Spooooooooky Stories!

Today we started our first writing project...a spooky story!!  Since we are writing spooky tales, we turned off the lights and played spooky music to help us be creative!  We will be working through the writing process with these pieces and will have a final copy by the end of the month!

Middle School Marching Band!

The Middle School Marching Band joined us on Friday afternoon to play some music for us!  We all enjoyed getting to hear them play!

Coding!

On Friday our Learning Design Coach, Mr. Slabaugh, came in to our classroom and we learned about coding. Mrs. Hartsock had read an article about coding (as in writing computer commands for software coding) in the elementary classroom, and Mr. Slabaugh helped show students how they can learn to code.  This skill is highly desirable in the workforce, and uses math, logic/reasoning, and reading skills.  If your child would like to show you the coding activity we did today, click on the code.org tile to go to the site.  We will be doing more with coding next week!  The kids loved it!

Creating Stories!

Here are some pictures of us creating stories through Storybird.com!

Building a Thermometer!

Today we worked on finding out what happens to water when it is hot and when it is cold!  We build a thermometer out of a glass vile, rubber stopper, and straw!  We put room temperature water into the vile and sealed it up.  Then we placed our vile in cold water and in hot water and watched as the water expanded and contracted to show a difference in temperature!

Book Talks

We practiced writing the scripts for a book talk today!  We used books that we have read aloud and took turns sharing our reasons for why it is a great book!

Literacy and Math Rotations

Today we worked through 3 rotations independently while Mrs. Young worked with small groups of students!  We spent 15 minutes on each rotation and worked on things like building words and writing complete sentences in word work, responses to reading for work on writing, and reading independently during read to self time!

During math today we practiced solving number stories and playing top-it!  Check out some pictures from math below!

Dot Day!

International Dot Day, a global celebration of creativity, courage and collaboration, began when teacher Terry Shay introduced his classroom to Peter H. Reynolds’ book The Dot on September 15, 2009.

The Dot is the story of a caring teacher who dares a doubting student to trust in her own abilities by being brave enough to “make her mark”. What begins with a small dot on a piece of paper becomes a breakthrough in confidence and courage, igniting a journey of self-discovery and sharing, which has gone on to inspire countless children and adults around the globe.

And each year on International Dot Day – with the help of people just like you –the inspiration continues. What started as a story in the pages of a book is transforming teaching and learning around the world as people of all ages re-discover the power and potential of creativity in all they do.

-Courtesy of www.thedotclub.org

Here are some photos of how third grade made their mark!