Over and over again the 3rd grader teachers were told the following from the O’Gara staff, “These are great kids!” It’s true, they are.
Our Field Trip to O’Gara Orthodontics
Engineering Air Drop Packages
Today we started our newest engineering design challenge. This was the introduction and we worked with different materials to determine what would best protect a fragile package (farfalle pasta). We’ll experiment with different strategies based on a scenario in which students have to engineer “air drop packages” that can be dropped from an aircraft that protects contents and be easy to find, once they hit the ground.
The engineering kit we are working with came from a DonorsChoose project.
Our Math Lesson Outside
This class is amazing and the fact that I could successfully teach about multiplying a one-digit number by a multi-digit number, while outside, proves it. No doubt, we’ll be doing more lessons outside before the school year ends. (I’ll miss these kids!)
Digital Breakout, Earth Day
As a way of sharing the history of Earth Day, students completed a Digital Breakout. In this case, students solved a series of puzzles and got digital clues. Using those clues, students tried to “break out.”
This was a our first breakout and it proved a fun way of working through new content.
Spring Break ’19
A quick glimpse as to what we’ve been up to over break. Thanks parents for sharing!
The Day Before Spring Break
We maximized opportunities to work with a lot of content before tracking off for our spring break. We did a “Quiz-Quiz-Trade” around perimeter, read bout Juan Ponce de León and European exploration of North America, used Writable to refine our understanding of introductions, applied for new classroom jobs and introduced the prefix “anit-.” We also completed several Quizizz’s to refine a few skills. All-in-all, really impressive for a day that is traditionally hard to keep kids engaged.
Reno 1868 “Benchwarming” Experience
For raising the most money during the Roy Gomm Jog-A-Thon, our students got to be “benchwarmers” during Saturday’s match between the Reno 1868 and the Austin Bold. Thank you Mirie for putting the prize together and to the students for raising so much money for Roy Gomm.
Sierra Watercolor Society Visit
The class was quite fortunate in being selected for a visit by the Sierra Watercolor Society. This is a group that helps students understand watercolor technique and color theory before having the students compose their own watercolor piece. This was a nice experience and it was great that our classroom got to participate.
Valentines 2019
Thank you families for organizing our Valentines Celebration. It included a photo booth, several Minute to Win It games, and fun foods. After two consecutive days of indoor recess, I think taking the hour we did for a series of fun activities was clearly welcome.
Philosophical Chairs Discussion
Can too much screen time get in the way of friendships? Or does playing games and being online create friendships? This was the focus of our Philosophical Chairs Discussion (PCD).
We spent two days reading and annotating a text around the topic. We then used the PCD protocol. Specifically, students divided themselves into groups who believed screen time got in the way of friendships, students who disagreed with this, and classmates who were neutral. As students presented their arguments, they could move from one group to another based on how persuaded they were.
Room 360 