This week in 3B we celebrated Dot Day! "The Dot" is a wonderful story about a child who is struggling in art class and doesn't believe they can make anything. The teacher has them make a mark on a page, sign it and then she frames it and hangs it up. This inspires the student to make more and more dots until she has a whole gallery of her artwork. And her artwork inspires a ripple effect... The story is a special one that has become dear to me as I know each of us can struggle when we're first trying to learn new things. This year we have challenged the students quite a bit as they transition from 2nd to 3rd graders. I hope that they learn to believe in themselves and inspire one another as much as they inspire me each day with their efforts. As a special treat this week we have been making dot day projects and rainy day projects, as well as projects where students need to practice following the directions. I am inspired by their enthusiasm to make beautiful things, and impressed when they are able to follow the directions carefully to get a finished product. The students were even able to use their iPads with the Quiver App to make their dots come to life! For spelling practice this week we shook it up a bit and found new ways to practice our spelling words. The students played hangman with one another on whiteboards and on their desks in shaving cream! The room smelled fresh and clean, and their desks look shiny and new, although I know a few of their uniforms and heads ended up a bit foamy too =) We have been working hard, and although I don't like to give homework on the weekends, I have asked the students to bring items for the "mass museum" on Monday and have said that they can bring in hats to wear as their "thinking caps". Ms. Kern has also asked that they have their Project Packets signed before Science Class on Tuesday. (These packets are in their yellow science folders that they are bringing home.) This week students enjoyed an indoor recess where Dr. Castleman taught them how to make "fortune tellers". Students joined together for Math and helped each other sort through time as we introduced the "Length of Day Project" where we will collect data each week to add to our charts about how long the days are. It is a difficult concept for 3rd graders to understand time from AM to PM and they are tackling the challenge with determination. Reading partners spent more time together this week discussing the books they are reading and getting one another excited about books. The students are working hard to achieve their goals and are becoming better readers with each passing day. On Friday we had our first book club meeting where students were able to share the picture book they read over the summer by reading it to their peers. 3B is starting to learn their way around the classrooms, and our centers are being established as they learn new games and activities. Today we discussed "Finish Early" tasks so that students are taking charge of their learning and making good choices when they finish their work. We are fortunate to have plenty of fun math games and spelling games (just to name a few) to help support our learning. We also talked about some really awesome ways to practice spelling and math at home so that learning and practice is fun. In addition to the fact triangles and flash cards, students talked about using food to make their spelling words (cheerios and m&ms were the favorites) as well as practice making arrays and equal groups, addition and subtraction problems and so much more! I'm proud of the students for thinking of ways to help themselves and their peers with these difficult subjects. I'm even more proud that they're learning to problem solve with one another throughout the day =) This week in 3B we took entries from our writer's notebooks and started to sketch out scenes for a story. Students were making movies in their minds of the memories and then putting them on paper. Next we added "caveman talk" bullet point details (hot, long drive, loud music etc) to prepare for our first draft of the story next week. They have been doing a wonderful job with the workshops and I am impressed at how much detail they can add to their stories. I look forward to sharing the final products with you =) We have been working hard on multiplication and division stories this week and trying to wrap our minds around the concepts of these operations and how they work. Students have been successful with creating stories, drawings and explaining their strategies. I encourage you to have them tell you stories at home and see if you can solve their equations =) Check out the slideshow of fun photos below, including one of a gecko that crawled onto Luci's shoe! |