Farming Past, Present, and Future

Milking cows is hard work.

School sure was different!

3rd graders had the privilege of attending the Farmamerica facility last Thursday. Farmamerica is 360 acre farmstead located in south central Minnesota. The goal of the trip was to educate our students about Minnesota's rich agricultural history. Students visited exhibits which provided facts and information from early farm settlements in the 1850s to later American settlements in the 1930s. Students were able to see how farming evolved as equipment changed throughout the years. They even were able to see how life changed in general as settlements and farm sites became more sophisticated. Some of their favorite activities included touring the one-room school house and getting to milk a live goat. Even the weather couldn't dampen out spirits. What a great experience for all!

Farm equipment of the past.

Homecoming Fun

Our annual Pride Walk

Showing our school pride!

Homecoming week was a fun-filled week for all of us. During the week we enjoyed dressing up for different dress-up days. Students sported their pajamas, neon, and did their best rock star impressions. Some even came wearing their best teacher garb. To wrap up the week we showed school pride by wearing our orange and black attire. We wrapped up the festivities with face painting and sidewalk chalk, a pep fest and our annual walk around the lake. Thanks to all the third grader for supporting our school and participating in all of the fun events!

Building Our Library Using Donor's Choose

Some of the recent titles added to our library.

We have exciting news! Our classroom has recently received a box full of brand new books! The books were given to us by many wonderful people who were willing to donate to our classroom project that was posted on the Donor's Choose website earlier this fall. If you are unfamiliar with the organization, donorschoose.org is an online charity that makes it easy for anyone to help students in need. Public school teachers from every corner of America are able to post classroom project requests on the site, and donors can give any amount to the posted project.When a project reaches its funding goal, the material get shipped to the classroom, like our materials have recently been shipped to us! Thank you to all the generous donors who contributed to our project! We can't wait to get reading!

A New Addition to Our Classroom

Meet Spongebob and Squidward!

Third grade has acquired a few new students to our classroom since the beginning of the school year. These two students are not your typical students. They are not children, they are hermit crabs. We have appropriately names them Spongebob and Squidward as you can see by their houses. Hermit crabs are among the more unusual pets, although they do make interesting, easy care companions. They have distinct personalities, are active and curious, and their unique characteristics and low maintenance requirements make them good pets.Throughout the year we hope to learn many things from our new friends about becoming responsible, respectful citizens.They will also allow us to observe some very cool natural phenomenons. In fact our pets have already changed shells three times since they have been living in our classroom! The only thing we wish is that they were diurnal instead of nocturnal. We really would like them to come out and play more in the day time!

iPad Learning in Our Classroom

Student use Kidblog in many activities, especially in writing.      

As many of you are probably aware, our third grade class has fully integrated iPads into our learning environment. Students are basically 1:1 with the iPads in both the areas of English Language Arts and Science. There are many benefits to integrating this type of technology into daily learning activities. By using the iPads information is easily accessible and lessons become much more engaging for students. It allows all students to participate, holding students accountable for their learning. Using the iPads has and will continue to require students to reach higher levels of thinking, thus taking their learning to new heights. The different ways that iPads can be integrated into daily lessons and activities is truly endless. It is exciting to see were technology has and will take us!

Nearpod is a student favorite. Students can access the presentation on their own device.

Some of Our Favorite Apps:

• Aurasma (Augmented Reality)
• Nearpod
• Kidblog
• Padlet
• QR Codes
• Google Forms
• Flashcardlet
• Pic Collage
• iMovie
• Explain Everything
  

  

  Notability allows us to write
   on documents.

  

  Using Schoology to access
   information.

  

  We love using Padlet & QR Codes!

  

  Flashcardlet helps us practice important skills,
   like using context clues while also learning new words.

  

  We like to use a variety of apps to complete
   a task.We call this app smashing.

  
  

Daily 5 in Action

Read to Someone

Work on Writing

Word Work

Read to Self

Students have begun developing independent reading and writing skills through a literacy framework known as Daily 5. The Daily 5 is a series of literacy tasks (read to self, read to someone, listen to reading, work on writing and word work) that students complete each day while the teacher engages in small group instruction. This framework helps students develop the daily habits of reading, writing and working with peers. The goal is to foster these good habits and develop lifelong skills of independent literacy. Check out these photos to see Daily 5 in action.  

Listen to Reading

It's Finally Here!

Open House is finally here! I cannot wait to meet all of my students today! I am especially excited to share with them a few ways we will be using the iPads this year to stretch our learning potential! Students and parents can look forward to our technology enhanced open house this evening, which will include the use of QR codes, video clips and online surveys. This is just the beginning! Let's open out mind to a whole new world of opportunities this year!

Classroom Sneak Peek!

It's that time again...time to start getting back into the classroom to prepare for a new school year. This year, some changes have been made to the room yet again! To say it is a work in progress is an understatement...Check out what new additions you can expect to see this year!

Our writing center for inspiring writers!

This new addition allows students to share a quote from their favorite book.

New seats for our guided reading table add storage and function!

Our reading corner is as bright as ever!

The tables add so much more space to the room!