Looping Into Third Grade

Monday, September 30, 2013

Autobiography Ann, Mixtures, and Solutions

Today we had a very special guest come to visit our class. Her name is "Autobiography Ann". She is 95 years old and loves "telling her life story" to people. She told us all about her very interesting life and even showed us pictures. The kids our now working on their autobiographies to share with the class. Keep your eye out for "Biography Bianca" later this week.

In Science last week we began exploring mixtures and tools that can be used to separate a mixture.

Today we started working on "solutions" which are special types of a mixture. In solutions one or more materials dissolve into the other. Once mixed, you are not able to separate the mixture back out (other than to apply heat and cause the water to evaporate). To understand solutions we started with a fun activity with water and Hawaiian Punch. (Thanks Mrs.Price for this fun idea!)

If you have any questions or concerns please let me know.

Thank You,

Ms. Sellers

Monday, September 23, 2013

Theme Tina and Rounding

Today we had "Theme Tina" as a class visitor to introduce "theme" within a story. The kids just loved her! She explained that theme is THE MEssage (overall) that the author is trying to make. Her umbrella represents the big idea of theme and its components, with many of the possible themes of stories coming off of it. They loved her hair which was colorful and different like the many possible themes that you will come across in stories.

Rounding is a new concept for third graders. I introduced the concept by using a sentence strip and making it into a number line. Once the number line was created we glued it to make a roller coaster. We can think of rounding like a roller coaster with 5 at the top. Once it hits 5 or more the car will roll down the hill toward the ten. This provides the kiddos with a visual and hands-on experience of rounding numbers and when to round down or round up.