Announcing … The Parade of the States

This week the children will be choosing the state they will research and present at The Parade of the States. During the next week and a half, the children will be identifying the wonders from their state.  They’ll be choosing a state symbol to learn more about.  They’ll be identifying a famous person from their state, as well as choosing a man-made wonder, a natural wonder and a state festival, tradition or celebration.  Children may choose other Wonders if they would like to represent them on their floats.

These Wonders will be represented on the floats they will present in the Parade of the States.  Here are some samples of floats from past years to give you all some ideas.

The floats may be a sandwich board,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or on a wagon, rolling suitcase, cooler, skateboard or an original base.

 

 

 

 

Suggestions of how to build each type of float along with the following criteria and more detailed instructions will be sent home on Monday, April 13.

Size Criteria:

  • Sandwich Board/Float should be no more than 36 inches long.
  • Sandwich Board/Float should be no more than 48 inches high.
  • Sandwich Board/Float should be no more than 30 inches wide.

Design Criteria:

  • The float obviously represents your state and shows its uniqueness.
  • Clearly represents your, the student’s, own ideas, work and effort
  • Shows common easily found materials were used to create the float.
  • Clearly demonstrate your, the student’s, best effort and creativity.

Content Criteria:

  • Represent and label your Wonders on the sandwich board or float clearly and accurately.
  • It is a fun project and such an exciting celebration of our country and a year of learning!  We can’t wait to see you on Thursday, May 23!

Wonders of Our World

We are beginning to learn about different countries.  We are interested in learning how we are the same and how we are unique.  We are really interested in learning how make it a better place through understanding and empathy .

We read a book called The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs by Betty Birney.  In it Eben accepts a challenge from his dad to find seven wonders in his small, rural town in seven days.  If he does, he’ll earn a trip to some place far away.  As we read the book we realized that a “Wonder” is only wonderful through the story and history that accompanies it.

We have been blogging for a few months and we are hoping to reach out to the world.  We are hoping for lots of help.  We are hoping to learn about the wonders of the countries we are researching from people who live there. We wrote letters on our blogs asking for help.  You can find them in the Student Blogs on the right.

Here are the countries we are researching: Liam – Japan, Emma – Thailand, Logan – Argentina, Sophia – Germany, Sutton – the United Kingdom, Ellia – China, Ella – Russia, Michael – Costa Rica, Mady – Italy, Olive – Canada, Cooper – India, Eddie – Madagascar, Ryan – Mexico, Charlie – Turkey, Gabriel – Spain and Hayley – France.

If you can help us, or have friends from the different countries we are researching, please open our blogs and  leave a comment at the bottom.  Please share our search with friends you think might be able to help.

Thank you!  3E

Joining a Growth Mindset Project

We are excited to join a Growth Mind Set Read Aloud Project developed by a teacher at the Louis Riel School Division in Winnipeg, Manitoba.  Annick Rauch is the teacher of a 1/2 classroom in a French Immersion school.  We are looking forward to connecting with students in other places around the globe.  During the first week we read The Word Collector by Peter H Reynolds.  The class decided to answer the questions from the project by creating individual blog posts sharing their answers.

The questions are:

What thing do you like to collect?

What word could Jerome find to go into a “Growth Mindset” scrapbook?

What are good ways to use your words?

Jerome is Word Smart and he shares it with the world.  What are some of your smarts?  What talents do you share in your classroom?

How will you make the world better?

Go to each of their individual blogs to read how these questions were answered from week 1 on the four week challenge.

Wonderful Weather Writing

Most of the children were able to create a blog post to share the informational writing they created to share all they had learned about the weather topic they chose to research and study.

When you read through their posts you can learn about sandstorms and blizzards, hurricanes and tornadoes.  You can learn about snow, clouds rainbows and meteorology too.  They have worked for several weeks to do the research, type their information and publish both illustrated books and these blog posts that are accompanied by another piece of original art.

If you have the time, please let them know what you learn from their information, what you notice about their writing and organizational choices and how their illustration highlights a piece of their learning.  Ask them questions – they likely have even more to tell.

This post is illustrated by cooperative, small-group illustrations made to show the five hurricane levels defined by the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale.

Becoming Weather Experts

Our first science inquiry of the year is about weather.  We’ve learned a lot already and we’re excited to learn more and more.  We’ve been learning about the difference between daily weather and climate.  We’re recording daily weather and looking for patterns.  Each morning we read the temperature and graph the weather and precipitation of the day.  Soon we’ll be exploring barometric pressure as well.  We are learning how to use these points of data to make reasonable predictions about what kind of weather might happen next.

Each student has chosen a type of weather he or she would like to explore in more depth. Some will be researching and learning more about tornadoes.  Others will be learning about snow storms, while still others, will be learning about blizzards.  Some children will research hurricanes and other are researching different aspects of weather like clouds, rainbows and the study of meteorology.

Children will be using print resources and online resources too.  Here are some online links to get us started.

Weather for Kids offers some basic information and may answer some of the questions you have. It is easy to navigate from one type of weather to another.

 

 

 

 

 

Web Weather for Kids shares more information, projects and activities that can help you discover even more about weather too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weather Wiz Kids is a site created by a meteorologist.  She is sharing her love of weather and lots of information too.

 

 

 

 

 

The NOAA website has some interesting links.  It is sophisticated and a bit tricky to navigate – but I bet you’ll find an answer to a question there that you can’t find anywhere else.

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a place to start as you research to become a WEATHER EXPERT!

Happy Dot Day!

We began our day making Kandinsky Dots.

After Morning Meeting we explored the eight dot activities on the Dot Day menu.  We made magnet dots, printed dots, and dots in decorated swirly gold frames.  We made clay dots and button dots and a personal dot representing our favorite things.  We started making window dots (they take two days to finish because they need to be baked), and lastly we all painted a part of the SUPER dot.

We listened to The Dot song and reread The Dot to decide what we each thought was an important message we could learn from this book.

Here’s what we can learn from this story:

  • If you can make a mark, you can draw.
  • Try it.  Make a mark and see where it takes you.
  • Try to learn anything – try to learn a song.
  • Try hard.
  • The Dot was written to inspire people.
  • Be positive, you can do it with practice.
  • When you think you can’t draw, think again.  Actually you can!
  • People can draw.  Be patient and try.
  • Anyone can draw.
  • You can get better at anything.
  • If you can make a dot, you can be an artist.
  • When you can write, help another person.
  • The Dot is inspiring kids to never give up.

We are bringing many of our dots home today, but others will be  hung in our Dot Gallery outside our classroom.  We hope you’ll stop in some time and take a tour.

Celebrating Dot Day was “epic.”  We’ve made our marks – and now we’ll see where they take us!

A Blog Book Review

One of the ways you can share your understanding when reading is by writing a book review to share on your blog.  Here’s one I wrote to share with you, so you’d get the idea:

           Have you ever wondered what happens in a picture book when you’re not there reading it? No? Well, neither had I until I read You’re Finally Here by Melanie Watt. Bunny was so excited to see our class, the readers, that he cheered and flipped and threw confetti. But then he got angry with us for keeping him waiting. I guess he got bored while the book was sitting on the shelf and had to do a whole lot of things that he didn’t want to do. He yelled at us. “What took you so long?” He said some other things too.

But then Bunny apologized for getting angry. He tried to begin again, to show appreciation that we were there and reading. So we’d keep doing what we were doing, he tired to make contract with us. He wanted us to stay and keep him entertained… but then, his phone rang.

I won’t tell you exactly what happened at the end of the book. You’ll have to read it for yourself. I think it will make you smile. I think it might make you think twice about how you treat people that you hope will stick with you and help you out. Read You’re Finally Here and let me know what you think.

It’s Blogging Day – please check our blogs

Today we are each trying to write a post on our blogs.  We’re working post more often.  We hope you’ll check our posts and leave comments if you do.  Thanks!

In March we began some planting experiments.  We planted four different types of seeds in two different growing situations.  We wondered which would grow first – covered or uncovered?  We wonder what type of seed would grow first – big or little, bumpy or smooth?

We’ve been watching them for month.  We’ve seen some interesting changes and learned more about how things grow.

We also planted some broccoli seeds.  When they were big enough we put them in the greenhouse.  They are changing quickly.

Our last experiment for next week will be one that will help us discover how traits are inherited across generations.

Planting and growing is fun!