X Box Kinect Dance Party!

At Montello there is a school wide behavior expectation of the 3 Bs. Students are expected to be safe, be respectful, and be responsible. As a school we decided what that looks like in the hallways, cafeteria, bathrooms, and on the playground. As a class we decide what that looks like in our classroom and everyday routines. Teachers and staff at Montello reward students who are following the 3 Bs with Monty Feathers. Monty the Eagle is our school mascot. 


Feathers are signed by the student and are used in different classrooms for different reasons. In our classroom Monty Feathers are collected and raffled on Fridays for the Friday Feather Award. Students choose from a list of free rewards on Friday if their feather is the feather pulled. As a class we also decided that if we could collect enough feathers to fill a white eagle on our door we would have an X Box Kinect Dance Party! This past week students completed their eagle by filling him with 333 feathers! We had the party on Friday to celebrate.


Students were so excited to dance with the Kinect. We cleared the desks to the sides of the room and took turns having dance battles. In the Dance Central game we had students were able to free style and be video taped. They would crowd the screen and bust out their favorite dance moves, most of which I had never seen before! We would cheer each other on and encourage the students who couldn't get a certain dance move to keep trying. Everyone was laughing and having a great time playing together for the hour long party before gym class. A lot of the students wanted to skip gym and just stay in the room!


The problem is we have now earned over 350 feathers and are not sure what to do for our next class reward. I do get the feeling that the X Box will be making a return visit though...

Daniel dance battling to Galang '05 by Mia

Mohamed dance battling to Galang '05 by Mia

Who do you think won this dance battle??

Please Donate to our New Donors Choose Project

I have posted a new project on the DonorsChoose website. Our class is hoping to earn the funds for an Elmo Teacher Tool Document Camera sometime in the near future. Our project is titled If a Problem Cannot Be Solved, Enlarge It! and is a total of $1,074. You can read more project details on the DonorsChoose website, our link is http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=707538&verify=2070699121&challengeid=170647. If you or anyone you know is interested in helping us meet our goal, please use this link to donate to our amazing class project. We'll be sure to write a thank you letter! We're really good at it! 

Antarctica is Better than New York-tica!

We love to sing in third grade! And we love to sing about Antarctica! Check out one of the class favorites on Bookflix, Antarctic Antics or our most favorite song, "Antarctic Anthem" right here!

 

Circulatory System Investigations

For our first human body study, students researched the heart and its circulatory system. We started by picking partners and tracing one another. Then we drew the heart, the lungs, and the brain. Next came the arteries, and last the veins. All parts needed to be color coded. We used the Smart Board to help us with these first steps. After we drew out all of the circulatory intricate pieces students looked through classroom books and magazines for heart, blood, and circulatory facts. Once our life size posters were complete, we posted them all over the hallways. They're huge and they're wonderful! We learned so much!

Encyclopedias Are Awesome!

Our class has recently discovered encyclopedias. We like to open them and lay them all out at the same time. We look at maps. We look at dinosaurs. We look at the human body and the different plastic see through sheets that make up its layer of organs. We are working on using the alphabet key in the top corner. 

Letter from Hawaii

In case you did not know, our class has adopted a park ranger pen pal! His name is Richard Godin. He is my uncle and he is a park ranger in Hawaii! He and my Aunt Cyndi sent our class a care package from the parks they are staying at in Hawaii. We watched a video postcard of all the beautiful scenery and saw lava rolling down the mountains. Did you know it looks like cement as it cools down?! Aunt Cyndi and Uncle Rich also gave us two new books about Hawaii and volcanoes! They were awesome resources. 

We were so grateful for our new gifts that we wrote back to our park ranger pen pals immediately. We asked them questions we had from watching the videos and reading the books, drew them pictures of volcanoes, and sent them pictures we took of ourselves enjoying these new things. We will be sure to keep you updated on those new things we learn from our park ranger pen pals in Hawaii! 

The Human Body! Woo!!!

This past week marked the beginning of our second trimester unit. Third graders jumped right into a human body organ study! A few weeks ago we decided on a set of seven organs for group study. The end of trimester goals include edible organ models, an organ museum for all of our Spruce pod members, and letters from the organ to human talking about keeping your body healthy and what an organ is used for. During the unit we will be having guest speakers, watching videos, researching, drawing models, and participating in organ specific weeks. Last week the classroom was filled with new human body books to read. The minute students walked in they started climbing on furniture (literally) to get to the new resources. They took notes, shared information, and asked questions as quickly as they could think of them. They ended the day by coming up with their top three organs they wished to study most and were split into groups accordingly. The organs they chose to research are the brain, heart, kidneys, intestines, stomach, bladder, and lungs. They look forward to sharing their learning with you in the near future!

Biographies Completed!!!

As you all know, our third graders recently finished a trimester long unit on biography study. We finished the unit off with an Authors' Tea Party. Sadly, one of our classmates was sick and could not be there. Luckily, her classmates understood how important presenting her biography would be and offered to watch her present her biography alone the following week. We even took pictures and made a PowerPoint movie of Madysen's story to send to her uncle who sadly couldn't make it because he lives so far away.

Madysen's biography was special because it was about her Uncle Troy. Her uncle works in the air force and has been on duty in Iraq three times! Madysen is very proud of him and wrote an amazing story of his life so far. In addition to her biography Madysen created a poster with lots of photographs of her uncle along with her own illustrations.  Our class loved Madysen's biography. 

We clapped after she finished every chapter and had many comments of praise for her when she was done. Devon even told her that he knew her biography was better than his! Madysen was beaming with pride when her own personal Authors' Tea was done and so was her mom who came to watch her. Great job Madysen!