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
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.
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.
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.
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.!
