Thriving Thursday

The children began their day in art where they began their pottery unit.  This is messy work so they stayed in art a bit longer, which cut into our whole group reading and writing block.  Therefore, we postponed our reading lesson until tomorrow and focused on the research project.

SO...we were fortunate that Mrs. Rose bought some books specifically with the third grade research project in mind and they arrived this week.  The books are fantastic but added a twist to our plan.  They introduced new concepts/technology tools that we had not thought of before. 

Therefore, we literally regrouped.  The children chose between four groups; home/transportation, media, arts and education/work.  They got into these groups and used books, Live Binder and Internet sites to create a list of tools changed by technology.  Then they each chose a tool to research and made group lists to hand into me.

This was quite a process but it was pretty cool how the children and I worked together setting the parameters and figuring out how to organize the tasks.  It truly was a group effort.

After they submitted their groups lists, the children worked on independent reading group assignments and unfinished work (cursive, WOW papers and simile paper from two weeks ago!).

Yellow Jackets:  Reread pages 24 and 25 and wrote a main idea statement, in the RRJ, for me to assess.

Cheetahs:  Answered the BCR, in their RRJ, "What is the author's point of view?  Use specific details from the book to explain your answer."

Sharks:  Answered the BCR, in their RRJ, "Explain how Sarah Ida changed in the book.  Use specific details to explain your answer."

In math we reviewed the relationship between multiplication and division and practiced rewriting division equations as multiplication.  Mrs. Head worked with a small group identifying the unknowns in word problems and figuring out how to find the answer.  I worked with a group to identify the factors of a given number.  There will be a quiz tomorrow and all students had a worksheet for homework...some will practice their basic facts.  Others will practice finding factors of a number.

The afternoon proved to be interesting...the students continued meeting in their groups and choosing the technology tool they will research.  I had then planned to meet with small groups...however, many students were facing challenges with independent work that left them frustrated.  So, I ended up helping individuals figure out what they needed to do to complete assigned tasks.  I also took the opportunity to meet with each student and go through their unfinished work folder.

WE ended the day by reviewing natural and human made geographic characteristics as we "visited" DC and Hawaii by watching "Digging America".