This month we have had the opportunity to learn about and paint in the style of two different famous artists. First, we studied Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky. He is known as the father of abstract art. He is also famous for being able to hear color and see sound. Here is a video of a picture book about Kandinsky.
In his style, we used watercolors to paint dots inside of a large heart. The students really took their time to create very original pieces.
Next we learned about American artist, Georgia O'Keeffe. We made giant poppies using oil pastels and water color. They turned out so pretty. These will be our "Original Works" art pieces. So, you will have the opportunity to order various products made with your child's art. Look for this artwork coming home with an order form mid March.
We love Project Lead the Way! Our last module was about the forces of
flight. There were five activities that we worked our way through.
Each activity was a project based, hands on scenario that had the
students using science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to
learn about flight.
We started by learning about balanced and unbalanced forces. Ask your child if they know the four forces
of flight: lift, weight, thrust, and drag. Through the study of flight,
the students were introduced to Newton's laws of motion. We used an app
to design different gliders, then we created gliders from our
blueprints. Last, we tested our gliders from our own binder launch pad.
In our final project of the flight module, students will create
another glider that would carry weight or cargo. The scenario was that
there was a community in Nebraska that needed some relief supplies. The
gliders could get there faster than trucks on the roads. Students have
to design a glider that would carry as much cargo as possible to
Nebraska. Nebraska is 120 cm from the launch site. Students will get
three
flight trials. They are to record at least one trial and reflect in
the caption.
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. Of course, we sanitized each round. 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.
Left, left, left, right, left!
Right, left, right, left.....
Third Grade Boot Camp, here we go.
Come on y'all get in the flow.
We had the best three 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, Echo, and Foxtrot. Students tried to earn points for their squad 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, some 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: 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.
One of my favorite activities for math was the plank wars.
Students had to hold a plank and answer a multiplication fact. The soldier that answered last had to do
a push up. The engagement was top notch! I'm pretty sure they all
went home tired!
Here is a game called "Salute" that you can play at home. You just need a deck of cards and three players. It really works on the inverse relationship of multiplication and division.
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. They used the 5s (who, what, when, where, why) to include details in their articles. 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!
Happy New Year! 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! It was a busy first day back. We
reflected on 2020 and discussed resolutions. We, of course, did some school 2021 goal setting. In last week's Wednesday envelope, I sent your child's reflections and a
2021 foldable with resolutions. They had to list 2 academic goals, something to they wanted to stop (0), 2 classmates they
want to get to know better, and 1 thing they would like to read in the new year. Check out what
they wrote.
It is so strange to be in school in January without snow! One of our class academic goals is to memorize all the basic multiplication facts (factors 1-10). So we had an indoor math fact snowball fight. Students would write a multiplication fact, crumple up the paper, throw, and solve! "Snow" much fun!
