Five for Friday

Happy Friday! It's been a fun week in third grade. We had our production of 101 Dalmatians last night and it was adorable! I'm so proud of those kiddos :)

These five updates are from that past two weeks since we've been so busy! Link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share your five updates from the week.

Jokes on jokes on jokes!

I have a joke board in the hallway and love finding good math jokes to put up. Here's this weeks chuckle!

Our science unit- all about plants!

We've been learning all about plant structures and how plants grow in different environments. We've planted seeds, harvested thyme from our aquaponic garden, and fed insects to our venus flytrap! I've also put QR codes next to our plants with links to research websites. The kiddos are loving it! I've never seen such excited third graders doing research :)

Polya's Problem Solving

I was talking to a co-worker about finding a good problem solving strategy to tackle word problems. I'd been using the three reads strategy which is great for students struggling to understand the problem, but I needed another strategy for my students who could understand the problems but may make careless mistakes or not show their work. She mentioned Polya's book, How to Solve It, and the four steps to problem solving. I'm still reading the book but we've started trying out the strategy and I love it! My students have steps to follow that are easy to remember and they can check off, but it's more than just circling numbers or underlining key words- my students are THINKING about the problem, coming up with a plan to solve, and CHECKING THEIR WORK! It's a beautiful thing! The white boards show all the different strategies to solve the same problem! We did a gallery walk so kiddos could see how their friends solved and checked, and we discussed our favorite strategies and how we could look at their work and understand what they did. Woohoo!!

We have had a blast playing this game to review our 1-6 multiplication facts!

If you're looking for a fun way for your students to practice you can get a free copy of this game here: https://games4gains.com/blogs/teaching-ideas/multiplication-squares-game

Farm update!

Our girl "Hot Mess" is due a couple days after Easter! Shes precious!

Have a great weekend! Spring break is near my friends!

Rock on,

Diana

Five for Friday

Happy Friday! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! It's been a fun week in 3rd grade so here's some of the highlights from the week. 

I've been battling a cold and on Tuesday I completely lost my voice. This was a problem because I ha to introduce the distributive property the next day... only one of the trickiest 3rd grade concepts! Luckily I had planned on teaching it with a ninja theme, so we took a ninja vow of silence and boy did these kids get into it!

I first introduced it with drawing equal groups and "slashing" those groups into two smaller groups. This seemed to work better than slashing the arrays for us. 

 

We made little ninjas to hang in the hall showing the distributive property without picture support the next day!

We also couldn't be ninjas without headbands (black cloth from walmart cut into strips) and ninja star erasers! I'm so proud of my little ninjas in training!

All week we have been preparing for our Math & Science night at school. Each table group made a science fair project board showing how we've been using STEM bins in our classroom! The Stem bins are from Brook Brown and you can check them out here!

 

After students built different designs from the challenge cards they responded to prompts about what their challenges were using different building materials and what they would try next time. I highly suggest these STEM bins for a fun way to integrate STEM in your classroom! We plan on using them at least once a week or every other week.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner so next week we'll be doing this Thanksgiving Division activity! I finally finished it for TPT and added worksheets to go along with the activity. Included is clipart of food to practice the concept of division by sharing the food over several plates. After a few rounds students start to see the pattern of how it's multiplication flipped, and they get faster! I added the worksheet so after the activity I can check for understanding without the hands-on portion.

Check out the product here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Thanksgiving-Division-2871812

Are you a lularoe addict? I admit I have a problem. Such a problem that I even blogged about all the ways teachers can wear lularoe here

This is a new style called Carly and I'm loving it! I had to take a quick pic and share the lulalove.

Farm update- Meet Captain Hook!

Captain Hook is the dad to Indie, the baby we had this past summer. He's a handsome fella and we're hoping for more beautiful kids to come. He's just staying for a month... or maybe forever. I'll see how my talk with hubby goes :)

That's all folks, thanks for stopping by! Hope you have a great and relaxing weekend. Short week next week- we can make it!

Rock on,

Diana

Five for Friday

Happy Veteran's Day! Thankful for all of those who have served and serve today! I know our great country has been on everyone's mind this week. As I reflect over the week in our classroom I can't help but be thankful to have the freedom to do what I love thanks to our veterans!

It's been almost two months since my last five for friday.. or any post for that matter! Teaching has been kicking my butt and it's been a tough few months but as I reflected I realized that many of the tough things that come with our jobs are blessings and we're not alone in feeling overwhelmed. I just have to remind myself of that sometimes! I shared some of those thoughts yesterday in my post: http://dianarowland.blogspot.com/2016/11/when-teaching-kicks-your-butt.html

We've started with our multiplication facts in third grade!

 

We fill up this monster on the door every time they pass a fact! They get to write their name on the piece they add. This is a great motivator, but doesn't point out anyone who takes a little longer to master their facts. 

I've also turned my desk into a little muliplication station! I put command hooks on the sides and used plastic sleeves from amazon (aff link included!) to place their facts inside. Each color is a different fact, so students grab whatever they're working on and use a dry erase marker. The back has the answers so they usually hold it out to another person and read off their answers while the other person checks. I get the sheets from math-aides.com 

I may have posted about my joke board before, but even so, I'm having so much fun with it I can't help but revisit some of the jokes posted this year! I've put this dry erase board above the hooks in the hall where students hang their book bag. The intended purpose of this board at the beginning of the year was for reminders, updates, and since it's magnetic I figured I could put pictures of the kids up there every now and again. However, I found this board had a much higher purpose... math jokes. 

I just wrote this last one yesterday after school. I look forward to the chuckles Monday morning, but also some of my students actually solving it to show me they know the answer!

Now that our third graders are getting into the multiplication, the word problems are becoming trickier. Students in the past just had to figure out if it was addition or subtraction... now cue the multiplication and division problems that use many of the same key words! I've been exploring a few different problem solving strategies and would love other teachers' input as to which you've found to be the best!

Here's some that I've used in the past... trying to decide! Maybe you know a different one that's worked well for your class!

The 3 reads is what I used last year, that I got from Simply Skilled in Second  and I really feel this helped my students understand what was going on in the problem. Plus it's only 3 steps! Only thing is there's no acronym to remember the steps.. So that's why I shortened the description of the steps here on my anchor chart. 

A teacher I worked with last year used this strategy and it worked extremely well for her students! It sort of combines the CUBES with the thinking portion by having the "action plan". 

My current plan is to stick with the 3 Reads, but for the second read they can also circle the numbers while they think of what they mean, and the 3rd read they can underline the question. I really believe that if they can picture the situation that the math story presents and what those numbers mean to the situation, it will make it easier to formulate that action plan and solve! 

Farm update!

Well, we're working on clearing the land for the future R&R farm! We've cleared the trees, burned the brush, and are now making piles of sticks to burn before we dig up stumps and plant some grass. Next steps would be to build the barn so we can move the animals. I doubt anyone will want to buy our current house with goats in the backyard :) Well.. I would.. but not most people!

We still have to prepare for winter here in the meantime. We covered the chicken coop in greenhouse plastic to cut back on the wind and help with the convection process inside! This was great to talk with my students about while learning about heat transfer! 

Hot Mess likes to think she's being helpful.

WA-LA! It has an opening at the top peak for ventilation, but oh man, I just walked in there this morning to feed the chickens and it was considerably warmer in there! I need to get one of those outdoor thermometers to see just what the difference is. Either way, we have some happy chickens!

Thanks for catching up with me, and I hope you've had a great week! If it's been a little rough, then hey, don't forget to check out http://dianarowland.blogspot.com/2016/11/when-teaching-kicks-your-butt.html and know you're not alone!

Happy Friday!!

-Diana