The Smarties of Room 203

What We've Been Learning ....

2010-12-03T10:33:00.001-08:00

In Reader's Workshop we have been learning about character traits, or adjectives that describe the characters in our story. We've really been trying to find evidence, or proof in the story for each trait. We also have learned about SCHEMA and how we all have different schemas. We use our schema everyday to help us understand the world around us. Our schema is what we already know (our background knowledge). Our schema comes from what we eat, smell, taste, feel, hear, see, and experience. Our schema is what we store in our brains & we add to it each time we visit a new place, read a new book, and experience different things.

In Writer's Workshop we have been working on improving our personal narratives. We tried a new strategy this week to help us think of a fantastic small moment story that others would enjoy. We practice thinking of FIRST TIMES that we did things or visited places, or saw someone. Our 'first time' small moment stories were memorable and fun to share with each other.

In Math we have been working on our addition and subtraction with regrouping. We also have been reviewing place value. We are excited to be starting a new unit all about Area.

In Social Studies we just finished up learning about landforms. We will soon start learning about where famous landforms are in our country. It has been exciting receiving postcards for our Postcard Exchange Project & finding where each postcard came from on our map of the U.S.A. We have been singing and practicing the 50 States Song to help us learn the names of the 50 states! Anyone who memorizes it by December 16th will be invited for McDonald's Lunch Bunch with Mrs. Kartsimas!!!!

Our class is working HARD towards our classroom goal of reading/passing 500 A.R. quizzes! As of today, we have passed 487 quizzes! We are SO CLOSE. This week we all worked on creating an individual A.R. goal and a date we want to reach it by. Keep up the great work!!!!

Remember to log-on to IXL at home each night & on the weekends to practice your math skills and unlock those prizes!

Speedy will be going home with Dominic this weekend! :)
Enjoy the snow that's coming on Saturday.....

Some Pictures from Halloween in Room 203

2010-11-30T17:52:00.000-08:00

A free slideshow design by Smilebox

A Peek At Our Week......

2010-10-24T18:08:00.001-07:00

This week, we finished up Unit 2 of Math Trailblazers by exploring subtraction facts and testing how quickly we could figure the differences to our subtraction flash cards. In Writer's Workshop, we have been working on beginning our stories with a strong lead, or first sentence. We looked at some texts from our classroom libraries and saw how authors' leads were in different forms: dialogue, action, a question, or a description of the setting. We practiced starting our personal narratives with strong leads this week. We will be publishing one of our favorite seed stories next week. In Reader's Workshop we've been exploring nouns, verbs, and adjectives and making meaningful connections to what we read. In Social Studies, we learned all about maps & about our continent, country, state and city. We all took a quiz on Friday to test our knowledge of our home address & phone number. This Thursday was our FIRST collaboration time with our 'online' buddies. Our classroom will be working with another 3rd grade classroom in Mount Prospect, IL. We will collaborate using technology throughout the year. This experience teaches us that two classrooms, from different buildings and different school districts can come together to collaborate! This year we will 'knock down the walls of our classrooms' to take learning and sharing to a whole new level! Check back often to see what we're up to! On Thursday we had our first Skype video conference call where we met our online buddies. Then, we broke up into 6 groups and used Google Chat to get to know our buddies even more! It was a blast!

Remember: We are going on a field trip to Sonny Acres' Pumpkin Patch on Wednesday! If you have not turned in your permission slip & $6, please turn it in ASAP Also, the Kennedy Carnival is on Thursday night! Remember, you may buy wristbands before the event for $10! Only children need wristbands, not adults! But children MUST be accompanied by an adult!

The Beginning of a New Year.....

2010-10-01T07:53:00.000-07:00

Parents & Families.....be sure to check out blog to see what we've been learning about in Room 203!
Here is our weekly newsletter (written collectively by the students):

In Social Studies, we are learning about communities. We learned about and compared 3 types of communities: Urban, Suburban, and Rural. We used a Venn Diagram to compare them. This week we read a book called City Mouse Country Mouse and we wrote about if we wanted to live in the city or the country.

In Math we did our first TIMS Lab lesson called Kind of Beans. We learned that the population is a whole group, and a sample is just a small part of the population. We have been practicing our addition facts.

In Reader’s Workshop, we’ve set up comfortable book nooks in our classroom & we read in them everyday. We learned about finding ‘just-right’ books to read during Reader’s Workshop. To see if it’s a just right book, we use the 5-finger test!

In Writer’s Workshop we are writing personal narratives or true stories! We learned some strategies to help us get started writing. We can think about a person who is special to us, or a place that is special to us & write about a small moment we shared with that person or at that place.

In P.E. we are doing fitness testing. It has been very tiring!

Kennedy Singers, our after-school chorus with Mrs. Kesler started this week. Kennedy Singers will meet every Thursday. We are going to have a concert in 5 weeks for our families!

This week we took our MAP tests and today we start going down to the Reading Room!

This weekend, Speedy will be going home with Joshua. Have a great weekend! ☺

It's Been Awhile.......

2010-03-12T07:21:00.000-08:00

We have been very busy learning & having fun in Room 203! We've been preparing for our ISAT test that we just finished! We are happy that it's over & we know we did GREAT! Sorry we have posted in a long time. We will try to write our newsletter every Friday from now on!

Time to fill you in on things we've been learning about:

In Music, we are working on "Poetry In Motion". We just performed last night for our families. Our class learned the poem Gregory Griggs. Mrs. Kesler taught us how to play the rhythm of the poem on instruments. We each had different parts: first to say the poem (Gregory Griggs, East/West, We love his wigs).

In Math we are working on multiplication. We are taking timed quizzes on our facts. We just learned how to do double and triple digit multiplication! We are working hard to get ready for 4th grade. Every Tuesday afternoon we had flex math groups. This is when we go to another classroom to learn something new about math. Topics we learned about so far have been: area, fractions, perimeter, shapes, multiplication, 3D shapes, and measurement. In our classroom we've learned a lot, too. We made fraction families (pictures of our families and fractions that described them) and learned a song about lines, rays, and angles. We made 3D shapes using marshmallows & toothpicks. We counted the number of edges, faces, and vertices. To learn about capacity (how much liquid fits into a container) we made the Gallon Man. We've been busy with Math!

In Art we are selling our artwork to raise money for the school. The Art Fair will be on Thursday, April 22nd. Students AND parents can donate their artwork to be sold! PARENTS: Please think about creating a piece of artwork to sell at the art fair. In Art, we studied about Walt Disney. We practiced drawing Mickey Mouse. It was easy when Ms. Dougal taught us step-by-step how to draw him. We have also been learning about Abstracts, which are art pieces that have pictures that are not real (shapes/lines) and you can't really tell what it is (you're not supposed to know).

In Writer's Workshop we have been working on writing Essays! We organize our thoughts using boxes & bullets. Each bullet becomes its own paragraph with lots of details. We have written essays on: our favorite holiday, something that's important to us, our best friend, our favorite animal, and our favorite season. Each essay has 5 paragraphs. We are also remembering to indent each paragraph, and to capitalize the beginning of each sentence.

In P.E. we are doing Fitness Week. We are practicing kicking balls. We practice running from one side of the gym to the other.

In Science we have been learning about the Human Body. The systems of the human body are: muscular, circulatory, skeletal, digestive, nervous, and respiratory system. Some of the important words we've learned about: lungs, heart, skeleton, skull, ribcage, esophagus, small intestine, large intestine, stomach, brain, spinal cord, and nerves. We will be finishing the Human Body Theme today & moving on to our Water Theme next week!

Don't forget.....Spring Break is coming up! March 26th is our last day of school before Spring Break.

Weekly News

2010-01-08T07:58:00.000-08:00

in Writer's Workshop we are working on Essays. There are 5 paragraphs in our essays and we are working on adding details to support our thesis. In Reader's Workshop we are working on finding common nouns and proper nouns. In Math, we are starting multiplication. Multiplication is an easier way to add. We did Math hoppers where we hopped on a number line to find the answer to multiplication number sentences. On Tuesday afternoon, we had flexible Math Groups where we all learned about Multiplication. On Thursday afternoon, we had flexible reading groups. We stayed in our classroom to learn about genres & Author's Purpose. Our Science Unit is exploring and learning about the Human Body. We used a website this week with Ms. Parkhill to learn about the Skeletal System. In P.E. we had free days this week. In Art, Ms. Dougal is teaching us about Paul Cezanne. We will be going on a field trip to the Chicago Art Institute later this month. Speedy is going home with Mateusz this weekend! Happy Birthday to Cassidy (on Saturday). Have a good weekend!

Room 203 News....

2009-12-16T10:41:00.001-08:00

We have been busy learning this week! In Math we have been working on area. On Tuesday we started Flexible Math Groups. We traveled to other 3rd grade teacher’s classrooms to learn about Area. In Music we are watching a movie called Music Man. In P.E. we are practicing chasing and fleeing. In Writer’s Workshop we are working on Essays. We are living with our eyes open and noticing and observing things that might spark an idea to write an essay about. In Social Studies we are becoming experts on the Southeast region. We finished up our regions project by learning the different landforms, the climate, the natural resources, and we learned all about the states in the Southeast region. We wrote out scripts & will be recording our movie to teach the other 3rd grade classes about the Southeast. We started our Great State Reports! Each of us are studying a state in the Southeast regions and learning all about it! Our Word Wall words the past two weeks have had prefixes and suffixes. We learned an awesome song about where prefixes go (at the beginning of a word, UP FRONT) and how they change the meaning of a word. In Reader’s Workshop we have been working on questioning. Good readers always ask questions, so we have been working on finding the answers to the 5 big questions: WHO is the main character?, WHAT is the problem?, WHY is it a problem?, WHEN/WHERE did the story take place?, HOW is the problem solved?

We started working with our 3rd grade ONLINE buddies who go to school in Mount Prospect, Il. We started by emailing them some questions & we are writing a winter story together using Google Docs.

Speedy is going home with Natalie this weekend! Don’t forget…next Friday is Polar Express Day! Remember to wear your pajamas!

It's Been Awhile.......

2009-12-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

WOW, it’s been a long time since we’ve written in our blog! We have been busy learning in Room 203!

This week in P.E. we are learning about basketball. We are learning to pass the ball with the palms of our hands facing out. We are also doing stations with basketball, which are great. We are also learning how to shoot the ball in the hoop, which can be hard at times. In Math we are learning about place value. We are using bits and skinny pieces to show different ways to represent a number. We did Math Centers this week, using the laptops, our classroom economy checks, number puzzles, and subtraction flashcards. In Music we are learning our songs for the Veterans Day Assembly. In Social Studies we are continuing to learn about landforms. We found some of the important landforms of our country, like Mount Saint Helens, which is a volcano, the islands of Hawaii, Washington D.C., which is our nation’s capital, the Appalachian and Rocky mountains, The Grand Canyon, and the Mississippi River. We used candy to show where these things are on a map of the USA. Check out our website for pictures! ☺ In Art we are having a Veterans Contest. We are coloring pictures of liberty guards. The winning picture will win a $50 savings bond from the veterans. In Reader’s Workshop this week we have been working on character traits. We read the story I Hate English! and wrote down character traits that describe the main character, Mei Mei. We practiced identifying character traits in our own books. In Writer’s Workshop we have been working on using the timeline strategy to put our events of our story in order. It’s publishing time again, so we are working on developing a seed story & making it our best! We are really working on finding the heart of the story, which is the most important part for the reader, and developing it. We will be having our publishing party next week! This weekend, Speedy will be staying at Mateusz’ house. REMEMBER: NO SCHOOL MONDAY! (Teacher Institute Day). Today, the 4th graders from Washington School are coming back to Kennedy for an ice cream party! The 3rd grade teachers will get to celebrate with their students from last year & congratulate them on a job well done on the ISAT test! ☺

A Peek At Our Week

2009-09-29T05:22:00.000-07:00

In Math we have been learning about Magic Squares. When each direction of the square has the same sum, it’s magic! We’ve also been practicing our subtraction facts. In Writer’s Workshop we are starting to publish our personal narratives. Good writers always go back and reread their ideas and they choose ONE seed story that they want to develop it and watch it grow into a final piece! We are also working on writing seed stories, not giant watermelon topics. In Social Studies this week we’ve been working on Maps. We made a compass rose, which shows our directions. We learned that the cardinal directions are North, South, East & West. We learned a catchy phrase that will help us remember the order they go in. “Never Eat Soggy Waffles”. There are also in-between directions, that we call intermediate directions. They are Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast. We learned that the city we live in is Schiller Park. The state we live in is called Illinois. We know that Illinois is one of 50 states in our country. Our country’s name is U.S.A. There are 3 countries in our continent of North America. There are 7 continents on our planet, which is called Earth. In P.E. we are learning about football. In Art we are making portraits. Speedy is going home with Julia this weekend!

This Week's News

2009-09-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

This week we started Reading Room. We were doing centers like making words, building sentences, and we played Outburst. We will begin reading books next week. Thursday was Curriculum Night (Open House). Our parents came in to see our classroom & Miss Gosche raffled off 2 great prize buckets for those families who attended. Stefania and Simon were the big winners! Today was the first day of computers. We learned how to use the new Macs with Ms. Parkhill. In Math we worked on more line number puzzles. We read a story in our Adventure Book about not copying other people’s work. We also practiced some more addition facts in our daily practice problems. In Writer’s Workshop we are working on Personal Narratives (true stories). We learned 2 important strategies this week. We should think of a person who is important to us or think of a place that’s important to us, and list small moments. In Reader’s Workshop we learned all about finding books that are JUST RIGHT. We shopped for books to add to our book boxes. We also started giving ourselves grades each time we do Reader’s Workshop. We talked about diving into good books & getting lost in good books, too. We came up with a P.O.A (plan of action) for Reader’s Workshop, which is 1. Choose a book, 2. Read, 3. Think, 4. Read Some More, and 5. Respond in our notebooks! In Social Studies, we put together paper community buildings, like apartments, police stations, fire stations, houses, hotels, and restaurants. Speedy is staying at school this weekend! Remember to choose a weekend or two and turn in Speedy's Field Trip Schedule form so Miss Gosche can make his schedule!

A Peek At Our 1st Full Week

2009-09-04T12:53:00.000-07:00

In Social Studies we have been learning about communities. The three types of communities are: suburban, rural, and urban. We have been doing many fun projects. Today we finished City Mouse/Country Mouse. We had to pick if we wanted to be a city mouse and live in the city, or a country mouse and explain why. In Math, we did our first TIMS Lab called Kind of Bean. We took a sample of beans from the population and counted the number of beans for each kind. We put our data in the data table and then we made a graph. We made sure to label our graph (the horizontal axis and vertical axis). For Writer’s Workshop, we had to decorate our notebooks. We shared them with our class. In Reader’s Workshop, we decorated our book boxes & we added some useful tools that we will use during Reader’s Workshop. We read Library Dragon and the librarian in the story wouldn’t let the students touch the books! Our classroom library isn’t like that. We brainstormed good ways to take care of the books in our library. In Art we are learning about shapes and lines. In P.E. we did our Fitness Testing this week. REMINDER: There is no school on Monday because it’s Labor Day! ☺ Speedy will be going home with Natalie this weekend! Have a great 3-day weekend! –Room 203

New Year....New Adventures!

2009-09-04T06:31:00.000-07:00

WELCOME to all the new 3rd grade students of Room 203~! We are going to have so much fun learning together this year!

Meeting our 'Online Buddies'

2009-06-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

Today our class had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Fairview Elementary School in Mount Prospect, IL to meet our 'online buddies' that we have been collaborating with virtually all year! We got to know each other by writing a buddy cinqain poem, we created WORDLE word clouds of words that described our collaboration experience this year, and we created a presentation in Google Docs about our experiences this year! We had a picnic lunch together outside & finished off our visit by playing together on the playground at Fairview. It was neat seeing a different school and touring their building. Check out our pictures below:

Pictures from the Zoo!

2009-05-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

3rd graders went to the Brookfield Zoo today! Check out the pictures below:

Dinosaur Fair Tonight!

2009-05-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

Please come to our Dinosaur Fair tonight from 6:30-7:30pm. The 3rd graders worked extremely hard on their dinosaur projects & are excited to show you their work! Check out some of the projects:

A Peek At Our Week

2009-05-15T08:04:00.001-07:00

In Science this week we’ve been learning about dinosaurs. We learned that paleontologists excavate fossils. There are 5 different types of fossils (eggs, bones, teeth, skin imprints, and footprints). This week we made our own imitation fossils using seashells. We practiced excavating fake fossils (aka chocolate chips) from a cookie using toothpicks. It is very hard work, and we learned that paleontologists must be very careful when digging for fossils. This week we picked our dinosaur for the dinosaur fair project. Each of us will study our own dinosaur and become experts. We will write a dinosaur report and make a science fair board for the Dinosaur Fair on Thursday, May 28^th. Each of us will also create a visual project at home. In P.E. we are doing fitness testing. Reading Room is finished and now the reading room teachers are testing all the 3^rd grade students to see how much we’ve grown. This week we added fish to our aquarium. Bubbles is our class goldfish, and Gary is our snail (who moves incredibly fast)! Wednesday was job juggling day. Miss Lisinski, who teaches 1^st grade was our teacher, and Miss Gosche taught 1^st grade for the day! In Writer’s Workshop we are working on writing essays about characters from the text. We read Streganona and took a close look at Big Anthony’s character. In Reader’s Workshop we read Mr. George Baker and worked more on making inferences. Julia will be taking Speedy home this weekend! REMINDER: Auditions for the talent show will be next week on Monday! In Math this week we learned DOUBLE DIGIT multiplication! We are really going to WOW our 4^th grade teachers! We are finishing up our Young Author Books because Young Author Night is next Thursday, May 21^st!!!! We hope to see LOTS of families that night . Our books are AMAZING and we can’t wait to share them! As we finish our Young Author illustrations, Miss Gosche is helping us record our books and we will create an iMovie.

New Tool

2009-05-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

Last Friday we started one of our Mother's Day gifts for the special lady in our lives. We used Wordle (www.wordle.net) which is a great, free tool!~ According to their website, "Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide." The words that appear more frequently in the text, show up bigger in the word cloud. Students then customized their word cloud with different fonts, layouts, and colors. We printed them out and are turning them into some awesome hanging pictures, but you can also save them to the Wordle gallery to share with

your friends. Check out some of ours below:

This Week.....

2009-05-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

This week we saw the 4th and 5th graders perform a multicultural show. In P.E. we are learning about baseball and softball. In Art we worked on our illustrations for our Young Author Books. In Science we are finishing up learning about the water cycle. Condensation is when the gas changes back to a liquid and becomes a cloud. We learned about the different cloud types, and had cloud stations. We painted clouds, used shaving cream to make clouds and mixed shaving cream and glue to make a 3D cloud. We learned the Water Cycle Song with Miss McSorley’s class. Next Friday the 3rd graders will share this song & everything we learned about the water cycle with the whole school at the Spirit Assembly. To show what we know about the water cycle, we made pictures using SumoPaint. In Writer’s Workshop we are working on literary essays and trying to jump into the story. Wednesday night was Bug Bonanza! The Peggy Notebaert Museum brought spiders, grasshoppers, centipedes, and cockroaches for the kids to see. Classrooms were open with fun activities for families. We found out that on Donors Choose, our Aquarium Project was fully funded! We can’t wait to get a fish tank for our classroom! Pictures coming soon! Does anyone have any ideas for names for our fish? Siyana is taking Speedy home this weekend. We took our Cycle 5 Math and Reading tests this week. Check out pictures below from our Cloud Centers! Learning is messy.......

2009-04-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

In Science we are learning about the Water Cycle. We learned that water comes in 3 different forms: liquid, solid, and gas. We learned that the Earth is 75% water and only 1% is drinkable! We brainstormed ways we can conserve water. Water evaporates, or changes from a liquid to a gas, when it is heated. When it rained this week, we traced the outline of puddles and saw the next day that the water had evaporated. We also painted using colored salt water. The water evaporated leaving the colorful salt pictures. We are also doing experiments. We put celery in 3 different cups. One with red water, one with plain water, and one with no water to see the changes that happen. We know water can be found in oceans, lakes, rivers, seas, in the soil, and in all living things. In Reader’s Workshop we worked on making inferences. We used animal pictures on the National Geographic for Kids website to infer what the characters were thinking. To inference means to figure out what the author means, because authors don’t always tell us everything. To practice making inferences, we used bumper stickers to figure out what they mean, who would put it on their car, and why they would want to put it on their car. Wednesday was Earth Day, and we read Michael Recycle. We talked about ways we can take care of our Earth. In Math we’ve been practicing 2 and 3 digit times 1 digit multiplication! We are getting ready for 4th grade! In Reading Room we have been working on our Young Author’s Books. On Thursday we went to see Disney Nature’s EARTH movie. We learned about different animals in different parts of our world.Today we got our caterpillars. We will watch them go through the life cycle and turn into a butterfly. Today we also have a Survivor Game Show Assembly. Daniela will be taking Speedy home this weekend!t was awesome! In cursive this week we learned the letters y, v, and z. On Monday, we had a special treat. Miss Houf, who used to teach 3rd grade at Kennedy, came from the Peggy Notebaert Children’s Nature Museum, and brought insects with her! She brought walking sticks, crickets, hissing cockroaches, and a giant grasshopper. To teach the different body parts of an insect, she dressed up Miss Gosche! Check out our slideshow below! Rickie was our photographer for the day!

News for April 8th-10th

2009-04-13T05:37:00.000-07:00

We had a VERY short week…only 3 days! This week in the Reading Room, we started Young Authors. We each will be writing our own story. First we come up with our ideas, then write a sloppy copy of our story, then the teacher checks it, and we publish! We even draw our own illustrations. In Math we worked with tangrams. We made different puzzles in the shapes of things like a giraffe, a horse, a cat, and a duck. We made our own pictures using tans, too! This week we officially got rid of our regular chairs. We now sit on exercise balls all day long! It’s cool. In Science we are finishing our Human Body Theme and learning about the food pyramid and nutrition. Today we are having a healthy food party. We have a field trip coming up on Thursday, April 23rd. To celebrate Earth Day (a day late) we are going to the movie theater to see Disney’s new movie, Earth. This week on Tasty Thursday we tried asparagus, and today for Fruity Friday we are having strawberries! Speedy will even have some because he LOVES strawberries! This week on Thursday we had a Spirit Assembly and Daniela won the Caring Award for our class. Today we have another assembly. A planetarium is coming, and we will learn about dinosaurs! Speedy will be going home with Julia this weekend.

ToonDoo

2009-03-29T19:27:00.001-07:00

Our class has been exploring with an awesome website, http://www.toondoo.com/
With this free website, students have the ability to create a comic strip choosing their own characters, backgrounds, and speech bubbles. To practice using this new tool, for morning work on Friday, we used ToonDoo to create comics explaining how the digestive system works (great review of what we learned in Science this week). Check out some of our comics:

Digestive System by room203 | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

A Peek at Our Week.....

2009-03-20T13:09:00.001-07:00

This week in Writer's Workshop we continued working on essays. Since it was St. Patrick's Day, we wrote a 5 paragraph essay on 3 wishes we would want granted if a leprechaun would grant us 3 things. We've been working on adding details and stretching our writing. On Tuesday, we went on a Field Trip to the Museum of Science and Industry. There were so many neat exhibits at the museum. We went to a show called "Poop Happens" which taught us all about the digestive system and what happens to our food after we eat it. Even though it was kind of gross, it taught us a lot about the organs that make up our digestive system. In Science this week, we focused on the circulatory system. We learned all about the heart, which is a muscle that never gets tired and works all the time pumping blood throughout our bodies. We also learned how blood circulates, or moves, through our body. We made mobiles to help make this concept clear for us! On Thursday we did an activity with our online buddies in Mount Prospect. Both classes read the book Jamie O'Rourke and the POOKA and we used the Macs to have a virtual book chat to discuss story elements. Check out the pictures below (older blog posting). This week we started a "caring" service-learning project called Pennies for Patients. We watched a Charlie Brown movie that helped us understand and learn about people who suffer from cancer, and more specifically the blood cancer called leukemia. Students across the country are collecting pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters during Pennies for Patients to help find a cure. Next week is our last week of school before SPRING BREAK! WOO HOO! Speedy is spending the weekend at Kennedy. Have a great weekend! Enjoy the beautiful weather.

Virtual Book Chat

2009-03-19T12:43:00.000-07:00

Today we participated in a virtual book chat with our online buddies in Mount Prospect! Both classes read the book Jamie O'Rourke and the POOKA by Tomie DePaola. Our classes divided up into 5 groups, where we discussed the book's story elements. Our classroom had a PC laptop with a Google Doc where we had questions to discuss with our online buddies (ex: Where did the story take place? Who were the main characters?). We took turns "driving" or typing on the laptop. We also had another laptop, a Mac, that we used to Skype (video conference) with our buddies. The Macs are very cool and we like them because we're able to see our buddies and they are able to see us! We discussed the book together, and then discussed ideas for our next collaborative project! Check out pictures from today:

A Peek at Our Week

2009-03-16T05:22:00.000-07:00

This week we finished ISAT testing on Wednesday. We were happy and relieved that testing is over! In Music we learned 3 dances: Swedish, Russian and French. In P.E. we had a fitness day. This week we practiced multiplication. Some people are finishing their multiplication quizzes, which means they’ve passed all quizzes 0-12. To review word wall words, we played Catch My Fish. This week we didn’t have Art because Wednesday was a 1/2 day (parent/teacher conferences). In Science we learned about the nervous system. We cut out our paper brains and put them on our mini-me bodies. We did an experiment to test our reaction time, which is how long it takes for messages to move through our bodies. We also tested our memories to see if we could remember what someone looked like. There is a game on our website we can play! In Writer’s Workshop we wrote an essay about why the nervous system is important. We also wrote “The Best Part of Me…” and typed them up on the computer. Next week we will record these, and we will turn them into a movie using iMovie on the Macs. Next week we have a field trip on Tuesday. We are going to the Museum of Science and Industry to learn more about the human body. In Cursive this week, we learned the letters “o” and “c”. Congratulations to table 3! They were the winners of the most group points and won lunch bunch with Miss Gosche. Today we worked in the morning chatting with our online buddies about our stories. We spent time during computers editing and fixing up our stories so they can be published. Speedy will be spending the weekend with Julia!

WANTED: More Ball Chairs

2009-03-07T07:41:00.001-08:00

If you are interested in donating for our Ball Chairs Project on DonorsChoose, please click here. Any amount is welcome!

The ball chairs have been fantastic, but we only have 6 and we're asking to receive 10 more!

Click here to see pictures of how much we love using the ball chairs.

A Peek at our Week.......

2009-03-06T10:39:00.000-08:00

This week, we had no school on Monday to celebrate Casimir Pulaski Day! Tuesday was our first day of ISAT, the state test we take for the first time in 3rd grade. We were all a little nervous, but lots of visitors stopped by to wish us good luck. Some classrooms made us goodie bags, too! The ISAT has been going great! We're just showing how much we know! Everyday after ISAT, Miss Gosche gives us "chillax" time where we can chill out and relax after trying hard on the test. Since we finished reading Matilda last week as our class read-aloud, we watched the movie, which was really good. In Math this week, we've been learning a lot! On Tuesday we reviewed flips, slides and turns and 3D shapes. On Wednesday we learned about fractions using Hershey Chocolate Bars! On Thursday we learned about probability, or chance, using M&Ms. We all go our own bag of M&Ms and counted up how many of each color we had. Then we wrote down which color we were most likely to pick, and least likely to pick. We also learned probability words, like impossible, certain, and equally likely. We put all of our M&Ms in a cup, and randomly picked one 20 times to see if our experiment matched. It was fun! On Friday we learned about pictographs, which are graphs made with picture symbols. Usually the symbol represents more than 1. This week in Science we've been learning about the Nervous System. The brain, spinal cord and nerves make up the Nervous System. We learned about the different parts of our brain, the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the medulla and what those parts of the brain control. We even made brain hats! Next week, we'll add the brain to our mini-bodies. Computer Lab today was in the classrooms. Mrs. Risolvo brought in iPod Touches and we worked in small groups. Some of us partnered up and watched some videos about staying healthy and the food pyramid on the iPod Touches, while others watched a nutrition video on the Promethean Board. The iPod Touches were SOOOO cool! The weather has been beautiful lately. We are really enjoying being able to play outside!!!! :) This weekend, Speedy is going home with Siyana. Have a good weekend!

Remember, report cards are going home today and Spring Conferences are next Wednesday, March 11th.

Learning is Messy....

2009-02-17T11:03:00.000-08:00

This Week's News.....

2009-02-13T08:42:00.000-08:00

This week in Reader's Workshop we worked on Problem and Solution. We read Chicks and Salsa by Aaron Reynolds. In Writer's Workshop we are continuing with our boxes and bullets to help us in essay writing. This week we wrote an essay all about why working with our Kindergarten Buddies is fun. We even looked at a finished essay written by a 3rd grade student and looked for the main idea and supporting details. In Math, we learned about capacity and made the Gallon Man. We're continuing to learn our multiplication facts, too. In Science we're finishing up the Skeletal System. Wednesday was the 100th day of SchooL! We did lots of fun activities! The most fun was looking for 100 hershey kisses that were hidden around our classroom. We didn't find them all, so our eyes are still scanning the room!~ Thursday was the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday! We read the Time for Kids magazine and learned all about Lincoln's life. Time for Kids also had an article about 2008's best books for kids. We really want to read the Caldecott Medal (best illustrations) winner, The House in the Night. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman received the Newberry Medal (the top author's prize). Friday we are celebrating Valentine's Day at school, so it should be fun!

President Obama's Inauguration Speech

2009-01-31T09:51:00.000-08:00

News for January 26th-30th

2009-01-30T08:54:00.000-08:00

Monday was an exciting day because a new student joined our classroom community! Now we have 19 students in Room 203! In Science we continued learning about the Respiratory System. The parts that make up the Respiratory System are: nose/mouth, trachea (windpipe), bronchial tubes, lungs, alveoli, and diaphragm. In P.E. we are learning how to play volleyball. In Reader’s Workshop we worked on finding common nouns and proper nouns in our books. In Writer’s Workshop we graduated from personal narrative stories, and we’re moving on to ESSAYS! We learned that authors grow their essay ideas by listening, observing, noticing, studying, and overhearing! Then writer’s say, “This makes me think of…” We practiced this strategy by listening to a song from the movie August Rush. We listened for different sounds and wrote a NEW IDEA that the sound made us think of! In Math this week we practiced multiplication/division fact families. We’re still reviewing the 0s, 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s. Next week we will be starting our timed multiplication quizzes! On Tuesday for flexible reading groups, we traveled to Mrs. Karas’ room to learn about story elements. On Thursday we had flexible math groups and learned different things about measurement. Wednesday was a 1/2 day and next week Wednesday it is a Teacher Institute Day so we don’t have school! Tomorrow is Ms. Henkel’s birthday! In Cursive this week, we learned the letters f, and s. This weekend, Speedy is staying at Kennedy! Have a nice weekend! See you in February!

It's Been Quite Some Time....

2009-01-23T08:56:00.001-08:00

.....since we've written in our blog (no school last Friday due to extreme cold weather). This week, there was no school on Monday to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. day. Tuesday was an exciting day, as it was the inauguration day of President Barack Obama! It was fun to watch as he took the oath of office and officially became the 44th president. What a historic moment to watch the 1st African American president take office! In Math this week we've continued working on our multiplication facts. In flex reading groups this week we traveled to Mrs. Bricker's room to learn about context clues. In Reader's Workshop this week we focused on character traits. We read I Hate English! and focused on Mei-Mei's character. We also read The Wolf Who Cried Boy which was a twist on the Traditional Literature folk tale The Boy Who Cried Wolf. It had a lot of witty jokes in it and we definitely recommend it. In Science we began learning about the Respiratory System, which is the system of the body that brings oxygen in an removes carbon dioxide from our bodies. We learned that when we breathe in, it's called inhaling, and when we breathe out, it's called exhaling. Oxygen is the one gas our body needs to stay alive! After learning about the parts of the respiratory system and what happens when we breathe oxygen into our bodies, we were able to color and cut out lungs/trachea to glue onto our mini-me paper bodies! We will continue learning about the different systems of the body. On Thursday we did Project Recycle for the 2nd week. We love being responsible for collecting the recycling for the entire schooL! We will try to take pictures next week so you can see us in action! We do a very good job sharing the responsibility and working together! Today we did a project with our online buddies in the morning and made SNOW with our Kindergarten buddies in the afternoon! We had a great day! Speedy is staying at Kennedy this weekend....no field trip for him! Hope you all have a great weekend!

Digital Projects from December

2009-01-09T08:45:00.000-08:00

Enjoy the slideshow....you'll see pictures of our holiday gift (digitally editing photos on picnik.com and online collaboration with our buddies in Mount Prospect, IL). Check out our wiki to see more of our projects with the 3rd graders at Fairview Elementary!

Area Maps of Our Classroom

2009-01-09T08:27:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of the Area Maps we made of our classroom before Winter Break!

A Peek at Our First Week of 2009

2009-01-09T08:15:00.000-08:00

In Math, we are beginning multiplication. We will need to learn and memorize our multiplication tables. We are starting a new Science theme: The Human Body & Nutrition. In Reader’s Workshop on Monday, we reviewed story elements while reading Pete & Pickles. We discussed the different genres of fiction and nonfiction. This week we focused on Realistic Fiction books. We read Thank You, Mr. Falker and Going Home. We also read Axle Annie and the Speed Grump. In Writer’s Workshop we worked on more personal narratives about First Times and Last Times. We received 8 new postcards this week from the states of: Kansas, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Tennessee, Georgia, and West Virginia. On Thursday we did Flexible Math Groups in the afternoon. We visited other third grade classrooms for math. Today is Polar Express Day, since we missed it on December 19th due to the Snow Day. Today we had our first Spirit Day Assembly. The whole school gathered in the gym and recognized students who were generous during the month of December. Abel received the award from our classroom! Congrats, Abel! We also learned our new School Pledge which is: “Today I promise to do my best, I will be responsible with my actions, I will be respectful to myself and others, and I’m ready to learn!” Kindergarten shared with the whole school some of their songs (like the alphabet song and the months of the year song). Next month, the Spirit Assembly will award respectful students! We also started using Tumble Books this week, which is a website where we can read and listen to books online. This week in cursive, we learned the letters h and k. Siyana is taking Speedy home this weekend. Have a good weekend!

P.S. We FINALLY were able to paint our landform models that we made quite awhile back. They took forever to dry, but we painted them this week. Check out the pictures below:

This Week's News

2008-11-14T08:26:00.001-08:00

This Monday we went to the Morton Arboretum for our first field trip. We learned about the water cycle and how nature recycles its materials. It was very cold! BRRRR! Tuesday was Veteran’s Day. We invited veterans and parents to come see our performance. In Reader’s Workshop this week, Miss Anna taught us a lesson on connections. In Writer’s Workshop we are planting our seed stories onto paper and working on fixing up our writing. Next week we will publish our personal narratives! In Math, we reviewed place value. We are learning a place value game that we will teach our online buddies in Mount Prospect. In cursive this week, we learned the letters i and t. In P.E. we had a free day. Today we are going to an assembly called The Power of One (about bullying). In Social Studies this week, we’ve been researching Washington D.C. and we started making a brochure to welcome the Obama family to their new home. Today is our first Fruity Friday! Mrs. Boryszewski was able to win a grant and get money for our school to give healthy snacks out! Every Friday, each class will get to try a new fresh fruit! Dominika is taking Speedy home this weekend. Check out pictures from our field trip below:

Our Ball Chairs Have Arrived

2008-11-12T14:26:00.001-08:00

As you've read from our previous blog entries, our class posted a grant proposal on the Donor's Choose website, where people can donate money to school projects and help teachers fund projects for their classrooms & students. One of our projects was called "On the Ball...." and we were requesting 6 large exercise balls to use as chairs in the classroom. I wanted the 3rd graders in Room 203 to be "on the ball" in reading, math and writing, and what better way then by providing exercise ball seats! All teachers search for ways to promote learning and engagement in their classrooms. Creating a motivating, engaging, and creative learning environment is always on the top of my list!

The balls arrived on Monday, and with the help of an electric air pump, we inflated them all! They're orange (they perfectly match our Promethean Board) and the kids love them! Check them out:

A Peek at Our Week

2008-11-07T09:21:00.000-08:00

On Monday this week, we all did a school vote for our country's next president! We all got our own ballots and voted in a voting booth for John McCain or Barack Obama. We even got an I VOTED sticker after! The winner of the Kennedy School Presidential Elections was Barack Obama! We didn't have school on Tuesday since it was Election Day. We all watched the elections at night to see that Barack Obama won with 364 electoral votes (he only needed 270 to win). Wednesday we learned about the different regions in our country and which states are in each region. We used candy to represent the different landforms in the United States! On Thursday in Reader's Workshop we read If I Were President and talked about all the different jobs a president has when in office. In Writer's Workshop we worked on planting our BEST seed story from our writer's workshop journsl on a piece of paper to grow and develop into a writing piece to publish! This week we read The Scrambled States of America and even watched the movie version! Today we chatted with our "online buddies" (the 3rd grade class in Mount Prospect) on gmail. We had music today, too. It was our last music class before our Veteran's Day show next Tuesday. Earlier this week, real veterans came to talk to our classroom. We got to ask them questions and learn all about what it was like to be a soldier in a war. We are very excited for them to come to our Veteran's Day show next week!! In computers this week, we started researching for our WELCOME TO WASHINGTON,D.C. brochures we will be making for the Obama family! Malia and Sasha, and Mr. and Mrs. Obama will probably want to learn about all the monuments and buildings they can see when they move to Washingotn, D.C., so we are going to make them a brochure and send them to the Obama's! Julia will be taking Speedy home this weekend. We received 4 new postcards for our postcard exchange project this week, Louisiana (2), New York (1), and Utah (1). Have a great weekend!!!!!!

This Week's News.....BOO!

2008-10-31T08:33:00.001-07:00

This week in Social Studies we learned about landforms. We made a dough and put it in a landform mold. When it dries we will paint it and label the landforms. In Math, we did Candy Corn math, where we practiced multiplication and division fact families. In Reader’s Workshop we’ve been working on making good connections to what we read. We read Duck for President and Roberto the Insect Architect. We also read The Wall by Eve Bunting and learned about Veteran’s Day (coming up on November 11th). In Writer’s Workshop we’ve been practicing writing great leads, which are the first sentences of the story to hook the reader! In P.E. we started basketball. In Art we painted Picassos. Our postcard exchange project is going great! This week we received 8 new postcards. We now have postcards from 15 of the 50 states. Today is HALLOWEEN! We have our parade at 1:30 and our party afterwards. We brought LOTS of goodies! Our class’s ball chair project was fully funded on the Donor’s Choose website! We will soon have 6 large exercise balls to use as chairs! Thanks to everyone who donated money for our classroom!

This Week's News from Room 203

2008-10-24T08:44:00.000-07:00

This week in Reader’s Workshop we learned another way we can respond in our Reader’s Workshop journals. We practiced making connections. We read Sparky the Firefighter to practice this strategy. We also worked on picking out the adjectives in a story. We read The Night I Followed My Dog by Nina Laden. In Writer’s Workshop we practiced telling stories, instead of just saying what happened. We learned that great writers write so that readers can feel like they are there (in the story)! This week we received new postcards from Washington, Alaska, Texas, Nevada, California, Florida, and Pennsylvania. We now have 20 total postcards from 12 different states. In Social Studies we are learning about landforms, which are different ways our land is shaped. In Math, we’ve been practicing subtraction facts with flashcards. We learned strategies to help us when we subtract 9 or 10 using a hundreds chart. The answer to a subtraction problem is called a difference. We also started multiplication this week! We practiced multiplication number sentences using cookie crisps! This week, we also started cursive! We put shaving cream on our tables, and practiced some of the strokes that we will use when learning cursive letters. Friday is Matthew’s birthday. This weekend Julia will be taking Speedy home. In P.E. we are learning about fitness. This week was red ribbon week (drug awareness week). Each day we did something fun to promise to just say no to drugs Monday was turn your back on drugs so we wore our shirts backwards. Tuesday was put a cap on drugs, so we wore hats to school. Wednesday was sock it to drugs, so we wore crazy socks. Thursday was team up against drugs, and we wore our favorite sports team shirt to school. Friday is saying no to drugs is no sweat, so we are wearing sweats and pajamas today. We decorated our door for the door-decorating contest, which will be judged today!

Our First VoiceThread

2008-10-18T09:42:00.001-07:00

A Peek At Our Week (October 13-17)

2008-10-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

This week we received our first postcards in the mail for our Postcard Exchange Project. Our goal is to get a postcard from all 50 states. So far we’ve received 13 postcards from the following states: Florida, Texas, Vermont, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Michigan. In Reader’s Workshop we reviewed our Workshop Plan which is to 1. Choose a book, 2. Read, 3. Think, 4. Read some more, and 5. Respond. In Writer’s Workshop we read Library Mouse which was about a mouse who was an author and wrote about what he knew. He wrote lots of different genres (kinds) of books and he taught the kids that they were all authors, too! This week we used the Activotes (the eggs) to review for our Reading Cycle Test. In Math we worked on Magic Squares, which are squares where each line equals the same sum. On Wednesday we had a very special visitor. Mr. Bren, an artist, came to visit Kennedy School. He started Project Smile, where he leaves his paintings for people to take for FREE! But the new owner has to promise to smile more often! We went to an all school assembly to learn about his project, and then he visited Room 203 to teach us how to draw his creations. He’s so cool! He gave our school one of his paintings. We are so lucky! If you come to Kennedy School you will see lots of smiling kids & teachers! This week we’ve been working on the Halloween Story with our online buddies in Mount Prospect. We write a little of the story, and then they continue where we left on. We are using Google Documents to share and work together on a story. We can’t wait to show you our story when it’s done. We sure have been writing a lot this week!! Our next project with our online buddies is to create a VoiceThread to teach them a math game from Math Trailblazers. Announcement: The food drive is going on at Kennedy, so please bring non-perishable foods. Dominika will be taking Speedy home this weekend! Today we have Music and Computer Lab. We also made our first VoiceThread today. It’s like a mini-movie. Click the link below to check it out:

http://voicethread.com/share/224433/

Have a good weekend!

A Peek At Our Week.....

2008-10-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

In Social Studies we reviewed the 7 continents, and the 4 oceans. We made a compass rose. We learned that the cardinal directions are North, South, East, and West. A trick to remember which order they go in is, ‘Never Eat Soggy Waffles”! We also learned the intermediate directions: northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest. In Reader’s Workshop we started writing in our Reader’s Response Journals. When we read books, we think about them and respond in our journals. We put our thinking in writing. They are like maps of our reading adventures! This week we read Wolf and Jumpy Jack and Googily. In Writer’s Workshop we learned another strategy to write personal narratives (true stories). We think of an object that’s special to us. We also talked about the difference between a watermelon story and a seed story. On Monday this week the Schiller Park Fire Department came and taught fire safety. Only call 911 if it’s an emergency. In P.E. we started soccer. Today we’re starting a project with our online buddies, and we’re visiting our Kindergarten buddies this afternoon.

New Mix Tape!

2008-10-05T11:47:00.001-07:00

What We Did This Week.........

2008-10-03T07:24:00.001-07:00

This week we played football in P.E. In Social Studies we started a new theme! We will be learning about the 50 states. We are starting a postcard exchange project, where we are trying to get a postcard from each of the 50 states. We reviewed the words universe, galaxy, Earth, continent, country, state, and city. In Math this week we used connecting cubes to help us with an addition strategy. We tried to make groups of 10 to make adding easier. In Reader’s Workshop we got new tools, like a journal, a pencil, bookmarks, pointer sticks, and word finders. to help us become better readers! We read Oh The Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss. We also read Miss Malarkey Leaves No Reader Behind. It helped us get pumped up about AR (accelerated reader). Some of us even started taking AR quizzes this week!
On Monday we brought back our decorated writer’s workshop notebooks and shared them with the class. We learned two new strategies to help us write personal narratives (true stories). We would brainstorm a special person, or a special place, and think of clear, small moments that happened. In Art we made Christmas Cards for a contest. 1st place winners get a $50 gift card to Toys R Us. 2nd place winners get a $25 gift card. This week we also reviewed and practiced fact/opinion. Have a good weekend!

This Week's News....

2008-09-26T12:34:00.001-07:00

This week in Math we worked on Line Puzzles. We cut out numbers and figured out where they went in the puzzle to reach a sum. A sum is the answer to an addition problem. On Thursday, we used our Adventure Books for the first time, which is a comic book for Math! We learned not to copy, but to ask for help if things are hard! In Reader’s Workshop, we learned how to pick Just Right Books using the 5 finger rule and we read the book called Goldilocks & the Three Hares. We “shopped” in our classroom library to find Just Right Books for our book boxes. This week, we also learned strategies to use when we get to a hard word. We should look at the beginning & the ending letters of the word and see if we can also find little chunks or little words we already know! Good readers ask “Does this make sense?” If it doesn’t, they should STOP and go back to re-read. In Writer’s Workshop, we learned that writer’s have a saying: “When you’re done, you’ve just begun!” We learned what we can do if we think we’re done writing. We can add to the picture, add to our words or start a new piece! In Social Studies, we worked in community groups, and made our communities with the buildings we made on the computer. Thursday night was Open House!!! We were so excited to show our parents the Promethean Board & Activotes (we call them the eggs). We recorded our voices so our parents could hear a special surprise when they came! Speaking of the eggs, we got to practice answering questions using the eggs. It was really fun! In P.E. we played football & finished fitness testing. This week, 3rd grade chorus started, too! They will practice after school every Thursday. Have a good weekend!

Class News

2008-09-12T07:51:00.000-07:00

This week we started Contract Spelling. On Mondays we always take a pre-test and we decide how many words we want to study for the week. We practice our words all week long and take a test on Friday. In P.E. we had fitness testing. In Math we learned about populations and samples. We did a fun math lesson using different kinds of beans. We counted them & recorded our data in a table first, and then graphed our data. Our first theme in Social Studies is Communities. We learned about the 3 types of communities: Rural, Urban, and Suburban. We live in a suburban community. To see the different types of communities from ABOVE, we used Google Earth. We noticed that in urban communities, like Chicago, all the buildlings were close together, but in rural communities we noticed lots of open spaces for crops to grow. In Reader's Workshop we brainstormed ways to take care of our classroom library. In Writer's Workshop we began writing small moment stories. We learned that authors write about things that they know! This month we're focusing on FRIENDSHIP so we talked about how to be a good friend and read the book Horris, Morris, but Mostly Dolores!

Enjoy Some Tunes!

2008-08-12T22:10:00.001-07:00

2008-08-12T22:04:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Room 203’s classroom blog. You might be wondering….what’s a blog? It is an online journal. This site is built for students, parents, friends & family. Please use it to stay informed of all the great things happening in our classroom. We hope that by visiting our classroom blog, you will get a better idea of what we do in 3rd Grade. Every Friday we will be sharing some of our exciting, fun learning experiences. This will encourage good writing technique and let students work on skills while informing you what is going on in our class! I hope you find this blog useful throughout the school year. Enjoy your visit & check back often!

To my Smarties….it’s still summer, but I have been busy cleaning, organizing, and planning for an amazingly fun-filled new school year! I look foward to meeting all of you & your families soon! I can’t wait to hear all about your summer! Enjoy your last week(s) of summer, but get some rest so you have lots of energy for all the learning we will be doing in 3rd Grade! See you on Wednesday, August 27th!

Check out this video on why students should blog: