New Spelling Words

The new spelling words for the week are:  

1. save 2. school 3.father 4. keep 5. safe 6. grade 7.reached 8.raise 9.theme 10.scream 11.easy 12.batteries 13.fuel 14.iron 15.solve 16.science

Short Story Reading

The students were given short nonfiction stories to read independently.  After reading their stories, they answered multiple choice questions to show their understanding of what they read.  They highlighted the part of their story that helped them answer these questions correctly.  Tomorrow I will meet with them in small groups to go over their answers.  Hopefully, this will lead to good discussions about the stories they read.

Happy Thanksgiving

I would like to wish each of you a Happy Thanksgiving!  I would like to say thank you to all of you for allowing me the opportunity to teach such a great group of third graders.  Enjoy your long weekend with family and friends.

Yet Another November Birthday

Today we celebrated Allison's birthday.  She will be turning 9 years old on Friday.  Her beautiful mom made some delicious cookies for the class.  I would like to thank both of them and wish Allison a Happy Birthday!

Coding At Cooper

At the end of the day, our class went to Ms. Marzouki's first grade classroom to help them learn how to code.  Each student was paired with a first grader.  They helped the first graders navigate to code.org.  They helped them sign in too.  After signing in, the third graders help them with understanding how to code.  It was a great learning experience for us all.  We are planning on making this a weekly occurrence.

Magazine Article

The students each read a magazine article from Ranger Rick over the past three days.  After reading their article they had to figure out the main idea of their article.  They had to complete other reading tasks with their article as well.  Brayden's work is shown below.

Why do the baby owls hiss at their mothers if they want food?

Main Idea- Mother owls go through a lot of trouble to get their owlets a worm.

4 supporting details-

1.The baby owlets hiss at their mother to alert her to get him/her a worm.

2.After the mother owl gives her owlet a worm he starts hissing again to get a new one.

3.Mother owls find the worms on farms.

4. Mothers have to go through 4 steps to get a worm: search and find, grab and pull,conquer the worm and fly away home.

conquer- To take control of something or someone by force.

duty- Something that you have to do.

little owls are AWESOME

ample- A lot of something.

Baby owlets hiss, so their mother knows to get them a worm.

The mother owl goes to the farm, because they need worms to eat.

Baby owlets are hungry animals, so they hiss at their mothers.

Mother owls go through a lot of trouble to get their owlets a worm. First they know that when their owlets hiss that they need to find food for them. Second when they get to the farm they search for the worm. Third when they find the worm they have to grab the worm and pull it. Fourth they have to conquer the worm and take control of it. Last they fly home with the worm and let their owlet eat it. Soon after the owlet eats the worm it starts hissing again.  

Early Release

Just a quick reminder that school dismisses at 1:00 tomorrow instead of 2:00.  

Gym

Today the students played Turkey Shoot in gym.  In this game some students pulled scooters across the middle of the gym.  On their scooters was a cone with a picture of a turkey attached to it.  Other students stood on the sides of the gym.  They threw balls at these moving targets.  Their goal was to knock the cones off of the scooters.  Of course, the goal of the students pulling the scooters was to keep the cones or turkeys safely on their scooters.  It looked like a lot of fun.

Repeated Subtraction

The students were given the following problem and then asked to solve this problem using subtraction.
Tanner made 12 tacos.  He wanted to share two tacos with each friend.  How many friends could he share his tacos with?
In solving this problem, they learned that you can use repeated subtraction when solving a division problem.

Another November Birthday

Today was Allie's birthday.  She is now 9 years old.  I would like to say happy birthday to Allie one last time and to thank her family for the birthday treat she shared with us.

Hmong New Year

A group of high school students from North High School came to our school today.  They taught us about the Hmong culture.  They danced, sang songs, wore traditional clothing, played games and told us a story about their immigration to the United States.  Our school learned a lot from them.  They invited us to join them for the Hmong New Year this weekend at North High School.  If you get an opportunity feel free to go to North High School and help them celebrate this special holiday.

Thanksgiving Stories

The students started working on writing a persuasive Thanksgiving story today.  First we read the book, "My Lucky Day."  Then we discussed how the pig in this story persuaded the fox not to eat him.  After finishing this activity the students were given an assignment to pretend that they were turkeys that were going to be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner.  In their story they were asked to persuade a hunter or family to not eat them for their meal.  The students have a great start to these stories.  I look forward to posting at least a couple of their stories before the end of our short week.

Division

The students were given a division problem to solve today.  They were asked to find the quotient anyway possible.  Then a few students shared their solution with the rest of the class.  As a class we will be learning more about division the next couple of weeks of school.  The students will learn more about the relationship between division and multiplication.  The math problem they were asked to solve is:  Four people picked a total of 20 apples.  If they share the apples equally, how many apples will each person get?

More App Reviews

My math game is Rooster Time and It is the worst game in the whole entire world.  One reason that it is bad (inferior) app is because it does the same thing over and over again.  It get’s very annoying. I would recommend it to someone who likes getting annoyed.  I would give it zero stars.  Another reason Rooster Time is hateful is that you have to get the time with the hands to the exact (accurate) minute or it rrrrrnnnntttts!  The last reason is that  I can’t move the time hands very well.  I would never get this app because the rooster keeps snoring (snuffling) and snoring (snuffling).  That’s why I HATE Rooster Time.   

Written by Joel

Chicktionary is a very addicting game

but is has some bad effects. I would give it

four and-a-half stars. I would recommend it to

kids who like to sit down and just play a slow app.

One of the reasons it is addicting is that it is

a very good challenge. For example, you have

to find 3-7 letter words from these letters

on chickens and there are about 7 chickens in all.

One of the crummy side effects is that it gets

really annoying when the chickens cluck.

They do it all the time. One of the other reasons

it is annoying is that half of the words a third

grader would never know in 100,000,000,000

centuries. It gives you a 3-6 letter word like alp and I don’t even think that a fifth grader would probably

even know this word. Those are a few reasons that

Chicktionary is an OK game. That is my game

report.

Written by Brayden

Simply Add is an alright game for third graders.  I would give it 4 stars.  One reason it is fun  is because you get to pick how hard you want the questions to be.  Another reason I think it’s an ok app is because there's no alarm and it gives you time to think.  This is a good thing if you don’t like being timed, but it’s not if you like being challenged.  My third reason I like it is because you get to pick how many questions you want to do, so you don’t have to worry about having to do so many questions.  One reason I dislike the app is because every time you answer a question it makes a Ding!!! My second reason I dislike this app is because it’s only addition and that's a bad thing for me because I like doing addition, subtraction multiplication, and division.  Those are the reasons I think Simply Add is an ok app.

Written by Allie

Leaf Monster

Our first group of students read their reader theater script in front of their classmates today.  The story was "Leaf Monster."  After they were finished reading their script to the class we discussed how we felt they did with regards to reading fluency.  This group received great reviews from their classmates.  Everyone was impressed by their expression.  I thought they did a nice job too.  Over the next few days other groups will get the opportunity to read their scripts in front of the class.

New Math Website

The students are working on learning their math facts.  One way for them to learn some of the larger facts is by breaking them into smaller facts.  This is called the distributive property.  The goal is for your child to be able to recall his or her multiplication facts fluently by the end of the school year.  The link provided is a new math website that should help your child with this skill.  We are using a free trial at this time.  It will last for  a month.  I'm hoping each child will use this site frequently over the next 30 days.

Digit Whiz

New Spelling Words

Here is the a list of the new spelling words for the week ahead.  Again the students will have a test on these words next Monday. (November 23rd)  Each morning they practice their spelling words with a partner, but the more practice they can get at home the better.

Spelling Words for 11/17 - 11/23

1. between 2. own 3.base 4. country 5. plant 6. slip 7. lunch 8. pond 9.front 10.thump 11.inches 12.yard 13.stored 14.motion 15.expand 16.calculate

Birthday Boy!

It was Joey's 9th birthday today.  He shared a delicious treat with the class.  I would like to say thank you to Joey and his family for sharing this food with us.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOEY!

App Reviews

The students are working on persuasive writing.  The first assignment was to write app reviews.  Enjoy reading some of their reviews below.  There will be more to come.

Maddie                                     11/11/15

Math Soccer is an okay game.  It’s a good game for kids who love to do math and some extra learning.  I would give it 3 or 4 stars.  One reason it’s an okay game is that there is a one minute timer, and it goes at a good speed.  My second reason that the app is okay is that the game has great math problems, because they are hard and challenging facts.  One reason I dislike the game is the sound of the soccer ball going back and forth gets really annoying.  My second reason that I dislike the game is I personally think that it needs music or otherwise there is really no sound, beside the ball going back and forth. This game might be worth downloading for practicing math facts.  Those are a couple things I enjoy and dislike about Math Soccer.

Hungry Fish is the worst game I have ever played. I wouldn’t recommend this app for anyone. I would give it zero stars. The first reason I don't like Hungry Fish is because  the music is very annoying.  The same music plays over and over again. Also the game freezes and glitches when you start the app. When you start playing hungry fish and you don’t tap any thing the game stops right away. When I tried this app it was so so simple it asked you what's 1+4 equaled. When you tap the right number the game stops. The most disturbing thing is when the dots hit the fish the app stops. The next reason is there's no score. I don’t like that because you can’t keep track of how you're doing. Also You have to buy new levels. The new levels are $2 each. It's more than the game. After that I tried to see if you can get new fish, NOPE you can’t it doesn’t let you. Those are some reasons I hate this game.

DON'T GET THIS GAME

       BOO HUNGRY FISH BOO

Written by Allison

Bingo Bugs

Bingo Bugs is a typical app.  I would rate it 2 out of 5 stars. The app has great music, but is has distracting sound effects. The app is not okay, because when I’m doing math there is no music. I love music when I do math. The app takes too long to load. It takes up to 5 minutes just to load! The games in the app are way too short.  Also,It is way too easy to get a bingo. I would have liked more of a challenge. I probably wouldn’t download this app if I were you.(Logan)

Great= Remarkable

Average=typical

Short= Swift

Sushi Monster is an okay game.  I would give it 3 stars. One reason I like it is the math is pretty fun. It is pretty fun because the math problems are in the middle of really hard and pretty easy. Another reason it is a pretty fun app is that the monsters look really cool. A reason that I don’t like Sushi Monster is the music gets really annoying. The same kind of music plays again and again. Another reason I don’t like the app is it gets boring. It gets boring  because you just figure out the math facts and serve the monsters sushi. The last reason I don’t like the app is that the math is really hard, especially multiplication. I’d recommend this game to people that like hard math.