Shape Up or Ship Into Our Classroom:

Shapes are the name and how to build them was the game! Our team has grown in our beliefs as teachers with kids and their learning needs. Hands on and interactive learning I feel is the best way to let their knowledge stick in the memory bank. We invited Mrs. Tomme's class over so that we could have a game of shape building. Each group of 3rd graders had two or three shapes that they were to configure out of kindergartners. This was a trial run and a little bit more difficult than I expected, but we had lots of laughter, craziness, and group effort! Take a look at what they made...
Triangle

Square

Rectangle

Excited about beating the clock!Placing the kindergarteners into their shape.

Octagon

Pentagon

Circle... well we did our best.

Parallelogram

TrapezoidHexagon

Our Class Picture and Out-Take:

Today was a crazy day... we had library, class pictures, and we have just returned from spring break.  Getting back into the swing of things is a process!  Here is a preview of what the professional picture may look like:

Ready:

Not quite ready:

Our Reader's Theater:

So, TAKS is over and we decided to incorporate some laid back and creative fun the next day!  Reader's Theater is always fun.  This gave the students an opportunity to perform for other classmates, with a camera in their face.  It was as glam as hollywood.  My favorite part was letting them use any art supplies in the classroom to create props, masks, and costume wear.  They had such a great time and were so cleverly useful with the art supplies and their creations.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Henny Penny

The 3 Little Pigs



Little Red Riding Hood:

Math Maniacs

Third Grade is an amazing year for math. We are learning all sorts of cool things like fractions, probability, area, perimeter, multiplication, division, temperature, arrays, pictographs, bar graphs, money, and 3 dimensional shapes. Here are some recent hands on activities we have created in math.

These are two separate math activities that we did. One was our fraction math. We learned how to divide up fractions using one plate. The visual aspect helped them learn that 1/4th is half of 1/2 and 1/8th is half of 1/4th.

The top pieces of art are our "MOSAIC MATH" pieces. The 3rd graders were having a difficult time with area. If the kids make something than they will understand it more. They were give a handful of one square inch tiles that they could create their Masterpiece with. They were so clever and with the art they had to label the area of their creation.

This is our "Favorite Chip" class graph. We first created bar graphs. I created the big blue one with their help and then each child used rulers and measurement to create an accurate bar graph of their own. The next day I showed them a pictograph where the key is the most valuable information. Each chip represents two students. You can see that "Cheetos" was the class favorite with "Funyuns" not far behind.

Origami Origination:

Our school celebrated the world by having a "Multi-Cultural" night. 3rd Grade represented Asian - Pacific Islander. Mrs. Eldredge and I read the book Sadako, which is about a girl who experienced post-Hiroshima effects and passed away from leukemia. What pulled the little girl through struggling times was the art of origami. After the book we taught the children how to create a house and car using origami paper. They loved it and we were able to decorate our hall with our art.

We LOVE our kindergarten family:

My sister, Mrs. Tomme, teaches Kindergarten and our two classes are like one big family! Mrs. Tomme invited us over for some dance and social time with her kids. We were SPRINGING into Spring! We danced to "The Carwash," "The Monster Mash, " "On Top of the World," and "Three Little Birds!" We were jammin', groovin', and rockin' it out with our little friends. May I just say that our class is great at praising the kindergartners and they love to give them a thumbs up in the hallway letting them know how well they are doing in the hall. I firmly believe that my class should set a great example as role models for the younger and older grades.

Prucha's Reading Club

We decided to do a brief novel study on Sarah, Plain and Tall. I wasn't sure how the children would respond to a dated text, but they were really into the book. At the end of the book I allowed one of my students to read the chapters and be "teacher" for reading. They did an excellent job!

The Four Cornerstones:

We had some guests join us at school.  They were two police officers, one a gymnast and the other a karate performer.  They taught us about courage, perseverance, honesty, and compassion.  I hope the children learned how important it is to acquire each one of those character qualities and use it as a foundation for choices and personality traits.  Oh and I was bounced as a "HUMAN BASKETBALL," and I decided that was my cornerstone of "courage!"