This year, all third graders had to complete a Reading Fair Project. We were able to complete our project on any book. Some of us chose our favorite books and others of us chose to do ours on one of the summer reading books. We tried to be creative so that other people would want to read our books. Check out our projects!
Read Around the Campfire
The week of 9 weeks tests are hard on all of us. Our awesome teachers know that, so they planned a fabulous Friday for us after we finished testing. We had an afternoon of "Read Around the Campfire". We brought the ingredients for S'Mores, and while we read, Mrs. Taylor tried out her cooking skills. We brought blankets and pillows, Mrs. Taylor made a cool campfire out of paper, and we made pallets on the floor. We chose some of our favorite books and we just laid around and read. We were excited when the S'Mores were ready. Some of us had never had them before. We think that "Read Around the Campfire" was the perfect ending to a stressful week of testing.
All About the Properties
We learned so much about the Properties from our lesson. At first, Mrs. Taylor showed us some posters that she made to help us remember which properties were which. We learned that the Commutative Property is a rule that says that it doesn't matter which order you add digits, they will always equal the same thing. Then, we learned that the Identity Property says that when you add Zero to a number, it will always equal that number. The third and final property that we studied was the Associative Property. That property says that no matter what digits you add first, they will always equal that same thing. We got to play a matching game with our partners and then we made charts to hang on the wall. We know that we will do great on our 9 weeks test. We have nothing to worry about!
What an exciting Language lesson we had today!! We weren't very excited about having to write today, so Mrs. Taylor started thinking. She ended up giving each of us some popcorn. Guess what? She had our attention then! She made us create a bubble map to describe our popcorn. We had to tell how it felt, how it smelled, how it looked, and then how it tasted. After we completed the bubble map, we had to use the information in the map to write a descriptive paragraph. She is pretty sneaky though, because she also wanted us to practice using commas in a series. So, when we wrote our descriptive words, she told us that we had to have at least 3. That meant, when we wrote our paragraphs, we had to use commas in a series as we wrote our sentences. We always try to practice many things with one lesson. Then, we had an awesome final product. We made a tub of popcorn and displayed our writing on the wall.
Our New Names for the Day
Last week, Mrs. Taylor decided that we needed to review comparing and ordering numbers. She wanted to get us excited about the lesson, so she put a number around her neck and told us that she was no longer Mrs. Taylor. Her new name was the number around her neck and if we needed her, we had to call her by her "number" name. But, she didn't stop there. She had new "names" for all of us. We had to wear our number names for the rest of the math lesson, as well as, to lunch. She had so many things planned for us to do using our numbers. First, she made us put ourselves in order from least to greatest or greatest to least. Then, we had to arrange everyone in the class in order, but she made it a little more difficult and interesting, because as we organized ourselves, we couldn't talk! We could only use sign language. That was fun. Next, she called some of us up and made us decide how the greater than, less than, or equal sign would go in the equation of us. Finally, we had to use our new names to explaore the various ways of writing numbers. We had to write our Numer Names in standard form, expanded form, and written form. Then, when we went to lunch, we had other teachers ask us what our names were and what some of the digits in the place value chart were. Learning at our school does not stop in the classroom. We practice our learning everywhere, even in the cafeteria. We loved this way of learning. We are ready for Comparing and Ordering Numbers when we are questioned on the 9-weeks test!
9 Weeks Tests Are Next Week!
Wow! It is so hard to believe that 9-weeks tests are next week. We have been so busy this term that Mrs. Taylor hasn't even had time to update our Blog. She is going to work on that and hopefully you will be able to see all of the many wonderful things that we do in class from this point forward.
We know that there will be many test questions about the parts of a book. Mrs. Taylor wants us to be sure to know the purpose of each part of the book, so we did this fun activity in class today. She gave each of us a sentence and we had to choose what part of the book (title page, table of contents, glossary, or index) we would need to use to answer the question on our card. Mrs. Taylor checked our sentences and if we were confused, she helped us to think about our sentence and change our thinking if we needed to. It was great fun and we have a neat chart to show off our learning, now!
We have learned all about Prefixes. We know that there are many different prefixes that can be added to a root word to change the meaning of a word. We learned that "un" means not. So unhappy means not happy. We learned all about many other prefixes, as well. Mrs. Taylor made a tree and she gave each of us a leaf that had a root word on it. We had to choose the prefix that would go with that root word. Not only that, but we also had to write the meaning of our new word. Mrs. Taylor knows that it it very important for us to understand the meaning of the things that we learn. That helps us to remember the things that she has taught us when testing time comes.
As you can see, Mrs. Taylor is a HUGE Mississippi State fan. She and Mr. Cleaver picked at each other for weeks before "the big game". Mrs Taylor, Mrs. Land, Mrs. Johnson, and Mrs. Long are Bulldog supporters. Mrs. Armstrong, Ms. Course (Keatan's mom), and Mr. Cleaver are Jackson State fans. Sorry for them, but Mrs. Taylor's team won just like she said they would! Go Dawgs! Our teachers are crazy some times, but that's what makes our school the best school in the world!!
