Finally... Owl Pellets!

We have finally begun our adventure with the human body. We have counted bones, looked at movement through jumping rope and assembled a Mr. Bones character. We even tried to label as many bones as we could on a skeleton. We finally have started to find another skeleton inside an owl pellet. We use Foss Science kits and part of our kit is to disect and discover an owl pellet.

What is an owl pellet?
 When an owl eats it prey, it swallows it whole. Then an owl's body does something really amazing and digests everything but the fur and bones. It then throws the leftovers back up, thus producing an owl pellet.

We were a little grossed out at first, but once we realized we can wash our hands afterwards, we dug right in. We are in the process of animal identification and placing bones in the right place.

Be a Hero... Donate Blood

We had an assembly last week to kick off our annual blood drive. We learned there are many different types of heroes: firefighters, soldiers, doctors, nurses and so many more. But we also learned that anyone can be a hero if they donate blood.

The flyers were sent home last week and are due on Tuesday, March 17th. Please consider being a donor. The blood drive will be held in the Bloodmobile in our parking lot on Monday, April 13th from 1-6pm.

If students recruit a donor, they will receive a neon watch when that person donates. Plus, the class with the most donors will receive a pizza party. So let's donate some blood!

If you want to help but can't make the date.... check https://www.bloodhero.com/ for more information.

NDSU Bison Visit

On Wednesday of last week, we were so lucky to get to have some NDSU football players come to our school and read. The kids but mostly the teacher were super excited to get to listen to an awesome role model read them a book. What a fabulous experience! GO BISON!

Research Probes = Motivated Learners

We have begun a new adventure into research probes. These are new to my classroom and the idea came from a teacher friend of mine (thanks Miss Goetz) who has used them in her classroom in previous years. As soon as I heard about them, I fell in love. I was just hoping the kids would love them as much as I did.

So our adventure began. We started with our first probe, All About Me. We worked together using a matrix to organize our information about ourselves. We use small sticky notes to add our keywords. Once we collected all our information, we pulled all the sticky notes and laid them out in a paragraph. We used our red light (red pen) to add our periods on our sticky notes. After that we were able to write our paragraph. Then we repeated those steps for the rest of the categories of our matrix. Add a picture and a border... and voila! A masterpiece I was not expecting. Everyone of my students did such an amazing job!

Here is a picture of the steps we follow to complete a probe.

 Here are some matrices. See the sticky notes? That is how we organize our information.

Once we finished our All About Me probes, we moved onto researching an animal. Again, the kids did such a fabulous job and are becoming such awesome readers and writers. We have now started our next probe in which they got to choose their own topic. We have everything from animals, sports, dancing, and even some famous actors and singers. Every free moment, the students are ASKING to work on their probes. Yep... that's right! They are wanting to research, read, and write. My teacher heart is overflowing with pride.

Here are some examples of what the students have created:

 Giraffes by Avery

 Lemurs by Taelyn

 Flamingos by Abby

Whales by Zedan

 Here is the start of a probe on Taylor Swift.

Twitter Fun!

We have officially started tweeting as a classroom. We will have 2 "tweeters" of the day. They are able to take pictures of their learning or our classroom happenings and tweet about it. So far, so good.

We talked about some of our rules of tweeting and digital citizenship. Our most important: Only first names and an adult has to approve your post before you tweet. We also have a tweeting board so all of us can tweet in a day. I have been pulling a few of the kids' practice tweets and tweeting them. They are so excited to show off their skills and are counting down the days when they get to be Tweeter of the Day!

Remember to follow us: @tweetingin3rd

And... if you are new to Twitter, I can help. It really is a unique and fun tool.

Just a few notes:
* Midterms went home today. Let me know if you have any questions.
* February 2nd: PTA meeting @ 6:30
* February 13th: School DANCE!
* February 16th: No School
* February 20th: Skateland Family Skating Party

Have a great weekend.

Adventures with Twitter

I am so excited! We are finally up and ready to rock with Twitter. Start following our classroom @tweetingin3rd and look for our Tweeter of the day coming soon. Kids will have opportunities to post about their learning in school and other events throughout the day. Can't wait!

Into the New Year

What a great start to our new year! We have finished up benchmark assessing and midterms will come home by the end of January with current grades and those results. We have lots to celebrate.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed their holiday gift. We had such a fun time making them and got to bring out our inner creative side. I am so impressed with how cute they were.

During our holiday party we finished wrapping our gifts and then watched The Polar Express in our pjs with Mrs. Jenson's room. We got to enjoy our yummy snacks (thanks again to those who sent in items) and hot chocolate. We had a large train, an entrance to the North Pole and even train tracks leading to all our classrooms. Unfortunately, the train tracks didn't last too long with wet boots, but it was worth it to see the kids' faces in the morning light up with excitement.

 

Hopefully everything will slow down a little bit and I will get back to my regular posts. The kids are super excited because our classroom got a holiday present too, an iPad mini. Once they go through iPad training, they will be ready to get their hands on it. Keep an eye out for a post soon on Tweeting from our classroom. I can't wait.

Hopefully we will see a few more iPads in our classroom before the year is over. I have been writing some grants lately. :-) The kids are super excited!