Fun and Crazy week in 3rd grade!

I was happy the weather held this week and we got in the track and field days without storms. Hopefully, this will continue so we can get our Dairy Queen walk in to! Otherwise, a Dairy Queen delivery doesn't sound all bad either! :) Please take a look at the new page link above to see some pictures from our track and field day.

Math- This week we discussed temperature and how to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius. We took our measurement assessment and our last time test. Now we are having a lot of fun competing in measurement Olympics! 

Thursday (we will finish on Friday) we participated in our measurement Olympics. There were five different activities for the kids to participate and measure.  

Long Jump- in from the doorway

Discus (paper plate) Throw

Shot Put (Pom Pom Ball) Throw

Javelin (Straw) Throw

High Jump- in the hallway next to our door. 

 

We will continue to measure and record our measurements to see who places in gold, silver, and bronze in each of the five events.  I am sure there will be more pictures to come in my mid-week post next week. 

Science- This week we had a lot of fun experimenting with chemical reactions with foods we could possibly find in our own homes. 

Tuesday- since it wasn't raining during science I jumped on the chance to take the kids outside and have fun creating hypothesis or questions about what would happen with Mentos geysers. We tried different kinds of pop, different kinds of caps, and different amounts of Mentos. At the end we even tried to mix them all together but found there was not enough carbonation left. I wish I would have taken videos. But I was too busy running away. Here is an example of what we were looking at.

Wednesday- No Science due to Track and Field Day. 

Thursday- We completed experiments with milk. We mixed whole milk and red bull and let it sit through out the rest of science. YUCK! The Red Bull separated and curdled the milk. It also smelt quite disgustingly sweet. We added blue food coloring to see what would happen before I took a picture of our results. You can still see the curdled milk at the top, and what we skimmed off the top and let the water separate from in the bowl. 

While that was sitting we added food coloring to a bowl of milk (whole milk) and watched the color burst which took place when you add dish soap. This was a lot of fun, and some were very pretty! 

Here is where I got the idea and the science behind what we did.

 

Hopefully we will get a chance to make the stain glass glue windows at the end of the segment on Friday. At least that is what I am planning as of today. :)

We also had the chance to watch the Rockwell Roadshow come in and complete some amazing and fun experiments with us. Ask your child about the liquid nitrogen marshmallows! :) They also mentioned science ideas found at www.stevespangler.com
 
Writing- 

NEW TYLER CITY UPDATES:

Last Tuesday, we started reading Trouble According to Humphrey, if you didn't read last week and started to create a new community in our classroom called New Tyler City. Here are some accomplishments of our city this week.

- Most of our maps were finished.
- Streets were created and we brainstormed then voted on names. We have been reviewing abbreviations and addresses this week during Daily Language. 
-We reviewed the compass rose and our zones. 

- A larger maps of our homes was also created. I ran out of school due to the weather tonight and only grabbed the map. Hopefully I will remember to post a picture of this next week. 

Upcoming dates: 

June 4^th            Last day of school (1:30 Dismissal)

 

*I am currently planning to walk to Dairy Queen tomorrow afternoon, however, if the weather doesn't hold we will try again on Monday or get it delivered on Monday.

*Please have your child bring in EMPTY backpack tomorrow. We will start bring home some of our materials. I am sure there will be a need for bags again on Monday, possibly Tuesday. 

**Tuesday, I will allow only students who bring back this sheet signed to have students sign something. Please let me know what item may be getting signed. You can send this sheet back anytime. :) These sheets went home today.

 
 

Have a great rest of your week/ weekend!

Mrs. Jodie Yuska 

Happy Memorial Day!

I hope you had a chance to enjoy your weekend, even though it was not quite the spring/ summer weather we were hoping for.

Math- Last week we began our measurement unit. So far we have discussed length, capacity, and weight in both customary and metric units. We also explored area, volume, and some logical thinking grids. This week we will complete our measurement unit, then have some fun with measurement Olympics. 

Text Talk- Last week we read The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. This is a spin on the classic story of the 3 Little Pigs. It was time for the three little wolves to go out into the world, so they went off to build themselves a  brick house. But they hadn't expected  the big bad pig who soon came along and knocked their house down. The little wolves built a stronger house of concrete. But that didn't stop the big bad pig, who made short work of it with a pneumatic drill. Even a house made of armor plates could not protect them. Our text talk words are: trembling, extremely, persevere, prowling, secure, and generous.

Science- This week we continued talking about volcanoes, created one out of homemade play dough, and then took some time to discuss how an apple is like the center of the earth.

To start our week we reviewed what we had already learned about volcanoes. We backed up our knowledge by making homemade play dough (we added some cocoa powder to make it brown. This also helped it smell better than just vinegar!) I added a cup and a science vial inside which we filled with baking soda, dish soap, some food coloring, and vinegar. The kids had fun making a rainbow of eruptions! :) 

 

 

Later we discussed how the inside of the earth is like the inside of an apple. See if you can see all the layers. Of course the students also enjoyed sampling the Pink Lady and Fuji apples I had brought in to demonstrate with!

Writing- This week we created stories after being given three random stickers. worked on ways to positively describe the members of our class, then created New Tyler City after reading Trouble According to Humphrey.
  

On Monday, all groups had finished their guided reading books. So on Tuesday, we started reading Trouble According to Humphrey.  The kids were not really excited to stop our book and continue on with language arts. So I literally tossed my plans, and we copied the book and started to create our own community. The kids are eating this up! First up for vote, the name of our new community.

 

After we named our new community we started to create our houses. Through out the rest of the week, we discussed what kinds of jobs were needed to make a community run smoothly and reviewed our zones and how to start planning a map of our community.

 We ended our week with a city council meeting to approve our plans to continue. :) 

Upcoming dates: 

May 27th       No School- Memorial Day

Happy Birthday Allie! 

May 28^th         FMI Night Out  (2^nd grade visit)

Mary 29^th        3^rd grade track & field day

May 30           4^th grade track & field day

June 4^th            Last day of school (1:30 Dismissal)

 

*We will fit a walk to Dairy Queen in at some point. I will email you when I figure out when it best fits in our plans. I am thinking maybe on Friday, May 31st or Monday, June 3rd. I will have to watch the weather. If all else fails I will order it, go pick it up, and we will enjoy it at school.

Have a great week! Happy Memorial Day! 

Mrs. Jodie Yuska 

Where does the time go?!?!?!?

This week just seemed to fly by. I give the kids a lot of credit, with the ever changing temperatures and sometimes people in our classroom they have done a really nice job to keep on task with their learning. We are pretending summer is not near! :)

 

Upcoming this week: 

5/20-If your child has any library books, they need to be returned on Monday! 

5/23- Science test over Earth Materials unit.

 
Math- This week we have been discussing tally tables and different types of graphs. We have focused on line plots, pictographs, and bar graphs; both in creating our own as well as interpreting the data.  

Line Plot

Pictograph

Bar Graph

Reading-   This week will read the last story in our basal Turtle Knows your Name by Ashley Bryan. This is a folk tale from the West Indies, a young boy (Upsilimana Tumpalerado) is frustrated because no one can remember his long name. Later when challenges to guess his grandmother’s long name (Mapaseedo Jackalindy Eye Pie Tackarindy), the boy turns to turtle who gives him some help. Next week we will take our unit test over the last four stories. 

Science- We have finished up our science unit on Earth Materials. Today they will be bringing home an orange study guide. Our test will be on Thursday. Between now and then we will be learning about volcanoes.

We started our week taking a look at different rocks, which may contain the mineral calcite. Calcite bubbles in acid. We used vinegar. So we ran an experiment first to see their reaction in vinegar and second to evaporate the vinegar and see what was left.

Above are our evaporation tray results. The evaporation tray with a V is just vinegar (clear), the evaporation tray across from it is the calcite (filled with a lot of crystals). We then took a look at the evaporation trays from our rocks. 1- basalt, 2- limestone, 3- marble, and 4-sandstone. From our results you can see both marble and sandstone contain the mineral calcite. 

Lab books will be coming home on Monday. We had a lot to distribute today and they were still left in a pile. SORRY! 

Our science test over this unit will be on Thursday, May 23rd. Here is the study guide we filled out today. 

The test will be worded a little differently and will contain multiple choice, short answer, and matching.

This page seems to give the kid the most problems on the test. I will try to take a picture of the rocks and post them also to help you study. The class created an acronym to help us try and remember the minerals in order from the softest to the hardest. (GCFQ or Green Crazy Frogs Quack) or gypsum, calcite, fluorite, and quartz. :)

Writing- We have been very creative this week in writing and the kids are eating it up! 
  Monday- "I am" We watched a short video from Will.i.am (below). We talked a long time about how we would describe our selves and our goals for the future. I did not ask the kids about what they want to be, but versus WHO they want to be. After our discussion they created a simile page to compare themselves to something else.

Tuesday- The kids created summer bucket lists with things they would like to do this summer. Some have some pretty high hopes (Sorry parents!) , some where very thoughtful, some simply didn't know how to spend their time outside of school. 

Wednesday through Friday- We have spent the last few days talking about how sometimes the authors purpose is to entertain. We made a list of Superheros (Mrs. Clark made that list), and Villains (Mr. Murphy, Mr. Fontenot, and myself made this list- what is wrong with this picture?!?!??!) After that we talked about what a Superhero story might need, we created a chart, then the students were set of to create a story board. We are still working on either turning our creative thoughts into a story or into a comic. The students are LOVING this. 

 

Next week we will turn them into superheros and see how others describe them. 

Next week I am also sending home a packet of summer activities. On the front is a research study about how student loose on average 2.6 months of ON GRADE LEVEL equivalency. The front has some other ideas how to beat the heat and keep their brains engaged. This packet contains activities in math, reading, writing, and science. ENJOY! 

 Thank you so much for thinking of me during teacher appreciation. I could not do my job without you and your wonderful children. I love my job and am so thankful I enjoy my job as much as I do! To show your child a small token of my appreciation, last week I gave them each a highlighter with a quick bucketfiller about how they are the highlight of my day. I even received some very sweet notes back with them using the highlighters and giving me bucketfillers. I love how far our skills in giving compliments have come! :) 

 

Last but not least, Iowa Assessments will be mailed home SOON! You will be receiving the narrative profile which tells you where your child scored, how they ranked nationally, and if they are proficient or not in a given area. Please remember this is one test, which can cause a lot of anxiety amongst your child. There is one in particular who got off on the bubble sheets and did not get a score I know they are capable of. :( So congratulate your child on all their hard work this year and use what your know about your child, their report card, their progress sheets, and any other information I can give you as a guide. They will have a goal in 4th grade to improve their scores. This is pretty neat to see. I will go over next week with the kids how to read their report. Please let me know if you have any questions.

 

Upcoming May/June Events

May 20^th         Chorus 6:30-3^rd and 7:30-4th

Happy Birthday Emily!

May 21^st         Band Assembly for 4^th grade at 1:00 PM

May 21^st         2^nd grade from Starry visit to FMI 9:30-10:30

May 22^nd        3^rd grade music pizza party

May 22^nd        2^nd grade from Emerson visit to FMI  9:30-10:30

May 22^nd        4^th grade field trip  Wick, Don, Col

May 23^rd         4^th grade visit to VMS  Time TBA

May 24^th         4^th grade field trip  Fa, Ca, Wilk

May 26^th         MHS Grad at 6PM

 May 27th       No School- Memorial Day

Happy Birthday Allie! 

May 28^th         FMI Night Out  (2^nd grade visit)

Mary 29^th        3^rd grade track & field day

May 30           4^th grade track & field day

May 31^st         4^th grade chorus pizza party?

June 4^th            Last day of school (1:30 Dismissal)

 

*We will fit a walk to Dairy Queen in at some point. I will email you when I figure out when it best fits in our plans. I am thinking maybe on Friday, May 31st or Monday, June 3rd.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Jodie Yuska