The Grade 3’s worked through a science investigation today about the topic of building materials.
The questions they started out with:
Students proceeded to conduct the following experiment and record their results.
Students:
We are learning about Mental Health. We started with brainstorming a list of emotions. The next task was to think about how different situations make us feel. Students created one-panel comics to demonstrate how situations can lead to specific emotions.
Click on the link below to view a class book of all of our comics.
https://read.bookcreator.com/M09n6xapmtXQEVUch54a3P2ijpV2/VLOkKAvOSLGTqVJ9XdY8OA
This art project began with the book, “A Perfect Day” by Carin Berger.
We enjoyed the story and then got to work examining the illustrations. We looked at how the artist created shadows using shading techniques. We looked at shapes and how the artist created movement.
Then it was time for students to begin creating themselves. They started with the background, creating a snow angel using white and blue paint. Then, they created a person. They put the two together and added some paint splatters to mimic snow. The results are amazing!
As we learn to model multiplication in many ways and begin to build recall of multiplication facts we have learned a new game: Block-Out!
All you need is a piece of grid paper, 2 dice, and a coloured marker for each player.
Take turns rolling the dice. Then draw a block on the grid paper using the numbers of the dice. For example, if you roll a 2 and a 5 then draw a 2×5 rectangle. Write the corresponding multiplication sentence in the middle. The rectangle you draw must touch another block that has already been drawn. If there is not a space left for you to draw your rectangle you are out. The winner is the last person to draw a rectangle and write the correct multiplication sentence.
Challenge for you! Have a look at each slide. Can you figure out the pattern? What do you think the fourth term is?
Students spent some time, today, looking critically at their writing. The writing task involved a shared reading of “Splinters” by Kevin Sylvester. Then, students thought about what could happen next. What would part 2 of the story be? The drafting began!
We came up with a list of Success Criteria:
Then, we discussed what a star and a wish is.
Students were given 2 sticky notes to record their stars and wishes. There was a lot of thoughtful self-evaluation going on as well as goal-setting as we begin a new writing unit tomorrow.
Students continued to develop their skills working with pastels and water-colour paint.
First, students considered the idea of perspective and drew a horizon line to distinguish the wall from the tabletop. Then it was time to use lines and variety to design the background wall and the foreground table. After drawing first with pencil, then tracing over with oil pastels and adding a few more details it was time to put a paint wash over top. We talked about the idea of resist. We also looked at the colour wheel and examined the idea of complimentary colours.
Students designed a mug using the same technique with pastels and water-colour paint. Once the mugs were placed onto the tabletop a handle was added and a little “steam”.
As we worked through our Linear Measurement unit, here are some of the workshop activities students engaged in.
Game: Tour The Islands
Cooperative Measuring:
Choosing A Path:
Paper and Pencil Task:
Snakes on the Table and Measuring the Room:
While we read a print copy of this story, you can listen to the story here:
The students enjoyed thinking about history as we read this book, based on a true story. The students worked to identify the problem and solution. They also worked on inferencing skills throughout the reading.
Then, we read the following mentor sentence and examined it for verbs, nouns, adjectives. We also pointed out the temporal words. Students also noticed commas.
“Every year Captain Santa would load up his little schooner, Rouse Simmons, with thousands of beautiful Christmas trees from our northern Michigan forests.”
Today students were invited to imitate the sentence on sticky notes. Here are some examples:
This task was presented for the first time to our grade 3’s. Students wrote their problems on white boards and then recorded solutions and answer sentences on small paper to place under the boards. Then, they had the opportunity to visit each other’s boards and solve the problems. They then self-checked the answers. There was a lot of dialogue going on reading, explaining, and debating!
Students came up with problems that required a variety of skills: adding, subtracting, dividing.
Our follow-up discussion revealed a need to practise understanding problems, asking ourselves, “What is is happening? What is the action?’ We also learned that we have to identify distracting information!
