Pourquoi Tale Question

Students met in small groups.  They each retold their story to their peers.  Then they went over the story elements of their story and how they answered the question, "What makes a story a pourquoi tale?"with their team members.  As a small group they figured out how their stories were all similar.  Now they are working on answering the question listed above with their small group.  Tomorrow they will need to share their thinking with the whole class.

It was fun to walk around to see students discussing these stories with one another.  They are learning quickly the importance of explaining yourself to others when sharing an idea.  Also, they are finding ways to disagree politely with one another.  I was impressed by their ability to problem solve with their team members today.

Math Teachers

The students were asked to solve the problem below.  Then three students came to the front of the classroom to explain how they solve this problem.  The three students were Allison, Logan, and Josephe.

Tifa would like to buy a costume for $32 at Target.  She earns $7 each day for babysitting her neighbors.  How many times will she need to babysit in order to buy the costume?

Multiplication

Third grade is a big year for learning your multiplication facts.  Over the past couple of weeks we've been focused on this concept.  The students have worked on making arrays, repeated addition problems, skip counting and more.  Today they created their own story problems.  Below the pictures are two example problems.

Please help your child practice his or her multiplication facts each day!

Maddie has 3 packs of Oreos.  Each pack has 7 Oreos. How many Oreos dose Maddie have?

Written by Jake

Logan was going to go buy bananas at the store. He needs two bunches of bananas. Each bunch has four bananas. How many bananas in all?

Written by Julian and Austin

       

Julian has 9 boxes of cupcakes, each box has 12 cupcakes. Each cupcake is $5.00.

How many cupcakes did he buy? How much money did he pay?

Written by Logan

Close Reading

Each student read a short pourquoi tale.  They read one of four different stories.  Then they filled out a story elements diagram.  After filling out this diagram, they answered the following question: What makes a story a pourquoi tale?  They used their completed diagram to answer this question.

Next week, they will meet with other classmates to tell them about the story they read.  They will figure out how their story is similar to their peers' stories.  Finally as a small group they will answer the question stated above and share their answer with the whole class.

Guest Speaker

Today our class had a guest speaker.  His name is Mr. Jaber.  He is in charge of the technology program for the Sheboygan Area School District.  He taught us about many different gadgets in the technology field.  We were amazed by what we learned.  The students learned about 3D pens, Google Cardboard, Chromebit, and many more different gadgets.  It was an interactive presentation.  I have a feeling I will be writing a lot of grants so we can try to get some of these educational tools in our classroom. Also, I'm sure the students will be asking each day when Mr. Jaber can come back to our classroom.  I added pictures and three videos below.  If you have an opportunity,  please ask your child about what he or she learned about technology today.

Characters

Over the past few weeks we've had discussions about the characters we're reading about in our stories.  We've talked about inside traits and outside traits.  As a class we're learning about how characters drive a story and keep it moving along.  Today the students were asked to create a paragraph explaining how a character changed in the story we read the last two days.  The story is Pepita Talks Twice.  Tonight I will be printing out every groups' paragraph.  Tomorrow each partnership will read each of these paragraphs.  As a whole class we will pick out the ones that we feel are the most detailed and well-written.  Below are two paragraphs that are at the rough draft stage.

Maddie and Joel                           

In the beginning, Pepita helped people by speaking twice. She translated from person to person.  She helped translate for people, but she didn’t want to help them anymore.   On pg. 50 Pepita said “I will never speak Spanish again”.  Pepita kept her promise, but she realized she couldn’t say and do everything she did before, like she couldn’t say enchilada, taco, sing happy birthday in Spanish, say tamales or any Spanish names like her own.  Then on pg. 61-62 she broke her promise and spoke Spanish.  On pg. 62 she said “ I am glad I talked twice”.  Pepita spoke  again, because her dog ran in the street and she didn’t want her dog to die. Her dog only understood Spanish. That is how Pepita changed in the story.

Kylie and Brayden
In the middle of the story Pepita changed by deciding not to speak Spanish.  The reason she decided not to speak was that she wanted to get home in time so she could teach her dog Lobo a trick. When she was running home people asked her  to translate for them. (By the way Pepita can speak Spanish and English.) But she helped so many people translate that when she got home her brother was already there teaching Lobo how to fetch a ball. Then it was rolling in the street.  .The way she changes is that when she was throwing the ball to  Lobo it went in the street and Lobo chased after it. A car was coming and she yelled, “LOBOOOO!!!!!!!!” Then  Lobo ran back to her (The reason that made her change was that lobo is Spanish word and Lobo understands Spanish)

Art

In art we listened to the song, "Purple People Eaters."  Everyone liked the song.  It was funny.  Then we started our art project.  First we wrote down the adjectives that were used in the song.  After that everyone created a sketch of the Purple People Eater.  Second our class made a new picture of the Purple people Eater.  We drew it lightly.  Then we went over our light lines and made them darker.  After  doing this, Mr. Hornickel let us paint it in different shades of purple.  We are still on this part of the project.  

Written by Allison 
Photographs were taken by Allison
Edited by Mr. Waara

Throughout the school year, every student will get an opportunity to be a reporter and photographer for our blog.