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.

Happy Halloween

A quick post here today, since you're all probably getting ready for trick or treating. We had a very pleasant day. It was nice to be back with the class. We finished up some odds and ends on the City Critters story, and the last section of the OCR test. We worked on environments in the Tech Center, and worked on Machine in Arts.

Spencer's mom provided us with a lovely Halloween feast. The kids were great and really appreciative. In math we discussed "tessellation", a less arcane concept than its name, and we also reviewed our work from Friday.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Tessellation, Math, pages 388-389, numbers 1-9, 13-20.

A fairly realistic portrayal of a city bird in flight.
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A very creative and whimsical version of a city bird.
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A Mosaic of Learning

Today we integrated our Visual Arts skills into Open Court. Since the students have been starting to study City Wildlife, we made some pictures of some of these plants and animals. However, instead of simply drawing them, we used torn paper to make mosaics of the wildlife. This required the students to really concentrate for an extended period of time on a fairly detailed work. They did quite well! It’s not an easy assignment.

We continued our work in Music today by learning the Kodaly names for the different rhythmic notes:  quarter note, for example, is “ta”, and two eighth notes are “ti ti”. They grasped this really quickly after we had practiced it with the rhythm of the classic “Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear” jump rope chant.

In Science, we looked at ecosystems. There’s a lot of hard vocabulary here for the students, but the ideas behind those words are very important. In Math, we turned our attention to congruence and symmetry of plane figures. I never studied this stuff in third grade. I’m glad these guys are so smart!

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Science questions, page A83, numbers 1-4. (3) Congruence and Symmetry, Math, pages 385-387, numbers 2-21 and 23-24. (4) Adding and Subtracting Money worksheet.

Picture Day

The best thing about Picture Day is probably that it’s another year until the next Picture Day. There’s so much waiting in line, and the kids get so restless. It’s definitely worse than the doctor’s office, since there are no magazines to read. It’s probably even worse than the DMV. Still, I think everybody probably took a nice picture, and this seemed like the most competent company we’ve had in years. You should be receiving some nice photos.

We filled up the rest of the day with usual Wednesday activities. We did some work in phonics and language. We worked on different kinds of plurals some more. We went to the library. We took a science test. We had PE. We talked about polygons in math and we had some fun drawing different types of polygons.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2)  Making Change, Math, page 87, all problems. (3) Polygons, pages 382-383, numbers 1-20 and 22-26. Students should also be finishing their polygon drawings if they did not do this in class.

We worked yesterday on determining what we already knew and what we wanted to learn about City Wildlife. Putting these together, we created our Concept / Question board. Thanks, Mr. Benitez, for putting it up so beautifully!
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Some of the questions from our Concept / Question board.
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Short Tuesdays

Today was the first short Tuesday. A torture for teachers who have to endure a weekly meeting, but a joy for students who have an hour more of liberty. At least until they get bored. . . .

Be sure to remember that tomorrow is picture day. Be sure to look all spiffy!

Homework: (1) Spelling. (2) City Critters study questions. (3) Monday, page 89, problems 2-27. Be sure to copy 2 through 18. The rest can be answers only.

Gray-t Day

Wasn't it cold and gray and bleak today? Fortunately, the sun came out inside room 19 and we had a nice day inside. We did most of the rest of the OCR unit 1 test. Results will be on the gradebook soon. We finally did the Marco Polo video today and we went to the Tech Center.

In the afternoon we worked on Health instead of our usual PE. We read a chapter on self-concept, and then composed poems about growing up. It's a free verse assignment, and each line contains the words "I used to . . . , but now I . . . ." We'll post a couple of these on the blog in a day or two.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Complete the plurals worksheet, if not finished in the morning. (3) Complete the rough and final drafts of the "I used to" poem. A few finished this in class. (4) Review, Math, pages 378-379.

Nice Day

We had a very peaceful, ordinary day today. How pleasant routine can be in a classroom!

We did some review for the spelling portion of the Open Court test, and we did the first draft of our composition on a "Memorable Time I Spent with a Friend", the assigned topic for the writing portion of the exam. So far most of them look pretty good. We also had a blast in Music as we turned our Marco Polo poem into a two-part percussion piece and then improvised dance phrases to go with it. We'll videotape it tomorrow for the end-of-the-year DVD.

In the afternoon, we did the chapter 8 math test. Results are posted on the gradebook.

Homework: (1) Study spelling for the test tomorrow. (2) Crossword puzzle. We started this in class and discussed strategies. Pay particular attention to the number of letters for each answer and check the word box for answers of that length. (3) Types of Lines, Math, pages 372-373, 1-12 only.

Just Plane Hard

There are some things that you learn to just dread as a third grade teacher. Introducing children to plane geometry is one of them.

Students get the idea of the three dimensional shapes even when they have weird names like “rectangular prism.” But the two-dimensional world is different.  All of a sudden we’re telling them that them that the thing they always called a line isn’t a line but a “segment” and that there are they need to be able to distinguish between angles that are bigger or smaller than right angles – it tends to alternatively bore and befog the eight year old mind.

So homework may be hard tonight. We tried our best to talk about it today, but it was hard for them to wrap their minds around it.

Homework:  (1) Continue to study spelling. (2) Science book, page A75, questions 24-27. (3) Lines and Angles, Math, pages 369-371, numbers 1-25. (4) Review/Test, Math, pages 144 and Cumulative Review, Math page 145.

One of our rainy day haikus.
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Indoor recess is fun for students. Not quite as fun for teachers....
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Better!

Maybe it was me, but today did not seem was a endless yesterday did. We began with silent reading, and then went on to discuss the homework at length. We talked about the four types of sentences – statements, questions, exclamations, and commands – and started on a worksheet about this. These items are on the district’s Open Court unit one test, so we want them to be well-prepared for it.

After inside recess, we work on haiku poems. You can see one example of these above. Students not only wrote their haikus about the rain, but illustrated them in watercolor. Many were quite lovely.

We did manage to get out today at lunch recess. That was good for my mental health! After this lovely play break, we did more review on life forms and habitats. This is a particularly confusing part of the chapter review, so we did it together. We then turned our attention to math. Students actually finished most of the work in class. We concentrated on patterns in numbers and in combining solid forms. They’re really getting the basics of solid geometry here. Plane geometry, soon to follow, will be a bit more mentally challenging….

Thanks for all the parents who have turned in emergency kits. Please send yours ASAP if you have not turned it in yet.

Homework:   (1) Continue to study spelling.  (2) Finish the worksheets on Exclamation and Statements. There was a lot of time to work on this today, so many students are already done with it. (3) Patterns, Math, page 137, numbers 1-9. (4) Combine Figures, Math, page 367, numbers 2-20. If students did not get any of the work done from yesterday for today because there was some confusion, they can work on it tonight and turn it in tomorrow.

Rain, rain, go away.
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Late Post

Sorry for the very, very late post. I was so preoccupied with finishing the GATE proposal and turning it in, and then starting on the Arts Education budget, that I forgot all about blogging the homework.

If students are missing something because of my mistake, then they can take some extra time to make it up.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Vocabulary Review, Science, page A74, questions 1-14 only. Please copy the sentences. (3) Solid Forms, Math, pages 363-363, number 1-20. (4) Find Missing Factors, Math, page 142, numbers 2-28.

Page Museum Trip

Today we have a great time at the Page Museum, despite the heat. The children did a great job of walking over to the park. I’ve never had so little complaining. This is most fit group of third grade students I’ve ever taught.

At the museum, our guide was a retired dentist. He was remarkably patient, as 80 year old former dentists go. Not surprising, however, he did point out the teeth of every fossil we saw. That did help us to determine whether they were carnivores or herbivores. None of them apparently flossed which could explain their demise.

Homework:  (1) Write a good paragraph about your trip to the Page Museum today. Use the cluster we made in class today. Finish the rough draft we started, and then have some capable person check it before doing the final draft. Finally, do a good color picture. (2) Multiplication practice, math, pages 139-131, problems 2-46, 49-60.

Tomorrow

I hope everyone is having a great day off. It looks like tomorrow will be warm, though not so warm as today, so please wear light colors, loose-fitting clothes, and comfortable shoes. Remember to bring a sack lunch tomorrow with something to drink. Soomi’s mom has volunteered to drive lunches over to the park, though I’m sure she’d love some help. We have a couple moms who have already volunteered to walk with us, but more would be fine.

Remember, if you have not yet turned in the permission slips, we need them by tomorrow morning first thing.

See you tomorrow.

Changes

A pleasantly disoriented day. Everything got a little switched around for the students, but they did just fine.

Because we have our field trip on Friday, we had to reschedule Art for the afternoon. That meant we needed to do math in the morning. You may think this is no big deal, but for third graders routine is very important! Math in the morning is sort of just plain wrong for them. Nevertheless, they did splendidly on the multiplication test. Check the gradebook for the scores if you did not already get an email.

We had library at the usual time, then took an early lunch. First lunch instead of third. First graders instead of fifth graders. I'm sure they sort of liked being the biggest kids on the yard. The art lady from Barnsdall came at 12:30 and she pretty much took up the rest of the day doing a bark project with them. It's not quite finished yet, so you'll see examples of their work next week.

If you have not yet signed the permission slip, get it back Friday so your child can go with us! We need the medical release on the second page as well as the Page Museum part.

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Math, page 133 - all problems. (3) Math, pages 134-145, problems 2-43.