Category: All Blog Entries

Tuesday:  We created storyboards for our social stories.  We also had literature circle discussions about Matthew Jackson Meets the Wall.  In Math, we worked with tangrams.

Wednesday:  In the morning, we discussed a TFK article about how people are discarding their PPE in a way that’s polluting our beaches and oceans.  In the afternoon, author Kathleen West gave a presentation on ZOOM about how to write and publish a book.  We worked on some polygon work to end our day.

Thursday: We worked on our social stories today.  Everyone was so focused!  During math class, we solved some tricky math problems.  We compared the attributes of various quadrilaterals.  We used tangrams to explore different ways to make quadrilaterals.  Then we reviewed how to show EVIDENCE when we identify a character trait for characters in the books we read. The class worked on their literature assignments at the end of the day.  It was a busy Thursday in Room 200.

Friday:  Today we did a little more practice for IREAD.  We also worked on our Matthew Jackson assignments.  We enjoyed an extra recess in the morning.  We worked on our zines all afternoon.  They’re about pollution.  An awesome way to end our week.

 

Monday:  We finished reading the picture book biography of Ida B. Wells this morning.  We also had our literature circle discussion about 2 chapters in Matthew Jackson Meets the Wall. So many important ideas were discussed.  We worked on adding AREAS in Math class. We ended the day with a DVD about Simple Machines.

Monday:  We started today with a great read aloud called The Power of Her Pen: The Story of the Groundbreaking Journalist, Ethel L. Payne.  We worked on our literature book, Matthew Jackson.  We also discussed 2 new Vocab Venture words:  ludicrous and morose. More division story problems in Math today.  We also continue to find the area and perimeter of various rectangles.  During Writing Workshop, we worked on our Do-It-Yourself halfie books.  Lots of great writing going on in Thirdland.

Monday:  A fine day in Thirdland.  We read a book about the Landfill-Harmonic Orchestra.  We also read 2 articles in Time for Kids and had Read 2 Self time.  During Math, we practiced different strategies for solving division problems.  We worked on writing possessive nouns with apostrophes to end the day.  We had a snowy, fun recess too.

Tuesday:  Wow!  Lots of energy in 3rdLand today.  We read about a boy by the name of Alex Knolls who created an app to help people with disabilities find accessible places in their towns.  We also worked on some “zines” about TFK articles we think people should know about.  We learned about Year of the Ox with Ms. Schuler.  We also worked on more multiplication and division problems.

Thursday:  We started reading Matthew Jackson Meets the Wall today for our literature study book.  We worked on learning about area and perimeter.  More practice with apostrophes in the afternoon.  We’re also reading books from a text set about musical characters.

Friday:  We learned about Carter Woodson and the origins of African American History Month this morning with a reading of Carter Reads the Newspaper.  A great book!  We also worked on writing brief book reviews about picture books that focus on musicians and the power of music in people’s lives.  During Math, we worked on some True and False problems.  Example:  7 x 2 = 10 + 5.  True or False?  36 / 6 = 42 / 7. True or False.  The 3rdLanders also took a quick quiz on multiplication and division.  We ended the day learning more about different publishing houses.  We went on a scavenger hunt of publishing houses using the books in our classroom.  This has been a busy and fun week in 3rdLand.

 

Monday:  We read about a young designer who not only has launched her own clothing line, but has also started an anti-bullying program.  We made multi-flow maps to highlight the problems and solutions mentioned in the article.  We also watched Amanda Gorman read her Inauguration poem.  Then we partnered with classmates to read poems together, aiming for expressive fluency.  We made a FOURS chart using pictures of horses.  2 horses have 8 legs.  7 horses have 28 legs.  How many legs do 10 horses have?  20 horses?  We are working to connect multiplication with division.  During our Power of Song unit, we learned more about the Lotus Blossoms program.  We listened to some of the Lotus Blossom performers and took some notes together.  We ended the day with a scavenger hunt for apostrophes.  We found MANY apostrophes in contractions, but not so many in possessive nouns.  We’ll try again tomorrow.

Tuesday:  We read about an organization that’s making corridors for elephants, so they can move safely and stay out of farms and towns in India.  We made a multi-flow map to represent the problem and the solution discussed in the article.  We learned about the art of Andy Warhol with Ms. Schuler.  We used tiles to represent division problems in Math.  We ended the day by working on our Lotus Festival posters.

Wednesday:  Today we read about Cesar Chavez and made multi-flow maps about the ways he helped farmworkers.  In the afternoon we wrote our own division problems and represented our problems using tile arrays.  We reviewed our work with apostrophes.  Then we made monsters in our writing notebooks.

Friday:  It was great to be back in action in Thirdland today.  We reviewed our Cesar Chavez Multi-Flow map assessments.  We also did some word work and talked about the suffix -OR.  We illustrated the words:  collector, editor, investigator and circumnavigator.  We skimmed through Time for Kids to find the article we think is most important.  We also worked on some division problems and wrote sentences with possessive nouns with apostrophes.  Our day was jam-packed.

Tuesday:  I love how this class gets right back into gear after a 3 day weekend.  We worked on line plots in the morning, plotting the lengths of the leaves on our beanstalks.  In reading, we worked on the word KILOMETER.  JEOPARDY and KILOMETER are our words of the week.  We also read another great book about a powerful song called Which Side Are You On?  At the end of the day, we read an amusing book about apostrophes.  The author believes that apostrophes are the most helpful punctuation mark.

Wednesday:  We worked on a practice test in math this morning, for Chapter 4.  In the afternoon we took an Exact Path math test.  So much math!  The Thirdlanders were champs!  We ended the day with an extra recess.

Thursday:  Dr. H. was out this morning.  Ms. Long was our guest teacher.  We worked on math problems that had to do with fractions.  We also researched BEES and took sketch notes.  In the afternoon, Dr. H. returned.  We worked on our portfolios.

Friday:  We worked on putting our portfolios together.  Then we worked on our Vocab Venture quiz.  We also read more about honey bees and did some honeybee research.  We gathered facts and made sketch notes.  We looked over our Unit 4 Math Assessment and corrected mistakes.  We also took an Exact Path Reading test in the afternoon.  We ended the day by learning about the Lotus Festival. It’s been a pretty great week in Thirdland.

 

Last week was busy.  We got a lot done.  We compared fractions and made Fraction Action posters. We read an article on Time for Kids called Chaos at the Capitol, about the riot in DC on January 6.  We read a phenomenal book called We Shall Overcome about the long history of this protest song. We went outside and played a verse of We Shall Overcome using kazoos.  We used pattern blocks to make play a fraction game.  We read 2 texts about tundra swans— a poem and an informational paragraph. We read a book called Jim and the Beanstalk.  Then we made our own beanstalks and practiced measuring the leaves to the quarter inch.  What a busy week!

November 30, Monday.  Great to be back in 3rdLand today.  We worked hard during math on some problems that have to do with spending $ at a fruit market.  We also worked on rounding, adding and subtracting.  During Reading Workshop, we focused on non-fiction.  First we read a text about the National Women’s Hockey League.  We identified text features, created our own questions, and identified the main idea and supporting details.  We also read two texts about moose, an informational text and a poem.  We compared the two texts and discussed how they were alike and different.  We had biology at 2pm.  We talked about how animals adapt for harsh winter weather.

December 1, Tuesday.  We had an interesting class discussion about a Time for Kids article about standing desks.  There’s an elementary school in California with standing desks in every class. We also worked on some math problems that feature elapsed time scenarios.  Example:  School starts at 9:15.  We work on writing for 35 minutes and Math for 75 minutes.  At what time are we done with Math? We watched a film about hibernation and took sketch notes.

December 2, Wednesday. Dr. H. was out this morning.  The Thirdlanders got an AWESOME note from the guest teacher.  Hoorah!  Ms. Bayles-Hall came and taught us about folk music.  In the afternoon, we read a book about Mary Anning, a fossil collector.  We worked to finish up some writing assignments in our notebooks.  We had an extra recess because we’re so awesome.

December 4, Friday.  We worked on a virtual field trip in Math today.  We used the Indianapolis Zoo web page to find information on animals in different biomes while also working on elapsed time problems.  We read over our tree maps about Anvitha Vejay, a 9 year old girl who creates educational apps.  We’re focusing on writing main idea statements with supporting details.  In the afternoon, we learned more about limestone and its importance to our community.  We used playdough to carve limestone decorations for buildings in other cities.  Then we wrote letters about our limestone learning.  It was a busy end to the day, getting things ready to go home, AGAIN.  Thanks to Ms. Link for helping us out!

Monday, November 16.  We were biologists today.  We discussed how plants have adaptations to avoid being eaten by herbivores.  We watched 2 videos that featured biology experiments and then met with the IU Biologists at 2 to discuss chemical and physical plant adaptations.  We discussed Thomas Blue Eagle, and worked on our Sarah, Plain and Tall four squares.  We learned a new rounding game in math.  Today was a fun Monday.

Tuesday, November 17. A fine Tuesday in Thirdland.  We worked on rounding in the morning and made awesome pieces of art with Ms. Schuler.  We had two reading rounds in the afternoon.  The Thirdlanders were so engaged in their reading.  At the end of the day, we learned more about Land Acknowledgement statements.

Wednesday, November 18. We watched a video that Ms. Shroyer made for all the 3rd grade classes about “good touch” and “bad touch.”  Then we played a game about rounding called Round and Add Tens. We learned about the blues from Ms. Bayles-Hall.  We wrote our own blues songs.   In the afternoon, we had our literature circle meetings. We wrote about the chapters we read.  We also made bumper stickers for The Ledgerbook of Thomas Blue Eagle. We ended the day with some cursive practice.

Thursday, November 19. This was a busy day.  We worked on rounding during math class.  We’re learning how to round to tens and round to hundreds.  Tricky stuff, but the 3rdLanders are getting the hang of it.  We worked on our Sarah, Plain and Tall assignments in the afternoon.  We also read an article in Time for Kids about 2 teenagers who have taken action to help out their communities.

Friday, November 20. We worked collaboratively to design our outside bulletin board.

Monday, November 9 Today we did a lot of INVIEW testing.  We also studied our Vocab Venture word, HEIRLOOM.  Ms. Williams visited our room and everyone checked out library books.  We also had Spanish.  We had an extra recess to celebrate a Thirdlander birthday.  At the end of the day, we worked on our Sarah, Plain and Tall assignment.

Tuesday, November 10 We began our day with Math.  We reviewed for our quiz and then did some work with line plots.  Independently, we watched a Muffo Math video about writing and solving our own math problems.  In the afternoon, we finished reading The Ledgerbook of Thomas Blue Eagle.  We finished our Sarah, Plain and Tall assignments.  We also worked on answering questions about a nonfiction book about the Sioux tribe on Epic.  We ended the day with a discussion of WANTS AND NEEDS.  We talked about the different ways the settlers were able to attain things they wanted and things they needed.

Wednesday, November 11 We watched the third grade program for Veteran’s Day.  After Morning Meeting, we had a math review and a math quiz.  Ms. Bayles-Hall came and taught us about jazz music.  We had literature circles about Sarah, Plain and Tall in the afternoon.  It was nice out, so we were able to meet with our groups outside. Then we wrote about the chapters.  The IU Biologists met with us on TEAMS to talk about evolution and how adaptations develop over time.  We had another fun birthday recess.  At the end of the day, we did some word work with partners.

Thursday, November 12 We talked about Rounding by 10s today.  We learned how to play a game called Round Ball 10s.  We also worked in our math books.  During Reading, we talked with partners about The Legend of Thomas Blue Eagle.  We began reading the next 3 chapters of Sarah, Plain and Tall.  We practiced our Vocab Venture words.  We had a quick visit outside to write in our notebooks.  This was a fun and busy day.

Friday, November 13 Wow!  This day was a whirlwind.  We began with a bartering activity.  We imagined we were settlers in 1818, Bloomington.  We bartered different wants and needs.  We talked about bartering after the activity, the pros and the cons.  Then we read about the history of our town.  We learned about some of the important people and the daily activities of the settlers.  Then we designed Bloomington 1818 brochures.  Lots of work, but they turned out GREAT! Feeling proud of these Thirdlanders!