In our class we don't do EASY, we make EASY happen through HARD WORK and LEARNING!
(and you can't forget the FUN... or the SINGING! We have a song for EVERYTHING!)
Welcome to a new year in 3rd grade! I am so excited to meet all my new kiddos tomorrow morning. I still have a few things to do to wrap up my "to do" list before everyone comes, but my room at least looks ready. I have told a few of my teacher friends that I could "fake it" if I had to! Here is a little sneak peek around the room.
Many books are waiting to be read!
Our meeting area...
Instead of traditional name tags, I tried out the Sharpie paint pen this year. We will see what kind of staying power it has!
My "pretty" desk
My actual desk that is always a mess. If you look closely, you can see two answers to a little quiz that students will take about me on the first day of school. :) I will have to give you the answers later!
I can't wait to meet my new class tomorrow! Now. I had better get moving and keep crossing things off my list so that we can have a fun day tomorrow! (oh, and I need to pick out my first day of school outfit. I'm still trying to decide. Dress? Cute new capris?)
Summer break has officially arrived! Even though school is over, I just had to share a few pictures from the last week. On Wednesday, we had a read in. I surprised the class by bringing in a few tents and even a campfire.
We had four different places to read. The little tent....
around the room,
The BIG TENT
and by the "campfire". It was so fun to see everyone engrossed in their books. It was so quiet!
Today, we spent some time being inspired by Kid President, doing our final cleaning in the classroom, watching the all school video (complete with popcorn!) and clapping up the 4th graders!
We couldn't end the year without a few selfies....
Have a WONDERFUL summer! Here are some things you can do to keep sharp for 4th grade:
Read.
Read.
Read!
(you might also want to practice those multiplication facts. I hear 4th grade teachers give a multiplication test on the first day of school!)
Shops are always so much fun. We do quite a bit of academic "prep" before the big day. We spend time learning about needs and wants, saving vs spending, interest, loans, and taxes! When our two days of operating our shops were over, we counted our money, paid back our loans, paid our taxes and celebrated by "buying" a movie ticket and snack. It is always fun to celebrate hard work! Here are some pictures from Shops. I will work on putting links to the commercials that the kids made so you can see them. The kids were showing their keynotes during shops, but I don't want you to miss out on seeing their creative commercials!
We had quite the variety of creative shops...
from decorating donuts
to a bayblade challenge,
There was a lolipop tree
and a place to buy a bracelet to support your favorite team!
You could decorate a cupcake
and try your hand at ring toss.
Are you talented at shooting hoops?
How is your aim? Good enough to take down the target at nerf gun shoot?
Beanbag toss is always fun....
Come spin the wheel to win a prize!
Here are some commercials you won't want to miss! I think these these kiddos have star potential written all over!
Thanks so much for supporting shops this year. It is an event that 3rd graders will always remember!
Here are some pictures from our Fitness Day. We had wonderful weather this year! We enjoyed a picnic lunch afterwards in Athletic Park. Overall, our day was a success!
Stay tuned! The next big event in 3rd grade is Shops.
Happy Reading,
Mrs. Lafferty
It's not every day that I come home and am dying to tell Mr. Lafferty about a lesson that I taught at school. Since we are BOTH teachers, we try not to let school dominate our conversations in the evening, but today I couldn't help it. :)
We have been deep into fractions during the month of January. (I guess if we aren't going to be buried deep in the snow, we might as well be deep into fractions. ha!) Today's activity was a review of what we have been learning about number lines and their relation to fractions.
We started out our math time with a whole group review of how a fraction is greater than zero and less than one. We worked together to figure out how to divide our number lines on the board into 1/2. 1/3, and 1/6, and 1/12. We even had a great conversation about equivalent fractions! Next, we divided up into groups of 3. I gave each group a large piece of colored paper that had 4 number lines drawn on it. Each group had the challenge of dividing their 4 number lines by 4 different fractions. This was a great way to review that the denominator (the number on da-bottom) is the number that tells us how many parts to make. (see example of how we record our math vocabulary over here..................................................)
Each group had a strip of paper that they could fold into halves, fourths, thirds and sixths to help them measure equal parts. After everyone had finished writing their fractions on their number lines, we did a walk around to compare each group's work. Students were to look for similarities and differences in how each group made their number line.
We took a brain break and went to RECESS (yay for a warm, sunny 70 degree afternoon in January! Craziness, but I'll take it.) When we returned, we spent some time reflecting on how our activity had gone. I asked everyone to respond in their math notebook to these two questions: 1. What was the hardest part about placing fractions on a number line? Why? 2. If I gave you the fraction 1/5, how would you divide your number line? Draw it and write about it. I was so proud of everyone and all their hard work today! There was some serious brain sweating going on in our room. But, like Kim Sutton says, "Wrestling with math is like sweating in basketball. It means you are in the game." Today, we were in the GAME!
A close up of some finished work. Oh. If your student came home talking about mosquitoes exploding from tabasco sauce, a guy getting super excited about his graduation gift, and a dog that ate a bird, that is a whole other topic for another post. lol! We had quite the exciting morning inferring with commercials....! Happy Reading, Mrs. Lafferty
I can't believe that the first quarter of school flew by so fast! I am so sorry that this is my first blog post of the year...Where has the time gone? I am going to highlight a few of the things that we did this first quarter, and make a resolution to blog more often second quarter. :)
Every morning we start our day by practicing our fluency. We each have a yellow folder with a new story each week. Partners whisper read for one minute each and then graph how many words correct per minute they read. The same story is read all week, so the more we practice the more words in a minute we are reading! Here is a little video of our whisper reading....
(So sorry...blogger isn't letting me upload my video tonight. I will try again!)
The more we read, the better we get!
Third grade is the focus grade for ipads at the elementary. Ms. Hanson will be coming to our room every other week to lead us in lessons on how to use different apps in the classroom! Our first lesson was on how to use the QR code scanner. We did some research on Ben Franklin, who is a central character in our 39 Clues book that we are reading for read aloud. It was fun to see how quick the kids caught on how to do this!
We also used the QR code scanner to check our math problems as we review subtraction with borrowing. We used the structure Sage and Scribe. One student had to tell the other exactly what to write down on their white board to solve the problem. When they were done, they scanned the QR code to check their work! Cool!
Last Thursday we traveled to the Arboretum with Kindergarten to help them do their seasonal observations. It was our job to be coaches and helpers, and the kids had a great time! We will be going back in the Winter and the Spring to document how nature changes from season to season.
