Don't the thin branches and the slant of the trees evoke spring nicely here?
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Another evocative picture.
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Wet!

Rain, rain, go away!

A reasonably productive day, all things considered. We spent the much of the morning working on spring haikus and doing drawings which showed overlapping and depth. Writing lines of the appropriate number of syllables was not that hard for the children, but making sure that this was really about nature and included a feeling or other personal response — well that was harder. Drawing a group of trees starting to bud was also surprisingly difficult for many, despite the good examples given in our art textbook. This is the way, though, that children begin to really grow in writing and art.

We sort of skipped recess — which annoyed more than one little one — but after that we spent a productive hour reading the science book and talking about energy. Their questions and comments were quite good, sometimes too hard for me to answer. (I’m a little fuzzy about the connection between magnetism and energy. I know there’s electromagnetism, but obviously there’s no energy in the magnets on the refrigerator.) As I’ve gained experience as a teacher I’ve learned to be a lot more comfortable saying, “You know, I’m not sure….”

We watched part of Jungle Book during lunch time, and they seemed to enjoy that. After lunch we checked yesterday’s homework, got today’s homework, and went home — in the rain!

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Practice cursive using spelling words 8-14. (3) Do the Addition and Subtraction worksheet. (4) Do “Likely and Unlikely,” Math, pp 270-271.

Sleepy Day

Today seemed a little bit sleepy. We started on a new story from the Open Court book called “The Musical Palm Tree.” This is a tale of a young Puerto Rican boy who wants to buy a lace shawl for his mother. He shows tourists around the San Juan area to raise money for this present. It’s a nice introduction to the second big concept in the Money unit — the idea of business. Some of the Spanish words in the story, though were a bit unfamiliar to many of the children.

We went to the Tech Center where students worked on HyperStudio stacks. After lunch, we took a math test. The results are on the Gradebook, and they’re a little disappointing. We will go over some of the misunderstandings, and probably take the alternative version of the test in a few days.

Third grade teachers had a meeting at 2:00 p.m., so the students ended the day with a little free “P.E.” on the yard.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling words. (2) Practice cursive by doing spelling words 1-7 five times each. Use the cursive paper. (3) Do “Possible and Impossible,” Math, pp 268-269.

Students getting ready for PE relay races.
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And back they come!
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Hump Day

Wednesdays are often called the “hump day” and our weekly trip to the library makes ours a most delightful hump. Today I was very proud as students answered Mrs. Koneff’s questions about the Dewey Decimal System — something we’ve never really discussed in class — with absolute perfection. “This is the first class this week that has been able to answer all these questions correctly,” she remarked. I beamed, and so did the students.

We also read about the history of money today in Open Court and talked about chemical changes in Science. We learned about “mode” and “range” in statistics (stuff I never learned about until college). These students must be a lot smarter than I was, because they do so well with this advanced content.

Homework:  (1) Line Plots, Math, pages 256-259. (2) Equivalent Fractions worksheet. (3) Science questions, page C51 — please answer in complete sentences.

The Day Zipped By

It was a fast Tuesday. I had a meeting this morning with the ELAC group to discuss the GATE program. Students worked on the Flow map and Anna study questions during this time. We then practiced pantomiming “A Story, A Story” to the narration of a student. We corrected our math.

After recess we worked on Math again, this time discussing scale in bar graphs. We turned our attention to improvisation in music, specifically what is called “Question and Answer” in improvisation. This is a key skill, and though our questions and answers can be improved, we made a good start.

After lunch we had PE. Students did either relays, handball, or basketball. They did their laps, too — which they love so much!

Homework:  (1) Complete Flow Map on “Anna.” (2) Complete the study questions on “Anna.” The students who work with Ms Jan do not need to do this tonight — they’ll work on it in group tomorrow. (3) Do Bar Graphs, Math, page 253. (4) Do Reducing Fractions Worksheet.

Well, at least we saw models of whales.
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Waiting on the dock.
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After the Trip

Well, as everybody knows by now, our trip on Friday was a little disappointing because in the end we did not see any whales. But we did see harbor seals, sea lions, and lots of sea birds. And for most of our students, it was the first time they had ever been out to sea. So we had a memorable experience of our marine environment at least.

Nice day today. We had visitors from Korea in the afternoon and we had to rearrange our day so they could see what Mrs. Oh wanted them to see. Students we pleasantly flexible about this -- more so than me, actually.

Homework: (1) "Make a Graph," Math, page 251. (2) "Read Bar Graphs," Math, page 253. Spelling words will come tomorrow.

Big Trip Coming

Tomorrow will be the big whalewatching trip. Please dress your child warmly. Use layers of clothing, and try to make sure that the topmost layer is nylon or some other waterproof fabric. Also, bring both a snack and a lunch. We will have the snack around 10:00 after we arrive in San Pedro; we will board the boat at 11:00. We won't be eating lunch until 1:30. Try to keep the snack separate from the lunch and label both with your child's name.

Feel free to bring a camera. There' s no need to pack any money -- no gift shop trips!

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Do the two mathematics worksheets. We discussed using subtraction to answer the algebra problems.

Students doing a tableau of the bored villagers who have no stories to entertain them in "A Story, A Story."
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Tableaux and Testing

It was another lovely day.

We did some activities relating to our Open Court theme in the morning. Since the “Home Place” story had been a poem about objects which created associations and triggered fantasies, we brainstormed objects which might cause us to think of other things or ideas or memories. With the repeated use of “When I see…I remember” students created a free verse poem out of these ideas. Many still have to finish this tonight. We also work more on the tableaux for the different scenes in “A Story, A Story.” The students performed these for the rest of the class today.

After recess, we went to the library. Music time focused on triple meter (moving both the legs and the arms at the same time to feel the meter — a surprisingly hard exercise) and soundscapes. We completed our PE testing in the afternoon. Most students did well, but a few really are appallingly out of shape, particularly when it comes to upper body strength (some couldn’t even do 1 push up even with the knees bent) and endurance.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Complete the rough and final drafts of the “When I see …I remember” poems. A couple students are done already. Final drafts should be done in cursive, though neat printing is acceptable if the student is still really uncertain of cursive. (3) Do “Make a Table,” Math, page 245. (3) Do chapter review pages, Math, pages 246-247.

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Some of the compositions and landscapes students did to explore the idea of "line" in two very different art forms.
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Great, Great Day

I’ve had a slew of technical problem here at school and at home, but with luck they’re all cleared up and I’ll be able to update regularly. Sorry for any inconvenience.

A great, great day today. We started out with Independent Work Time, and students did a number of activities. They took a couple quizzes which should be on the Gradebook shortly. They also worked on study questions about Home Place. A few students will need to finish these at home today. We also spent time today working on creating tableaux of the key scenes in “A Story, A Story.” Students will be learning to do pantomime with this story, and will later add elements of improvisation with a narrator and dialogue. We’ll be presenting this at Open House.

After recess, we worked on music. We’re exploring a couple different topics right now. Students have become quite good at identifying beat, so we’re now focusing on hearing strong and weak beats. We did this in duple meter (2/4 time) and now we’re trying it with triple meter (3/4 time). We’re also exploring dynamics and we started on a soundscape today to highlight our use of sound levels from pp to fff.

In math, we’re continuing with our Statistics and Probability unit. We’re discussed what data is yesterday, and also we talked about how we collect and present data. Today we focused on classifying data and presenting it in table form. This is a very common and extremely important math skill.

We are also doing PE testing right now. Students ran timed laps yesterday, and today they worked in pairs to test each other for flexibility and balance. Again, results will be on the Gradebook shortly, and we’ll also send home the results — maybe have them signed and returned.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Do “Classify Data”, Math, page 242-243. (3) Do the money addition and subtraction worksheet.

A Quick Post

A quick post today since I have to go home early.

Homework:  (1) Spelling. (2) Fraction worksheet.  Students have not had some of the improper fractions yet, so we’ll be working towards understanding on this. It may not be perfect. (3) Multiplying Money worksheet. Please double check this for accuracy, particularly with regrouping. (4) Finish Science, page C37.

An example of this morning's Tech Center project.
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Mellow Monday

A most mellow Monday, indeed! We were fortunate that the rain held off all day.

This morning we had a very focused reading session. We reviewed the “Aunt Flossie’s Hat” story, and we started our study questions on them. Most students are nearly finished, but all should double check to make sure the answers are in complete sentences. Mr. Benitez helped the students go over and discuss the work from Friday afternoon. We changed seats.

After recess, we worked a little on pantomime skills. This is very closely related to the idea of storytelling, our OCR theme. We went to the Tech Center where Mr. Merkelson did an interesting project with the students. You can see an example of this above.

After lunch, we did PE with room 17. We took a math test (we’ll grade it tomorrow) and we went to the cafeteria for a fundraising assembly. A full but pleasant day.

Homework:  (1) Finish the study questions. (2) Do the unit review problems, Math, pages 550-551.

Students will have spelling this week, but I’ll give them the list tomorrow. I was so busy getting the magnet school verification list done I forgot to write it our!

Rainy Day

My optometrist told me at the gym the other day that he fondly recalled rainy days when he was in school. “Ah,” he said, “the room used to smell like tuna fish sandwiches.” I wish I could say I shared his enthusiasm. After a few hours in the classroom as it drizzles outside I start to think more about Prozac than tuna.

All that being said, it was still a pretty productive day. We had a particularly focused morning as we did Independent Reading, took our spelling test, and read and discussed the story “Aunt Flossie’s Hats (and Crab Cakes Later).” The point of this story, based on the actual life story of an African-American author’s great aunt, is that object can focus memories, and that simple objects can tell stories too. We had a particularly good discussion of souvenirs and things we have that remind us of places and events.

After recess we correct and discussed homework. We also read a bit of The Wind in the Willows together until we were called for lunch. After lunch it cleared up a bit and we actually got out for a couple laps around the playground and some playtime. They needed it. So did I.

We took the rest of the afternoon to try to avoid taking home homework. We did a Tree Map of the Aunt Flossie’s Hats story. We worked on the Connect Concepts section of page C36 of the Science book. We also did pages 545 in the Math book (on Problem Solving) and the two Review pages, 546 and 547.

Homework:  Just finish any of the work above that was not finished during our afternoon Independent Work Time.

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Students sharing Dr. Seuss stories.
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A Birthday Kind of Day

This was a birthday kind of day. As you can see in the pictures above, one of the things we did today was to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday. This is something that Mrs. Mark and I do every year together. The children went over to room 5 where Mrs. Mark and I paired first and third graders. The children then took a Dr. Seuss quiz together, and we discussed the answers. We had a lot of perfect scores, indicating that the children really know and love these books. The children then read Dr. Seuss books — Mrs. Mark has a big collection of them — to each other. We had a lot of fun!

After recess, we heard a gentleman from the credit union talk about the history of money. He was very nice, but talked a little too long for our third grade attention span. In the afternoon, we read about the periodic table — a subject which seems to particularly fascinate many of our students — and we started our math assignments.

As I said before, it was a birthday kind of day, and we had two students who shared birthday cupcakes with us! Your children should be on a first-class sugar high coming home today!

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Do Science Vocabulary, page c36, numbers 1-11 only. (3) Do “Adding and Subtracting Decimals,” Math, pages 541-543, numbers 2-39. Number 28 is extra credit.

In addition, a few students need to finish the “Oral History” questions that they did in the morning as well as the page from the Inquiry Journal where they discussed what the “Carving the Pole” and “Oral History” helped them learn about the theme of storytelling.

The Rain Clears

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Finish the “Carving the Pole” Flow Map. (3) Complete the “River” paragraph. (4)  Do the Chapter 29 review, Math, page 522-523.

The rough draft of the I-Search paper is due tomorrow.

Great Day (of course)!

As I predicted, today felt much more connected and collected than yesterday. It was quite productive.

After reading — and many of the students who were seriously behind in their reading points are making a concerted effort to catch up — we worked on the rough drafts of fairy tale retellings. We’ll be making these into a class book later with illustrations. We also read the story “Carving the Pole” which introduced the students to one of the key concepts in this storytelling theme, the idea that objects can tell stories as well as words.

After recess we studied about atoms and molecules and how heat determines the three states of matters. Several students volunteered to be atoms for this demonstration. We had fun! In music we worked on transcribing our names into musical notes and then putting them into standard notation. We’ll show some examples of this Monday or Tuesday when we finish it.

After lunch we did PE with room 17. We had stations today and it went pretty smoothly — just a couple boys who did not quite get the difference between wrestling and basketball. After that, we turned our attention to those pesky decimals places. The students did quite well with our problem of the day, even finding one solution to it that wasn’t in the teacher’s edition. Way to go!

Homework:  (1) Science questions, page C 19, 1-4 only. Please copy the question. (2) Read and Write Decimals, Math, page 527.

A Bit Frazzled

Thursdays are usually one of my favorite days. There are no special events like Tech Center or Library to interrupt things, nor is it shortened day schedule. Things seem calm and centered.

Today was a little different, and it seemed less serene. As part of the rollout of the new ESL program, and the endless teacher training associated with it, all the third grade teachers were released in the afternoon for a meeting. I could have done without it frankly. But it meant that everything had to be crammed into the time before lunch. That made the kids a little confused and me a little frazzled. Oh, well. Tomorrow will be great again.

We studied the hundredth place in math today. I think that most of them seemed to get the concept. There will be homework on this, as well as on area and perimeter, two concepts that seemed particularly shaky on the quarter test.

Homework:  (1) Complete the Grimm crossword puzzle. (2) Do “Hundredths,” Math page 523. (3) Do the Perimeter and Area worksheet.

A "Grimm" Day

There are a few days you know after you’ve used a textbook a few time are going to be rough. There are some stories which are just hard and a little boring. That’s certainly the case with the story “A Tale of the Brothers Grimm” which we read in the Open Court book today. All the business about the Napoleonic Wars is probably historically very pertinent to understanding the motivation of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, but it’s a little removed from modern third graders. Still, the idea of what folk and fairy tales are, and how they were collected, in both valid and kind of interesting. So I learn to deal with the inevitable restlessness. We took about an hour to read and discuss the story, and we even completed a couple Thinking Maps as we did this. Occasionally those little diagrams are useful, and today was one of those days.

After recess we went to the Library and we also corrected our math homework. Mrs. Koneff read us a couple quite amusing new books. After lunch we had PE with room 17. We then returned to the classroom where discussed mixed numbers and decimals. Decimals are usually pretty easy for our students, and this year seems no exception to that.

Homework:  (1) Complete the “Brothers Grimm” story sheet. (2) Do “Tenths,” Math, page 523 — all problems. (3) Do the multiplication study sheet.

Since we had a late start this week, and since we’re a little ahead of where we need to be in spelling, we’ll skip the spelling test for a week. Weel hav mohr speling nekst wik.

Continue work on that I-Search paper. I’ve glanced at a few rough drafts and they’re looking pretty good.

Dunham Day

It's nice to be back. This was a very hard day for me because I had to put down my beloved dog of 11 years yesterday. But the students were warm and it kept my mind off my loss. I am a very lucky teacher.

The finale of the Dunham Dance program took up most of the day. We had the practice after our reading time, and then the performances of the children and the Marshall Dance Troupe. It was remarkably interesting -- a lot better in every respect than I anticipated.

An earthquake/fire drill consumed the time between 1:00 and 1:30.

Tomorrow things will be more on schedule.

Homework: Light tonight since there's not much follow-up to lessons. Children should continue with their I Search papers. Also, do the Introduction to Decimals on page 520-521 of the math book.

Update

Sorry for a couple missed days. Life has become pretty hectic around here. More on that later....

Anyhow, I we had a great day today. We came back today to looking at our fantasy stories. We worked in partners, and each student read his or her own paper while a friend listened and evaluated. We particularly were looking for the use of sensory details in description, the problem and solution of the story, and whether or not the author used dialogue. These are all areas where just about every paper can be better, and I think that our young authors got some good feedback.

Their only homework tonight will be doing the second rough draft of the assignment. Our purpose here is to improve the writing by reorganizing, adding details, and cutting extraneous material. We're not particularly worried about spelling, handwriting, grammar or punctuation yet. We can clear up those thing later on. Content is what matters now.

We also corrected our Quarter Two math tests. Results are on the gradebook. They weren't bad overall, and it certainly helped me see where we need continuing review and reteaching.

In the afternoon, we finished our kickball unit. We also continued work on the Midway poem. Most groups have finished identifying the rhythm in the poem, using stick notation, and are starting to create melodies. They're improvising these with the xylophones. We should finish those tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, for a number of reasons we had to postpone the LACMA trip. I'm hoping to get it rescheduled for June. We do have a couple other field trips coming up, notably our whale watching trip on March 17.

I will be gone starting Friday for several days. Most of this will be for district-mandated ESL training. I'm finding it hard to be positive and enthusiastic about that, but I'm sure I'll hear something useful.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Do the second rough draft of the fantasy story as indicated above.

Quick Post

Another wonderfully productive day! Students worked really hard on everything. We're making particular progress with fractions. We have a review page with that tonight.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Do the "Bremen Town Musicians" study question. (3) Fration Review, Math, page H 58 (in the back of the book).

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A couple of our Roxaboxen landscapes.
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Roxaboxen

One of the skills students are supposed to review with the Roxaboxen story in the Open Court book is setting. We took a creative turn with this and did desert landscapes.

I talked about perspective with the students, and how object appear to get smaller when they are father away. We also talked about how we give the illusion of three dimensionality in drawings or paintings by placing foreground objects on the bottom, and background objects on the top. Students then did a landscape which had to show at least two objects in different sizes and places in the picture. You can see some examples above.

All this took up an awful lots of the day, but it was worth it. We also worked some more on our Black History Month music composition project -- we're setting an inspirational little poem called "Midway" to music -- and we reviewed a good bit of math, getting ready for next week's district quarter test.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Do the Perimeter/Area and Equivalent Fractions worksheet.

Wednesday Went By

Another day that went by some quickly.... Not that that's a bad thing, of course! But we went to the library and then had a slightly earlier than usual lunch, and somehow the day suddenly seemed over.

The big news today, academically, was equivalent fractions. Students really have a hard time getting the idea that the two numbers mean exactly the same thing unless you draw a picture to show them. They're sure that 4/8 must be bigger than 1/2 because, after all, 4 and 8 are bigger than 1 and 2. They also have trouble with the idea of multiplying the numerator and the denominator by the same number. For some reason, they'll multiply the top number by 3 and the bottom by 2. I'm not sure why, but it happens all the time every year. Please check this homework over really carefully and discuss it with them.

Our next field trip will be a week from tomorrow, February 9th. We will be walking to LACMA. We can use a volunteer or two to help us, particularly someone who can drive over the lunches. Let me know if you can help out!

Homework: (1) Spelling. (2) OCR worksheets. (3) Equivalent Fractions, Math, pp 489-491.

Short Day

Today seemed pretty short. We had the Dunham Dance program today, and that seems to be coming along pretty well, though the kids have to do an awful lot of waiting. We also had a faculty meeting today in room 19, so we had to clear our by 12:15. An extra PE period for the week. Nobody was heartbroken.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Math review sheet -- extended form and polygon review. (3) Science questions, p B63, 23-27. Most students also need to finish “Roxaboxen” questions and the crossword puzzle. The students who work with Ms. Jan will do the crossword puzzle tomorrow.

Playing a birth date in the F Pentatonic scale.
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An Altogether Admirable Day

We had a great beginning to this last week of the first month. After silent reading, we started on a new story in Open Court Reading. It's called "Roxaboxen." It tells the story of how a group of children in Arizona or New Mexico about 75 years ago created an imaginary town called Roxaboxen. They remembered this years and years later and told their grandchildren about htis experience. It's a wistful, charming tale with nice illustrations. We also listened to a good bit of The Wind in the Willows, too.

After recess, we continued our work in Music. We're learning a rondo in body percussion, and we've mastered the "A" sectiond.We also continued our work with our birthday compositions. This was a fun way to compose a melody. Students were given this chart of a pentatonic scale:

do re mi so la
F G A C D
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 0

They then turned their birth date into numbers. For example, my birthday July 4, 1957 became 07041957. In notes it then became D G C C F C D G. Students took turns on the glockenspiels "playing their birthday." Above you can see a picture from last week when we did this the first time and they used xylophones.

We went to the Tech Center where we (almost) finished putting our rough drafts of our fantasy stories into Appleworks. Typing them up will make doing second (and third and fourth and fifth) drafts much easier.

After lunch, we continued our kickball unit mixing with students from room 17. In math, we studied fractions of sets. This is kind of a hard thing for students to get. It seems logical to us that 1/3 of 6 is 2: as a adults we just see it. But children have a hard time visualizing this. They may need some handholding with this tonight.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Multiplication worksheet (3) Subtraction with regrouping worksheet (4) Fractions of a group, Math, page 486-487

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An Artsy Day

Today we did our cubist self-portraits as you can see above. Students worked pretty hard on these and the results were good. I think that the students will understand cubism more clearly now than they would have had we just talked about the Picasso story.

We also went to the Dunham Dance program today. Our children were concentrating very hard here which wasn’t always easy because they were doing picture make-ups on the stage. It was an “artsy” day.

Homework:  Study spelling for the test tomorrow. A few students have some independent work from the afternoon to finish — science vocabulary and a couple of math review worksheets.

One of our Flow Maps of Picasso's life. Notice the Blue Period (second one), the Rose Period (third one) where clowns were a frequent theme, and the wonderful depiction of Cubism in blocks.
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Mapping Picasso

Our school has made a point of implementing Thinking Maps this year. This program attempts to teach thinking skills by providing a special graphic to illustrate each one — a circle in a square for defining ideas, a circle connected to other circles for describing, and so forth. I admit being a little skeptical about all of this, but when one of the designs is really appropriate to something we study I try to use it. That was the case today.

We have been looking at Picasso in our Open Court Reading theme of Imagination. The selection in the reader is a biography of the artist which connects the different periods of his art to what was happening in his life at the time. This selection lent itself well to a Thinking Map. We used the Flow Map to illustrate this. You can see one in the photograph above. In the middle row of boxes the students described something of what happened to Picasso in each of the four major periods of his career:  the early years, the Blue Period, the Rose Period, and the Cubist years. In the bottom row of boxes students described his art during that time. In the top, biggest boxes, they attempted a drawing in that style. Some even tried to copy one of his famous works from a period. I think these simple graphics really helped students to organize their understanding of the artist and his work.

Tomorrow students will be doing their own cubist self portraits. I think you’ll find that these are particularly wonderful.

Not much homework tonight. We are actually ahead of where we need to be in the Math Pacing Plan, so we can relax and review a bit. The division worksheet is not due until Friday.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Do the division worksheet by Friday.

An project that we did a while ago. This was a forest environment.
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Project Progress

Today we kept busy on our short day with a couple big projects. First, we went to the Tech Center (taking advantage of the fifth grade going to Astrocamp) and spent a longer than usual time there so that we could put the rough drafts of our fantasy stories on the computer. This will allow us to more freely edit and revise over and over again in a way that I could never make them do if they had to constantly copy everything over. We made good progress here. Second, we worked with the two teachers from the Dunham Dance Company getting ready for the performance that classes will be presenting on February 17th. Some of the steps were pretty complicated, and for the boys even quite athletic, but they did overall a good job.

Light homework tonight. In addition to the two things belong, try to make a little time for multiplication facts drill. Some students are having a hard time here, not because they do not understand division, but because they really do not yet know the facts “cold.”

Homework:  (1) Study Spelling. (2) Do Chapter and Cumulative Reviews, Math pp 229-229.

Going a Little Slowly

It was a pleasant day, though one of those when I did not get nearly as much done as I had planned! Oh well. There’s always tomorrow.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Do Practice and Problem Solving worksheets on finding unit cost. (3) Do “Work Backwards,” Math page 227. (4) Do Subject/Object Pronouns worksheet.

Blowing in the Wind

I've never quite figured out what it is about windy days that makes children so restless. But there's something about the the wind, whether its a warm Santa Ana or cold polar blasts like today, that has the students moving in their chairs like the grass on a Nebraska prairie.

Despite this, we had a pretty good day. We did the study questions on "The Cat who Became a Poet" in class. We went ahead and started our comic strip versions of our fantasy stories. We read a good chunk of The Wind in the Willows. We corrected our math tests. We read about and discuss the solar system, a topic on which they already knew quite a bit!

Apparently yesterday's post did not make it to the Internet. We were again having some on and off network problems. Sorry for any confusion.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Division, Math, pages 218-219, 1-37, 39-43.

Also, a few students still need to complete the "Cat" study questions or the comic strip.

Homework

Just a quick homework post today since I need to get things in order and then go off to Mrs. Osterberg’s retirement soiree.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Do “Dividing by 6, 7, and 8,” Math, pages 215-217, all problems, answers only.

A few students still need to finish the chart on page B 34 of the Science book. Most are finished with it.

Dunham Dance

Today we started our residency with the Dunham Dance Company. This group was inspired by the work of the great African-American choreographer Katherine Dunham who did groundbreaking work in combining modern dance with traditional dance movements from African and the Caribbean. We’ll be working with these artists each Tuesday and Friday for the next four weeks, and we’ll be doing a culmination next month. I’ll keep you posted on the date.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Do “Recording Concept Information” sheet. Read the directions carefully here. The point is to tell what each selection added to our understanding of the idea of imagination, not to recapitulate the story. (3) Complete the chapter 12 review, page 210 and the cumulative review, page 211.

Additionally, many students need to finish the drawing and description of the of the characters and setting of the fantasy story they plan to write for the unit culmination.

By the beginning of next week all students should have completed the lowercase letters in the handwriting book.

Typical Thursday

Today was a pretty regular day in every respect. We had silent reading and checked homework first thing in the morning. We took a phonics quiz. We discussed the idea of schedules. We took a while to really read and discuss the story "Through Grandpa's Eyes" which explores how a young boy uses his imagination to help him empathize with his blind grandfather. We continued listening to The Wind in the Willows. We took a math test. The results should be on the gradebook soon. After lunch we discussed corrected the math test. Since we had a lot of homework scheduled for the evening, I gave them ample time to get started. Some may even have finished everything, but it would be helpful if parents checked it over to make sure there were no points on which they were confused.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Do "Through Grandpa's Eyes" study sheet. Be sure to use complete sentences, and do not start any sentence with a pronoun. (3) Do "Dividing by 2 and 5," Math, page 201, numbers 2-26 only. (4) Do "Dividing by 3 and 4," Math, page 202-203, numbers 2-35 only.

The Wind in the Willows

In each Open Court unit, I try to provide students with some exposure to a larger piece of literature. This is usually a book which is somewhat or even far above their reading level, yet is completely at their interest level. I read the book aloud to the students to work on listening comprehension. For the Friendship unit we did Charlotte’s Web; for City Wildlife we did A Cricket in Times Square.

For our new Imagination unit, we will be reading The Wind in the Willows. I’ve added a little twist to it this time, however. Because students often like to follow along in a book as they listen — plus being kind of fidgety anyway without anything in their hands — I purchased a copy of the book for each student. We are also listening to an audiobook reading so as to allow me to help them to follow along better. If you’d like your child to have the copy of this classic when we’re done with it, just send along 6 dollars and it will be his or hers for good. Otherwise, we’ll just make sure that the book is in good shape so I can use it again with classes next year and beyond.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Review Test/ Cumulative Review, Math, pages 196-197. (3) Science, B 29, 13-23. Write answers as complete sentences.

Like or As

Like or As

Today one of the things we focused on was figurative language. Yesterday we read the famous poem about the blind men and the elephant. In that poem the blind men each compared a different part of the elephant to something they were familiar with — a wall, a rope, or a fan.

Today the students tried their own hands at writing similes and metaphors. They picked a particular person, place, or thing. They then picked at least five parts or aspects of this and developed a metaphor for each. These were combined to form a free verse poem. This was not altogether easy for the students, but we had some striking metaphors and some great rough drafts. I look forward to finishing these up and posting some on our bulletin boards for everybody to see.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Family of Facts, Math, pages 191-193, numbers 2-29, 36-51 only. (3) Review, Science, page B28 only. Copy questions and diagram.

In addition, a few students still need to finish their metaphor poem rough drafts.

Welcome Back

Just a quick post today to welcome everybody back and to let you know about homework.

I'll get the spelling list to the students tomorrow. Network printers are fabulous unless the network crashes, so I could not print it out today. We started division today. The idea of division as repeated subtraction may be new to some of you, though it's pretty logical when you think about it. That's page 187 in the math book.

Homework: (1) Complete the Blind Men study questions. (2) Division, Math, page 187, numbers 2-18. (3) Division, Math, page 189, numbers 2-21.

No Slackers!

We’re working hard on these last days before vacation. There may be students who are just goofing off this week, but nobody in room 19 is!

We have been hard at work in the Tech Center for the last few days, and we’re closing in on getting finished on our HyperStudio project. A couple students, in fact, finished today and I’m pretty impressed with the work they’ve done. We will be in there for our last session tomorrow.

We also finished off a chapter in the Science book and students were given the end of lesson questions as a review. We actually discussed the answers to these in class, so this is mostly an exercise in writing complete sentences. Our guideline here is that the sentence should make sense even without seeing the question. Please check over the answers to see if this really is the case! We we’re having some problems here.

In math we’re finishing up the introduction to the customary measurement system. Students should be able to solve the problems with a table of measurements like the one on page 430 of the math book. They need not actually memorize the equivalences at this time.

The Holiday Party will be tomorrow from 12:00 to 1:00. If you are bringing food or supplies, please be here by about 11:30 to help set up. That way we can get started and cleaned up before our 1:00 p.m. fire drill!

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Do “Ways to Change Units,” Math, page 431, 1-8. (3) Do "Rules for Changing Units," Math, p 433, 2-10 (4) Do "Use a Graph," Math, p 435, 1-9. (5) Write the answers to the questions in the Science book on page B 23 in complete sentences.

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Some photos of yesterday's trip to Placerita Canyon. Thanks to Robert's dad for taking so many fantastic pictures!
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Coming Right Along

Working on this HyperStudio project has really given a focus to our final week of school. We spent the morning in the Tech Center working on it. Several of the students are working on their final editing; others are making great progress towards finishing all five paragraphs and pictures. Only a handful of children are really lagging here.

After recess we continued studying measurement, completing our survey of customary – the traditional Anglo-American – measurement. We will be taking up the metric system in  the new year.

The three math assignments below may seem like a lot, but there are not all that many problems in each page. We are aiming at familiarity with the units here, knowing which ones are larger and which are smaller, which measure weight and which measure distance, rather than memorizing formulae for switching measures. That is important, of course, but will come later.

I sent home today a letter about the holiday party on Friday. Please send the tear-off back tomorrow so we can let David’s mom know how much to buy.

Homework: (1) Study Spelling. (2) Do "Yards and Miles," Math, pp 424-425, numbers 1-16. (3) Do "Capacity," Math, p 427, numbers 1-9. (4) Do "Weight," Math, p 429, numbers 1-10.    

Steady Progress

We made some progress today towards getting the City Wildlife completed. Most students are done with their Open Court test. The scores will be posted on the Gradebook shortly. We also got into the Tech Center and did more work on the HyperStudio stacks. Several students are finished with these “second drafts” and are now ready for final revisions and editing. With luck, everybody will be done by tomorrow.

Remember that our field trip to Placerita Canyon is Wednesday.  All permission slips are already done. I think we have enough parent volunteers. Also, our party is Friday. I’ll send home a message tomorrow about that. You can bring your own contribution or send something to Susan Moon.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Measurement, Math, pages 421-423, numbers 1-38. (3) Do the Multiplication practice sheet.

Quick Post

We slogged on through the Open Court test today. With luck it should be finished by Friday. We discussed quadrilaterals at length, and geometry review is the major item on tonight’s homework. We also stopped by the book fair for a visit.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. Test tomorrow. (2) Review/Test, Math, page 410 and Cumulative Review, Math, page 411.

Quadrilaterals and Such Things

We started the unit 2 Open Court test today. I hope we can finish the whole thing by the end of the week. It is a fairly tough test – particularly the reading comprehension – but I think it is still pretty fair. Results should be available on the Gradebook by Monday.

We also studied the different types of quadrilaterals today. The homework tonight is a little tricky here because there are often multiple right answers:  for example, a figure may be a parallelogram, a quadrilateral, and a rectangle. They need to think about these things carefully. It’s a lot tougher stuff than anything I ever studied in third grade.

Conferences seem to be coming along well. If I haven’t seen you yet, I look forward to it!

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Do the Skill Review worksheet on adjectives. Do all work on a separate sheet of paper – do not write on the photocopy. Answers only. (3) Do “Sort Quadrilaterals,” Math, pages 405-407, numbers 1-36.

In Brief

Just a short post today. We spent time today doing a good bit of review -- reviewing homework, reviewing vocabulary words, reviewing some of the basics of plane geometry. New things today included discussing quadrilaterals -- which will get quite complex tomorrow -- and the phases of the moon.

Conferences resume tomorrow. So far I think they have been quite productive.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Do crossword puzzle. We reviewed the words this morning. (3) Do Quadrilaterals, Math, pages 402-403, numbers 1-12. We started this one together in class. (4) Do Questions 1-4 on page B 15 of the Science book.

Conference Week

Conference week is, as Brian put it this morning, “rushy.” There’s so much to squeeze into such a short day. Today we started on our final story in the City Wildlife unit. It’s an odd little tale called “Sunflowers for Tina” about a young girl living in some grim part of New York City who dreams of having a garden. We also worked a little more on our five compositions for the City Wildlife HyperStudio stack. We’re going to try to get this one finished by Winter Break!

After recess, we had a brief assembly in the auditorium to hear the orchestra play. We went straight to lunch, and then we returned to the classroom to do some quick math. We are studying the different types of triangle right now. We’ll start on the different types of quadrilaterals soon.

Homework:  (1) Spelling. (2) Triangles, Math, pp. 399-401, numbers 1-21.

We saw a cool new sea lion exhibit just as we came into the zoo today.
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Some reindeer who were visiting the zoo just for the season.
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The flamingos seemed to come out to just to great us!
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Zoo Day

We had a damp, but pleasant time at the zoo today. It was nearly deserted - which was great - and a lot of the animals were out and particularly active - which was even better! Our only disappointment was that the bird show was cancelled because of the weather.

Homework: Treasure memories of the trip!

One of our environment projects with its justly proud artist. Students are making three dimensional representations of California ecosystems, combining their work in Social Studies, Science, and Art.
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Another great environment project taking shape!
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Flexibility

Today things were pretty normal until recess. We had reading conferences, worked on our City Wildlife HyperStudio projects, did some blending and dictation, and worked on a couple workbook pages.

After recess, though, we had to be flexible and it was not always easy -- at least for me! Mrs. Koneff was away at a training session, so I had to try to figure out @ccent, our new district library management program. It's supposed to be a huge improvement over the old one, but I had so many problems getting it to check in the books I was ready to scream! The kids were great, though, and did an amazing job of choosing books independently.

We went to lunch early because we had to change our Art time. There was a little misunderstanding about this with a certain campus aide, but the less said about that the better. After lunch Mrs Jones came, and we had what I thought was our best session ever with her. The environments they are creating are starting to look wonderful. They have another session on this before they are finished.

Please let me know as soon as possible if you can come on Friday.

Homework: Study spelling for the test TOMORROW. (2) Read "Choose the Operation," Math, page 300 and do questions 1-6 on page 301. (3) Do the Review/Test and the Chapter Review on pages 302 and 303. Be sure to show all work. Students will be tested on this tomorrow as well.

A Typical Tuesday

Today all went reasonably well. Our homework showed that students are starting to get the hang of the two digit multiplication. We spent some time today reviewing the City Superheroes story focusing in particular on two key comprehension skills: identifying main idea and detail and also distinguishing fact and opinion. We also took some time to continue work on the rough drafts for our HyperStudio project on City Wildlife.

After recess we did some reading about Native Americans in the LA area before the Spanish settlers arrived. We do not have a current social studies textbook, so I am making photocopies of an obsolete but still reasonably good textbook. Please don't report me to the copyright police! I'd buy copies if they still printed it! We also worked a little more with practicing our multiplication procedures.

A couple important notes. Friday is our field trip to the L.A. zoo. Because it is a big problem to cart lunches around the zoo, we're asking students to bring about 5 dollars to buy their own lunch. The options are pretty good. Since it may rain on Friday, please bring umbrellas. If you would like to accompany us, we still need a couple volunteers. Just send me an email to tell me you're interested.


Homework: (1) Study spelling. The test is on THURSDAY this week. (2) Do the "City Superheroes" questions. Be sure to use complete sentences. (3) Practice two digit by one digit multiplication, Math, page 299, numbers 2-26. Copy the problems!

Welcome Back!

We all came back, save one, today, and judging by our sharing this morning, everybody seemed to have had a pleasant break.

We jumped back into our Monday routine today. We did silent reading and conferences first. We then did a review of short vowel sounds in both blending and dictation. The children explored the meaning of some tough vocabulary words, and they did a great job of figuring out the meaning from context. We then read the "City Superheroes" story in the Open Court text which poetically explains the near superhuman powers of rats and raccoons.

After recess, we explored doing improvised melodies over a simple ostinato. It's a great activity, but today was a sort of "dress rehearsal." We'll do it again and with luck get it on videotape. We then went to Tech Center where we continued on our City Wildlife HyperStudio project.

We did a fun variation on Dodgeball in PE today. Students had to do laps around the circle if they got out hit. It made it an aerobic activity, as well as giving them an incentive to avoid getting hit! We used some of the special foam balls that we purchased with your kind donations. In Math we started on 2 digit by 1 digit multiplication (e.g., 24 x 6). They'll need some handholding with this tonight.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Math, page 293, numbers 1-7. This can be answers only. (3) Math, pages 295-296, numbers 2 -27. Important! They MUST copy all problems on these pages and show all work!

Our "pilgrims" lining up for their Thanksgiving Feast.
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Settling down to our Thanksgiving feast!
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Students improvised high and low sounds to play with the concept of pitch. Note that some of the notes are removed -- they are using a pentatonic scale.
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Students used scarves to physically experience high and low sounds. Groups chose one of the line patterns from the board as an inspiration.
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'Twas the day before Thanksgiving

We had a lovely day before Thanksgiving. This can be a pretty long day because the kids are SO excited about the upcoming holiday. I usually try to schedule something that will force them to concentrate for at least part of the day. Today we had a math test. I’m happy to say that the results on this one were A LOT better than the last test we took. You can check your child’s results on the Gradebook.

We had a splendid, splendid feast as you can see above. The food was so varied and delicious. We students did a great job of cleaning up, too. They can do this at home, too.

Homework:  Let’s just skip it for the long weekend, OK?

Fast Start on a Short Week

This is, as you all know, as short week. We're working hard to make it really productive, though.

Today we continued our City Wildlife theme by reading Robert McCloskey's classic story "Make Way for Ducklings." We also discussed the difference between the long oo sound and the long u sound and practiced those in Blending and Dictation times. In Tech Center we continued working on our City Wildlife HyperStudio stacks. The students are finally starting to really get a feel for this program. In the afternoon, we listened to a bit of A Cricket in Times Square, our City Wildlife read-aloud book, and we did the third lesson in the Hands-on Equations program.

Spencer's mom has posted a signup for a Thanksgiving potluck on the door. Please let us know, as soon as you can, what your family can contribute for this. If you can't come by to sign up, have your child do it for you.

Homework: (1) Do the "Make Way for Ducklings" study questions. (2) "Find a Rule" Math pages 168-169, all problems.

Assessing Friday

Sorry I forgot to post yesterday. I had a very busy afternoon, marked with a frustrating number of technical/mechanical problems.

Today we a pretty average Friday. We had our spelling test, and the lady from Barnsdall came around to do a new project with the students. They're working on environments, and she had them do start a three-dimensional California environment. Very good curricular tie-in, though the project won't be finished until next month and the room was an absolute disaster when she left. Oh, well. Take the bitter with the sweet.

We took and corrected our spelling test in the morning -- results quite good -- and our math test in the afternoon -- results more disappointing. These should be on the gradebook this afternoon.

Spencer's mom is working on a Thanksgiving Party list. It should be on the door by Monday at the latest.

Homework: (1) Complete the Tree Map on ecosystems. Find at least four interesting facts about each forests, deserts, and oceans/lakes. Draw a picture for each. Go over the words in dark marker; color the pictures. (2) Do Math, pages 170-171, numbers 2-28. These pages go over the order property of multiplication. (3) Math, page 173, numbers 1-6 only.

Another Great Day

Today was another wonderful day. We concentrated today on artistic creations of different kinds.

In the morning, after we finished reading and checking homework, we did line drawings of birds. We began by discussing the different types of lines -- vertical, horizontal, diagonal, zigzag, and wavy -- and the different varieties of each, such as thick, thin, long, short, broken, solid, smooth and rough. The students experimented with drawing different types on a piece of newsprint as a warm up. I then distributed pictures of birds to the students. They drew these birds using only lines and no shading. They tried to use as many types of lines as possible. The results ranged from acceptable to outstanding!

After recess we had library. Poor Mrs. Koneff is having to deal with a really irritating new computer checkout system, but she took time to give our students a great lesson on using the card catalog -- still useful when the computer stops working -- and also to read some really funny Thanksgiving poems to the class. Back in class, we did more physical exploration of musical concepts. This time I drew a few abstract lines on the board, asked the students to pick one, and then each group attempted to create movements inspired by these pictures. Tomorrow we'll finish this off with some improvised music.

PE was devoted to relay races today. We tried different forms of partner races. We did piggybacks and a couple types of three legged races. A good time was had by all, even if they did not always quite get was I intended.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Science, page A111, questions 18-23. (3) Review/Test, Math, page 160 and Cumulative Review, Math, page 161.

Dalcroze

What a great day! I enjoyed every minute of today, and I think the children had a good time, too.

We began as usual with Reader’s Workshop. Once again, Mr. Benitez has been really wonderful helping me out with conferences so I can concentrate on helping students with HyperStudio projects. I have no idea what I’d do without him! And, speaking of HyperStudio, our students are really getting the knack of this complex and powerful program. Their paragraphs about Los Angeles area city plants and animals are also really coming along well. We’ll start on the third of the five paragraphs tomorrow.

We checked and corrected the homework. All the grades are available on the Gradebook for these. We then finished off reading the “Urban Roosts” selection and discussing it in some detail. Students had a little time before recess to start on the study questions.

After recess we did math. I’ve started adding a Problem of the Day to our math routine, and I think it should help model problem solving skills to the students. We’ve now introduced all the tables save 9 and 10, and students just need to learn and MEMORIZE these facts. Remember to help them with flash cards.

In music we practice working on both rhythm and melody. Many of our activities here are based on the work of Robert Abramson who taught for years at Julliard. He is the most important exponent of the ideas of Jean-Jacques Dalcroze, the Swiss father of the Eurhythmics movement. Dalcroze believed that music ideas did not really make sense to children – or adults – until they had been experienced in physical movements. He argued that music and dance really could not be taught separately. Abramson developed some easy and fun activities for integrating movement and music. The students are having a great time with these. Today we did a particularly fun activity for feeling beat and measure by passing small balls in a group. It was a blast!

Speaking of good times, we had fun doing our ball kicking relays after lunch. It’s amazing to see how they are developing coordination as we do these kinds of activities. Thanks to all the parents who contributed to getting us more PE equipment. It’s much appreciated!

Homework may again seem heavy tonight, but students had a good bit of time to get started on all the assignments.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Complete study questions on Urban Roosts. (3) Complete Connect Concepts, Science, page A110. (4) Do "Draw a Picture," Math, p 155 (5) Do "Practice the Facts," pp 157-158, #2-64 (answers only).

It was indeed, as you can see, a busy day. Also, thank you to all the families who have contributed to the canned food drive. If you haven't had an opportunity to drop off a little something to make somebody's Thanksgiving a little brighter, please do so this week. Thanks!
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Busy Day!

It was a busy day! Mondays usually are. But it was a great day, too. And Mondays usually are that, as well.

We began a new story in Open Court today called “Urban Roosts.” This is another fairly long nonfiction selection. It explores how different kinds of birds have adapted to life in the city. It’s an interesting but challenging selection. We’ll be having a lot of fun with it this week, exploring the ideas in the selection in art and dance as well as answering questions and other usual activities.

We also have been doing a lot in the past week to connect this theme of City Wildlife to both our Writer’s Workshop and to technology. Mrs. Gassman and Mr. Benitez have been helping me with Reader’s Workshop conferences so that I can work each day with a small group of students on their HyperStudio stacks on City Wildlife. As the children get to know this powerful program better, they will need less support from me. Right now, I’m really pleased at how well they’re doing.

After lunch we had a district-mandated “lockdown drill.” This simulated what students would have to do in the extremely unlikely event of some kind of serious police activity in the neighborhood. The students did very well and stayed very calm – and very polite, too, as some of the adults involved talked endlessly….

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Complete the Urban Roosts crossword puzzle. We started this one in class. (3) Do “Multiply by 8,” Math, page 153, all problems.

Have a Great Weekend

Students had substantial time to start the following assignments in class, and many completed most or all of them. If they did not, please complete them this weekend.

Homework:  (1) Do “Multiply by 7,” Math, pages 150-151, numbers 2-37. (2) Copy and complete vocabulary sentences, page A110, numbers 1-12 only. (3) Do the Alphabetical Order worksheet. (4) Do the spelling wordsearch. (5) Complete pages 5-8 in the Cursive writing book.

Dr Zipper's Orchestra

Sorry for the late post. I have to go to a funeral tomorrow in San Diego, and I was a little overwhelmed getting ready for the substitute.

Other than the endless meeting with the literacy "coach" after the children had left, I had a remarkably good time in school today, and I think the students did, too. I worked with a group during reading time to help them more with their HyperStudio stacks we started yesterday. Mrs. Gassman helped me out with reading conferences. Integrating technology into the curriculum this way is very exciting. It is time-consuming, however, and that sometimes makes us teachers shy away from it. Mr. Benitez helped the children review and correct their math homework. I worked with them on phonics with the long o sound. Then we rushed off to our new auditorium to hear Dr. Zipper's orchestra.

What a fabulous experience! Now the the Colburn School is offering conservatory level classes for university degrees, Dr. Zipper's orchestra is now filled with energetic talented young musicians. The ensemble was crisp and the playing energetic. The children seemed to instinctively know that this time it was good, and they sat back and absorbed a challenging program including Bartok and Shostakovich. Wow!

We did our videos of the Rhythmic Machines, and they were fantastic! They will definitely be included on the end-of-the-year DVD. We also read a little about desert environment. After lunch, we did another Second Step lesson which catches us up with where I wanted to be in this program. From now on, this will be a Thursday afternoon activity.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Do the "Boy who didn't Believe in Spring" study questions. (3) Finish the Algebra and Geometry review sheets. Tomorrow is the Quarter One math test.

Some of our African masks which were on display in the auditorium on Sunday for the grand reopening reception. If you haven't seen this sparking space, stop by the auditorium soon.
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A very generous parent in our class donated a color laser printer to the school. Through the network it will be available for other classes to use, but it will be housed in room 19! Thank you!
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HyperStudio

We had a most pleasant Monday.

Today we started on a new story in Reading called “The Boy who didn’t Believe in Spring.” It’s a strange tale of a child named King Shabazz and his friend Tony Polito. These two boys seem to live in someplace like the Bronx. King claims he does not believe there is any such thing as spring. But when he’s told that it’s just around the corner, he decides to literally go around the corner in search of spring. In doing so, he finds signs of spring – flowering bulbs and a robin’s nest – in an abandoned car in a vacant lot.

We also did more work on our Machine composition. Today we planned how the machine would malfunction, and groups showed us their machines using only the Kodaly syllables and motions. Tomorrow we’ll add instruments. In Tech Center, we started on a major project in HyperStudio. For those of you unfamiliar with this application, HyperStudio is a multimedia authoring system for presenting information.  Text and pictures are put on electronic “cards” which are then dynamically linked to other cards to move around the “stack.” It’s a little challenging program for third graders, but our students are more than up to it! Mr. Merkelson was quite pleased by how well they did.

In PE, we practice kicking using a kind of relay game. It was fun, though some of the goalies gave a little more help than they should have…. Math is review for the quarter test which will be on Wednesday.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling list 10. (2) Finish the rough draft on the second city plant or animal. (3) Do the math packet. They had ample time to start this in class.

A well-built totem pole is a joy to behold!
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Patience and Perseverance

Fridays have a special feel in a classroom. They bring the week to a close, and as such are good days for tests and other forms of evaluation. This creates a certain seriousness about the day. At the same time, many students already have special plans for the weekend. This can lead to a barely-concealed, almost giddy excitement. I think we felt all those feelings today.

After silent reading, we finished the chapter 5 test. This is one of the toughest ones in the book, despite the fact that money ought to be a relatively easy and accessible topic. Every third grade teacher has noticed this. Part of this difficulty is the fact that some of the children are still pretty weak on addition and subtraction with regrouping. More of the problem comes from the idea of equivalent sets. Now students get the idea that 2 quarters are equal to 5 dimes. They understand that these are equivalent sets. But when we ask them to find as many sets as possible for a specified amount of money -- say 35 cents -- the puzzle aspect of this problem seems to elude them.

And yet, approaching math as a puzzle, figuring out systematically all kinds of possibilities, is a lot more important to their long-term growth in mathematics than merely answering multiplication problems quickly. Children like right answers right away. But in our modern world that kind of math has been relegated to machines which can do it faster than we ever can. People are still needed, though, for careful, thoughtful problem solving. And this requires patience and perseverance, qualities that few children seem to have, particularly in our over-stimulated, plugged-in, multi-tasking age.

Fortunately, there are many ways to develop these characteristics, and Visual Art projects are particularly good. There is, after all, no way to complete a complex art assignment instantly, and children seem to understand that. So providing them with interesting and complex art assignment, and creating an atmosphere of serious concentration, does a great deal to develop patience and perseverance. I certainly noticed that yesterday when we did our leaf paintings. Today's art project was done with the Barnsdall art teacher. She has some wonderful projects that she does with the children, all of which require thoughtfulness and concentration. I would approach teaching some of these differently than she does, but I appreciate her expertise in some areas. Today the children made totem poles out of plastic bottles, construction paper, burlap, and other media. This took a lot of effort, a lot of concentration. In the picture above, you can see a smile coming from a job well done.

In the afternoon, we worked some more on rhythmic machine. This is a tough project because it works on so many skills at once. Carl Orff said, "Let the children be their own composers." Easier said than done, Mr. Orff! Composition is a real important skill for children, but it creates a lot of management challenges in the classroom. It is so much easier to simply present the students with one prepared piece for them to learn. And yet a process of improvisation, composition, practice, and performance creates so much long-term growth that it is worth risking the noise and confusion. We made a lot of progress. But we have more to do.

Homework: Homework for children will return Monday. Have a good weekend. I hope to see everybody Sunday at the auditorium rededication.

A very atmospheric leaf painting. Most were more realistic, but I liked the colors here.
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The leaf that was the inspiration for the painting.
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One of the Machine groups notating their instrumentation and rhythm.
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Just Another Day in Paradise

If the days keep being this wonderful, I’m going to have to PAY to be a teacher!

Today we did leaf paintings in our Open Court time. You’ll see an example of one above. It was an activity which helped them really observe nature closely -- an important Science skill, too – and connect all this “City Lots” stuff to their own urban environment. We will be putting up the paintings next to the actual leaf, so stop by the classroom next week for a look!

After recess, we discussed Forest ecosystems, discussing the similarities and differences among the four major types of forests:  deciduous forests, tropical rain forests, temperate rain forests, and coniferous forests. After that, we continued with the music machine project. Today, we took a really had step and started to notate our rhythms. We used both the traditional note values and the Kodaly syllables here. Again, you can see an example above.

In the afternoon, we did another Second Step lesson. This one was done in small rotating groups. I worked with each group discussing a picture situation, while Mr. Benitez worked with each group doing role plays. It went really, really well! We’ll be doing this again next week, and we give you some pictures of the role plays in action. Mr. Benitez did an awesome job!

Homework:  Light night tonight. Study spelling for the test tomorrow, and if you know anything is not completed, work on that, too.

Wonderful Wednesday

Just an all around great day! We had particular fun doing relays at PE. Maybe not as much fun doing our Math test, but the results look pretty good. Check the gradebook as I will post results fairly soon.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Do the "City Lots" study questions. Be sure to copy the vocabulary sentences and to answer the others in complete sentences. We discussed each question in class and located the answers in the book. (3) Using the Circle Map we created in class, write a rough draft of a descriptive paragraph about sycamore trees. Be sure to have a topic sentence and lots of supporting details. Also, skip lines for easier correcting! (4) Do the chapter 5 review, pages 90-91. Equivalent sets are just similar coins with the same value here: 2 dimes and 1 nickel, 4 nickels and 5 pennies are equivalent sets.

ALSO, this is VERY IMPORTANT! Bring a largish leaf, preferably mostly green or yellow and red rather than already brown, for a favorite art activity tomorrow.

Second Step

Today was a great day, despite all the dire warnings some parents gave me about a “sugar high.” We started on one of the toughest stories in the Open Court series, a nonfiction selection called “City Lots.” This essay explains how children can see nature changing in vacant, trash-filled lots in their neighborhood. Of course, you can probably see that with land values being what they are in our area, there aren’t too many vacant lots! Plus, the selection has them looking for all kinds of trees and plants which may be common in Brooklyn, but are not in Southern California. There’s a lot of tough vocabulary in the selection, as well as the difficult content. We spent more of our time with this story trying to define all the unfamiliar words. We made an elaborate wall of word definitions on the white board. All of these words are the ones that show up in the crossword tonight.

After lunch, we started on the Second Step program. This is a district-approved approach to teaching students social skills and conflict resolution skills. It involves discussing situations which are portrayed in cards or on videos and then in using role-play and writing to practice the skills and to reflect on how to handle similar situations. I used to program at a former school, and the students generally enjoyed it and we had some good discussions. This will be a regular Tuesday activity for us.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Complete the crossword puzzle. (3) Do Review/Test, Math, page 392, and Cumulative Review, Math, page 393.