Ms. Kaley's Classroom Room 24

Hello Everyone!

Past Week:

We had a busy, but enjoyable Literacy Week!  Here is what we did:

Monday– Read You’re Here for a Reason by Nancy Tillman.  We went about regular work cycle afterwards.

Tuesday– We had the Spelling Bee at 9am and it went until 10am.  I read the story of Hansel and Gretel and how fairy tales are fictional stories.  The students worked on a STEM project that had them assemble a trap to catch the Witch and allow the Hansel and Gretel characters to be freed from the trap.

Wednesday– Read The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.  Students who chose to do the two activities focused on how they can reflect on themselves and how they can be like the tree in the book and how they can help people.  Ms. Rachel came in the afternoon for Botany.

Thursday– Was Dr. Seuss’s 113th birthday!  We read Oh, the Places You’ll Go.  Students chose from the variety of activities based on the book.  In the afternoon I read The Foot Book.  Students traced, cut, and measured their right and left feet.  We combined everyone’s and had Ms. Steph’s upper el classroom measure.  We also did the community art project based on Nancy Tillman’s book Thursday afternoon

Friday– The students had studio in the morning and then we had the kids take the True Colors Personality Test to allow them to see how many of our students are similar to them, but also who is different.  Students who finished participated in our Read-Athon until it was close to the end of the day.

In Cultural this past week: Geography

Level 1s: We began our landforms unit.  We got to Island and Lake, Bay and Cape this week.  We will continue to work on the different kinds next time we have Geography.

Level 2s: We talked about geysers and how they work.  Then, we briefly went over igneous rocks from the Rock Cycle.  We will continue The Rock Cycle and the 3 kinds of rocks next time we have Geography.

Level 3s: Reviewed the water cycle and students finished up their book.  We also went over weather tools this week.  We will begin our weather unit next time we have Geography.

Upcoming Week:

As a reminder from last week’s post, I will be leaving around lunch time on Thursday.  I will be out of town until Tuesday.  Ms. Marleen and I are traveling to San Diego to a Montessori conference being held there.  Ms. Anna will take over and hopefully Ms. Dixie will be able to sub for me while I am gone.  She is Ms. Trish’s long term sub for Ms. Jill since Ms. Trish is due to have her baby soon.

Other than that, we should have a smooth week.  Next Friday, March 17th will be an early release and there is no school for students on March 20th.

3rd Grade Studio Science Projects:

For studio, I teach 3rd grade science.  For just 3rd graders, students will get to make a project based on a topic we studied this year.  Your 3rd grader will get to “be teacher” and will present their project to other students.  My hope is to have all 3rd graders present at once in the gym or large location.  Project Due Date will be announced soon.  I am finalizing the availability of the gym. The outcome looks like it might be April 14th (the Friday after Spring Break) Project just for 3rd graders!

Here is what our students chose to present to others on:

Beatriz- not sure yet.  Will choose this week

Erik- Simple Machines

Lydia- Living and Non-living things in an environment

Ashley- Sun, Earth, and Moon’s relationship

Tae’Lynn- Gravity (teaming up with Aatiana)

Ari- Simple Machines

Lucy- not sure yet.  Will choose this week.

Calvin- was absent. Will choose this week

*Students may choose to do an experiment, presentation, building project, Powerpoint, game, models, or anything they can think of that will explain their topic’s concept.  For example, if a student chose Simple Machine they can pick from any of the 6 simple machines to focus on.  We talked about compound simple as well.  For this unit we discussed the different kinds and what their purposes are for and why they make work easier.  Mass was also discussed in this unit because simple machines are used to help humans make moving mass easier.  A student can pick an example of a simple machine to report on how it works,  they can build and have others try it out to explain how it makes work easier, they can report on all 6, etc.  I wanted my 3rd graders (and every 3rd grader in the school will be doing this) to be able to prove their favorite concept through a creative science project.  I don’t want it to be science fair style, I want the students to enjoy the creative freedom on how they will teach others their concept.

Snack: We don’t have anyone signed up for snack this week.  Thank you Enrique for dropping off snack for this past week!

Have a great rest of your weekend and upcoming week!

Cheers!

Ms. K