Ms. Beck's Blog

Last week we dug into a lot of great new things!  We started off our week with a visit from James Riley who taught us about the hard work of being an author!  This week we learned about how suffixes change the meaning of words, specifically how adding -ed to the end of most verbs will change the verbs to past tense verbs and how when we add -er or -est to the end of most adjectives, we demonstrate comparative and superlative adjectives.  We learned about how good readers ask themselves questions before, during, and after reading to better understand the texts.  In math, we learned how to round 4-digit numbers to the thousands, hundreds, and tens place values!  We finished off our MAPS tests with the MAPS Fall Reading test, had our first Guidance lesson with Mrs. Pritchard, and had our first Garden Lesson on Friday morning.  Check out the pictures below of us working hard!  We were busy bees!

                       

Parents and Students,

I made two videos about how to round on a number line just for you!  Check it out if you get confused!

While we still have a ways to go, we were starting to find our groove in week three.  We learned about the scientific method, syllables, making connections to fiction texts, synonyms, and antonyms.  We wrote complete sentences and expanded on an idea.  We explored four digit numbers, rounded number on a number lines, compared numbers, and squeezed in some time to learn about how the brain works!  We learned how being mindful is the key to being the best version of ourselves.  We even got to know each other a bit better throughout the fast four and a half days we had together!  Check out some pictures of us in action this past week!

                      

Have a wonderful weekend!

It might only be week two in third grade, but we are really digging in! In math, we are making sure we have nailed the four ways to demonstrate a number (see anchor chart picture below) and got to work in math stations to show our knowledge!

     

We also started rounding.  In third grade, we only round on a numberline.  No more tricks.  Rounding on a numberline demonstrates knowledge of WHY numbers are rounded to one or the other due to their relationships with the numbers around them.  This understanding of number relationships is key to all we do for the rest of the year.  We rounded two digit numbers to the tens place, three digit numbers to the hundreds place, and we even started rounding three digit numbers to the tens place!  Ask your child to show you their math notebook in their book bags!  They have done awesome work in there and they should be able to walk you through what we have done.  Check out Phelobater in action below!

I finally started hanging some of our Growth Mindset Inspiration Wall pictures, quotes, and sorts to help us change our speech.  Change your speech, change your mindset!

Lauryn and Tori even rocked two growth mindset t-shirts this week!  Awesome, girls!

 

In nine years of building reading stamina in my classrooms, never have I had a class be able to sit quietly and read for 10 minutes straight the first week we started at it! I am so impressed by their focus, dedication, and desire to become better readers!

   

To celebrate Constitution Day, we elected and swore in our class representative and alternate for our Student Council Association.  We are looking forward to being served by Rocco this year.  For some reason if Rocco can’t fulfill his responsibilities, Winn has agreed to step in.  Hooray for a representative government!

They might be worn out, but man, so am I!  I hope you’re all having a great weekend!  See you on Monday!

Vote for who should be our class representative here!

Maybe you’ve heard that our school is focused on having a growth mindset this year? Come to open house to find out more of what this means for your child, our school, and our relationships!

   

We discussed what it means to be a good citizen and brainstormed what we could do to help make our whole class successful.  From the ideas we all came up with, we created expectations that we will ALL strive to meet each day, myself included.  We will be gracious with each other when we fall short, and we will help each other when we are frustrated or not able to make it on our own.  Together we will go far!

 

Here we are demonstrating our ability to write three-digit numbers in both standard and expanded forms.  In two weeks, we’ll be able to demonstrate numbers in four different four forms for numbers with up to six place values!

Sammi was our first Mallard to be able to recite the Mallard Growth Mindset to Mr. Fernald from memory.  Here she is in action one day at lunch.

We survived and had a great time doing it!

I can’t wait to see how this week goes!

Field day was awesome. We had such a great time hanging out with each other, and the other third grade classes.  A big “thank you” to Mr. Schreher who took almost all of the following photographs.

                   

 

I am so very tired.  Thank goodness for all of our parent volunteers for coming along for the ride!  Enjoy your last weekend of third grade!

All parents had the chance to purchase a “Teacher Feature” for every grade level at the Maybeury Silent Auction back in March.  The third grade teachers decided to fill up our cars with awesome kids and head down to Maymont Park for the fastest tour ever!  Click on the album below to check out some pictures of our awesome day!

I wanted to share some pictures (and a video) of my big night at the Gilman Teacher of the Year ceremony on Tuesday, May 2nd.  It was such a wonderful evening full of people I love…although, not ALL the people I love!  A special, special thanks to my little friends who surprised me with a celebration party on Wednesday afternoon!

           

Check out the people who make me great!

But here’s the more realistic picture of us!

Your awesome third grade students have been my biggest supporters this year through the Gilman Teacher of the Year process.  We were filmed on Tuesday this week, and we even got a selfie with Mrs. Jackson, our amazing county videographer, producer, and director!

If you’d like to see the movie I created with help from some of my most favorite people for my interview in late March, click below!

It has been a busy week!  We started off Monday learning about fire safety!  Have you checked the batteries in your fire alarms?  Do you have a meeting place outside of your house in case of fire?  Ask your child what they need to know to be a Junior Firefighter in Henrico County!  We also got to meet one of Ms. Beck’s oldest friends, Firefighter Trinh who taught us not to be afraid of firefighters in all their gear!

    

Ms. Beck had her interview and presentation for Teacher of the Year and then ran by her old school, Donahoe, to deliver doughnuts and say hello to some of her favorites! Here she is with JMU alum Mrs. Collins!

We learned about probable outcomes and possible combinations.  Check out our work around the room!

    

On Friday, Mrs. Rao was our mystery reader!  She read us a book about how families can look all different ways, and they are still full of love!  She also gave us a sneak peek into solid figures in math that we’ll be tackling next week!

We had a visit from a brass quintet, courtesy of the Richmond Symphony.  We learned about brass instruments, how vibrations make sound, and how one song can be altered to completely change the mood!  Check out their version of “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” when thinking about a New Orleans funeral procession.

Finally, we had to celebrate Mr. Fernald’s 40th birthday!  We bought him a giraffe head (because of our current love of April the Giraffe in New York) and documented his day around campus before hanging it in his office this afternoon.  Happy birthday, Mr. Fernald!

              

After our glorious trip to Charlottesville on Monday, the Virginia Historical Society paired with us to do a History Connects lesson all about Thomas Jefferson!  Check out some highlights of the two history filled days!  #virginiamyhomesweethome

I don’t know if you have noticed, but reading has taken on a whole new meaning over the past two weeks.  My students are devouring books as fast as I can get them into their hands!  I am amazed by how my baby ducks are no longer abandoning books, but revelling in their abilities to complete whole chapter books independently!  In small group reading, students are introduced to new books and after about four days, I release them to read the rest of the book on their own as we move onto a new book.  Seeing them take the initiative to finish their books has renewed my love for teaching during this latest cold snap!  We might have been stuck inside, but at least we were stuck inside with some great literature.  Check out a few of my great readers!

      

Ask your child what book they are currently reading and what level it is!  Here’s hoping this awesome thirst for good stories continues for a long time in their lives!

have been jam-packed of learning and fun!  Check it out!

We are rocking through some “perfect fit” books in small groups and responding in our favorite reader’s response journals.  What book has your child read from start to finish recently?  Be sure to ask them!

 

We had two great percussionists come to teach us about how much of our music today has come from the percussive beats of West Africa. Take a second to watch these videos and catch our star Amir on stage!

Last Friday, we visited the Math Science Innovation Center (MSIC) and revisited our unit on aquatic animal adaptations!  We got to review vocabulary, observe the vertebrae of a sea turtle, learn about different bodies of water in Virginia, and touch some sea creatures!

             

Along with learning about 2-digit by 1-digit multiplication and making change, we learned how to use calculators to check our work!

 

This past week, we have been celebrating Seuss Week with different celebration each day.  We rocked sock day, were wacky on Wednesday, and capped it off with hat and PJ days!

     

On Thursday, my nephew Tyler came to visit us with his mom and dad (my sister and brother in law) for his 2nd birthday!  We helped him open his birthday present and he came to recess with us!

  

On Friday, Grandma Edwards visited us after her trip to Burma/Myanmar and shared some photographs with us.  She also stayed and helped us stay on task while Ms. Beck met with word study groups.

Waiting for the bus presented an opportunity to play some cool group games.

I’m already excited about what next week might bring!

This week’s rundown:

We have been trying out some new desk arrangements that will help us to focus our best and practice our teamwork abilities! Here we are taking the zipties off of our old groups.

 

In reading stations this week, we have really come to love reading good-fit chapter books on our level.  I have loved seeing at least three groups finishing their books.  When in small group with Ms. Beck, we don’t ONLY read…we also write in response to what we have read!  Here are a few pictures of students using their background knowledge as well as clues from the text to make inferences!

  

We are up to our gills in money right now!  We are learning how to count, compare, and add collections of money using real money, team games, computer games, and old school worksheets, checked by calculators!

 

 

We also finished out our week of Pennies for Pasta by raising over $730.00 in just our class alone!  On Friday morning, we split up the money by value and then in teams, we counted the money, reported the amounts, and then added it all up to find this week’s total.

      

We had a mystery reader on Friday!  Thanks to Mrs. Fendley for coming in and giving her teacher skills a workout by reading three fantastic books.  As you can tell, no one moved when she was reading.  We also had an awesome lesson in saving vs. spending with Ms. Adams but I completely forgot to get a picture!  Ask your child how much we learned about saving money for the future on Friday!

We have been working so hard on our “who do you admire” writing prompts over the past two weeks, and the fruit of our labors are now hanging on our classroom window!  They are five paragraph narrative essays revised and edited with peers, and published in cursive!  Come check these out when you have a chance!  More will be put up when they are complete.

For your viewing pleasure, here’s what we did in music this week!

The weather couldn’t make up its mind, but we had no problem!  We were so glad to be back in a normal groove after mid-year testing was completed last week.  We had time to play outside, work in teams, jump back into reading groups, learn about natural cycles, start a new writing prompts, and name our Mallard mascot!  Take a peek into our week!

I taught some gals a new game with a basketball during a warm recess.  (It’s much easier with a fully inflated basketball we found!)

We started a new writing about people we admire.  We are all in different stages of the writing process, but we all love writing time, when we get to cozy up anywhere in the classroom, and let our voices be heard on paper!

       

We learned about tides and moon phases this week.  The best part was turning two double stuff Oreos into the four major moon phases…and eating all phases when we were done!

 

As you know, we are raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through a program called “Pennies for Pasta” where we raise money in our classrooms to donate for cancer research.  After a week of collecting money, as a class, we counted the donations in groups separated by denominations.  Check out our current total!  This is a great way to kick off our next math unit…MONEY!

         

In our garden lesson, which tied in beautifully to our study of seasons, we illustrated what our garden looks like throughout the year.  Our farmers used a “Crankie” which is a moving panorama tool.  Check out the video below!

   

Finally, we celebrated our accomplishments in the second quarter by partying at the Mallard Rally!  The third grade teachers played Charades and acted out ways we can be kind to those around us. We also got a special visit from our mallard mascot, who we, as a whole school, named Max!

Life in third grade is the best!

With all the benchmark/F&P/PALS (reading level) testing, we’ve been off our blog posting game.  Check out a few of the things we have been doing over the past few weeks…in between tests, of course!

Early in the year, Ellie and Nickole took it upon themselves to write letters to President Obama detailing their concerns for the environments and animal populations around us.  We totally forgot about those letters until we received an embossed letter from the office of the White House!  The picture below shows his lovely response and a video of the girls getting to read their letter in front of the class!  Thanks, President Obama!

We sent a picture of us braving the cold recess temperatures to channel 12, hoping we might make it onto the “Dress for the Weather” segment on the morning broadcast.

We finished up our unit on measurement and took a “team test” helping each other to discuss the most reasonable answers!

  

We got a new pencil sharpener!

We prepared for the math benchmark like champions!

We learned what it means to make inferences in fiction texts and practiced our skills on one of our favorites comprehension sites, Into the Book!

 

And we learned all about natural cycles.  Here we are taking a BrainPop quiz together about what causes the seasons with Nickole as the facilitator.

There’s always something great going on in room 36!

I thought I’d take advantage of this snowy day to post a few pictures from the week before winter break!  Here are a couple of things that went on in room 36!

The week before break we warmed ourselves by the fire.

We worked with Ms. Beck during reading stations.

 

We started learning how to write in cursive.

We determined elapsed time by using a numberline on our whiteboards.

 

We played games and made a snow globe to accompany our writing prompt.  Thanks to Mrs. Rao and Ms. Adams for coming in to help us!

   

 

The week after break we survived.  We talked about our expectations for the rest of the year, reminded ourselves of classroom procedures, and have started reading one on one with Ms. Beck to see how much our reading has improved from September until now!  There weren’t a lot of pictures…but there was a lot of learning!

In the past few weeks we have been working hard!  Check out some of the great things we have been up to!

We donated cans to the Henrico Christmas Mother, but before they left our room, we built a Parthenon out of them!

  

We learned how we can use our study of main ideas to help us demonstrate knowledge on tests!  We read the passage twice, and during the second read-through, we write down the main ideas of each paragraph.  It also helps us slow down and comprehend better!

  

We have been working on a writing a story about what would happen if we were trapped inside a snow globe.  This gives us the chance to show creativity and individuality while working through the writing process!  Ask your child which step they are currently on (brainstorming, planning, rough draft, revising, editing, and creating the final draft.)

   

We crowned our classroom Spelling Bee King and Queen!  John was our classroom winner with Olive giving him a run for his money as runner up!  We are so proud of both of these smarties!

We met with our kindergarten brain buddies and showed off our reading prowess while encouraging our little friends to point out letters or words that they are learning to read!

          

We spent some time learning a new game at recess called Octopus Tag!

We’ve been learning about telling time to the hour, half hour, quarter hour, and minute.

  

On Friday of this past week, we had a Math Flashback Friday, where we rotated through stations to review addition & subtraction, patterns, multiplication, and any math computer game we’ve played all year.  We had a large time!

      

We celebrated Miss Carbonneau turning in her complete student teaching portfolio to her university supervisor, and of course partied with her on her last day!  Even her kindergarten class came to hang out!  Check out the precious apron Ms. Showalter-Cupp’s class made for her!

  

I’d say we’ve been pretty busy.

 

Miss Carbonneau and I wanted to highlight some of the active learning taking place in room 36 this past week!  While we do have our share of getting work done at our desks, we love having the ability to move around the room in math stations while learning all about multiplication.  Check out how we move around and welcome guest teachers (Mr. Schreher) to our room!

            

As if math stations weren’t fun enough, Miss Carbonneau organized our very own “Olympic Games” to help in our study of the ancient Greek contributions to our lives!  Check out picture of our fun day!  Thanks to our special Olympic officials, Mr. Schreher, Mr. & Mrs. Fischi, and Ms. Adams, for running our games!

             
 

Here’s to a short week!

On Friday, we had the most wonderful Veterans Day assembly, and even scored a visit from a real veteran among us, Mr. Wynn!  He came and talked to us about his four years in the Army and what life on a tank was like.  We learned a lot and really enjoyed his time with us.  I hope everyone has taken the time this weekend to celebrate those who protect our rights and revel in the goodness of our country.

Today, we visited the Valentine Museum in the heart of downtown Richmond!  We got to see so many Greek & Roman influences on our local architecture and government.  We were also lucky to have three stations around the Valentine where we learned about amphoras, ruins, and we had a glorious tour of the Wickham House to find neoclassical architectural touches from 1812!  Check out our slideshow below!

I was lucky enough to hang out with quite a few of my baby ducks at MayBOOry last Saturday, even when I was playing DJ at the Cake Walk.  Here are just a few of my favorites!

       

On Halloween, we celebrated by participating in a whole school STREAM challenge!  In teams, we had to build the tallest, freestanding tower out of 14 gummy pumpkins and toothpicks.  Our tallest tower stood one foot!

 

This week, we also learned about the seven strategies we must master to fully understand multiplication (equal groups, repeated addition, skip counting, number lines, arrays, area models, and fact families).  If you have any questions about the way we are attacking multiplication and division, please ask!  This is certainly not the way we learned multiplication, so it’s a new way to see it for many people!

Miss Carbonneau successfully taught quite a few lessons last week, and starting on Monday, November 7th, she is taking over!  We are all excited to be a part of her training and are eager to impress her with our good behavior.  Right? Right?

This past week in math, we studied patterns.  This is more than color or picture patterns.  Your child was exposed to number patterns with challenging rules (add 4, subtract 3), understanding patterns on a 100s chart (+-10, +-1), and patterns in an input/output table.  We realized that often, we have to use addition and subtraction to help us figure out what might come next, or even to figure out the rule of the pattern.  We completed an assessment outside in the yard while taking advantage of the beautiful day!

               

On Thursday, we were able to meet with our Brain Buddies from Mrs. Hadd’s kindergarten class to investigate some tiny pumpkins.  In small groups, students had to describe their pumpkin using their observation skills, measure the height, weight, and circumference using measurement tools, and explore the inside of the pumpkin by estimating and confirming the number of pumpkin seeds inside.

              

I hope you are all planning to come to MayBOOry this afternoon from 2 to 6pm. Miss Carbonneau and I will be running the Cake Walk from 4-5pm.  Come see us!

You may have noticed a laminated page in your child’s binder entitled “How to show work on a math word problem.”  Last week, we practiced using that graphic organizer to help us better understand word problems so that we can solve them correctly.  We did a few together over two days, and then practiced in teams because TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK!

The first thing you do when solving these problems is to read the problem two times to be sure you are thinking about the problem like a story!

Your next step is to set up your 4-square graphic organizer.

Starting with the top box on the left, you write the main idea of the problem.  You can use one or two words, or even draw a picture!

Then you highlight important numbers in the problem and any keywords that might help you solve the problem later.  Moving to the top right box, you write down any important numbers and what they mean.  Be careful!  Those Test Makers will give you too much information, write some numbers in word form, and will try to hide information in the problem to trip you up!  Don’t let them win!

   

Your next step is to write the question you are solving.  This is typically the last sentence in the word problem.  Don’t forget to use a capital letter at the beginning and a question mark!

Then, think about how you will solve the problem, and then do the work in the bottom right box.  Don’t rush!  Silly mistakes happen when you are working quickly.

Finally, highlight your answer, but remember that just a number is not an answer.  You must have a word to go with your number.  For example, if the question asks “How many baseball cards did Michael have?”, your answer should be (#of) baseball cards.

This is how we will be solving word problems all year!  Your child can use the notebook paper in their binders to complete any word problems on homework from now on!