3D Community Construction

We have been working really hard to get our 3D community together as of late. It was a lot harder of a project than we thought it was going to be. We collected all of our cardboard boxes from moms and dads and started talking about what a community map would look like. Where would the houses go? Where are the stores, restaurants, post office, police and fire department? 

After we had created the draft of our community map, students found out which building they would be creating for the house. We drew papers from a pencil cup we had in the classroom and had one chance to trade for a different building if we did not like our first one. After finding out what building we were creating, students drew a draft building on scrap paper to prepare for the real project.

From the draft, they were able to pick a box, tape it together, wrap the box in butcher paper, and paint it to look like the building they were creating. We planned on using markers to add in tiny details after the paint had dried. 

If all goes as planned, we will be putting together our 3D map this week and have it up before we leave for Christmas vacation. We have yet to decide if it will be hung in the classroom or in the hall for all to see. What would you do? We will keep you posted with our final outcome during break at some point! 

Daily 5 Break Down

The Daily 5 is composed of five different literacy tasks that will make your students stronger readers and writers. The five tasks are read to self, read to someone, listen to reading, work on writing, and word work. In our class we work to have students read to self and work on writing daily, while listening to reading, reading to someone, and completing word work at least 3 times each week. 

We work on writing everyday during writing workshop block (11-12) while read to self and two other assigned tasks are completed during 20 minute rotations in reading workshop block (1-2:30). Reading workshop also consists of a teacher read aloud, mini lesson, and group closing share. 

While work on writing and read to self are  pretty self explanatory, the other centers took a little bit more practice for the students to get used to. Above is a picture of read to someone. Students take turns reading books to one another. They can read their own personal book choice to a friend, two students can choose to take turns reading the same story, they can read the words out loud together, or they can even mimic one another's reading trying to improve their voice and fluency. 

Listen to reading is the part of the day where students can use a website called Bookflix to listen to and watch stories online. The books are read to them while the computer highlights the words and sometimes even adds animation to the illustrations. If you are interested in using this website at home, http://auth.grolier.com/login/bookflix/login.php, your students should know the username and password already, and if they don't- just let me know and I can send it home to you. 

In word work, students practice their weekly spelling words using a variety of materials. They can make words using play-doh, stamp letters and ink, magnet letters, or they can even type letters on fancy decorated keyboards! Since we have started practicing the word work strategy, students are very excited about all the new materials. They are working independently and are proud to share their hard work with friends and teachers. Keep an eye out for other word work stations that we will be trying through out the year. I have found a variety of activities that will keep spelling new and exciting for your children!

S Mart... Monthly Pod Store

As you may or may not know, the Spruce pod hosts a pod store on the last Friday of every month. Students can do classroom jobs to earn money as well as hand in homework, answer questions correctly, or stay on task and follow directions consistently. 

When they get to pod store, students will find tables of items marked by their price. There are $3, $5, $10, $15, $20, and $25 tables. Students can buy pencils, notebooks, fancy erasers and glue sticks, bags, purses, calendars, and games at the store as well as multiple other interesting items.

Teachers fill the store through shopping trips, and visits to the Share Center in Lewiston/Auburn and Ruth's Reusables in Portland. Any donations you feel might add to our pod store, please feel free to send them in. We are always looking for new items to sell to students who are working hard for those Spruce bucks!

Shoes and Just Right Books

 Our class has been working hard to incorporate the Daily 5 and CAFE programs into our reading workshop schedule. The Daily 5 is a classroom management system that provides students five different literacy tasks to work through, daily if possible, to enhance their learning experience and help them to be better readers and writers. The CAFE literacy program adds on to that management system while also giving teachers and students a list of literacy strategies to practice and perfect over the course of the school year. 

One of the interesting lessons in the Daily 5/CAFE program is a shoe lesson that helps children relate to the process of choosing just right books. The strategy is called I PICK. 

I
Purpose: Why do I want to read?
Interest: Does it interest me?
Comprehend: Do I understand it?
Know: Do I know most of the words?

The shoes help because students  can relate them to each letter in I pick. What is the purpose of each shoe? I will not wear my flip flops in a blizzard, will I? What kinds of things am I interested in? We know I run, I live where there is winter and summer weather, and I have work shoes and dress shoes. Comprehension relates to my shoe in comparison to other people's shoes. For example, I can work in my running shoe- it fits me perfect... I cannot use my husband John's running shoe- it is huge and I would trip and fall a lot. I could not use my student Sierra's running shoe- it is too small and would crunch my toes. At this point, students explain and understand more clearly why knowing the words is also such an important part of choosing a good book as well. 

This lesson worked out amazingly in class, and I plan to continue referring to our shoe research when students struggle looking for just right books at school. I hope by posting this lesson here, parents are able to understand and refer to these strategies at home, the local library, or even bookstores when helping students look for new books. Thank you!!

WWW.IXL.COM

IXL is a math website that our school uses for students to practice grade level math skills. Your children use IXL once a week as a whole class to practice skills we are working on in our math studies and then once more during their math center rotation each week. I will list the usernames here for students to access but their password is their birthday as in MMDDYY. My password would be 031187 for example. 

Abdirizak- a19007

Fardowsa- f22486

Ryan- r17297

Dalton- d21499

Gidhan- g20408

Erin- e18534

Abdi- a18605

Yasmin- y19209

Binti- b18607

Xavier- x19386

Sierra- s18547

Rukia- r15603

Faisal- f18552

Sabrina- s18553

Amiira- a18557

John- j17924

Sam- s18565

Kayla- k18524

Brady- b19061

Tristan- t18508

Trinaty- t20498

Reaching for the Stars

I have been meaning to get this picture up for a while now, but haven't gotten to it until now. After looking through our NWEA scores as a class, students were able to see how their scores on the math, reading, and language tests this fall compared to the end of the year scores in second grade. While it is common for students to not make huge gains during the summer when they are out of school, a lot of your children were surprised by the test scores that they did see.

To prepare for looking at student scores, we used practice scores and bar graphs to compare data and learn about why teachers keep track of NWEA scores. Students graphed fake student scores and practiced making goals for the imaginary students based on what they saw. After we became familiar with those scores and the way they were graphed, students looked at their own scores and made real goals for themselves. They picked one test they wanted to improve the most and picked a strategy they could practice to help them improve that test score. Examples might be:

• I want to be better at reading so I will practice choosing just right books.
• I want to be better at math, so I will practice counting money.
• I want to be better at language, so I will practice using periods, question marks, and exclamation points. 

We traced our arms and wrote our goals on them. We decorated around our goals and hung them on a piece of black butcher paper with stars because we are aiming high with our goals, and reaching for the stars.  We know we will meet our goals on this winter's NWEA test because we see this poster every day and are reminded of what we need and want to do to make our scores go up. 

Self Portraits

Just because they look so cool, we wanted to post some pictures of the self portraits we did with Ms. Gibbons in art class this year... I hung them up in the hall way this past week and all the teachers and students walking by have commented on our display. Aren't they beautiful?

This student's face guards the classroom door. Do you recognize who it is?

Math Word Wall

Just so you know how we're remembering all those important math words we've been learning this year.... here is our magnetic math word wall. This wall helps us to remember all the important math terms we are learning and how to spell them!

Community Circles Are Up!

Students have finally completed the community circles we have been working on for the past few weeks! We have circles that describe our home community, school communities, Lewiston, Maine, United States and earth communities. Each of the communities has a drawing on the front describing it and a written description on the back. What and how much was written depends on what community the students were describing. 

Home and school communities were easy because students are there all the time and know lots about them. The circles were also relatively small so students didn't have to write as much. When working on our Lewiston circle, students did research independently or with a partner on Spruce pod laptops. We also had a classmate whose parents own a business in downtown Lewiston that we wrote about. At the end of our research, the class combined all of our new found information on an anchor chart that we hung in the room. We researched Maine using books from the school library- desk partners took five minutes to search through a book before passing it to the next set of desk partners and looking through a new book. We read a big book about the United States and looked through the social studies text book website http://sf.factmonster.com/atlas/unitedstates.html, taking notes together;and last, we watched a video about earth on Brain Pop Jr.'s website twice and took notes about what we learned. 

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches

 Students finished their peanut butter and jelly stories this October and had their first Author's Tea of the year. We gathered during writing workshop, ate Sunbutter and jelly sandwiches with milk, and listened to one another read our stories. Some stories were funny. Some stories gave very specific instructions and some stories told us what we already know. All of the stories were wonderfully written though and we are very excited to host another Author's Tea at the end of November for our personal narratives. 

 Here are some awesome stories hanging on the Sprucetastic Work board. One student printed his cover on the computer! 

Commutative Property Addition

When we started unit 2 in our math text this year, I was worried. The opening lesson was about the three properties of addition: associative, commutative, and identity. How many of you parents know what all three of those properties are?! I know I didn't learn these terms at that age! 

The most difficult property to practice in our class was the commutative property. It says that no matter how I arrange a set of addends in a number sentence they always are the same and have the same sum. For example: (5 + 3) + 2 = (5 + 2) + 3 = (3 + 2) + 5 = 10... Wowzah!! Confusing! 

The easiest way to look at this property was to use counting bears. We had one color for each addend in the problem and switched them around using our desk and a piece of tape that split it in half. We used a post it to mark our thinking about the numbers on our desk. So one side of our desk might have those 5 blue bears and 3 green bears that we talked about in the problem up above and the other side might have the 2 red bears. But no matter what is on each side of the tape we knew our entire desk had 10 bears on it. Do you get it now? I sure hope so! We're having a test soon and we have been working hard to master these skills...

SMART Board Spelling Activities

In the beginning of the school year third grade students really focus on spelling patterns that will help them to become better spellers. We focus on sounds and the spelling patterns that make them. We have learned about the spelling patterns for long I, long E, and long O.

We try hard to complete quick spelling activities as a whole group each day on the SMART Board; and in the photograph above Sierra is adding a word to our list of long O words with the spelling pattern "ow". During activities like these students practice spelling skills but are also working with technology, collaborating, and taking turns. Added bonus: the more often we do these activities, the more fluent our spelling is getting!

Reading Workshop

Reading workshop is a hard part of our third grade day. There are lots of routines to learn and skills to practice. We are all working very hard to become awesome readers and find those just right books that will get us there.

One of the first things we had to do to get us started was organize our classroom's library. We have hundreds and hundreds of books in the room and we needed to sort them so that students are able to find what they need quickly and easily. During the first week of school students spent a two or three days organizing the picture and chapter books based on what they had in common. Above is a picture of some of the picture book baskets we organized together. Some of the chapter book categories we came up with were: 

• Junie B. Jones
• Boxcar Children
• Goosebumps
• buddy reading books
• biography books

Working Hard for the Money!!

In Spruce pod this year, we have opened a pod store. Our store is called S Mart and you can purchase things there using Spruce bucks. Spruce bucks are earned for a variety of reasons including good behavior, hard work, completed homework, group collaboration, and classroom jobs. 

This is a picture of the class job bulletin board. There is a pocket for each job and student popsicle sticks rotate through each job envelope weekly. Classroom jobs include the following:

• pencil sharpener
• line leader
• caboose
• lights
• floor
• sweeper
• folders
• paper passers
• homework collectors
• whiteboard washer
• lunch count
• computers
• chair stackers
• messenger
• library

The students who work on these jobs get paid weekly on Mondays and are paid different amounts based on how often they are working. For example, line leader and paper passers work hard and often all week long so they get paid more than students who turn off computers because that is not an every day job. Along with listing class jobs, the bulletin board above also lists pay rates, other things students will get paid for besides their weekly jobs, and how much classroom supplies (pencils, erasers, crayons, markers, etc.) cost if a student would want to buy them. 

Some items available to students in the pod store include drinks, stickers, bracelets, posters, bags, and toys. If you want these things, make sure you work hard all month and save your Spruce bucks for the final Friday of the month!!

Late Start to the Class Blog

I realize the posts are late to start this year and I apologize. Planning for my wedding took up a lot of my spare time. So for those of you who did not know it was coming up, I am now Mrs. Derouche. I got married in Berlin, NH on October 13, 2012 to John Derouche. I am very excited and have lots of stories to share with my class when I go back to school tomorrow. Here is a picture of my new husband, myself and one of the bridesmaids my class knows very well- Ms. Gibbons, the school art teacher!

Goodbye! See you in the Fall!

Third grade was an amazing experience for all of us this year. I could not have had a better first year teaching and truly will miss my class as they move on to bigger and better things. They are so smart and so prepared for next year; and I am glad that they will only be across the hall so I can check in on them when I miss them most! So have a good summer and see you August 29th!

Quilting from Start to Finish

At the beginning of the school year students and I worked on a getting to know you quilting project where we answered a list of questions on  a variety of colored triangles. We then quilted the triangles together along with square photographs of ourselves. The class quilt has been hanging outside of our classroom all year and serves as a welcome sign to our many visitors. If they take the time to stop and read it, they will learn our favorite colors, foods, school subjects, and even names. 


To close our school year, we quilted again. The difference was that instead of mixing ourselves up throughout the quilt we each had our own personalized quilting block. Each student used tangram shapes to create a design unique to them on a 10x10" block. (Be sure to ask you third grader what " means by the way!) The cool thing about these designs is that each tangram shape has a meaning to your third grader. Each tangram is something they learned this year. The code was as follows: blue rhombus- human body, red trapezoid-biography, green triangle- reading, yellow hexagon- math, orange square- community, and brown skinny rhombus- what I like about third grade. 


This activity was really fun for our class because it gave us a chance during our last week to reflect on those things we had learned that were important to us and talk about our memories with our friends. And the end result was absolutely beautiful! 

Community Meetings

As I mentioned earlier in the post about ex-town manager Joe Derouche and mayor Robert E. Macdonald, our third graders have been researching communities this spring semester. Part of our studies was discovering the process and purpose of the town meeting. During the last full week of school, students hosted a set of four mock meetings following some basic rules of a typical town meeting.


Our first town meeting was actually a class community meeting discussing the class hallway expectations. Students had to debate the punishment for talking repeatedly in the hall because we had been having so many issues lately. We argued points saying all students would owe time for one student's talking and points saying that the student talking would be the student who owed the time. Everyone did a great job debating both sides and in the end we did a vote by hands to find that the student who spoke would be the student who owed the time. That argument won unanimously. Go figure!

The following three days and three town meetings were more directly related to the three communities we were studying: Gorham, Mexico, and Lewiston, ME. All meetings had to do with school issues that are actually relevant within the communities such as combining schools between districts, renewing schools with no budget, and moving the Pre-K students to a new building. Students were full of wonderful insights on each topic and really enjoyed the process of arguing an opinion and voting as a community. We also practiced skills such as secretary notation and moderator of the meeting itself. In the end, we learned a lot about what it takes to run a community and how things aren't always as easy as we think they are. 

Maine Wildlife Park

On Thursday, May 31st all of Montello's third graders went to Maine Wildlife Park and it rocked! Some of the field trip highlights as told by my students:

• We saw the mountain lion get up from a nap and it peed!
• The white peacock opened its tail and everyone who saw sighed "woahhh" at the exact same moment.
• Daniel and his dad accidentally squirted Yabeth with a hose.
• Ethen got some animal food stuck in the bear's fur- he missed his mouth.
• There should be more water fountains there because third graders are very thirsty people!
• There is such a thing as an albino porcupine and raccoon!
• Female moose look like camels and sometimes donkeys too.

Animal Research Projects

To prepare for the annual third grade field trip to Maine Wildlife Park my third graders did research on the various animals who live in Maine. Students were asked to think of four questions that would jump start their research. They needed to think of two thin questions (easy to answer/can find quickly) and two thick questions (harder to answer/use multiple resources); and then use books and websites to find the answers. After finding the answers and maybe even more, students wrote the information in their own words. They made posters about their animals to show the class the week of the field trip. On Tuesday, May 29th, we sat all day long and listened to each other present our findings. We learned so many new things and got really excited to go see all the animals that upcoming Thursday. One of my favorite things about presentation day was how responsible the students were when listening to one another, asking questions, and giving compliments on their friends' projects. They have all grown up so much and are definitely ready for fourth grade!

Green Thumbed Third Graders

At the beginning of the school year I had tried applying to a grant for our third graders to have their own AeroGarden. Since we did not get the grant our class had to wait all year until the spring time to buy and plant seeds. We have been growing seed for Coleus, Pansy, Impatiens, and Petunia plants. We watered them everyday and sat them in the sun and waited. After months of tender love and care our plants are HUGE!! We are donating them to the librarian Ms. Gibbons to plant in her garden at home. We hope they survive the summer! She'll have to keep us updated...

Hexagon Cookies

As I have mentioned in previous posts, students have been working hard to understand fractions in our classroom. When it finally clicked for many of us was when we started using the tangram shapes. We found that 6 triangles are equal to one hexagon. Three rhombuses and two trapezoids are also equal to one hexagon. We also learned that we can combine these different shapes to make the hexagon. We did this by playing a game called Fraction Cookies. Which I am sure you all saw come home a month or so ago. Students would roll a die that had different fractions on each side. The fraction that they landed on was how much they would put on their hexagon cookie. After rolling a couple times, students would try to adjust their fractions by using the least amount of fractional pieces. Once the cookie was filled though, they were not allowed to add any more pieces. The student who used the least amount of pieces in the end was the winner. Below is Devon's explanation for his placement of fractions on his hexagon cookie. 

NWEA Test Relief

As we all know students take NWEA growth tests three times a year so that our district can record student growth. Teachers use the data from these tests to modify teaching and best match student strengths and weaknesses to our lesson plans. At the end of the year these tests can be very stressful for students and teachers because of all the pressure to not only make growth but hit a projected learning target. In order to ease some of the student stress and anxiety about the test we took the half hour before the test to calm down and play like fun games We played Freeze Tag, Duck, Duck, Goose, and Red Rover. We had so much fun and laughed harder than we had all year. It really helped us to relax before the test. Just ask Mohamed and Eman... Mohamed made the most growth in reading for our class going up 21 points since this winter while Eman made the most growth in language and math going up 20 points in math and 15 points in language!

Mayor vs. Town Manager

While studying communities, students paid specific attention to the difference between the meanings of rural, urban, and suburban. In order to learn more about these words we are studying the three Maine communities of Lewiston, Gorham, and Mexico.

In our research, students had the opportunity to interview the mayor of Lewiston, Robert E. MacDonald, and the retired town manager of Mexico, Joseph Derouche. Mr. MacDonald came to our classroom and answered a list of questions that the students had created in preparation for his visit. Some important things they learned about him were that he cannot fire anyone because he has an elected positon and that about 100 people help him do his job. A few weeks later students interviewed Mr. Derouche by using Skype. We had to interview him using Skype because Mr. Derouche has MS and is in a wheel chair. It is difficult for him to leave the house because sometimes he gets tired and it is better for him to stay at home. (Some of you may remember us interviewing Mr. Derouche for our biography unit at the beginning of the year.) Some important things we learned about Mr. Derouche being a town manager was that he had 29 employees helping him and he was allowed to fire people because he was appointed as town manager instead of being voted in by the community.

After interviewing both men, the class made a venn diagram comparing and contrasting what we had learned about the jobs of running an urban and rural community in Maine. We talked about why we think there are differences between the two and what we thought it might have been like if we could have interviewed the head of Gorham. Would they be a mayor or a town manager? We weren't sure.

Map of Doinkville

As part of our community unit, students developed a town within our classroom named Doinkville. "Doink" is a game that we have been playing in our classroom that involves tagging one another and shouting  "Doink!" Because of desk groupings in the classroom, students were able to identify streets and name them in the town. We had six streets all named after things we had been learning this year or important school words like Monty, Spruce, and eagle. Students desks were a buildings in the community. They found out what building they were based on a drawing from a group of cards. They may have been a house, a library, a grocery store, a restaurant, or some other important part of the community. Students designed their building and added it to a town map. They also helped to design the map even further by adding in details like grass, forests, zoos, and rivers. They even ended up showing their map to the mayor of Lewiston, Robert E. MacDonald, when he came to visit us and talk about his role in the community. Other activities they did with regard to our community was create a list of demographics, nominate, vote for, and hire a chief of police, and develop a list of laws for the community to follow (mostly following the classroom expectations and 3 Bs of course). 

IXL

Recently our class has started using www.ixl.com to practice our math skills. We work in math centers and IXL is one of our centers we visit each week to practice skills. I have noticed that students are struggling with their fraction work at school and encourage parents to give their students time to practice their fraction work at home whether on IXL or on one of the fraction sites listed to the right of our blog. To make sure your child is really focusing on these skills, make sure they are working on 2nd or 3rd grade skills and don't move on to the next skill until they have earned 100%. Thanks so much for your help. With all this extra work I am sure our students will kick butt on the NWEAs this May!


IXL Usernames:
Halimo- h16885
Mohamed- m19663
Safa- s19131
Asha- a18172
Nasra- n17272
Ubah- u18325
Maha- m18306
Lila- l20309
Ethen- e19818
Ana- a17455
Madyson- madysoncurran325
Kaitlyn- k17477
Madysen- m17325
Daniel- danieledwards325
Kaelynn- k16547
Yussuf- y19018
Abdi- abdirahmanibrahim325
Kendra- k17415
Noah- n17349
Eman- e17771
Emily- e17350
Trevon- t17493
Yabeth- y16128
Amira- a17479
Devon- d17961


IXL Passwords: Students birthday in the form of mmddyy

Night of the Stars Winners

Each year teaches nominate great writing from their class to be a part of the Geiger Bros. and Montello celebration known as Night of the Stars. 
"The annual celebration is an Oscar-style awards ceremony recognizing the most talented young writers from among Montello Elementary School's more than 750 kindergarten through sixth-grade students. Honored writers will arrive in stretch limousines, provided by Crown Limousine Service, from 5 to 6 p.m., followed by a two-hour award ceremony in the middle school auditorium. The event is free and open to the public."- Sun Journal 2010


Out of the 5 writers nominated from our class, 2 were chosen for this special event. So our class would like to extend a big congratulations to Daniel and Maha!!

From Your Pumping Heart

by Maha A.

Dear Nasra,
Try to eat some more turkey Italians instead of only cheese.
If you don't have a healthy hear, there will be fat o it. You could get a heart attack! I would stop working! I could get tired of pumping blood becasue of the fatty food. 
Do you want fat on your heart? Do you want a heart attack? Keep your heart healthy! Try some milk, whole grain, turkey, and fruits and vegetables. Don't forget exercise! 
                                                                                             Sincerely,
                                                                                             Your Pumping Heart

Inside Yabeth

by Daniel E.

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmm chocolate. I think I will take another big bite. Oh no! I think I started to shrink to the size of a chip." Devon laughed at me and then I shrunk him with my shrink ray. "That's what you get for laughing at me," said Daniel. We climbed in the chip bag lying on the floor. Yabeth reached into the bag and scooped us up. He tossed us into his mouth. His mouth was dark and slimy. His mouth was full of chips. He swallowed us into his esophagus. It pushed us into his stomach. We saw hamburgers, cookies, and chips. It smelled like cookies. Devon screamed "I want food!" I yelled, "Let's get out of here!" Clap, clap, clappity clap. Poof! We landed in my room. We did our secret handshake and escaped. Then we ate supper. 

Ranger Rich and Aunt Cyndi Come for a Visit

On April 2nd, Ranger Rich and Aunt Cyndi from Hawaii came to visit our class! They had been our pen pals all school year while working at two national parks in Hawaii. They had sent us videos of Hawaii's volcanoes and whales, maps, books, and letters telling us about their adventures. We wrote them back thank you letters and asked them questions about Hawaii. The friendship was so wonderful because many students had never been to a national park before and some weren't even sure of what a park ranger was. We were learning so much from our class's new friends!


When Aunt Cyndi and Ranger Rich had finished their time at Hawaii's national parks they headed back home to visit family in New England. Little did our class know but they were planning a secret trip to our classroom during their visit home to meet their pen pals. When Ranger Rich and Aunt Cyndi came, they brought with them shell leis and Hawaii pencils. Ranger Rich talked to us about what a park ranger does while Aunt Cyndi told us about her role as a volunteer at the national park. They talked to us about hula dancing and Hawaiian words. They even brought us a poster of Hawaiian fish to compare to our coloring book of Hawaiian fish written in ABC order. 

Now that Aunt Cyndi and Ranger Rich have headed onto their next assignment at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, our class looks forward to hearing about their new adventures. We are so grateful for having them be a part of our school year and coming to see us this spring. Devon even said after getting a lei from Aunt Cyndi that he was "definitely" telling his mom about that day.

Multiplication Strategies

Multiplying big numbers can be difficult! In third grade we focus on those factors that are easy to memorize. We work on our 0,1,2,5,10 and 11 factors first. They are quick and easy. We then skip count by and memorize our threes. We have been working very hard in multiplication centers like Multiplication Hopscotch, matching games, word problems, and manipulative work to master these threes and are now moving on to fours. Even though we are building up our multiplication facts from easy to hard, no matter what I do the students are still drawn to the challenge of the twelves! To help them be successful, the class discussed how twelve facts are really just made up of two fact families we've known since kindergarten- the twos and tens. If a student multiplies by two and ten, and then adds the products they will know the answer for their twelves. This picture shows three students putting that strategy to practice. 

Human Organ Museum and a Visit from the "Tuba-intendent"

As you all know, my third graders spent all of second trimester learning about the human body and more specifically seven organs. We worked in study groups researching the seven organs for a month taking notes and developing a massive word wall with over 60 new vocabulary words. 

Students took the information they learned and developed some awesome end of unit projects. We spent months perfecting human body stories about shrinking to a miniature size and venturing into the human body. Shrink rays and magic chocolate, gum and doorknobs started out stories while sneezing, burping, and yawning let us out. Our stories were so great that museum visitors said they looked they were written by much older students. They loved our creativity and imaginations. 

Students also spent a good deal of time writing letters from the organ to a human they knew. The organ was giving advice on how to keep the human body healthy. We practiced writing persuasively by giving reasons for why it was so important to keep the organs healthy and warning about what might happen if they didn't. Mohamed A. told Mr. Bayissa that if he "want to be died than smoke!" because smoking turns your lungs black and kills you. He signed it "Love, Your Lungs and Mohamed". Other students talked about the perils of eating junk food to your digestive system or exercising to keep your heart healthy. Noah even wrote himself about how to take good care of his lungs and his asthma!

Students also put up our organ Pop Art that we mentioned earlier in the blog. Organs drawn completely of words about organs. Students used information they had written in their notes about organs to design the art with the help of Ms. Gibbons, the school librarian, and combined their art to make one organ per group of students. The work was incredible and was displayed in the school library for over a month. 

But we all know the highlight of our museum was the edible organs! Students made organs out of food and at the end of the day, we ate them! Awesome! The lungs were Italian bread loaves, jelly, and Twizzlers. The stomach was brilliant! Chyme (mashed up food) was made of cookie dough, mixed with stomach acid and mucus- honey, and wrapped in stomach muscles made of Twizzlers and the stomach lining was Fruit Roll Ups. Another class favorite was the heart- orange slices, Fruit Roll Ups, Twizzlers, and Jolly Ranchers. Students worked really hard to make organs that looked very real and spent a lot of time thinking about the perfect materials to make them, just think about a molded popcorn brain or Strawberry Shortcake Roll intestines!

 I think the most rewarding moment of the museum was to sit back and watch the students talk about their work with the visitors. We had invited all of our Spruce pod (4th, 5th, and 6th graders) as well as the four Pre K classes, Mrs. Polisky's kindergartners, the vice principal, the office administrative assistant, and the Lewiston school superintendent, Mr. Webster! Mr. Webster loved our museum and learned a lot from his tour guide, Trevon O. At the end of his visit, Safa A. talked about how excited she was that Mr. Webster, the "tuba-intendent" came to see all of our hard work. Everyone was so proud.!

Honor Roll, Trimester 2

Congratulations to our Honor Roll Students for the second trimester!!!
Maha, Noah, Madysen, and Emily

Human Body Stories Are Complete!!!

We have been working for SO long on our human body stories that I forgot when we even started. Our class is full of very creative third graders and these stories are proof of that. We are writing about shrink rays, normal rays, magic chocolates, hairy discoveries, and even death by Q-tip! I could never have imagined such awesome writing coming from watching a few Magic School Bus episodes. My students should be very proud of themselves and I know they are very excited to share their writing at the upcoming human organ museum! So keep checking in for more photos and videos of our hard work!

Math Centers

In order to better master our multiplication skills, students have been spending the past 3 weeks rotating through multiplication themed centers. Students use manipulative cubes and ice cube trays to group numbers and multiply unknown equations while recording their findings in a journal like Asha is in the photograph above, or multiply while hopscotching like Nasra is below. 

Other multiplication centers include:

Multiplication Memory: Students match the product to the problem.

Multiplication Checkers: Students can't move the piece until they answer the multiplication problem on the square they are trying to move to.

Word Problems: Students write their own multiplication word problems using lists of things that come in groups of 2-12 we have created that are hanging in the classroom.