good for Rose's self esteem, but it was also a good eye opening experience for the rest of the students in the class. They were all eager to ask Rose how she found out about this contest and how long it took her to create the book. It was really neat to be apart of this class activity! Below is a photo of Rose reading her story to the class.


One things I noticed about Tzouanakis in general is that it was very bright and cheery building. The walls were painted blue and green and artwork was proudly displayed throughout all the halls. Below is part of a mural that the 3rd grade class painted. Each grade at TZ had a wall mural that was hung in the halls of the school. The artwork and color really made the school feel like "home" and it was clear that the teachers at TZ were very proud of their students work!!


Below is a picture of the fish that were hanging in the hall! I loved these fish! What a great use for old 2 liter bottles! Each fish was decorated uniquely and adorned the hallways! It helped to keep that warm open environment!

Overall, I really enjoyed my visit to TZ and Mrs. Ramsey's 3rd grade class! I can't wait to go back next week and check out 4th grade!!