Third Grade: 
October 17:Third graders started our time by listening and following directions with a "Surprise in the Middle" activity.  This activity ties into our measurement unit in that it uses non-standard means of measurement.  They then completed a chart of measurement of themselves.  They had to estimate the length in centimeters, measure and record the actual measurements and find the difference.

October 31:  Today the third graders started their time by assembling "Big Foot"!  They made the parts according to scale and he became whole today.  We are taking a bit of a break from our measurement unit to focus on language arts.  We will be constructing a poetry booklet.  Today's focus was on writing "couplets".  We will explore a different type of poetry each session.  Some poems may be pulled to use as products for the spring screening.
November 21:  Third graders had a productive day.  They finished writing short, couplet poems.  They then typed them on Word, changing font size, learning to use "print preview", inserting a picture, printing and saving.
November 28:  Students learned a graphing game called "Hiding Hurkle".  They used coordinates and a compass rose to find Hurkle.  I've used this game for years as it lets them learn about ordinal coordinates in a fun way.  Third graders wrote Image Poems.  They used the computer to generate the image.

December 5:  Students rotated between writing Haiku poems on the computer and playing SET. They added clip art pictures, saved and printed their poems. 
December 12:  Today's poetry emphasis was on another "formula" poem called a diamante poem.  Students read a few examples and then used a internet program to write their own. 
January 23:  Children worked on putting together their poetry books.  This included some technology as they had to locate the poem, change the font size, change the picture size to fit in their booklet. As a part of our unit "Journeys and Destinations" the children also started coloring portions of a tessellation.  This unit focus is "change" and their tessellations will hopefully demonstrate change.  In addition, they worked in groups on a vocabulary web.  An unknown word from The Ugly Duckling was selected by the group.  They had to do things like find the meaning, synonyms, antonyms, write it in a sentence etc.

November 21:  We finished our Thinking Maps today!  Again, using Tacky the Penguin, the students completed the brace map and the bridge map.  These maps will be used throughout the year in various ways.  Some poems were then read to the children from the book A Pizza the Size of the Sun.  The poem "I'm Wearing an Enchanted Hat" was shared and the children brainstormed a list of "wishes" for their hat.
November 28:  A creative day!  The children follwed the idea presented in "I'm Wearing an Enchanted Hat" to create their own.  They drew and cut out the images from their minds and added them to a hat. 
December 12:  The children continued learning about imagery through the poems in A Pizza the Size of the Sun.  They selected couplets from the poem to illustrate for a class book.  The Caldicott contracts were introduced to second grade using Where the Wild Things Are as the book for the contract.  Children will work at their own pace through a variety of activities based on Bloom's Taxonomy.  The first activity was a word search. 
December 19:  We discussed holiday traditions at the beginning of the session.  The students then worked on transforming skeletal sentences into more interesting ones.  They exchanged sentences and drew a picture of the other person's image that was created.  A few students needed to leave early for classroom tasks, so the remainder played SET and Zanzibar.  Happy Holidays!  Enjoy the winter break.

October 17:  As a part of the unit "Water Works", we reviewed the concept of "change".  Children reviewed that change happens over time; change is everywhere; change can be random or predicted, and change can be manmade or natural.  The children were able to give examples of each.  They "met" Sybil the Scientist from the Primary Educational Thinking Skills (P.E.T.S.) program.  They helped categorize Sybil's cratures and place them in cages.

October 31:  First graders continued their study of water by talking about the different forms of the water the weather provided over the weekend and today.  We had rain, sleet, snow, and fog!  The weather cooperated nicely for our study!  We then thought about being stranded on a deserted island and we only had muddy water to drink.  The children created water filters using cotton balls, net, rocks, and fabric.  The muddy water was poured through their filters to see if it was cleaner after being filtered.  As a reflection, the children started making a book about their water filter. 

November 21:  Today we elaborated on what a scientist is by "inventing" a machine to take acorns from the ground to a hole in a tree.  This activity is from the P.E.T.S. (Primary Education Thinking Skills) book.  The chidlren designed the machine and then presented it to our group.  We ended the time by playing a listening game.

November 28:  First graders started working independently on their first Caldicott contract.  They read the book Where the Wild Things Are  and worked on a related worksheet.  The contracts are made up of activities according to Blooms Taxonomy and the students progress at their own rate.

December 12:  It was a great day as our class more than doubled in size!  Five new students were added.  The children worked on the contract activities and learned to play SET.
December 19:  We talked about holiday traditions at the beginning of the session.  The students then worked at their own pace on their Caldecott contracts.  They are becoming more independent each time.  Have a wonderful winter break!

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