What’s been going on in Room 36? A LOT of learning!

In third grade, we do a great deal of learning what it means to be collaborators in all subject areas.  The following pictures show us working on a collaborative activity called a “math task” where I give the whole class a problem and they have to solve it in small groups, write down how they solved it, and then present their strategies to the entire class.  We also spend time reflecting on our abilities to work as teammates and what makes group work easier or more difficult.  This was our second math task of the year and I’ve already seen a marked improvement in collaboration, patience, and adventurous mathematical strategy!

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In social studies, students were asked to work in collaborative groups, following written directions, to create a world map including labels for the continents, the equator, prime meridian, and mountains and rivers (labeled) on each continent we have studied.  Much like the math task, we reflected on how these collaborations went, and we found that groups that went in with a common goal, assigned jobs, and everyone being on task were more successful in completion than other groups.  Everyone did well, but not every group was able to complete the assignment completely!  We learned a lot!

      

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We don’t do all assignments in collaborative groups.  We have also jumped in head first into the world of Google Classroom, and if you haven’t had your child log into their Clever account and then into their classroom to show you around, you are missing out!  We have been working on a Place Value assignment, a labeling continents and oceans assignment, and recently are very, VERY proud of our first Alternative Assignment in Social Studies.  I included two examples of student worked that was turned in!  How amazing that your children have created these completely on the computers.  These Mallards are amazing!

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In reading we’ve been talking about asking and answering questions, so we started with looking at artwork and thinking about what questions the artists made us think about when we looked at their art.  We wrote those questions on sticky notes, and man, your children nailed those questions.  Please zoom in to read some of those winners.  Later in the week, Ryan even made a text to world connection with one of the pieces of art!

        

We’ve been working hard on place value and like to do our own work and then compare our work to others.  Here we are doing work on our white boards and then sharing our strategies with others!

      

We also celebrated Walk to School day on Wednesday.  I walked with some of the other third grade teachers from Mrs. Stearns’ house, and I tell you what, I felt more energized on Wednesday than any other day all week!  Check out some of the great pictures you all sent to me!

      

We also got to visit the garden to thin the mustard greens, weed the garden paths, and try a salad “pizza.”  Yum!

     

A few random pictures below include what our October looks like (including a big rivalry game today!), some posters we’ve made, a sign that now sits near our turn in trays to remind us to write our names on our posters, a close-up of Mr. Snaggletooth himself, and a video of us waiting for the bus on a few days!  (“Yo, they got a backbone!”)

     

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Weeks Two and Three

We started talking about what will be happening around the classroom during one of the most important hours of our day this week: small group reading rotation hour.  During this time, I will be meeting with a small group of students to instruct and enrich their particular needs.  While I am doing that, your children will be either completing an activity on the computer, working on a writing assignment/choice, or reading to themselves.  To prepare them for these independent stations, we spend all of September, and some of October practicing those stations.  This practice time helps to build creative problem-solving skills, cooperation, and collaboration because (as the below poster describes) they cannot talk to me unless four very specific things happen in our classroom:

Here we are building reading stamina!

    
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We learned how to generate our own survey questions, then conduct an unbiased survey (the best we could), and create a pictograph and a bar graph using our survey results.  I am so impressed with how well they handled these activities!

      

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We’ve continued our study of growth mindset, but we’ve also added in learning about three parts of our brain: the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex.  MindUp teaches us that we have to learn strategies to control the amygdala, otherwise we will fight, run away, or freeze when it senses danger – even if there’s no actual danger!  We’ve differentiated mindful versus unmindful behaviors, talked about listening mindfully, and started our “core practice” of deep belly breathing.  Ask your child to teach you the appropriate way to breathe tonight!

                 

This week was also our first garden lesson where we got to help weed, enrich the soil, and scatter plant lettuce that we’ll get to enjoy when the colder months come around!  Check us out in action!

      

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Overall, another fantastic two weeks.  Keep it coming!

Newsela, Google Slides, Short Reports, and a Party

It’s hard to believe that we just set our clocks forward to get ready for spring and then had a snow afternoon on Monday and delay on Tuesday, but such is March weather in Richmond, I suppose!  Mrs. Stearns was the best prepared of us all!

This week we really beefed up our access to technology this week with the addition of digging into Newsela (link found on our Clever homepage) and Google Slides.  Newsela is a site full of age and reading level appropriate news articles meant to give students a broader point of view, a chance to interact with me through annotations of the articles, and a chance to add to their own vocabulary with a personal word wall.  If they haven’t shown you this at home yet, ask them to see it!  We have also been creating a Google Slide presentation to accompany our short reports we have been working on for the past three weeks.  This was really just something extra, but they have loved being able to find pictures and share their knowledge in a more interactive way.  Ask them to log on to their google account at home and they can share their slide with you by e-mailing it to your e-mail address!

   

For some old school writing, I had to show off Miss Tori’s writing this week.  In small group reading, her group read a book about the forming of the Constitution and all that was going on around that time.  In the book, there was a beautiful painting of the delegates all gathered around what seemed to be the signing of the Constitution, so I challenged them to be news reporters.  They had to report back to their readers, who couldn’t see what they were seeing, what was going on in the “room where it happened.”  While all the information might not be correct, Tori’s writing evokes great emotion and anticipation.  All the writing in that group was outstanding.  Well done!

On Friday, using the official Maybeury podium, we shared our short reports with our classmates and Mr. Fernald for a bit.  We discussed what it means to speak loudly in front of a group, making some eye contact, enunciating clearly, and not rushing through so everyone can enjoy all our hard work!  They did phenomenally!  I caught two reports on video, so be sure to check those out below.

  

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The sun was out and we were protected from the wind on Friday, so out to the garden we went for our lesson, where we talked about weeding the garden to get it ready for spring planting!  We also had a delicious kale, spring lettuce, carrot, and snow pea salad at the end.  Thanks to our farmers for always having a great lesson in store for us!

    

Finally, this weekend was the Mallard Auction where parents and teachers get to raise money and morale for the students we love so dearly.  I had such a great time and I can’t wait until next year.  Check out all the fun we had!  I hope you all had a great weekend!

Our Week at a Glance

Questioning  This week we have been discussing how good readers ask themselves questions before, during, and after they read.  We’ve also talked about how to identify “thin” vs. “thick” questions. Today, we sorted out questions that parents asked us at Back to School Night!  Thanks for your great questions, parents!

Place Value  We have been talking more about identifying words in standard, word, model, and expanded forms.  On Thursday, we had a whole math hour of stations where we rotated around the room to play games, sort and match forms, and translate model into word forms.  Some stations were harder than others, but we’ll all be great at these soon!  We also learned about comparing 4-digit numbers by playing a game called “What’s My Number” and using the greater than, less than, and equivalent to symbols.  Your child brought their math notebooks home this weekend to teach you how to play.  Can you beat them?

         

Making Scientific Observations  Although we were dealing with a crazy schedule of MAPS testing and a half-day on Wednesday, we were able to work on our observational skills.  We discussed how using our five senses and being mindful without judgement helps us to be observant of the world around us.  We used descriptive language to describe the attributes of items we couldn’t easily see and identify by sight in mystery bags.  Then we opened the bags and added any other visual descriptions needed.  We also classified pumpkins/gourds and students by specific characteristics.  Good scientists use observational skills to classify and better understand their world!

         

MindUp We continued our study of the brain and how we can help our amygdala to stay calm and open so we can learn our very best.  This week, we focused on deep belly breathing.  Ask your child to tell you about how their diaphragm and lungs work when you are deep belly breathing.  The pictures below capture it. I promise we didn’t have nap time this week…no matter how bad we all needed it!

  

Family Above all else, we have been working on building a family community and learning how to love on each other.  I caught this young man teaching another to tie his shoes.  This is love, people.  This is love.

First Class – Present Class Thirteen years ago, I taught my very first class at Donahoe Elementary. They were a special kindergarten group of whom, many are still in contact with me. My sweet Kaitlyn (pictured in center), who is now a senior in high school, came to observe me for a day and made me boo hoo when she told me she wants to be a teacher one day, too.  I had to have a picture of these two beautiful worlds colliding.

I’m blessed to have this group of smarties!