Earthworm Observation Day and Earth Day Crafts!!

 Just a few Earth Day crafts.... the students had fun creating these!                                                              

                                           

 And.....Believe it or not......WE LOVE EARTHWORMS!!  This is one of my favorite days. The students love learning about this wiggly, squiggly recyclers!  :)  Friday was Earthworm Observation Day.  The students each received their own earthworms to observe, measure and then release into the school garden!  We learned about earthworm anatomy, and how earthworms help the earth.  This unit fit right in with our Earth Day activities.  To purchase my Earthworm Day Unit for your classroom, click here!

Our squiggly worms!! 

Measuring!

Taking a closer look...

Releasing our worms!!

A fun snack to enjoy during Independent Reading Time!

             

Readers' Workshop Study of Character Traits

In Readers' Workshop, we are studying Character Traits. I love this unit.  The students and I love rereading some of our favorite stories to closely examine the story's main character.  We started by identifying the difference between physical and character traits, and then created lists for each!  

Classroom Anchor Charts for "A Bad Case of Stripes" and "Officer Buckle and Gloria"

Examples of student character traits projects.  Each student choose a favorite story and then created a poster of physical and character traits of one of the characters in the story.  

Character Trait Picture Frames!  Each student described his/her own physical and character traits.

America's Symbols

What a fun unit of study!  Before Spring Break we finished our unit on America's Symbols.  I purchased Deanna Jump's unit on TPT.  Most of the pictures of the work below were inspired by her wonderful ideas in her unit!  I used this unit last year with my first grade students, and they LOVED it, so I wanted to tweak a few of the ideas to make it appropriate for third grade, and I found that they loved this unit just as much as my first graders!  We decorated the classroom with our art projects.  They were on display just in time for Grandparents' Day!  Our grandparents loved learning right along with us!   

Bring on Testing Season!! :)

This year, our class has worked so hard and we have learned SO MUCH!!  I am very proud of each and every student in my class this year.  We have had lots of fun learning together and during the month of March we will get to prove our learning by showing what we know on the ISTEP test! Of course, we decided to throw in a little bit of fun to go with our serious preparation..... :)


Right before the big day, we had "Rock Star Day" !! Of my goodness!! Was it a hit!  The students {and teachers} got to dress as Rock Stars for the day.  It was so fun! The students wrote poems about a topic that we had learned this year, and then performed the poems at our Rock Star Concert.  Of course, Pop Rocks were served at this event.  :)  It was a really fun way to get everyone pumped up and excited to "Show What They Know"!  :)  Here are some pictures:

My awesome third grade team....I was probably a little too excited about busting out my hair extensions from my wedding!! Ha! :)


And here are the awesome third grade "Rock Stars"!!!!
 n

The kids had so much fun, and I think it really helped ease some test taking jitters!! Below is a fun activity for preparing for the written portion of the standardized test!! :)

This little lady, whose real identity will remain anonymous, is who our class deemed as "Mrs. ISTEP", the lady who grades the ISTEP test. We thought this is how she might look like before she had the chance to read about all of OUR AWESOME ISTEP answers.  We printed her picture and the students have been brainstorming ways that we can "charm"  Mrs. ISTEP and make her our new friend.  

We created this chart together.  For number four, we have talked a lot about using  SMART answers.  We have an awesome Reading Coach who came into our room and taught us the following about using SMART answers:

1.  ALWAYS WRITE IN COMPLETE SENTENCES
2. BEGIN BY RESTATING THE QUESTION.
3.  STAY ON TOPIC- CLEARLY ANSWER THE QUESTION YOU WERE ASKED
4. IF ASKED TO GIVE A SPECIFIC EXAMPLE OR DETAIL- ALWAYS TRY TO GIVE AT LEAST TWO.


 We have been practicing this all year.  The students are doing a great job!  

This was a fun adjective activity.  First, we thought of adjectives that described Mrs. ISTEP BEFORE she read our ISTEP test, and then words that described her AFTER she had read our test.  We also drew before and after pictures.  :)

BEFORE picture 

AFTER picture

President's Day!

To celebrate President's Day, we studied two of our favorites, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  We have read MANY books about both men.  I purchased Deanna Jump's Unit- America Math and Literacy Fun.  Click here to purchase your own copy!! It is full of amazing ideas.  I used this unit last year in first grade, but I adapted several of the ideas for my 3rd graders!  They particularly loved the step-by-step drawing of both Abe and George.  Below are a few examples.  They did a GREAT job!

A Visit From a Guest Illustrator!

Today we had visit from guest illustrator, Joni Walker!  She is a resident of  Columbia City and has illustrated several books.  She taught us about what she does to improve her artistic skills by practicing her drawing EVERY DAY!  She then walked us through a step- by- step penguin drawing! They turned out great! 

Remember to draw lightly with your pencil.  

It was fun to learn how to make the penguin look like it was walking! 

To make our work look nice and neat we outlined everything with a Sharpie marker! 

And finally, we colored in our work.  

Groundhog Day!

I love Groundhog Day!!  My class was so excited to participate in all of the activities of the day!  Thank you to Cara at The First Grade Parade for sharing your creativity!! The activities in this post are all from Cara's Groundhog Day Unit. She has been such an inspiration to me over the past year. Here blog has challenged me to continue to develop new ways to implement curriculum in a way that is standards-based, encourages deep thinking and makes learning....FUN! Pick up a copy of Cara's unit here.  :)  All of her units are incredible!!

We had a fun-filled day completely devoted to the one and only- Punxsutawney Phil!

We started our day off with a graph...."Will the Groundhog See His Shadow?" 

The students made their own graphs.

Then it was time to analyze our data.  Unfortunately, Phil DID see his shadow.....6 more weeks of winter for us! :(

We watched the video of Phil's weather forecast to check our own predictions.

Reviewing adjectives, nouns and verbs. 

In Reader's Workshop, we read, Wake Up, Groundhog! by Susanna Leonard Hill.  For our Readers' Response today, we talked about how groundhogs hibernate and they would miss many of the events that we celebrate during the winter.  Each student wrote a letter addressed to Punxsutawney Phil to tell him about some of the events he missed while he was asleep. :)

For our pre-writing activity, the students developed a timeline of several events in their lives from                                  October- February 2nd.

One student's letter to Phil.