Deciduous or Coniferous?

If you ask your child that question tonight, I guarantee that they will be able to tell you what kind of trees in your neighborhood are coniferous trees and what kind of trees are deciduous trees!

Conifers:
-triangle shape
-produce cones
-evergreen
-needles

Deciduous:
-lollipop shape
-have leaves (simple or complex)
-lose their leaves every year
-have flowers or fruit

We ventured around our school grounds to check out our local trees. This was a great introduction to our first science unit of the year!

***FUN FACT: St. Norbert College's campus has every tree native to Wisconsin :)

Coding!

We worked on our PERSEVERANCE today with coding! The class logged into our code.org curriculum and had to work hard to accomplish tasks! I think we have some future coders on our hands!

It was wonderful to have all of your children's special guests at school today. It is definitely cool to see how proud they are to show their special people around our room and different activities that we do in class. For those of you that were unable to make it, I threw together some of their song clips for your enjoyment!

Geocaching!

Yesterday morning, Tony from Fallen Timbers, came to school to teach us how GPS devices work. We practiced marking waypoints and then using the GPS to find the waypoint. The class was partnered up and he gave them each a container. They had to put their names on a paper and put that in the cup. They placed it somewhere in the front area and marked it using their GPS devices. Then, Tony gave their devices to a different group and told them who they were looking for. They had to use the GPS to find the right container. Once they thought they had the right one, they opened it up to see whose names were inside. The class had a blast!

#thestruggleisreal

Today we had a discussion about why it is important to struggle. It is okay to not know how to do something right away, but it is NOT okay to just give up and not try. We talked about how our brain is able to grow and learn more when we have to work hard to figure out the answer. If I would simply walk over and tell them how to solve it, that would not help them to learn. Please have a discussion about this at home with your child! We want to be our best student we can be this year and make sure we reach our full potential! 

Independent Reading

In third grade, we focus A LOT on building stamina for independent reading. We not only want our students to be able to sit and read for at least 30 minutes at a time, but also to be thinking about their story as they are reading. In order to build this, we teach about good fit books and independent reading behaviors. Yesterday we focused on 'IPICK' for good fit books.

I CHOOSE
Purpose - why am I reading it?
Interest- Do I like it?
Comprehend - Do I understand?
Know - Do I know most of the words? 5 finger rule

Here's a song we learned to remember that!

Today after we discussed our independent reading behaviors, we put it into practice. We made it for 12 min with the whole class silently reading and not distracting others!

Here is the class in action.

Word of the Day: Perseverance

Our word of the day today was perseverance. We watched this video to understand what perseverance is. 

Check it out!

I then explained to the class that their challenge today is to Save Sam! Sam just happened to be a gummy worm whose boat capsized. They needed to get Sam in his boat with his life jacket on. Sounds simple right? Well...there's a catch. They were not able to touch Sam, the boat, or life jacket with their hands. Sam also could not touch the desk (water) because he cannot swim. They had their work cut out for them!

Check out the Saving Sam Challenge HERE