Oh my AMAZNINGNESS! The students were exceptional today in our class's wax museum! They shared their lines and had some truly amazing costumes! This was an activity that I have wanted to do for a long time, and I am so glad I took the opportunity to do it with this class. They have set the bar high for what can be done! I am so proud of each one of them for the effort they put in to making our wax museum a success!
This week we have been doing several dinosaur related activities. Monday, we read facts and made an accordian book with seven different dinosaurs. Yesterday for our punch board reward we drew dinosaurs, today we made a time line to show different organisms that lived in the different eras. I am excited to see what else we can learn over the next couple days, and then finish on Tuesday with an absolutely awesome dinosaur dig!
Today we started our final punch reward, show and tell. (I am just saying this punch board as been a fun incentive for the students.) They were excited to share their show and tell items with the class. We were unable to get through everyone today, but will continue showing and telling tomorrow. Today we played Silly String tag. Four students were it and their goal was to spray someone with silly string. When they did they then gave the silly string to that person who then got to be it. It was a lot of fun watching the students chase each other with four cans of silly string. This was a fun reward for the students working so hard on their testing the past few weeks. We have at least one more punch on the punch board plus one more test for some students to finish that may lead to a second punch remaining. What else could we possibly win?
Today we finished our informational story on hot air balloons, and we began making hot air balloons. This is a fun activity for active listeners to build a hot air balloon. Tomorrow hopefully as our balloons begin to take shape we will have some pictures to share.
This morning we quickly reviewed for our math test and worked on our multiplication in several center activities. We then went and took a district benchmark test to see how much progress we have made throughout the year, this test is nice because it shows where students started and where they are ending after a year filled with teaching. So far, the scores on this test look wonderful as well! Then off to PE followed by our picnic with the principal, Mr. L. I am grateful Mr. L was such a good sport to go out and have lunch with us today! I know the students loved it! Lunch was followed by a Mother's Day activity that was a lot of fun, and I can't wait for you to see. (I hope you like it as much as the students liked making their presents for you!) Finally, we finished the day with our not so quiet secret mission around the school of delivering May Day flowers. It was fun to watch them deliver, knock, and run! All in all it was a totally random day in Miss Larrinaga's 3rd grade class!
Today we started reading about hot air balloons! Today the students read about how hot air balloons work, as well as the history of the hot air balloon. We will continue reading over the next few days, before our next fun science project. (Please note the upcoming science project is a lot of fun, but because it could be dangerous if a student doesn't listen and follow directions well some students may end up being an observer to the project and not a participant.)
Today was our FINAL ISAT of the year! The students have done well, but I think they are probably as happy as I am to have them done. They have worked really hard, and I am proud of every single one of them. We do have some more district testing that we need to accomplish in the next couple weeks, but nothing to the same extent, and hopefully we can make that a little more enjoyable as well.
At the end of the day today we were able to spend some time playing games for their well deserved prize for taking their time on last week's ISAT. On Monday we started reading Peter Pan. This will be our final novel for the year. :( Today Tinkerbell was finally a character in the chapter we read. We were able to discuss Tinkerbell and some of the attributes we saw in her and found evidence to support our claims. Then we got to watch a short 1:30 minute clip from the Peter Pan movie that made today's chapter come alive.
Today for writing we really worked on drawing. The students will need to draw a sketch of their person that they are studying, so today we worked on getting a basic face drawn with eyes, mouth, and ears in the appropriate spot. The students then worked on adding other details like the nose, hair, a hat or scarf if that is something their person would frequently wear. This was a challenge, but the students worked hard and erased a lot, but there was no complaining. They are always up for a challenge!
Today we reviewed quadrilaterals. These can be tricky for a third grader. Yes, quadrilaterals are a 4 sided shape, but recognizing the different types of quadrilaterals is the challenge. We have discussed parallelograms, trapezoids, squares, rectangles, and rhombuses. We have talked about the rules of each kind of quadrilateral, and are deepening our understanding of parallel and perpendicular lines as well as right angles. The students have really had to think about shapes and when shown a picture of a shape determining all of the categories it can fit into. For example a square is a square, rectangle, rhombus, parallelogram, and a quadrilateral, but when shown a rectangle it is not always a square. It is all about the rules! The students are learning these rules quickly and making great progress, and even feeling confident in their discussion.
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