City Tour: More Than Just a Walk Around the Block

With the coming of fall, so too comes our annual 3rd-Grade Walking Sleepy Eye City Tour, including chats and insights garnered via visits with longtime residents as well as stops at various historical city sites.

This year, our tour guide Mark Bieto, a longstanding local business owner and grandfather to our own third-grader Nora, did a wonderful job introducing us to some of Sleepy Eye's more important historical markers, each uniquely significant to our own proud city's history and heritage.

In addition to learning interesting factoids about the W.W. Smith Mansion, the Berg Hotel, and Chief Sleepy Eye, we were also privy to some pertinent and compelling stories surrounding each of those individual entities. And though some may find our city's name slightly unusual, it now makes perfect sense to all our third-grade students, compliments of our own willing and knowledgable citizens who made today possible!

Sleepy Eye, what a wonderful place to grow and live!

Here Comes the Sun!

There is nothing quite like a sunny day and all of the regularly assumed expectations that go along with it. And there is also perhaps no one more aware of that simple fact than this year’s third graders, especially having just finished up their most recent science unit on the sun!

As part of this particular unit, in addition to learning a whole plethora of interesting facts about this well-know star, students also spent several days conducting a classroom sun-tracking experiment. A hands-on investigation of the sun’s daily movements that was conducted over the course of several days and involved three separate classroom trips outside each day to first observe and then take pictures—using their iPads—of the position of the sun in the sky at three different times—morning, noon, and night. In our case, the latter was actually an afternoon observation, taken just prior to the end of our school day. Miss Schmit also continued to take pictures of the sun’s location until it set each night, further illustrating to the third graders how the sun continues to drift westward until it finally sets with the coming of night.

In order to determine the direction of the sun’s daily locations, students were also instructed on how to use two different types of compasses, including the traditional variety as well as the one found on their individual iPads. Using their daily findings, it soon became clear to the students that the sun rises in the east each morning and can always be found there regardless of whether or not its actually visible to the naked eye on a given day. They also soon learned that come noon, it can be found located directly above their heads and then gradually drifts to the west throughout the day, always setting in that same direction at the end of each and every day. 

Once all of our observations were completed and noted, students then wrote “scripts” illustrating what they had learned about the sun and its daily movements. These “scripts”--along with their own previously taken photos and general findings--were then used by the third graders in the creation of individual videos on their iPads via an app called “Explain Everything”. A particularly useful app which allows students to actually explain their own thinking by way of a built-in voice recorder.

To enjoy a sample of our finished product, please click below!

Homecoming Week 2015

We kicked off our week-long list of events on Monday with the crowning of this year's king and queen, while also showing our support for our own third-grade junior attendants, Cody and Brissa.

Throughout the rest of the week--Monday through Friday, respectively--we also celebrated via various designated dress-up days, including pajama day, wear your favorite team's jersey day, dress like a teacher day, dress as your favorite superhero day, and wear your finest black and orange gear day. There is definatley no question that students and staff both not only showed a lot of "spirit" over the course of our dress-up days but also a lot of creativity as well! In fact, Ms. Schmit and Mrs. Jensen were the first to set the tone, sporting their best rendition of their own favorite superheros--Raphael and Donatello--two of the four super stupendous Ninja Turtle crew!

Our Homecoming celebratory events culminated Friday morning, starting with our annual walk around the lake. And despite the rain and nip in the air, a good time outside was had by all. In addition to sharing that time walking and talking with fellow third-grade friends and classmates, this year we also had the opportunity to spend some quality time with some of the high school students, too, including our 9th-grade friends!

As part of our Homecoming agenda, we would like to send out a special shout out of thanks to Cassidy, Jaidyn, and Macy for their much-appreciated efforts leading us in cheers during our various stops. Many thanks to all three of you!

Once we had completed our walk, we returned to school for a bit of a rest before we enjoyed a tasty tailgate-lunch, featuring beef burgers and hotdogs. Yum, yum! Later that afternoon, we cheered and danced alongside the high schoolers at the pepfest in preparation for the coming game! Before heading home, we then adjourned to the elementary gym for still more fun, partaking in a few indoor games before closing out our week!

Hopefully some, if not all of you, were able to make it to the game later that night and put a stellar display of home-grown Sleepy Eye Pride!

The 411 On Textmapping

If you haven’t already heard about it from your third grader, here’s the full rundown on our most recently employed teaching tool!

Textmapping is a hands-on technique used to examine various text features commonly found within given written works. Embedded features which may include any or all of the following: table of contents, glossary, index, headings, subheadings, captions, figures, graphs, tables, diagrams, maps, and timelines.

 Last week, as part of our nonfictional genre studies, students not only had the opportunity to learn what textmapping actually was, but also how to use it as an ongoing part of their own literary explorations. Once the concept itself had been discussed together as a group, each third grader was provided with a scroll of actual text—in our case, copied pages of a chosen book that had been previously taped together into one long strip of continuous written material from which they could work. Students were then encouraged to individually embark upon a spirited “treasure hunt” with color-coded instructions, locating and accurately identifying the various text features noted above.

Needless to say, with five different highlighters used in the marking process as well as the numerous different symbols designated for the individual identification process involved with each specific type of text feature, the students’ scrolls ultimately turned out to be truly outstanding works of art en route to acquiring an extremely valuable future resource and tool!

Students will continue to practice their textmapping skills over the next couple of weeks, honing and perfecting their individual skills.

2015 Jr. Attendants Have Been Chosen

Believe it or not, Homecoming week is just around the corner. This means 3rd grade Junior Attendants have been chosen! The choice as usual was always difficult as there are so many great candidates to represent our grade. This year's lucky winners were Brissa and Cody! Check out their bios below!

Cody: Cody is the son of Steve and Heather. He has one older brother Jacob, who was also a former attendant. Cody is a great student and athlete. He enjoys playing many sports but especially likes baseball and swimming. His favorite subjects in school are math and reading.

Brissa: Brissa is the daughter of Elvia and Gilbert. She has three sisters (Ashley, Alexis and Arianna) and one brother (Christian). Also in her family is her pet fish. Brissa enjoys playing many sports including softball, basketball, soccer and volleyball. She also enjoys reading books, playing outside and going on bike rides. Brissa would like to see the Indians beat Cedar Mountain next Friday night! GO INDIANS!

Make sure to go support our Jr. Attendants at coronation next Monday night at 7:00 pm.

Labor Day Update

It is hard to believe that two weeks have passed since we started school, but you know what they say—time flies when you are having fun! And fun is exactly what we have been having these past few weeks, making new friends, meeting up with old ones while also acquainting ourselves with our daily third-grade schedule and expectations as well as how to efficiently implement our iPads as an integral, hands-on learning tool and resource!

Reading: In addition, all students have also completed their individual third-grade reading assessments, allowing each third grader to then be placed in a level-appropriate guided reading group. Individual guided-reading groups will begin meeting this week as we explore informational texts, the first of our ten reading genres. As part of this unit, students will also begin looking at other reading-related elements such as context clues and main idea while becoming better acquainted with the overall governing process of guided reading as a teaching technique.

Spelling: Students also began working with “Words Their Way”--a leveled-spelling list which is assigned weekly to individual users, serving to better assist in honing in on specific spelling needs.

Math: This year third graders will also be working on daily math activities, much the same as they do with our “Daily Five” reading and writing program. Additionally, as with guided reading, this year’s students will be grouped into guided-math groups as well, allowing teacher and students more time working in smaller groups in order to better assess and address specific and/or individual needs.

Students have also been introduced to several additional iPad apps over these last couple of weeks, including Aurasma and iMovie--both of which have been used by students in the creation of their own personal video that will then be linked with their own “Hulk” locker tags.

Here's to a great first two weeks and many more to come!

Daily 5 in Action

Students participating in 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.

Working on writing in our writer's notebooks

To see more pictures of our student engaging in Daily 5 activities check out the class pictures link on the main page of our blog!