0 Comments
Highlights from our WeekHave you heard about National Dot Day? It's a day to celebrate creativity and collaboration starting with a dot. The idea is based on the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds. We celebrated on Friday during eslot with several other 3rd grade classes. Students chose from a variety of dot activities to create art. I was SO impressed with some of the artwork the kiddos created! Some students even created dot art using google drawing on the chromebooks. It was great to see so much engagement, collaboration, and creativity! I'll post photos on our class blog. Questions about Habitat Loss for PBL Another highlight of the week was learning how to use Padlet. After reading Common Ground by Molly Bang students responded to a few questions on Padlet to show their thinking. You can check out their responses on the link below. You can tell they were really thinking about the authors message. http://padlet.com/deborah_swyers/3ihro0ptrei0 Learning About Sound Energy in Science In science, we learned how to play a song using glasses and water! After noticing sounds made by different water amounts in glasses, I challenged students to work in groups and use the glasses to play a song. Every group was successful and played for the class! So cool! We also conducted an investigation to show that sound makes vibrations. Students made salt move just by banging scissors on a can. In math, we used Kidspiration to practice addition with base 10 blocks. This is always a favorite and really helps kiddos visualize regrouping. I'll try to post a copy of a sample on the class website. Coming up this week Sept. 21-25Writing: We'll continue writing personal narratives and focusing on a seed idea. Now that we have lots of ideas ready in our notebooks and have written a few drafts, we'll begin learning strategies for improving the quality of our narratives.
Reading: Our focus will continue to be on comprehension strategies readers use. Also, we'll learn ways to improve engagement and build stamina. Science: This week we'll conduct two light investigations and then it will be time to make our solar ovens. This will no doubt be the highlight of our week. Math: Last week we learned addition strategies which we will continue to use as we solve 2 and 3 digit addition problems. We'll focus on subtraction strategies this week. Reminder: Wednesday is Early Release!!!! In science, students observed objects to determine the type of energy that was being used. They worked in groups and rotated to different stations to observe and record their data. It's amazing how interesting a fan, flashlights, toy cars, a radio, and a blow dryer can be when you are at school observing with peers! Using Number Lines to Practice Rounding Another exciting event this week was writing on our desks! Yes, the students drew number lines on their desk with dry erase markers to practice rounding. Everyone had lots of practice and showed their new learning on a rounding sheet that I graded. (I'm currently working on loading a few grades, so you may want to check home access later this weekend.) We had fun this morning working with Mrs. Lipe's class to create posters and pop-ups about science/math related careers. Students read about different careers earlier in the week and we realized how many careers require science and math related skills. The most exciting part of the week was our entry event for Project Based Learning this afternoon. While the kiddos were at recess, a few teachers closed the 3rd grade classroom doors and put caution tape across it along with a construction zone sign on each door. Our door said, "Future sight of Bank of America," (it seems like there is a bank on every corner these days). When the 3rd graders came in from recess they were a bit shocked to see the doors. The third grade teachers pretended we didn't know what was going on. Some of the kids thought it was really cool and a few kiddos were actually a bit worried. Our role play went on for a few minutes as we pointed out that we would have to share the resources in the common area and wait in a long line for water. After about 10 minutes we all gathered to watch a super short wordless video clip showing a forest being taken over by buildings. We asked them to try to make a connection between the video and our "construction zone" classrooms. So, as you can probably guess, most of the students figured out we would be learning about habitat loss this year. A lot of the kiddos even came up with a PBL warriors name for us such as Wildlife Warriors, Habitat Warriors, and Nature Warriors. Which one will we be? Only time will tell. But whatever our name is, we will spend time throughout the year learning about the problem of habitat loss and working together to take action to conserve wildlife. Our second week has been very busy! We have jumped right into academics and are getting settled into our routines. I think the biggest challenge has been transitioning between reading and math since we have a long block of time between specials and lunch. We've been taking a longer brain break in between the two subjects which really helps. Overall, we are off to a great start to the school year! Classroom News and Highlights from this Week: Students had the opportunity to "shop" for books to put in their book boxes. They were so excited to choose books and start reading. I think we have a class full of readers! In math, we learned about place value and practiced adding with base ten blocks. On Friday, students participated in various stations which included using mental math at the Smartboard, writing a 5 digit number in expanded form, playing a game to build larger numbers, and practicing their skills using place value task cards. Math Stations Practicing making numbers and adding with base 10 blocks... Observing Science Tools As part of our science unit, students learned about tools scientist use and had the opportunity to observe some tools. Each group discussed the purpose for each tool and recorded this in their science notebook. Working with our Kindergarten Buddies!!! We met our kindergarten buddies on Friday and everyone was very excited to finally be the older buddy. Each student helped their buddy complete a "Get to Know Your Buddy" booklet. We finished our social contract this week. Students collaborated in groups to answer questions about how we want to be treated in our class. This contract will be signed by each student and used as a reminder all year about how we all agreed to treat each other so that we can make our classroom the best learning environment. There are consequences that we will all agree upon for not following our social contract. The goal is for students to be accountable for their actions and to help each other follow the contract. I'll add a photo of our contract soon. A Look Ahead...September 8-11Writing: Students will learn strategies for generating ideas and use some of their ideas to write personal narratives. Some of the strategies include thinking of a person, place, or object to spark a memory. Also, we'll learn how to narrow the focus by choosing a seed idea.
Reading: This week we will focus on monitoring comprehension including how to stop and jot as well as using fix up strategies, (what to do when you are stuck or stray from the text). We'll also form reading partnerships. Science: We'll begin our unit on Energy this week after learning about science related careers. During this unit students will investigate sound, light, heat/thermal, and mechanical energy. Math: We'll continue with our first unit on place value, rounding, addition & subtraction. We'll learn how to round to the nearest ten and hundred, however, our focus isn't so much on the rules, but rather how and why to use friendly numbers to help with real world math. Be sure to check the class website some time in the next few days. I'll be adding some photos today and tomorrow. Upcoming Events: Friday (9/11)
|
Archives
November 2019
Mrs. Swyers3rd Grade Teacher |