Going Out of Business Sale

Thursday was our last sale for the Third Grade School Store.  Everything was at least half off its original price.  The third graders made over $100 at this final sale.  I would like to thank everyone who helped us out at our sales this school year.  The Third Grade School Store was huge success in a variety of ways.  I will soon put the total amount of money that the students earned this school year along with our purchases on our blog.  THANK YOU!

Roller Coaster Science

On Thursday the students spent the afternoon creating roller coasters out of foam tubing and tape.  They had to follow certain rules in making their roller coasters.  For example they had to include a loop, a hill, two chairs, two gym shoes, and a reading text books.  Also they were allowed to use three things of their choice in building their roller coasters.  Their goal was to have their marble land in a bucket at the end of its ride through all the twists and turns.  The biggest challenge for some groups was communicating with one another.  Hopefully, by the end of this learning activity, the students learned the value in listening to everyone's ideas and thoughts and respect each others feelings.

Roller Coaster Math

Last Thursday the students started to solve math problems based on traveling to a roller coaster park.  I was impressed by their ability to solve these problems on their own.  I thought there would be more struggling than there actually was.  It was great to see their comfort in navigating various websites to find the information they needed in order to solve their problems.  At the end of math class I gave them about 5 minutes to take a picture of themselves as if they were on a roller coaster.  I posted a couple of their  photographs below the math problems Joel and Zhane are working on.

Joel=Magenta        Zhane=red   Mr. Waara=Purple

1. You are planning to make a trip to a roller coaster park somewhere in the United States.  Click on the link “Roller Coaster Parks”.  Choose a park on this link.  Next, pick a day that you will be going to this park.  Roller Coaster Parks

1. Figure out how long the park will be open on this day.  
2. Also, figure out how much money it will cost three people (you, your partner, and Mr. Waara) to spend a day at this particular park.  
3. Also, measure each of you to the nearest inch with a measuring tape.  Find a list of the roller coasters at this park and determine what roller coasters you will be able to ride on and others that you can’t participate in.  
4. Figure out how far you will have to drive from Sheboygan to get to this park.  If you drive about 60 mph, how long will it take you to get there? This is an estimate.

Share all of this information on a document you have created.  I  want to see all of your work displayed on this document.

2.  While going to this roller coaster park you will need to eat dinner.  You have $90 to spend on food at Olive Garden.  Each person in your group needs to purchase an appetizer, entree, dessert, and beverage.  

My list of food that I will buy while at Olive Garden with you is: appetizer (Five Italian Cheese Fonduta), entree (Chicken Alfredo), dessert (Chocolate Caramel Lasagna), beverage (Fountain Drink)

Make a table showing each of your group’s purchases.  Determine how much it will cost your group to order all of its food.  Remember to have money left over to tip the waitress or waiter.  Use the following link to help you with this problem: Olive Garden

	Mr. Waara	Zhane	Joel
entre	chicken alfredo $14.80	macaroni and cheese $5.70	chicken fingers and pasta $5.70
appetizer	five Italian cheese fonduta $8.50	fried mozzarella $6.00	fried mozzarella $6.00
beverage	fountain drink $2.60	strawberry smoothie $4.00	fountain drink $2.60
dessert	chocolate caramel lasagna $7.00	sunday $1.80	Sunday $1.80
total cost	$32.90	$17.50	$16.10
Tip		13.30
cost in all		$79.50

3.  Use one of the tables from the following link Roller Coasters to create a bar graph.  Make sure to title your graph and to make your graph using grid paper.  Neatness counts!

TAKE A PHOTOGRAPH OF YOUR GROUP HAVING A GREAT TIME AT THE ROLLER COASTER PARK.

Underground Railroad

Last week the students read stories about the Underground Railroad.  One of these stories was a historical fiction story about a girl named Virginia discovering that her parents were hiding runaway slaves in their attic.  The other story the students read was a biography about Harriet Tubman.  Besides reading these two stories, our class also watched a video titled, "Follow the Drinking Gourd."  This video taught the students about the importance songs played in the lives of slaves.  It was amazing to see the students focused and completing valuable learning tasks while the weather was nice outside and summer seemed closer than ever.  The link below will take you to the song, "Follow the Drinking Gourd."  Sophia enjoyed the song so much that she took the initative at break to find it on Youtube.

Follow the Drinking Gourd

Traveling Fun

Last week Danica shared gems she had obtained while on vacation with her family in Alabama.  While traveling to Alabama her family visited some caves.  Danica shared a great photograph with the class from a cave she was in.  This was a photograph of a column, stalactites and stalagmites.  Thank you for sharing with us Danica.  As a class we are looking forward to visiting the caves on Monday, June 6th.

Learning from First Graders

The first graders from Ms. Marzouki's classroom came to our room this morning and taught us about the rainforest.  Over the past month they created alphabet books about the rainforest, so this morning was their opportunity to share them with us.   The third graders were impressed by the pictures and detailed sentences that the first graders included in their books.    

Long Division

Over the past week our class has been learning how to do long division.  We have been using base-ten blocks to help them gain a better understanding of this concept.  In the photo below Maddie, Joel and Caulden are teaching their classmates about this topic.

Tanner's Birthday

Today we celebrated Tanner's 9th birthday.  His official birthday was yesterday.  He shared a delicious fruit salad with our class.  Happy Birthday, Tanner!

Sidewalk Chalk Math

Today we went outside for math.  The students were asked to solve problems using sidewalk chalk and tape measures.  It was a great way to work on math while enjoying the nice weather outside at the same time.

Walking Field Trip

This morning was our walking field trip to Mr. Pitsch's garden.  The students learned about bees, compost and the different plants he has in his garden.  They even tried honey (right from the comb), asparagus, and rhubarb.   I was amazed by the amount of information the students remembered about bees from our week of reading and watching short videos via the internet.  By seeing a real bee hive and talking with a beekeeper their understanding of what they read about bees this week in class multiplied.   Below is a saying I believe strongly in.