In honor of the upcoming SuperBowl, we football-ed it up in the classroom! Our main learning focus was putting together our secret measurement playbook. In our playbook we took notes on measuring length, perimeter, capacity, weight, and time. We also had activities to practice each of these important measuring skills. The students worked very hard but I don't think they realized it...we were having too much fun.
With all this measuring work going on....I promise that I didn't ignore our English language arts objectives. After assigning referee signals to different punctuation marks, we edited and read sentences with our signals. We also played a game on our mini football fields where students could earn yards by identifying a sentence as simple, compound, or complex. Touchdown!
We celebrated 100 days of working hard in third grade. In years past, we worked on numbers up to one hundred. However, third graders...we needed a challenge. Guess what else goes in a 10 by 10 grid: a multiplication chart! We went on a Hershey kiss hunt. I hid 100 kisses in our classroom. Each piece of chocolate had a product from the multiplication chart. The students had a hundred different products to find and place correctly on the chart. They worked really hard and smiled the whole time.
By the end of third grade, students should have all the one digit by one digit multiplication facts memorized. This is not an easy task and one that requires continual maintenance. You've heard, "If you don't use it, you'll lose it." This certainly applies to memorizing multiplication facts.
This is an easy standard to practice at home. There are some wonderful apps to use for practice. Three of the students' favorites are Quick Math, Math Bingo, and Big Math Cards. If you have a computer at home check out these links.
Right, left, right, left.....
Third Grade Boot Camp, here we go.
Come on y'all get in the flow.
We had the best two days reviewing skills...boot camp style. Prepare
for a long post because we have been busy. We started the day with
Enlistment. Students learned the commands for the day and reported for
duty. They were put into companies: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and
Echo. Students tried to earn points for their company by showing the
Army values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor,
integrity, and courage.
Basic training, of course, started with basic skills. First, we began
with identifying complete and incomplete sentences in solider sentence
drop. Students had to find subjects and predicates then sort the
sentences. We practiced this skill as a class, with our platoons, and
in individual assignments.
Next, we worked on proper capitalization. We had a cadence to help us
remember what proper nouns to capitalize. Next more PRACTICE, PRACTICE,
PRACTICE.
Between every grammar drill, we had some physical drills. The cadets
had stations for army crawls, tire runs, sit ups, push ups, and even
trampoline jumping. The students were exhausted by morning recess, in
fact, they didn't want to go out because they were too tired. Ha!
So, it went...grammar, exercise, drill, drill, learn, sweat and smile.
The next grammar skill: sentence types. We reviewed declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative statements. We
also practiced putting on proper punctuation.
Then, we reviewed simple, compound, and complex sentences. Call in the
coordinating and subordinating conjunctions! Last, we learned about choosing between there, their, and they're. These recruits worked so hard.
Math went much of the same way. Skill drills followed by LOADS of
physical activity. Third graders had to really flex their multiplication
and division muscles. We also played some strategy games. I love games
that have the students practice their basic facts while they are
problem solving and strategizing to win the game.
Between each math station, did I mention we had physical activity
stations? These students were learning and moving ALL. DAY. LONG.
The children came back from break so excited to see each other and share
their winter break adventures. Instead of telling them not talk, I
decided to channel their need to share into a writing experience. We
all became reporters and interviewed each other about our winter
breaks. Students asked a series of different questions to their
classmates. For instance:
Did you go anywhere over break?
Who did you spend time with over the break?
Did you read anything over the break?
What did you play with over break?
After several interviews, the students seemed to be well "talked" out.
So we moved to the writing. The children wrote an article about their
winter break. They had to pretend to be a reporter and include the
important details from their break. The articles are hanging in the
hall. My favorite part is all the pictures of our award winning
reporters. Even better, you can hear your child's report on SeeSaw. Check out all the breaking news!
It
was so wonderful to see the Magic of Threes today. I missed them! I
loved the break and time with my family....but I also have the best job
in the world. It was great to be back! We started 2019 at school with a
toast....well, toast at least. As part
of our morning snack, we ate toast and "toasted" the new year! We
reflected on 2018 and discussed resolutions. We, of course, did some school 2019 goal setting.
You can find your child's reflection of 2018 in SeeSaw. The students made a 2019 foldable. They had to list 2 things they
wanted to improve on at school, something to improve at home, something they are excited about in 2019, and a goal at recess. The blue foldable is in your child's envelope. Check out what
they wrote. Wishing you and yours a happy 2019!
