Recent goings on

This one actually isn't so recent. This is a photo of a sculpture created for our school by Tennessee artist Sherry Warner Hunter. She collaborated with our fantastic art teacher, Ms. Alisha Wall, and our outstanding students to create this beautiful totem which currently stands on the lawn of our school. You can read more about it here. It is the first installment of a sculpture garden planned for our school and community.

Welcome Back!

Welcome back! I apologize for the lateness of this post, but we dove right in after the holiday break and it has been very busy!

Before students returned from the break, all teachers attended a training on Thinking Maps. Thinking Maps are visual tools designed to help students organize and structure their thinking. There are eight maps, and each is designed to develop skills such as cause and effect, sequencing, classifying, and comparing and contrasting. You can learn more about Thinking Maps here.

So far, students have learned to use the circle map, bubble map, and double bubble map. The circle map is used for defining, the bubble map for describing, and the double bubble for comparing and contrasting.

Here are some examples of student bubble maps. We used the bubble map to describe Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'm very excited about this new strategy for helping students visually represent their thinking. Our entire school is implementing Thinking Maps, so as students continue on to the next grade level, using the maps will become second nature to them. We're looking forward to seeing improvements in students' reading, writing, and problem solving abilities.

So when you see these little drawings coming home, just know your child has been thinking :) .

Welcome to the Magic Tree House!

The big news in second and third grade these days is The Magic Tree House. These books, by author Mary Pope Osborne, take the main characters Jack and Annie on adventures around the world and through time. By reading these books, students can sail on the Titanic, enjoy Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims, work in a field hospital during the Civil War, and even visit the moon!

In an effort to encourage our students to read, The Speech department had a Magic Tree House built on the second/third grade hall. (Many, many thanks to our awesome art teacher and volunteer painters and builders!)

It's 'tree-mendous'! (sorry.) The kids love it. But there is more to this than just an awesome mural! As the students are reading these great books and AR testing on them, they can get their name on the map showing where the characters have been.

This is so exciting for the students! Every time we take a restroom break they have to check the map for their name. But this is still not even the best part!

The best part is that every time a student passes an AR test on a Magic Tree House book his/her name is put into a drawing to win a Kindle e-book!

It's so great to see our growing readers so inspired. The best way to become a better reader is to read, read, read, and this has definitely sparked the interest of even some of our more reluctant readers.

I can't wait to see who wins the Kindle!

Economics 101

This week in Social Studies we learned about economics. We learned the difference between goods and services, as well as the difference between wants and needs. We also learned about earning, spending, and saving money. To make this lesson a bit more real for students, we developed a classroom economy.

Students can earn up to five dollars a day for coming to 'work'. If they put in effort and work hard, they earn the full amount. If they get a checkmark on the behavior chart their pay is docked one dollar for every infraction. If a student is absent, they don't get paid for that day. Every student has the potential to earn $25 dollars each week. They received their first paychecks Friday morning.

Friday afternoon each student visited the 'bank'. Each child was given a checkbook and a ledger to record income and expenses. We used checks because coins and bills are easily lost, and writing checks reinforces the math skill of writing numbers in word form.

I showed the students how to record their paycheck deposit on the ledger. Next we took care of expenses. Each student is required to pay $5.oo rent for his/her desk. They weren't too thrilled about this, but I explained to them that in real life you will have bills that you have to pay before you can buy the things you want. The first check they wrote was for rent.

After the rent had been paid the students were allowed to visit our 'store' to spend the rest of their money. They could purchase any of the following items:

Lunch with a friend in the courtyard $10

Homework Pass $5

Computer time $5

Sit at the teacher's desk $15

Swap desks with a friend $10

Treasure box items $1-$3

While they shopped, the students had to make economic choices. Should they spend all of their money, or save some for later? Could they afford everything they wanted? Every child had the opportunity to buy something in the store.

The students really enjoyed shopping, and many of them saved a few dollars for next week. They got to keep their checkbooks. I told them if their checkbook gets lost they may purchase a new one. Hopefully this will encourage them to be responsible! At any rate, I believe they now have a better understanding of making economic choices.

Field Trip 11/3/11 CSI- Live!

As you know, our class visited the historic Orpheum Theater last week to see the show CSI-Live!

The show was about using scientific methods to gather evidence and solve a crime. Students learned about making observations, forming and testing hypotheses, and different methods for gathering evidence. The show was very engaging, and all the students had a great time! They were also very well

behaved.

When we returned from the field trip, we discussed and reflected upon all the different things we learned. We learned that scientific methods can be used anytime, not just to solve crimes like we saw in the show. Students can make observations and test ideas about anything! There are also many exciting careers that require a strong background in science.

Another piece from the show that students found fascinating was fingerprinting. We learned that people leave prints everywhere and no two fingerprints are the same. Not even identical twins have the same prints! On Friday afternoon we did an activity using students' fingerprints.

The students used an ink pad to make a print of their index finger on a card.

Next they used magnifiers to make observations about their own prints and those of their classmates.

We learned from the show that fingerprints can be sorted into three different types- loops, whorls, and arches. We used this information to classify, sort, count, and graph the students' prints.

I know the students had a great time and learned a lot! Thank you to all the parents who joined us on our trip. Our next field trip will be in the spring. Hopefully any parent who missed out on this trip will be able to join us next time. I love field trips as a way to show students how the things they are learning in the classroom are applicable in the real world.

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to our class! I created this blog to be a window into our classroom. Being a working parent myself I know it isn't easy to be as involved as you'd like to be in your child's education. My hope is that parents can use this blog to get a glimpse into a day in the life of their third grader. From now on when you ask your child, "What did you do in school today?" they can no longer reply, "Nothing."

Now you can see for yourself!

Before we begin I will say this- no student will ever be identified in this blog by name or photograph. Any photos of student work will have the student's name removed. While I am eager to share all of the exciting things going on in our classroom, I promise to guard your child's privacy.

And now, for your reading pleasure, The Porterfield Post!