Game Day

Football Friday was amazing!  We worked hard for two days creating a measurement playbook for length and capacity. We began with length. First, we reviewed what we learned last year about how to measure accurately with a ruler.  Students were introduced to measuring to the quarter inch.  The practice task was to measure the football objects around the room and record answers in SeeSaw.



Next, we talked about why we have different units of measure. To experience length in millimeters, centimeters, inches, and feet we had a football throw.  Students were challenged to throw a football 100 millimeters, 100 centimeters, 100 inches, and 100 feet.  There was a challenge with each task.  Students posted their reflections in SeeSaw.  I don't think they will soon forget throwing that ball 100 millimeters!  So fun!  Thank you, Katie Wolverton for helping us with this experience.

The length playbook continued.  We were off to perimeter field.  Students learned how to calculate perimeter and were given a series of fields to measure.  They did an amazing job and showed they were ready for their last measurement length challenge.

These measurement players were asked to design a football field. To begin, we calculated the perimeter of our paper field.  Together we calculated how many yard lines were needed and how far apart each line would have to be.  Students used rulers to "line" out their fields.  The measurement portion was done in class.  Most students ended up taking their fields home to complete their designs.  Many of the students have brought in their unique designs to show the class.

Also in our measurement playbook we learned about capacity.  We made a football player gallon man as a reference.  We had to pour water into a gallon jug to figure out the conversions.  Students discovered there are 4 quarts in a gallon, 8 pints in a gallon, and 16 cups.  We represented these equivalencies on the gallon man.  Thank you, Mrs. Carsten for cutting out all those footballs to represent cups.

Next, students used the galloon man to answer questions for a Gatorade challenge.  They did amazing!  Check out the questions they answered in their envelope.  Pretty impressive thinking.  Once they completed the challenge, students were rewarded with a Gatorade. Thank you for the treats, Mrs. Shimamoto!

We had a great couple days of football, learning, and fun!  It's wonderful to be a part of such a great team!

Informational Writing

With Book-A-Night, we have been focusing on nonfiction text.  Our nonfiction focus has really enhanced our research and writing abilities. Since we have been reading strong nonfiction text, we took a close look at the components of good informational writing.  A good informational paragraph is like a giant hamburger; lots of meat and lots of flavor.  The students loved the analogy.

Next, we had some paragraph puzzles to put together.  They were all paragraphs with lots of meat (details) and flavor (evidence, examples, and explanations).  The students worked in groups to reassemble the strong paragraphs. Would you believe the manager at McDonald's had never had anyone ask for empty burger boxes to help students become better writers?

Soon we were ready to cook up our own informational paragraphs. We did lots of classroom research on penguins.  Then, the students constructed paragraphs about the birds.  They did such a great job or adding meat and flavor. 

Here are just a few tidbits from some of the paragraphs.  I can't wait to get them all typed up.  We have some writers.

"Swoosh! What is white and black? What swims and eats fish? What slips and slides? It's a penguin!"

"Penguins live south of the equator.  Some penguins live in Antartica.  Penguins and polar bears do not live close to each other.  They live on different sides of the equator."

"Some penguins keep the eggs on their feet.  The mom and dad take turns keeping the egg safe."

"Here is a deep fact! The Emperor penguin can dive 1,500 feet down."

White Ribbon Week

In January we had White Ribbon Week.  The week was a series of lessons and discussions to empower our students to take an active role in protecting themselves from harmful media.  The week was full of positive, upbeat activities promoting the use of technology in safe, respectful, and productive ways. 

Everyday during the week, the students learned a power statement.  If they could say the days power statement and answer some questions they received some sort of prize.  For instance, the first day students earned a Powerade, donated by Coke.  Another day, students earned a turn with boxing gloves.  Here are the week's important power statements.

• I have the power to not view embarrassing pictures or share hurtful words.
• I have the power to tell a trusted adult if something doesn't feel right.
• I have the power to ask before I download.
• I have the power to turn it off.
• I have the power to help those around me make safe choices online.

Thank you to the PTA for leading this wonderful awareness week for our students and family.  Please join the discussion about online safety.  The website whiteribbonweek.org had some great resources and ideas to keep the learning going at home.

Multiply It!

Look at that distributive chop.  Above, these students are chopping up arrays to break apart multiplication problems into smaller equations. Our third graders are rocking their multiplication and division strategies and properties.  Not only do they know the commutative, associative, and distributive properties...but they use them to solve and understand problems.

Third graders have been working hard all of January to fluently multiply and divide.  We have been practicing with apps, card games, one minute timers, the computer, dice, and even fidget spinners! Memorizing math facts is an important foundational piece to future math success.  As with any memorization piece, it won't stick without continued maintenance.   We will continue to practice at school but at home practice is essential to sustain fluency.  There are some fabulous apps for quick practice.  Check out Quick Math, Math Bingo, and Math Cards by clicking on the app names.  You may remember these apps from when we were working on addition and subtraction fact fluency.  These apps grow with you.  Also, if you have a computer at home with Flash, here are some fun interactive games to play.  Click on the links.

Meteor Multiplication

Fruit Splat Multiplication

Bleepy's Gifts Multiplication

Croc Doc Division

Demolition Division

Boot Camp

                                                      Left, left, left, right, left!

                                                      Right, left, right, left.....
                                                      Combo 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: sorting sentence types.  We learned about declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative statements.  We also practiced putting on proper punctuation in punctuation patch-up.  Last we learned about simple and compound sentence.  Call in the coordinating conjunctions!



Math went much of the same way.  Skill drills followed by LOADS of physical activity.  Second graders drilled their addition and subtraction facts.  Third grade 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.