Mission: Possible -- 3rd Grade
2012-2013 Intergalactic Scrapbook
|
NO Bully Zone AssemblyWe learned so much and laughed so hard at our end of the year anti-bullying assembly! We learned the techniques of S.M.I.L.E. and H.E.R.O. to help us stop and prevent bullying. Check out the photos for more details and look for classmates and friends on stage!
|
|
F-R-I-N-D-L-E!!!!Excitement bubbled over as we drove to watch the special Frindle performance! Students loved the book so much {and Mrs. Petlak cried reading the end} they couldn't wait to see the story in action....LIVE. The performance exceeded their expectations, and our students were awesome examples of good behavior. Mrs. Petlak managed to hold back tears during the performance....barely.
|
|
Yummy GeometryTo wrap up our unit on 2-D and 3-D shapes, our class constructed YUMMY geometric figures!! We used toothpicks for edges and marshmallows or gumdrops for vertices. Students recorded # of edges, faces, and vertices for their yummy shapes. We went on a geometric shape safari viewing everyone's shapes around the room, recording data on all of the YUMMY looking shapes. When we finished, students ATE their gumdrop or marshmallow vertices!!
|
|
Buy One....Get One???Students participated in a completely student-driven social studies/economics simulation illustrating supply, demand, and their affect on price and sales tactics. The goals for high supply/low demand and low supply/high demand were stated before each activity. At first, the students were baffled on how to bargain, teams of consumers and business owners worked to beat the opposite team to their goal. For example, business owners were challenged to make the most money they could without having any produce left over, while consumers were supposed to bargain to buy the most fruit with the most money left over. By the end of a few rounds, these were some econo-savvy students!
|
|
CAUTION: Engineers at WORK!
|
|
ISAT Olympics: Go for the GOLD!In preparation for ISAT week, our class approached test prep in a fun, engaging manner via ISAT Olympics. Students worked both individually and as teams to build stamina, become familiar with state testing questions, format, and time constraints, and to review/sharpen skills and strategies for answering questions previously taught this year. Activities like comprehension relay races and extended response marathons were just a few of the fun events. The week of ISAT, students received a good luck goodie each morning to encourage them to do their best. Each day of completed testing resulted in earning an Olympic ring-colored bracelet, we carried an Olympic torch through the hallways, and trophies for best effort were awarded daily. After testing was complete, everyone earned a gold medal!
|
|
Our Fan-TACHE-Tic Valentine's Day PartyI "mustache" you if you have ever seen a more awesome Valentine's Day party!!! Everyone had a blast with our silly mustache-themed bash, including the iPad photo booth with props. THANK YOU to all parent volunteers and donations from families that made our party fan-TACHE-tic!
|
|
High Touch - High TechCheck out the photos for a peek into the awesome hands-on activities we experienced when High Touch-High Tech visited our classroom! We worked on concepts about simple and complex machine. The scientist said our class was the FIRST EVER to have ALL GROUPS finish creating their complex machines in the allotted time. Great job!
|
|
Scientists at Work: Our forces/motion & simple machines unitLook at ALL of the learning we experienced about forces, motion, and simple/complex machines!! We tied in the engineering process to everything we did during this unit. See posts and slideshows above for more information and photos.
|
|
100th Day with Our Kg. BuddiesDescription coming soon100th day was super special because we celebrated with our Kindergarten buddies! Not only that, but volunteer leaders from our classroom brainstormed, created, and ran the stations that the Kindergarteners participated in!! I was so proud of our little leaders, and know that everyone had fun helping our buddies celebrate their special day.
|
|
Figurative Language & GrammarWho knew learning about and practicing figurative language and grammar could be so VISUAL and HANDS-ON?!?!? Using Reading Rods Sentence Construction & Vocabulary Rods students were able to independently diagram sentences by parts of speech. They were also able to take simple, 3rd grade appropriate, vocabulary and KICK IT UP A NOTCH using the Vocabulary Rods. Each side of those rods have a different synonym for simpler words. They are like having a little thesaurus on your finger!
|
|
Packing for our Immigration UnitDescription coming soon!
|
|
Frosty Winter Fun PartyThank you to EVERYONE who helped make our winter party fun by volunteering and/or donating goods for the event. Students were blown away by the activities, treats, and loads of fun they had at this event!
|
|
Out of this WORLD Solar SystemDescription coming soon!
|
|
Interactive Class Book ClubsDescription coming soon!
|
|
Dancing with the 3rd Grade STARS!Description coming soon!
|
|
MORE Kg. Buddy Fun!See photos from our adventures with Mrs. Weinstein's kindergarten class. Scroll up for a special slideshow and description about our 100th day celebration with our buddies.
|
|
Indian Trail Election 2012Description coming soon!
|
|
Our Sweet Kindergarten BuddiesSee photos from our adventures with Mrs. Weinstein's kindergarten class. Scroll up for a special slideshow and description about our 100th day celebration with our buddies.
|
|
Our 1st Galaxy Mall!First, students were given a check for their total Space Cadet points (DOJO and jobs) earned thus far in the school year.
Then they cashed their check at the Blast Off Bank with the help of classroom workers. Both GOODS and SERVICES are available for sale at our Galaxy Mall. Goods included rings, bouncy balls, and more. Services included free homework passes, lunch with Mrs. Petlak, and more! Classroom workers helped run our Galaxy Mall. Shoppers wrote down what they purchased, totaled up the expense to see if they could afford what they wanted, and then paid and checked out. The bank gave students change, when necessary. |
|
Very Proper, INDEED!Description coming soon!
|
|
Picture PerfectDescription coming soon!
|
|
Fire Safety MobileStop, drop, and roll for fire safety! Students loved touring the mobile home and learned tons about fire prevention, safety, and making 911 phone calls. Thank you, fire department!
|
|
Math ManiaCheck out the photos for math in action early this school year. Posts above this show more math in action.
|
Schema DetectivesDescription coming soon!
|
Pirate Story MapsDescription coming soon!
|
Hooray for Halloween 2012!
|
Our Class PartyLet us give a special THANK YOU to our fantastic room parents who planned and ran stations at our class Halloween party! Ivan's mom, Cooper's mom, and Gabe's mom threw a celebration that was frightfully fantastic!
Our students enjoyed the following activities that can be seen in the slideshow to the left of this post:
SPOOK-tacular Halloween Concert!On Halloween morning the ghouls and goblins of Mission #125 walked over to Highland Park High School with several other Indian Trail classes to enjoy the annual HPHS Halloween Concert. Little did we know what a SCREAM the event would be!
From the decorations, to the costumes, videos, and light show, the experience was amazing. The music featured classically haunting pieces as well as new favorites (such as "Thriller" by Michael Jackson). Students rocked and rolled throughout the entire performance and loved every minute. Our class was so well-behaved and excellent role models for other audience members that I was beaming with pride. In addition to the music and frightful sights/sounds of the concert, the conductor of the orchestra shared TONS of FACTS about Halloween and the history of the pieces played with us. This tied in PERFECTLY with our comprehension study of facts and opinions!! To reinforce this skill, we brainstormed facts we learned at the concert the day after Halloween! Check out the photos! |
Petlak Airlines #125: 2011-2012 Travel Scrapbook
|
Scrub Up for CONTRACTION SURGERY! We have been working hard to learn about contractions. Students have enjoyed games, songs, videos, and practice turning two words into one, marked with an apostrophe. After all of those experiences, Flight #125 was prepared to perform CONTRACTION SURGERY! Before surgery, we scrubbed up and put on our doctor's masks. Then we were ready to begin! Look at the photos of our surgery. The patients (words) all turned out great! Engaging in such a tactile experience with contractions helps students understand the words that make up each, the letters that are omitted in the contraction, and where the apostrophe goes. |
|
Reading to Our Stuffed Animals As a class reward and in celebration of "Letter D" day (on our ABC countdown), we enjoyed donuts and bringing a stuffed animal in to read to. As part of Daily 5, we have been working on "Reading to Someone" and reading stamina all year long. It was AMAZING to see students so engaged in reading aloud to their stuffed animals. They pointed out illustrations and text features, and were reading with smooth, expressive voices. |
|
Fraction Fun with Gum Balls and Sundaes! To practice our fractions in a fun, "real world" manner, we created fraction sundaes and fraction gum ball machines. Students selected one of the "craftivities" to complete. Using the materials provided, they selected a variety of flavors for their ice cream scoops and gum balls. Once completed, they recorded fractions for each flavor in the sundae or gum ball machine. Each sundae had 12 total scoops, so the denominator of each fraction was 12. Each gum ball machine held 14 gum balls, so 14 was the denominator for each of those fractions. The stuents' flavor combinations were very YUMMY! |
|
YUMMY Geometric Shapes To wrap up our unit on 2-D and 3-D shapes, our class constructed YUMMY geometric figures!! We used toothpicks for edges and marshmallows or gumdrops for vertices. Students recorded # of edges, faces, and vertices for their yummy shapes. We went on a geometric shape safari viewing everyone's shapes around the room, recording data on all of the YUMMY looking shapes. When we finished, students ATE their gumdrop or marshmallow vertices!! |
|
Poetry: The Music of Our Hearts
(More to come later--this unit is in progress.) |
|
G'day, Mate! Our Australian Travel Guide An Indian Trail parent who is a native of Australia wowed 2nd grade audiences with awesome facts and artifacts from Australia! We heard Australian stories, saw money, boomerangs, animals, and more from the Land Down Under. This was the perfect culminating activity to our study of Australia and its habitats. Students were able to contribute facts to the discussion and ask pertinent questions of our special guest! Watch the slideshow to the left for a snapshot of our Australian Adventures! |
|
Our Journey Through Non-Fiction Text Features (NFTF) After learning about non-fiction text features (table of contents, captions, tables, graphs, etc.), we went on a scavenger hunt through our classroom library non-fiction books. Each time we found a NFTF, we wrote down the name of the NFTF on a Post-It Note and stuck it to that page. Then we shared our findings with the other groups in our class. Learning about NFTF helped us with future research projects and non-fiction writing activities that we would complete in class! Take a peek at our non-fiction teamwork! |
|
What's in Mrs. Petlak's Bag? Practicing inferring skills. As we learned the abstract concept of inferring, we used one of our favorite books, No, David! and Mrs. Petlak's teacher bag to help us master the concept: Schema + Evidence = Inference See what was in Mrs. Petlak's bag, and what that led us to infer. Look at some of our inferences from reading No, David! The next time you read with your child, pause before you turn the page and ask them to combine their schema plus the evidence in the story, to make an inference! |
|
Mad Science Habitats FUN! As we wrap up our study of habitats, it was perfect timing for the Mad Science experts to visit and engage our class in hands-on habitat explorations. Students learned about animal food chains, sorted animals into their habitats and more! See the photos to the left for more details of our exciting afternoon. |
|
Mad Science WEATHER Exploration Mad Science experts visited our school and presented our class with tons of weather exploration fun! This was the perfect culmination to our weather unit. Students learned meteorologist skills, made bottle tornadoes, and explored the water cycle. Check out the photos for snapshots of our FUN! |
Indian Trail Ice Skating Night |
RAGNAR for Rory |
|
Our latest Mystery Readers!
We have had several fantastic mystery readers since December! View the photos to see snapshots of Jack and his mom, Miss Weinstein, Jake and his family, Ethan and his mom, and Drake and his mom. They read many interesting and entertaining stories to us that we have used to practice the comprehension skills of retelling, predictions, connections, and synthesis. Would you like to be a Mystery Pilot (reader) for our class? Each Friday at 2:50 p.m., Mystery Pilots are invited to share the joy of reading with the passengers of Flight #125. If you are interested in being a Mystery Pilot, please complete the registration form HERE. Pilot Petlak will contact you to confirm your reading date and with more information. **If you signed up to be a Flight #125 Mystery Reader, please complete the CLUE survey HERE. |
|
Bundle Up For a Trip to Antarctica! Antarctica was the first continent and its habitat(s) that we learned about in our world tour. Students enjoyed learning about animal adaptations, difference in seasons, and the fact that Antarctica is actually a DESERT habitat! While it looks like it receives tons of ice and snow each year, it only gets minimal amounts, qualifying it for desert habitat status. Mrs. Spitz, Ms. Friedland, and Ms. Weinstein were Flight Attendants on our journey. Check out snapshots from our travels! |
|
Classroom Economy: Our 1st SOUVENIR Shop! First, students were given a "Traveler's Check" for their total Frequent Flyer Miles (FFM) earned thus far in the school year. Then they cashed their traveler's check at the Petlak Airlines Bank with the help of Mrs. Spitz (Gabriel's Mom) and Jack. Both GOODS and SERVICES are available for sale at our Souvenir Shop. Goods included rings, bouncy balls, and more. Services included free homework passes, lunch with Mrs. Petlak, and more! Kyra and Pilot Petlak helped run our Souvenir Shop. Shoppers wrote down what they purchased, totaled up the expense to see if they could afford what they wanted, and then paid and checked out. The bank gave students change, when necessary. |
|
Halloween Havoc!
Mad Science Halloween Learning & FUN! Things were bubbling and brewing on Flight #125 during our Mad Science Halloween experiments and party. Before our party, we engaged in hands-on matter science experiments as a culminating project to our states of matter science unit. Adam's Mom led a science experiment about chemical reactions in matter......it was "explosive!" Students combined baking soda and vinegar to create an "explosion." Students loved how combining a solid and liquid could create a gas. Is it a solid.......or a liquid???? Jessica's Dad helped us find out! Mr. Rolfe led students in a making slime activity. Mixing this matter was fun.....and messy! Hold it in your hand and it's a liquid......ROLL it in your hands and it's a SOLID! Cooper's Mom ran a station to see how solids would change when immersed in a bubbling liquid. Did they sink or float? Did they get softer or harder? Jake's Mom and Drake's Mom ran our "Make a Monster' lab (craft station). It was SPOOK-tacularly fun! Mrs. Spitz and Mr. Rolfe led games (spider ring relays, eyeball toss). Students made grape and marshmallow molecules as part of our snack. Check out the slideshow for more snapshots of our FUN! |
|
Werewolf Fur: Heat-Induced Changes in Matter We made Werewolf Fur as a project to experiment with heat-related changes in matter. First we observed and recorded the states of matter of each ingredient (chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, chow mein noodles) BEFORE mixing and cooking/cooling. Then we proceeded with the recipe and recorded our observations and changes in states of matter when we heated, mixed, scooped, and cooled the ingredients. This was exciting, because the ingredients started out as all solids, then some melted, but in the end everything returned to a solid state of matter! Finally, students wrote about the changes, their favorite ingredients, words to describe the Werewolf Fur, and graphed our results. Thank you to Ryan's Mom and Ms. Friedland for helping us with our experiment!! |
|
Witches' Brew: Mixture Changes in Matter
This engaging and festive activity helped us experiment with states of matter, matter mixtures, and involved many other cross-curricular connections and activities. Before students made their trail mix they practiced reading the Witches' Brew poem to improve their fluency and find rhyming words. After students observed changes in the states of matter before, during, and after making Witches' Brew (trail mix), they wrote about and graphed their favorite and least favorite ingredients. Finally, they used adjectives to describe the taste of their mixtures. Students were able to take their Witches' Brew home! |
|
Candy Corn Connections:
Text-to-Self Connections Students paired up to read "The Relatives Came." As they read they looked for text-to-self connections. Students wrote about the following ways they could connect to the story: 1) I can connect with (in the book).... 2) This reminds me of (in my own life)... 3) I understand the story better now because.... Once they recorded these TTS connections, they published their answers on a tri-colored candy corn template. The TTS Candy Corn Connections looked amazing and showed how much the students learned from the story! |
|
Community Planning Projects
Our first social studies unit involved learning about communities, community helpers, different types of communities (rural, urban, suburban), goods, and services. As a culminating activity, students were put into groups and challenged to design their own community. Each group was randomly assigned to a rural, urban, or suburban community design. Students used non-fiction library books to research and plan their type of community. Using a community planning page, students made sure they had homes, transportation, and businesses that sell both goods and services in their plan. Additionally, they tried to include safety features, places to have fun, places to work, and places to help people in their community plans. They even named their communities! When finished, the groups presented their designs to the class! |
|
Hands-On Math
Students are working hard at hands-on math stations. Featured in these photos you will find a variety of math manipulatives and games. Research has proven that teaching with math manipulatives leads to increased test scores and greater understanding of abstract math concepts. These engaging math tools make math learning hands-on and help students move from concrete, to representational, to abstract mastery of skills. Additionally, students learn important cooperation, problem-sovling, and math communication skills while participating in these hands-on activities. |
|
Hands-On Literacy
Check out these photos of students working hard at hands-on literacy stations. Featured in these photos are Reading Rods. These hands-on, color-coded, interlocking literacy cubes:
During Daily 5 literacy choice time students may choose to write and build their spelling, sight words, and/or vocabulary words for the week. This is an excellent way for students to engage with literacy both in visual and tactile ways. |
|
Calling all Mystery Pilots (Readers)!
Thank you VERY MUCH to our Mystery Readers!! Would you like to be a Mystery Pilot (reader) for our class? Each Friday at 2:50 p.m., Mystery Pilots are invited to share the joy of reading with the passengers of Flight #125. If you are interested in being a Mystery Pilot, please complete the registration form HERE. Pilot Petlak will contact you to confirm your reading date and with more information. **If you signed up to be a Flight #125 Mystery Reader, please complete the CLUE survey HERE. |
|
What's In YOUR Suitcase?
To help our classmates learn more about each other, we decorated and filled these “suitcases” with items that describe and represented each student. Below are the instructions: Step #1: Decorate the OUTSIDE of the box with magazine clippings, photos, stickers, special paper, and other FLAT materials that represent things you LIKE or ENJOY. Step #2: Fill the inside with items that represent the following things that DESCRIBE you: -What is your favorite color? -What is your favorite food? -What are your hobbies? -Who is in your family? -What is your favorite summer activity? -What is your favorite TV show? -What is your favorite game? -What is your favorite subject in school? |
|
First Week of School
We "took off" for a great year in 2nd grade! These photos show the fun, team-building activities we participated in during our first week of school. An around the room scavenger hunt and find-a-friend activities are just a few of the fun tasks we completed the first week. Check out the photos for more details! |
|
Modeling Good Reading Behaviors
We are practicing stamina reading to self and reading with a partner. Part of this process involves learning about, modeling, and practicing appropriate (and inappropriate) behaviors for each type of reading. Look at these photos for high flyers in on Flight #125 modeling and practicing good partner reading! |
|
Ending Our Day With Yoga!
Often the end of the school day is a hectic, loud event. On Flight #125, we finish our day by preparing our personal items for home, and then if we have time, we practice a few minutes of calming yoga. See the photos and captions for snapshot of our quick series of poses. It's amazing how students calm down, reflect on their day, and prepare for tomorrow during our yoga time at the end of the school day. |
|
Turning a Classroom Into an Airplane!
Check out these before, during, and after photos of Room #125 turning into Flight #125. A special "THANK YOU!" to Co-Pilot Frank (Mrs. Petlak's husband) for all of his hard work and effort put into maintenance on our aircraft! MORE PHOTOS TO COME! Check back for the FINISHED AIRCRAFT PHOTOS! |