While browsing some posts on Pinterest, I stumbled upon this simple yet fun way to review the states. Although U.S. states and capitals were studied in second grade, this site would be great for third graders to use as a review. Can you beat your best time?
Click the map above to play the game.
This link will be located under a new Social Studies link on the right hand side of our blog.
What a winter wonderland we’ve had over the past few days. After we could finally see our cars under the 30 inches of snow that fell, we had fun digging tunnels, forts, and sledding trails for my nephew. Do you think he had fun in the snow? Some of the drifts would have been WAY over his head!
Touring the Cotuit Center of the Arts, students browsed many diverse pieces that had to do with, making waves. We saw lots of ocean and water themed pieces.
We also saw portraits of real people who, “make waves”. This is a print of Mulala, a young girl from Pakistan who fought for her right to go to school!
We spent time in the craft center in Cotuit where students learned about Thaumatropes!
A Thaumatrope is a toy that was popular in Victorian times. There’s a picture on each side that we attached with elastics. When you twirl the elastics between your fingers it creates an illusion that blends the two pictures together. Students had creative ideas from sea monsters, to butterflies and were able to plan, create, and play in the art studio!
We are lucky enough to use 6 brand new IPADS in our classroom once a week. Last week we used IPADS to help us with reading fluency. Students recorded videos of partners reading a text. First they read one page all the way through, this is called a “cold” read. Next, partners took turns alternating line by line reading of the same page. After that, they switched who read first and who read second, still alternating lines of the same page. Now that they were all warmed up, had practiced good expression, intonation, and phrasing, the original partner read the same page of text for a final time. This is called the “hot” read. Whew, that’s a lot of reading. We recorded just the cold and hot reads and then were able to compare the two. Students use fluency rubrics to give partners a grade in 5 different categories of fluency. It was a lot of fun to hear and see what you sound like on the video clip!
IMG 2490 from Sarah Lewis on Vimeo.
This Friday will be our first weekly Poetry Slam. Students will share a favorite poem with the class using a microphone. This poem can be a published piece or an original. It can be memorized or read off a paper. Each Friday we’ll set aside part of our Morning Meeting to celebrate great poetry, laugh at silly verses, and understand emotions and feelings portrayed by poems.
Later in the year, students will study poetry in writing and this will be a great way to preview the genre. Not to mention it will give students a lot of practice with public speaking, fluency skills, and expressing emotions in a positive way. The possibilities are endless!
Here’s one of my childhood favorites:
Team 203 started our Wednesday morning by congratulating Alexis on her hard work and great accomplishment. She was the most recent student to pass the XtraMath addition test during our computer lab time on Tuesday! This must have made her feel really great because later that night she went home to write a Praise Note for everyone of her classmates. She didn’t stop there, she also wrote kind notes to staff members throughout Mullen Hall!
We are all very proud of you, Alexis and proud to share a classroom with you!
In honor of No Guff Week, students have spent time giving praise to others and giving up put downs. Team 203 filled out classroom bucket with wonderfully kind words for each and every classmate. I even got some compliments that I’ll never forget! It’s amazing what a few simple words can do to someone’s heart. Keep up the praise and peace building, Team 203.
This month we are learning all about the Puritans. We have started by comparing the Puritans to the Pilgrims and found out that they were a bigger group that left England for some of the same reasons that the Pilgrims did. Later on, we will learn about these new settlers and the strides they made to create their own nation. Independence and democracy are themes that third graders will learn all about this term, not to mention what it means to accuse and protest. Watch this School House Rock video to preview what the American Revolution was all about.
Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to be amazed . . . Grace has passed one of the trickiest XtraMath tests yet! She has earned her multiplication XtraMath certificate for answering all X facts in less then 3 seconds each! Keep up the hard work, Grace. Team 203 is very proud of you!
Tales from Grade Three 