Kansas Kids Fitness Day!

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

Fraction Action!

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

First Quarter Wrap-up

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.  

Happy Reading!
Mrs. Lafferty

What Just Happened?!

How did the school year go so fast?  It's hard to believe that I just entered my last grade in infinite campus and am thinking about our LAST DAY OF SCHOOL tomorrow!  I handed back a paper today that the kids had written at the beginning of the year titled "What I Want Mrs. Lafferty To Know".  If was fun to hear them making comments about their writing, spelling and drawing that they had done at the beginning of the year.  They were able to see just how far they have come this year.  You will have to check their backpacks to find a green page titled "What I Want My Parents To Know".  I had them write about similar questions to the beginning of year...only now they are writing to YOU about how their year in 3rd grade!

We went to Heritage Park this afternoon to celebrate our last "points party" and also to celebrate all the words/books we have read this year!  We had root beer floats and played a very sweaty game of volleyball. lol  Mrs. Vogt was a great referee for our game. :)  I am realizing right now that I didn't take my camera with me!  I was more worried about getting there before the ice cream melted.  oops!  As a class, we read 695 books this year.  That is almost 6 million words! How amazingly awesome.

Thank you for sharing your child with me this year.  It has been a great adventure.  I think our motto for the year is held true.  "In this class we don't do EASY, we make EASY happen through HARD WORD and LEARNING!"  We worked hard and learned a lot.  I sent a summer "to do" list home today.  It is glued to a blue folder.  If you haven't seen it, there are only 4 things on it:

1.  Read everyday (I sent home a scholastic news to start their summer reading)
2.  Play everyday (This one shouldn't be hard!)
3.  Practice math facts (I told them about how I had been running and how it was easy to do a 5k when I had been practicing.  But, now that I haven't been running everyday, it would be a hard race for me to complete!)  I want them to be able to say "these are easy" to their math facts on the first day of school next year.
4.  Write.  I told my class that if they want to share any of their summer writing with me in google drive, I would love to read it and comment back!

We had a special time at the end of the day today sharing compliment cards with each other.  This was my favorite part of the day.  I love seeing the smiles that a compliment from each classmate brings to every kiddo.  I loved reading their compliments to me as well.  I will miss these kiddos!

Enjoy your summer, and as always....happy reading!
Mrs. Lafferty

Author Visit....via Skype!

On April 1st, we were able to enjoy the technology of Skype to meet a real, live author!  Sudipta Bardham-Quallen visited with our class about her new picture book.  Follow the link to Mrs. Hanson's blog to see pictures and a short video of her talking with our class.  The video includes a first grade class meeting with her as well.  So, watch the whole thing to see if you can spot your student!

http://mrshansenstechnology.blogspot.com

p.s.  Scroll down past the things to do with your iphone/ipad to find the video and pictures. :)

Happy Reading!
Mrs. Lafferty

Where Has the Time Gone?

I just looked at the date of my last blog post, and it was NOVEMBER!  Where does the time go?  It's my goal to catch up on some of the things that have happened between then and now in the next few weeks.  Yikes!

I am very excited that the new Newbery Winner was announced!  I ordered it for our classroom with our latest book order and am anxiously waiting for it to arrive.

Kate DiCamillo has won before, and we love her books!  She wrote Because of Winn-Dixie and 

The Tale of Despereaux. 

On another note, we have been studying Kansas Communities in Social Studies.  We had fun with Mrs. Hansen when she came in to help us make Keynotes about our communities.  We are taking this week to share them with each other.  

Way, way back before Christmas (lol) we enjoyed some reading time with a new book, The Chocolate Touch.  I was so proud of the way all my readers were diving in and spending some time reading before our Christmas party of all things!  

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas Party.  Thanks to Aimee Nickel for being our class photographer and sending me these pics! 

That's all for now!  

Happy Reading, 

Mrs. Lafferty