The 30 Thrilling Thinkers

The 30 Thrilling Thinkers

Thirty young friends arrived in our class
We knew when we saw them that we’d have a blast
Teaching them so many interesting things
All of the wonderful skills third grade brings


The Yurok, the Navajo, and the Timucuan
Reading about Axel, Dogzilla, and Mulan
Going to the zoo, IMAX, MOSH, and Tree Hill
And the Smart Board always providing a thrill

We worked on our slices, like 7 X 3
And made powerpoints and dressed up for biographies
During the Spring, we slammed our FCATs
And showed our school that we knew our facts!

Math Towns were great and they all worked so hard
Building these cities out of yarn and cardboard
The class loved their book clubs and discussing them daily
But the greatest book of all was Hugo Cabret.

As we come to a close, we have to say good bye
We have great confidence that you will fly high
We will miss you all so much and send you with good cheer
Thanks for making this a wonderful year!

Math Towns are complete!

The kids did such a great job with their completed Math Towns. They added neat accents like fountains, beaches, lakes, and playgrounds. It was a great activity to help us wrap up our year in math!

The Middle of Math Town....

This is the in progress stage of Math Town. We are working on using the templates we made to create our 3D versions of our town!

The Start of Math Town...

A few weeks ago we started our math towns. We discuss how math is everywhere. We ask students to build a town that includes buildings with measured area, volume, and perimeter. They need to include 3D designs and polygons. They also need to create angles; right, obtuse, and acute angles somewhere on their town. The first stage is to look at their "building codes" and design their city. Once their plan gets approved by the teacher, they move on to making their 3D templates for their town. This is step one in the process for Math Town. Stay posted for pictures from stage 2 where the kids will start to make their templates on construction paper and affix them to the board.

Roman Mosaics

The floors of Roman buildings were often richly decorated with mosaics- tiny colored stones called tesserae. Rich Romans decorated the floors of their main rooms with mosaics. Students were asked to make a mosaic using colored paper to cover their "tile" a rectangle of white paper. They were told they could use any design they wanted to. Look how colorful they turned out! They are currently posted on our Think Tank bulletin board outside of our room. Come check them out!
Below are some close up examples. They are the work of Luke T, Kiyomi, and Hays.

Ancient Greece crafts

We are loving our ancient civilizations unit! This week we learned about Ancient Greece and made hoplite shields that soldiers used, drama masks, since drama was something Greeks were famous for, and constructed catapults with partners. We had a blast!

Biography projects

Our April project was to do a biography project. Students were asked to read a biography chapter book and then do a report on their person. Our options for reports were a monologue, a scrapbook, or a Power Point. We were amazed that 2/3 of our class chose to do a Power Point. We learned so much about so many people ranging from Joan of Arc to Jackie Robinson!