Students made spinners for probability experiments.

 

 

Have a Great Vacation

This week was one of so many emotions, and so much to do. We started with the tragic deaths on Monday, and our whole school community, even those of us who did not know the children, struggled to comprehend this terrible event. Somehow, by Tuesday evening, we managed to have Open House, and the children performed wonderfully. Rain on Tuesday and Wednesday made things tougher for children and teachers. Thursday seemed relatively normal, and today was, well, different.

We had a minimum day today, and the relatively short instructional time was cut in half by our earthquake drill. I was surprised by how well the children took the tedium of the drill. Learning to be bored, and making the best of wasted time, is a real art. We sometimes forget, as Einstein said, that "creativity is the residue of wasted time."

Homework: I have a backload of stuff to grade and I think it's only fair to give them a break while I catch up! However, reading, practicing times tables, and working a little on cursive are all worthwhile projects to do with your children to keep some forward momentum in these areas.

Great Day

It was an altogether great day.

This morning we started with a quick quiz on inflectional ending spelling patterns, and the students did quite well on it. We went on to silent reading, trying to add as many stickers as possible to the chart before Open House. We continued on in the Open Court book to the story “Kids Did It … In Business.” We did blending and discussed the vocabulary. We read and discussed the simple story.

After recess, students worked on a science wordsearch. In music we worked on hearing and imitating dotted note patterns, understanding and moving our bodies to four-four beats, perfecting a couple body percussion rondos, and working on our “fruit pie” canons. You’ll probably see some of these at Open House.

After lunch, we worked on probability in math. You can see our experiments with spinners in the picture above.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Cursive practice, using words 23-30. (3) “Musical Palm Tree” questions. (4) Experiments, Math, pages 275-277.

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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