A blog post is long overdue. We have been up to our armpits in a lot of learning- I hope you've been hearing all about it at home!
Nat had the best reaction to achieving problem solving success. I asked him to reenact it for the blog. Here is the reenactment for your enjoyment and an example of the awesome success we have been having in our learning!
Reminders:
*PBL Spring Showcase ~6:00pm-7:30 on Tuesday June 10thStudents work will be displayed throughout the school for parent and student viewing. We envision students leading their families through the school explaining their class project and looking at others.
* Field Day ~ Wednesday, June 18
Team Klope will be wearing BLUE…and tall red socks :) Feel free to let kids spice up their attire with other blue accessories! (Liner will be RED with tall blue socks!)
*PBL Spring Showcase ~6:00pm-7:30 on Tuesday June 10thStudents work will be displayed throughout the school for parent and student viewing. We envision students leading their families through the school explaining their class project and looking at others.
* Field Day ~ Wednesday, June 18
Team Klope will be wearing BLUE…and tall red socks :) Feel free to let kids spice up their attire with other blue accessories! (Liner will be RED with tall blue socks!)
Math Measurement: In the weeks after Spring Break we dove in to learning about measurement. We brainstormed all the different categories of measurement we could think of : weight/mass, capacity, time, etc. We were surprised at how many ways we use measurement in our everyday lives! We discussed the differences between the US Standard and Metric systems and focused in specifically on capacity measurements. Students learned how to draw a "Super Gallon Man" as a tool for remembering capacity conversions. *Ask your student to draw a Gallon Man for you at home! *Notice and talk about how you use a variety of measurements at home to keep the conversation alive! Data/Graphing: We also spent time exploring and analyzing data and graphing. Our class was quite skilled already, especially after we created our own graphs during our plant science unit and analyzed trends! *If you use data and graphing at home or in your field of work-please share this with your student! As we have covered our Common Core Curriculum standards for grade 3, we are now turning our focus in math for these last few weeks: 1. Reviewing, practicing, and extending our Common Core Content 2. Memorizing Multiplication Facts! I've written before about the importance of multiplication fact fluency upon entrance to fourth grade. The only way to accomplish this is to put in the time! Please help by incorporating NIGHTLY practice in addition to reading time. We will be working away at school, too! Our math specialist, Lara Francisco, has been working with kids individually to check on their progress. She has noticed a clear trend: Kids practicing regularly at home are excelling! 3. Numeracy Tasks: Students are exploring real world mathematics problems that have more than one possible solution. They facilitate creativity and challenge students to employ a variety of math skills and problem solving perseverance. This is a great way to review 3rd grade content and start introducing more advanced content! Students must move beyond simply finding a correct answer and target higher-level thinking by explaining their unique solution. Furthermore, students are showing their thought process, organization of thinking, and justifying and explaining their answers through a math project. We brainstormed a huge list of possibilities ranging from detailed writing and speeches to models, movies, and even songs! For some projects we do a quick product on paper an for others we are taking our time to create something unique. The link below is fantastic. The author of many of the tasks we are working on has created a great website. My big takeaway is that these tasks have "low floors and high ceilings." All students can access these problems. They can get them started and ask for scaffolds when necessary. This is the "low floor." The "high ceiling" is that there is room to take the math thinking to extremely high levels. The kids have been SO engaged in this work. Read this great explanation by a professor if you'd like to learn more about these types of tasks: http://www.peterliljedahl.com/teachers/numeracy-tasks/numeracy-task-details | Speech Unit Thank you to all who were able to attend our Live Speech event! If you were unable to be there please check out our students' speeches on their e-Folio websites. This unit was very powerful. We honed in on our speech writing skill, and then incorporated speaking skill which is so important to literacy development! Guest Expert: Suzi LeVine We are so grateful to have had Suzi's support during our Speech Unit. She came in and facilitated a workshop about effective speech delivery and shared her experiences with our kids. The acronyms that Suzi taught us were "PEP" and "ERA" (see the photos!). Students have been referring to these ideas regularly and applying them across our content areas. After the Speech Event, Suzi met with kids in small groups for reflection. She taught them about feedback protocol modeling how to give and receive feedback. She took notes on each students' speech delivery and shared her thoughts with them. She then had the small group give feedback to the student. This was a powerful learning experience for our third graders. PoetryOur kids are LOVING writing and reading poetry. They are working on a compilation book they will take home at the end of the year. I can't wait for you to read their work. Come in for a sneak peak of you'd like :) Our kids were particularly inspired by a book of "Concrete poems;" a type of visual poetry that gives the write rand reader alike a lot of freedom. See a photo of the book cover below. There is also a book called "A Foot in the Mouth." These would make great pieces to add to you book shelf! Rather than writing about what we are doing-look at the pictures from our bulletin board below for a snapshot: |
Cursive
Some believe cursive is a dying art. Room 304 disagrees :) Every year I ask my students to reflect about the best parts of third grade. Many, to my surprise, declare cursive as one of their favorite activities. High-engagement is not the only reason I teach cursive. There are many benefits to learning this handwriting. Here are a few points:
-Handwriting improvement: Many students are not forming their letters correctly, or, efficiently. Did you know that print handwriting has letters starting at 7 different points! Cursive letters all start from the baseline and encourages students to pay attention to where their letters should start. A focus on handwriting also gives us the opportunity to review paper placement on the table, comfortable and efficient pencil grips, and seeing our handwriting as our own personal form of art! Students are really showing improvement in handwriting as we work on cursive.
- You cannot reverse cursive letters: Print letters p, s, d, j, b, and more, are classically reversed letters for kids. In cursive, b and d are not reversed! For students who experience dyslexia and dysgraphia, or many of us who fall within a vast spectrum of these identified processing struggles, this is a big relief :)
-Many kids enjoy the speed and ease of cursive as you don't have to pick your pencil up so often
- Kids love learning cursive :)
-Handwriting improvement: Many students are not forming their letters correctly, or, efficiently. Did you know that print handwriting has letters starting at 7 different points! Cursive letters all start from the baseline and encourages students to pay attention to where their letters should start. A focus on handwriting also gives us the opportunity to review paper placement on the table, comfortable and efficient pencil grips, and seeing our handwriting as our own personal form of art! Students are really showing improvement in handwriting as we work on cursive.
- You cannot reverse cursive letters: Print letters p, s, d, j, b, and more, are classically reversed letters for kids. In cursive, b and d are not reversed! For students who experience dyslexia and dysgraphia, or many of us who fall within a vast spectrum of these identified processing struggles, this is a big relief :)
-Many kids enjoy the speed and ease of cursive as you don't have to pick your pencil up so often
- Kids love learning cursive :)
Project-Based Learning: Creating a Living Wall
What a mammoth of a project! We are feeling victorious this week as we put the finishing touches on our incredible creations. A HUGE thank you to all who were involved in making this project a reality. When we planned this unit, I envisioned creating one class wall based on design input from their individual drawings. The students quickly convinced me that their 4 team designs had to be honored-so much work (and some serious learning about teaming and compromise…) went in to these designs. I then expected to help them greatly simplify their designs as they had gone above and beyond my wildest expectations. They then quickly convinced me that with the help of their parents, they could make this work. That being said- THANK YOU to all of our brave volunteers to donated their time, resources, and talents. Their designs would simply not have been possible without your help. We look forward to sharing the incredible living walls as well as information about what we learned during this experience at the Spring PBL showcase (see important events list at the top of this blog). For the meantime, here is a slideshow sneak peak:
Counting Coin Jars from Dwankhozi Week
Our class had the privilege of counting the coin jars from Dwankhozi week! Each table group received a jar, dumped it on the table, and went to work without any guidance. My only advice was "strive for 100% accuracy!" It was really fun to watch them work as a team, assign roles, work out an organization system, and count away! All three table groups counted very differently! it was fun for us to look at the counting systems of others. See if you can figure out some of the different systems in the slideshow!
Ms. Cryan Leary took the jars to the bank for an official counting. Our total was really close! the jars raised just over $800. Good job QAE coin collectors! That amount can just about supports a student for an entire year of secondary boarding school! That amount can make a big impact for our Dwanknozi team this year! Wahooty!
Ms. Cryan Leary took the jars to the bank for an official counting. Our total was really close! the jars raised just over $800. Good job QAE coin collectors! That amount can just about supports a student for an entire year of secondary boarding school! That amount can make a big impact for our Dwanknozi team this year! Wahooty!