Hands-on Learning

Lots of hands-on learning has been going on in a variety of subjects the past few weeks. Our class began our physical science unit learning about the 3 states of matter (solid, liquid, gas), physical and chemical changes, and mixtures in a variety of interactive ways including using Scholastic Study Jams to learn about physical and chemical changes...

and classifying picture cards as a physical or chemical change...

The highlight of the unit was conducting a "Magic Milk" experiment to create a chemical change. Students observed food coloring drops didn't move in a bowl of whole milk...

However, when we added a few drops of dish detergent the food coloring "ran" to the edges of the bowl and then swirled together!

Our smart scientists figured out the fat in the whole milk reacted with the dish detergent causing a chemical reaction, which we observed as the rainbow swirls in the milk.

Our language arts unit on nouns also included lots of hands-on learning activities such as "Fishing for Irregular Nouns". Each student used a toy fishing rod to catch a magnetic fish with a noun written on it. The student had to change the singular noun into its irregular plural noun form such as changing "goose" to "geese" and "woman" to "women".

 Happy learning!

Writing Workshop Mini Lessons

Our 3rd grade writers have been hard at work learning about how to generate ideas and revise and edit before we jump into writing specific genres. Here's some of the mini lessons we've completed...

Ways we've practiced generating topic ideas and details included using bubble maps and heart maps.

Learning how to form a paragraph containing a topic sentence, details, and a concluding sentence was a breeze using the "Stoplight Paragraph" method.

We learned good writers can stretch a sentence by answering the 5 w's...who, what, when, where, and why.

Editing and revising our writing will be easy-peasy when we use the C.U.P.S strategy.

Our class has also begun learning about our first parts of speech topic nouns, in many hands-on ways such as demonstrating our understanding of where the apostrophe goes in a singular and possessive noun using picture card prompts and Expo markers on the easel and and macaroni "apostrophes" and word cards.

Happy learning!

Plentiful Plants & Amazing Adverbs

Our knowledge about plants and pollination has been sprouting the past few weeks during science. We began our plant unit by learning about the parts of a flower and seed, including creating diagrams...

We then classified which part of a plant the fruits and vegetables we eat come from...

Students created "Lifecycle of a Plant" wheels... 

and we placed lima beans and wet cotton balls in plastic cups so we could watch a plant germinate and examine the inside of a seed...

The class conducted an experiment using coffee filter "flowers", paprika "pollen", and a bee puppet to see how a bee pollinates flowers...

and we read lots of books about plants including The Tiny Seed, Time for Kids: Plants, and From Seed to Plant...

In language arts, we've been learning all about adverbs. We began the unit by defining an adverb and filling the word with adverbs we brainstormed together...

Students identified adverbs in sentence strips, then classified them as describing "how", "when", or "where"...

 A fun site we visited to review adjectives and adverbs that students can play at home is
Adverbs and Adjectives Trail

Just click on the link, which will bring you to my Pinterest page. Then, click on the picture that takes you to Mrs. Warner's 4th grade blog. Click on the picture (shown above) and the game will open.

  Happy learning!

Science Scoop and other November News

We've been busy learning about the three stages of matter and physical and chemical changes the past few weeks. One of the ways students demonstrated their understanding of physical and chemical changes was by classifying picture cards as a physical or chemical change on the whiteboard...

The class conducted experiments to create physical and chemical changes such as a gummy bear physical change experiment. Students measured a gummy bear, then predicted what would happen when we left it overnight in a cup of water. Our prediction that it would grow was absolutely correct! We measured it to see just how much it grew...

In language arts, we completed our unit on nouns. One activity we did was go on a noun scavenger hunt and record if the nouns we found were singular or plural...

Another hands-on activity involved sentence strips and elbow pasta that we used to represent apostrophes. Children determined if the possessive nouns were singular or plural and where to place the apostrophe, then recorded their answers...

In reading, we've begun our Molly's Pilgrim novel study, including using student made "lapbooks" to do reading comprehension activities. Our novel study is being integrated with a Thanksgiving unit. We've been reading books about the Mayflower voyage, Plymouth Colony, Pilgrims, and Native Americans. We'll be taking a virtual field trip to tour the Mayflower, Plimoth Plantation, and a Wampanoag village using the Smartboard and record what we learn as well as examine Native American artifacts such as jewelry, musical instruments, and a model bark canoe. Mrs. Nussbaum's reading group has been practicing reading fluency and comprehension doing reader's theater. We were  excited to watch their fairytale they presented using Popsicle stick puppets...

Speaking of Popsicle sticks, the class has also enjoyed using Popsicle response sticks during our reviews before tests...

  Happy learning!

Marvelous May!

Summer vacation starts in a few weeks, but we've been as busy as ever in The Third Grade Learning Spot!

This month in math we've been learning about fractions. Activities included making fraction lap books, an equivalent fraction craft, playing fraction games on the Smartboard, and making fractions using M&M's, shown below...

In science, we've continues our study of animal adaptions and habitats. Learning activities included making animal adaption flip books...

 and playing a food chain game on the Smartboard...

Just click on food chain game to play it.

We then created our own paper food chains. I think the results are worth the box of staples I went through!

We also planted our butterfly garden and released our Painted Ladies to enjoy it...

 All the students did an awesome job on their animal research reports and dioramas...

Our social studies theme this month was "People Working Together in a Community". The class learned about marketing, including how people work together to make goods and provide services, producer/consumers, and importing/exporting. Students designed their own "Goods and Services Street" with businesses that provide goods on one side and businesses that provide services on the other...

In language arts we've been learning about adjectives and adverbs. Activities included making "rainbow name-bows" to describe ourselves using adjectives, filling adjective and adverb word bubbles with our own adjectives and adverbs, and creating sentences using an adjective that tells how many that the spinner landed on...

Hoping the rest of your May is a marvelous one!