June 15, 2024
During our final week of school, we became chefs at "The Blue Cafe" and created edible landforms and bodies of water. We used the Ozobots to review addition and subtraction skills. The students were paired and researched the length of an animal/object (dinosaur, catfish, sea turtle, giraffe, Paul Bunyan's footprint, megalodon). Then we went outside and measured their animal/object with sidewalk chalk. On the last day of school, we had a little time to complete a few Lego mini-building challenges. Now, there is only one thing left to say:
Mission Accomplished, Superheroes!
During our final week of school, we became chefs at "The Blue Cafe" and created edible landforms and bodies of water. We used the Ozobots to review addition and subtraction skills. The students were paired and researched the length of an animal/object (dinosaur, catfish, sea turtle, giraffe, Paul Bunyan's footprint, megalodon). Then we went outside and measured their animal/object with sidewalk chalk. On the last day of school, we had a little time to complete a few Lego mini-building challenges. Now, there is only one thing left to say:
Mission Accomplished, Superheroes!
June 9, 2024
The mini heroes and I are winding down our year. This week, we completed several units. One Reading group finished an eighty-chapter book. What an accomplishment! Needless to say, it was such a good book, and we enjoyed reading it together! However, the highlight of our week was our field trip to Skate Zone. The students completed their STEM arcade lessons, enjoyed a pizza lunch, and then started skating. It was so much fun for me watching all of our students have a ton of fun! Now, we move on to our final week.
PS: Hot off the press…the final picture shows our completed Lego Abstract Art creation. The students haven’t even seen it yet! There’s an additional piece to describe each of the twenty individual squares.
The mini heroes and I are winding down our year. This week, we completed several units. One Reading group finished an eighty-chapter book. What an accomplishment! Needless to say, it was such a good book, and we enjoyed reading it together! However, the highlight of our week was our field trip to Skate Zone. The students completed their STEM arcade lessons, enjoyed a pizza lunch, and then started skating. It was so much fun for me watching all of our students have a ton of fun! Now, we move on to our final week.
PS: Hot off the press…the final picture shows our completed Lego Abstract Art creation. The students haven’t even seen it yet! There’s an additional piece to describe each of the twenty individual squares.
June 1, 2024
Third grade had a pretty typical week until Friday rolled around. We realized that we had just spent our last Friday of the school year together. I think we had a pretty good last Friday. It started with the entrance line in the hall. You could feel the excitement and see the smiles on their faces with the anticipation of presenting their projects. After prayer, we took our final “normal” Spelling test. Then we moved into our Book Talk/Persuasion Project presentations. Overall, the students did a very nice job. Some were very creative! I enjoyed listening and watching our mini heroes present their projects. After lunch, we began our final MARVELous Mission. We took a dive into abstract art using Legos. I read The Noisy Paint Box – The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky’s Abstract Art by Barb Rosenstock. We discussed the story and moved on to watch a clip from the movie Soul. Afterwards, we closed our eyes and listened to four very different pieces of music to let our senses carry us away just like Kandinsky and Joe Gardner (from Soul) were capable of doing. The students documented how and what the music made them feel. This process led to creating an abstract Lego tile based on one of the music selections. The students also had to explain their abstract piece in writing. The Lego tiles will be combined to make a big abstract mosaic piece. It was definitely a busy final Friday afternoon 😊.
Third grade had a pretty typical week until Friday rolled around. We realized that we had just spent our last Friday of the school year together. I think we had a pretty good last Friday. It started with the entrance line in the hall. You could feel the excitement and see the smiles on their faces with the anticipation of presenting their projects. After prayer, we took our final “normal” Spelling test. Then we moved into our Book Talk/Persuasion Project presentations. Overall, the students did a very nice job. Some were very creative! I enjoyed listening and watching our mini heroes present their projects. After lunch, we began our final MARVELous Mission. We took a dive into abstract art using Legos. I read The Noisy Paint Box – The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky’s Abstract Art by Barb Rosenstock. We discussed the story and moved on to watch a clip from the movie Soul. Afterwards, we closed our eyes and listened to four very different pieces of music to let our senses carry us away just like Kandinsky and Joe Gardner (from Soul) were capable of doing. The students documented how and what the music made them feel. This process led to creating an abstract Lego tile based on one of the music selections. The students also had to explain their abstract piece in writing. The Lego tiles will be combined to make a big abstract mosaic piece. It was definitely a busy final Friday afternoon 😊.
May 25, 2024
Our schedule was fairly normal this week, so we were able to move forward in our subject areas. We reviewed time and simple conversions in Math. We used our iPads and IXL to help reinforce these skills. (Don’t forget to use IXL over the summer!) Now, we have moved into beginning Algebra. In Reading and English, we are exploring figurative language along with reading our robot stories. We practiced idioms and alliteration—they were fun for the students. We had two brave students perform a reader’s theater retelling of their robot book. Each student played many parts but they both did a super job! (Students should be working on their persuasion project at home. There’s a lot of helpful info on our class website! This is all due on May 31.) The weather unit continued, and we will wrap this unit up very shortly. In other news, we took our Dash robots on a cross-country road trip. The students were given pictures of U.S. landmarks to identify. Then they had to find the location of those landmarks. The next step was to put these landmarks on the map. Finally, the students had to code Dash to visit all the landmarks based on the numbers given on the landmark cards (this made the trip random and different for all groups). The geography practice, I discovered, was definitely needed. Lastly, we are eagerly awaiting our final field trip. I can’t believe how soon we will be skating into summer!
Our schedule was fairly normal this week, so we were able to move forward in our subject areas. We reviewed time and simple conversions in Math. We used our iPads and IXL to help reinforce these skills. (Don’t forget to use IXL over the summer!) Now, we have moved into beginning Algebra. In Reading and English, we are exploring figurative language along with reading our robot stories. We practiced idioms and alliteration—they were fun for the students. We had two brave students perform a reader’s theater retelling of their robot book. Each student played many parts but they both did a super job! (Students should be working on their persuasion project at home. There’s a lot of helpful info on our class website! This is all due on May 31.) The weather unit continued, and we will wrap this unit up very shortly. In other news, we took our Dash robots on a cross-country road trip. The students were given pictures of U.S. landmarks to identify. Then they had to find the location of those landmarks. The next step was to put these landmarks on the map. Finally, the students had to code Dash to visit all the landmarks based on the numbers given on the landmark cards (this made the trip random and different for all groups). The geography practice, I discovered, was definitely needed. Lastly, we are eagerly awaiting our final field trip. I can’t believe how soon we will be skating into summer!
May 19, 2024
They say that variety is the spice of life. I think this also applies to our classroom life. This week, I want to focus on a few extra activities that happened. The students have Spanish class twice a week with Mrs. Herrera. She has been teaching the students to sing simple songs in Spanish. They are doing such a great job in this class. I recorded part of one of the songs. Check it out on our NewsFLASH page. Once again, we worked on our coding skills with the Dash robots. The students continue to look forward to this activity. On Friday, we attended field day…a long-awaited yearly event and a favorite of the students. We visited each field day event with our fourth grade friends. Our favorite and best event was the scooter relay. There are a couple pics of the students celebrating our win (a clean sweep of all three races 😊). That same afternoon, the students were able to enjoy the foam fun run. They had a great time! I put another short video of this over on our NewsFLASH page. Enjoy!
They say that variety is the spice of life. I think this also applies to our classroom life. This week, I want to focus on a few extra activities that happened. The students have Spanish class twice a week with Mrs. Herrera. She has been teaching the students to sing simple songs in Spanish. They are doing such a great job in this class. I recorded part of one of the songs. Check it out on our NewsFLASH page. Once again, we worked on our coding skills with the Dash robots. The students continue to look forward to this activity. On Friday, we attended field day…a long-awaited yearly event and a favorite of the students. We visited each field day event with our fourth grade friends. Our favorite and best event was the scooter relay. There are a couple pics of the students celebrating our win (a clean sweep of all three races 😊). That same afternoon, the students were able to enjoy the foam fun run. They had a great time! I put another short video of this over on our NewsFLASH page. Enjoy!
May 12, 2024
THANK YOU, Thank You, and thank you for ALL of the cards, gifts, well-wishes, and prayers for teacher appreciation week! I was overwhelmed with your generosity and kind words. 😊 I have taken a few pictures to share with all of you. The video the students made will forever hold a special place in my heart! <3 We, the teachers, were also extremely well-fed during the week. 😉
While it was a dreary week weather-wise, it was another busy one in Hero Headquarters. We are progressing with decimals in Math, pronouns in English, theme and robot stories in Reading, weather in Science, AND working on a persuasion essay. With all of that…we completed three rounds of standardized testing, coded our Dash robots, and completed surgery.
The students are using iPads and Blockly coding to code the Dash robots to run the bases (with a celebration at the end) of a baseball diamond or pack six items in a suitcase. The students LOVE working with the robots. All twelve robots have individual names, and the students can’t wait to see whom they are working with for the hour.
Hero Hospital reopened with the mini-heroes performing contraction surgery. We put on our super suits and opened four operating rooms. The surgeons had to find the two words that made up a Spelling word contraction, operate to remove the unwanted letters, and rejoin the two words by using band-aids. The surgeons are not allowed to use their hands on the patients. So, opening band-aids with tweezers is quite the feat—fine motor skills practice. Of course, the surgeons did need to include the apostrophe on their patients. Well, we started with 17 patients and we managed to save 15! :O oops.
Happy Mother’s Day to all of our Superhero Moms!
THANK YOU, Thank You, and thank you for ALL of the cards, gifts, well-wishes, and prayers for teacher appreciation week! I was overwhelmed with your generosity and kind words. 😊 I have taken a few pictures to share with all of you. The video the students made will forever hold a special place in my heart! <3 We, the teachers, were also extremely well-fed during the week. 😉
While it was a dreary week weather-wise, it was another busy one in Hero Headquarters. We are progressing with decimals in Math, pronouns in English, theme and robot stories in Reading, weather in Science, AND working on a persuasion essay. With all of that…we completed three rounds of standardized testing, coded our Dash robots, and completed surgery.
The students are using iPads and Blockly coding to code the Dash robots to run the bases (with a celebration at the end) of a baseball diamond or pack six items in a suitcase. The students LOVE working with the robots. All twelve robots have individual names, and the students can’t wait to see whom they are working with for the hour.
Hero Hospital reopened with the mini-heroes performing contraction surgery. We put on our super suits and opened four operating rooms. The surgeons had to find the two words that made up a Spelling word contraction, operate to remove the unwanted letters, and rejoin the two words by using band-aids. The surgeons are not allowed to use their hands on the patients. So, opening band-aids with tweezers is quite the feat—fine motor skills practice. Of course, the surgeons did need to include the apostrophe on their patients. Well, we started with 17 patients and we managed to save 15! :O oops.
Happy Mother’s Day to all of our Superhero Moms!
May 5, 2024
Science was the major focus of the week with the arrival of the Maryland Mobile Science Lab. There are three mobile Science labs; however, our lab focused on agricultural products. The students were scheduled to attend the lab three times over the course of the week. The first lab, “Little Red Hen Makes Pizza,” centered on the fact that the products to make pizza all originate on the farm. The second lab, “CSI: Candy Investigators,” focused on identifying oil, acid, and wax in candy. The final lab, “Here, There, and Everywhere,” centered on identifying what foods come from certain animals and grains and where in Maryland is the county that produces the most of that product. The activities were very good, and the students enjoyed them. The pics this week are from the lab visits. In other subject areas, we have moved on to decimals in Math, continuing pronouns in English, worked on theme and read our robot stories in Reading, and continue to work on our five-paragraph persuasion essay. The week concluded with another lovely Mass from Cardinal Gregory.
Science was the major focus of the week with the arrival of the Maryland Mobile Science Lab. There are three mobile Science labs; however, our lab focused on agricultural products. The students were scheduled to attend the lab three times over the course of the week. The first lab, “Little Red Hen Makes Pizza,” centered on the fact that the products to make pizza all originate on the farm. The second lab, “CSI: Candy Investigators,” focused on identifying oil, acid, and wax in candy. The final lab, “Here, There, and Everywhere,” centered on identifying what foods come from certain animals and grains and where in Maryland is the county that produces the most of that product. The activities were very good, and the students enjoyed them. The pics this week are from the lab visits. In other subject areas, we have moved on to decimals in Math, continuing pronouns in English, worked on theme and read our robot stories in Reading, and continue to work on our five-paragraph persuasion essay. The week concluded with another lovely Mass from Cardinal Gregory.
April 28, 2024
Our final weeks continue to be busy, full of learning, and new opportunities. We continued our fraction unit in Math, started our pronoun unit in English, added onto the persuasion writing project, and learned more about our nation’s government. Our cursive writing is coming along, so continue to work on it. During the week, we were finally able to present our donation check to Farmer Sharon who works with the Charles County Humane Society. The donations were from our January parade STEM project. The children especially enjoyed Prince Darius, the dog, who accompanied Farmer Sharon to accept the donation. The highlight of our week was coding our Dash robots. The students are using Blockly coding to program the robots to accomplish challenges. The first challenge was to score a homerun by running the baseball bases which included a celebration at the end. If that task were to be achieved, we put an obstacle in the way that Dash had to avoid while running the bases. The second challenge is to have Dash pack a suitcase for a trip. The students (and I) are especially enjoying the time we get to spend with our robots. I also included a few pics from our hallway. Our (paper) robots and stories are on display, as well as a new bulletin board that features pictures from our school-wide Mars STEM project. Until next time~
Our final weeks continue to be busy, full of learning, and new opportunities. We continued our fraction unit in Math, started our pronoun unit in English, added onto the persuasion writing project, and learned more about our nation’s government. Our cursive writing is coming along, so continue to work on it. During the week, we were finally able to present our donation check to Farmer Sharon who works with the Charles County Humane Society. The donations were from our January parade STEM project. The children especially enjoyed Prince Darius, the dog, who accompanied Farmer Sharon to accept the donation. The highlight of our week was coding our Dash robots. The students are using Blockly coding to program the robots to accomplish challenges. The first challenge was to score a homerun by running the baseball bases which included a celebration at the end. If that task were to be achieved, we put an obstacle in the way that Dash had to avoid while running the bases. The second challenge is to have Dash pack a suitcase for a trip. The students (and I) are especially enjoying the time we get to spend with our robots. I also included a few pics from our hallway. Our (paper) robots and stories are on display, as well as a new bulletin board that features pictures from our school-wide Mars STEM project. Until next time~
April 21, 2024
Hero Headquarters continues to be in full training mode! We are continuing fractions, government, and robot stories. Along with our robot stories, we had a mini lesson on poetry, prose, and drama. All students were present and accounted for during our standardized Religion test. (Thanks!!) Our final English unit was put on hold to work on a few of our writing standards. The students will have a persuasion project due soon…more on that later. Our Marvelous Mission on Friday was to “build” a robot and write a paragraph about the robot. The robots are built, but the paragraphs are still underway. Encourage writing and reading with your mini-heroes. I recently read a quote that stated, “Reading and writing cannot be separated. Reading is like breathing in; writing is like breathing out.” This week, I also included a couple of pics from music class. The students are learning to play the ukulele. We are not playing beautiful music just yet K but they are trying! The week concluded with our small group celebrations. The boys, with Mrs. Cobleigh, enjoyed ice cream blizzards as they wrapped up their blizzard STEM unit. The girls, with me, enjoyed a celestial tea party. We had fruit rockets, cheese stars and crackers, Oreo moons, Cosmic brownies, Mars mini sandwiches, a small container of space junk, Starry (tea), Sunny D (tea), and sweet tea. The students enjoyed their celebrations!
Hero Headquarters continues to be in full training mode! We are continuing fractions, government, and robot stories. Along with our robot stories, we had a mini lesson on poetry, prose, and drama. All students were present and accounted for during our standardized Religion test. (Thanks!!) Our final English unit was put on hold to work on a few of our writing standards. The students will have a persuasion project due soon…more on that later. Our Marvelous Mission on Friday was to “build” a robot and write a paragraph about the robot. The robots are built, but the paragraphs are still underway. Encourage writing and reading with your mini-heroes. I recently read a quote that stated, “Reading and writing cannot be separated. Reading is like breathing in; writing is like breathing out.” This week, I also included a couple of pics from music class. The students are learning to play the ukulele. We are not playing beautiful music just yet K but they are trying! The week concluded with our small group celebrations. The boys, with Mrs. Cobleigh, enjoyed ice cream blizzards as they wrapped up their blizzard STEM unit. The girls, with me, enjoyed a celestial tea party. We had fruit rockets, cheese stars and crackers, Oreo moons, Cosmic brownies, Mars mini sandwiches, a small container of space junk, Starry (tea), Sunny D (tea), and sweet tea. The students enjoyed their celebrations!
April 14, 2024
We are definitely back, baby! Fourth quarter is in full swing. The solar eclipse was a great way to start our week! The students really enjoyed going out and viewing it with their classmates. In Math, we tackled circle graphs and probability (a fun lesson!) before starting our fractions unit. Robot stories are the focus in Reading for 4th quarter. Along with the robot stories, we have started using a coding program. We are first learning to code a virtual robot, and then we will code actual robots. That has brought some new excitement to our routine. We took our first cursive Spelling Test – keep practicing! Government is the current focus in Social Studies. We are just about ready to conclude our English unit and start the final grammar unit of the year. Friday’s Marvelous Mission had us writing basketball quotes (to review a current English skill), and then we drew ourselves as basketball players and glued on a speech bubble with our quotes. These turned out really cool! I took pics of these masterpieces in progress. I will take pics of the completed illustrations for next week. Lastly, just for fun, I included a pic from my grown son’s Lego birthday party (check out the Lego glasses). This just proves that you are never too old to enjoy Legos!!
We are definitely back, baby! Fourth quarter is in full swing. The solar eclipse was a great way to start our week! The students really enjoyed going out and viewing it with their classmates. In Math, we tackled circle graphs and probability (a fun lesson!) before starting our fractions unit. Robot stories are the focus in Reading for 4th quarter. Along with the robot stories, we have started using a coding program. We are first learning to code a virtual robot, and then we will code actual robots. That has brought some new excitement to our routine. We took our first cursive Spelling Test – keep practicing! Government is the current focus in Social Studies. We are just about ready to conclude our English unit and start the final grammar unit of the year. Friday’s Marvelous Mission had us writing basketball quotes (to review a current English skill), and then we drew ourselves as basketball players and glued on a speech bubble with our quotes. These turned out really cool! I took pics of these masterpieces in progress. I will take pics of the completed illustrations for next week. Lastly, just for fun, I included a pic from my grown son’s Lego birthday party (check out the Lego glasses). This just proves that you are never too old to enjoy Legos!!
April 7, 2024
Welcome back to school. Hope you had a super break!
Welcome back to school. Hope you had a super break!
March 24, 2024
The lucky leprechaun (specifically the Lucky Charms leprechaun) made a visit on Monday of this past week. Monday was our school's St. Patrick’s celebration. While all of us donned our green attire, we used Lucky Charms to help us learn and explore several new Math skills. Of course, the most important part was eating the cereal when we were finished. In Math, the students are reviewing and practicing for the upcoming long division test. Practice is an absolute necessity. On Wednesday, the Catholic students went to confession with Fr. Gary. Any and all spare minutes we had during the week went to preparing for our schoolwide STEM event. My goal is to have ALL students – during an assigned time slot – in the hall to help present the project. That means we must “know our stuff.” Please continue to review. The event, Mission: Mars, is open to parents and visitors on Tuesday, March 26 from 2 – 2:30. You will pick up a mission logbook at the door and then step onto Mars. The Red Planet awaits – don’t miss it!
The lucky leprechaun (specifically the Lucky Charms leprechaun) made a visit on Monday of this past week. Monday was our school's St. Patrick’s celebration. While all of us donned our green attire, we used Lucky Charms to help us learn and explore several new Math skills. Of course, the most important part was eating the cereal when we were finished. In Math, the students are reviewing and practicing for the upcoming long division test. Practice is an absolute necessity. On Wednesday, the Catholic students went to confession with Fr. Gary. Any and all spare minutes we had during the week went to preparing for our schoolwide STEM event. My goal is to have ALL students – during an assigned time slot – in the hall to help present the project. That means we must “know our stuff.” Please continue to review. The event, Mission: Mars, is open to parents and visitors on Tuesday, March 26 from 2 – 2:30. You will pick up a mission logbook at the door and then step onto Mars. The Red Planet awaits – don’t miss it!
March 17, 2024
Carl Sagan states, “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” The third-graders spent quite a bit of time this week trying to find and learn incredible space information. On Thursday afternoon, we attended a virtual field trip with NASA Goddard Space Center for the program “Living and Working in Space.” On Friday, the students spent the day at the Udvar-Hazy Center: National Air and Space Museum. Some students were able to experience the motion capsule ride simulator. After going upside down in the simulator, a few students have decided they now want to become astronauts. Both events were super! Thanks to Mrs. Soriano for inviting us along on the virtual field trip and to our chaperones for attending the museum field trip. As you can see, we are working diligently to prepare for our school-wide STEM event. Mark your calendars to visit the exhibit on March 26. In other news, we continue to work on our long division skills in Math. I repeatedly send home math books with the students in hopes they practice with you. This is essential! We continue to work on our mysteries in Reading and the punctuation/capitalization unit in English. Until next time, enjoy the weather!
Carl Sagan states, “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” The third-graders spent quite a bit of time this week trying to find and learn incredible space information. On Thursday afternoon, we attended a virtual field trip with NASA Goddard Space Center for the program “Living and Working in Space.” On Friday, the students spent the day at the Udvar-Hazy Center: National Air and Space Museum. Some students were able to experience the motion capsule ride simulator. After going upside down in the simulator, a few students have decided they now want to become astronauts. Both events were super! Thanks to Mrs. Soriano for inviting us along on the virtual field trip and to our chaperones for attending the museum field trip. As you can see, we are working diligently to prepare for our school-wide STEM event. Mark your calendars to visit the exhibit on March 26. In other news, we continue to work on our long division skills in Math. I repeatedly send home math books with the students in hopes they practice with you. This is essential! We continue to work on our mysteries in Reading and the punctuation/capitalization unit in English. Until next time, enjoy the weather!
March 9, 2024
For the students, the highlight of this week was playing “Hulk Smash” to review our multiplication. This is a fast-paced game with multiplication problems and superhero riddles. There are a few pics from the activity. However, be sure to check out the video intro to this activity over on our NewsFlash page (be sure to scroll down a bit). Now that we have that multiplication unit wrapped up, we have moved on to long division. This needs practice! In Reading, we are in the midst of a mini mystery unit. For Read Across America Week, we read one of our mysteries with flashlights. Dark, rainy, and gloomy days are perfect for flashlight reading. During the week, fifth grade students visited to help Mrs. Cobleigh take a book survey. This will help her acquire new books for the library based on what the students want to read. Our small Friday focus groups continue. No pics from my group this week as we were busy researching the Atacama Desert. The boys created snowball launchers…what fun! Be sure to mark your calendars to visit our schoolwide STEM project, Mission: Mars, in the Fr. Dewan Hall on March 26 from 2 – 2:30. Also, don't forget to spring forward!
For the students, the highlight of this week was playing “Hulk Smash” to review our multiplication. This is a fast-paced game with multiplication problems and superhero riddles. There are a few pics from the activity. However, be sure to check out the video intro to this activity over on our NewsFlash page (be sure to scroll down a bit). Now that we have that multiplication unit wrapped up, we have moved on to long division. This needs practice! In Reading, we are in the midst of a mini mystery unit. For Read Across America Week, we read one of our mysteries with flashlights. Dark, rainy, and gloomy days are perfect for flashlight reading. During the week, fifth grade students visited to help Mrs. Cobleigh take a book survey. This will help her acquire new books for the library based on what the students want to read. Our small Friday focus groups continue. No pics from my group this week as we were busy researching the Atacama Desert. The boys created snowball launchers…what fun! Be sure to mark your calendars to visit our schoolwide STEM project, Mission: Mars, in the Fr. Dewan Hall on March 26 from 2 – 2:30. Also, don't forget to spring forward!
March 3, 2024
It’s March…the time is flying by! From this point on, our Math studies will be “big kid” topics as we get closer and closer to fourth grade. Mathematically speaking, it is exciting--I like this time of year. However, it’s crucial that the multiplication facts be memorized. We continue to progress in all subject areas. Most students have concluded their Martin Luther King, Jr. timelines, and I have included a few pics. The students did a nice job on their scrapbook projects. Those are on display in our hallway for all to enjoy. I have included a few pics of my American Girl club. Finally, we ended our week with a wonderful Mass given by Cardinal Gregory. We are looking forward to our first field trip. 😊
PS – We even had a drone flying in our classroom! You never know what will happen in grade 3 😉
It’s March…the time is flying by! From this point on, our Math studies will be “big kid” topics as we get closer and closer to fourth grade. Mathematically speaking, it is exciting--I like this time of year. However, it’s crucial that the multiplication facts be memorized. We continue to progress in all subject areas. Most students have concluded their Martin Luther King, Jr. timelines, and I have included a few pics. The students did a nice job on their scrapbook projects. Those are on display in our hallway for all to enjoy. I have included a few pics of my American Girl club. Finally, we ended our week with a wonderful Mass given by Cardinal Gregory. We are looking forward to our first field trip. 😊
PS – We even had a drone flying in our classroom! You never know what will happen in grade 3 😉
February 25, 2024
Since the 100th day fell on a Friday this year, we were not able to celebrate it. (Our Fridays are quite busy these days.) So, this week we celebrated the 103rd day of school (Get it? Third day and third grade!) Our activity centered on small STEM centers: what can you build with 103 Legos, dominoes, popsicle sticks, linking cubes, cups, hashtag blocks, or pattern blocks? You will see from the pictures that the students had a great time with this activity.
In other news, we are working on two-, three-, and four-digit multiplication with regrouping in Math. We concluded adjectives and adverbs in English. Prior to the test, we reviewed with a rousing game of Adjective and Adverb Trashketball. A correct review answer earned you a chance to shoot a balled-up recycled piece of paper into the basket. We played half of the classroom against the other half of the classroom. We ended up with a tied score of 0 – 0!! We will start a new capitalization and punctuation unit in English this coming week. We are reading and creating timelines in Social Studies. A few pics show our Martin Luther King, Jr. research using only reference books (no electronics this time). Prior to this research, we discussed different kinds of resource books (atlas, encyclopedia, thesaurus, and dictionary) which is one of our third-grade content standards. We will be concluding our space stories soon, but we’re not finished with space, as we will dive into our schoolwide STEM project. I have included a few pics from our small Friday focus groups. The boys (with Mrs. Cobleigh) completed an Arctic Architect challenge. They had to construct an igloo with a door opening for scientists stranded in a storm. The construction materials were packing peanuts, tape, and toothpicks. We had a couple of extra “girls” visit our class during our American Girl session. The book seen in the picture is the focus of our group as it ties in with our Mars study. I hope the students had a good week!
Since the 100th day fell on a Friday this year, we were not able to celebrate it. (Our Fridays are quite busy these days.) So, this week we celebrated the 103rd day of school (Get it? Third day and third grade!) Our activity centered on small STEM centers: what can you build with 103 Legos, dominoes, popsicle sticks, linking cubes, cups, hashtag blocks, or pattern blocks? You will see from the pictures that the students had a great time with this activity.
In other news, we are working on two-, three-, and four-digit multiplication with regrouping in Math. We concluded adjectives and adverbs in English. Prior to the test, we reviewed with a rousing game of Adjective and Adverb Trashketball. A correct review answer earned you a chance to shoot a balled-up recycled piece of paper into the basket. We played half of the classroom against the other half of the classroom. We ended up with a tied score of 0 – 0!! We will start a new capitalization and punctuation unit in English this coming week. We are reading and creating timelines in Social Studies. A few pics show our Martin Luther King, Jr. research using only reference books (no electronics this time). Prior to this research, we discussed different kinds of resource books (atlas, encyclopedia, thesaurus, and dictionary) which is one of our third-grade content standards. We will be concluding our space stories soon, but we’re not finished with space, as we will dive into our schoolwide STEM project. I have included a few pics from our small Friday focus groups. The boys (with Mrs. Cobleigh) completed an Arctic Architect challenge. They had to construct an igloo with a door opening for scientists stranded in a storm. The construction materials were packing peanuts, tape, and toothpicks. We had a couple of extra “girls” visit our class during our American Girl session. The book seen in the picture is the focus of our group as it ties in with our Mars study. I hope the students had a good week!
February 18, 2024
We are now 100 days smarter! Friday, February 16th was our one-hundredth day of school! A big THANK YOU to our room-moms for our SUPER ice-cream Valentine’s Day party. The students had a sweet time! During the week, we worked on two-digit multiplication with regrouping, reviewed for our upcoming English test, continued our Reading groups, started a main idea skill unit, and completed our matter books. Now that the Lenten season is here, we will attend Stations of the Cross on a weekly basis. This past Friday, our 7th and 8th graders did such a nice job presenting Stations. Our Marvelous Mission had the students look more in-depth at the life of Bessie Coleman and concluded with making a pop-up report. We are brainstorming for our upcoming Mission: Mars STEM project.
We are now 100 days smarter! Friday, February 16th was our one-hundredth day of school! A big THANK YOU to our room-moms for our SUPER ice-cream Valentine’s Day party. The students had a sweet time! During the week, we worked on two-digit multiplication with regrouping, reviewed for our upcoming English test, continued our Reading groups, started a main idea skill unit, and completed our matter books. Now that the Lenten season is here, we will attend Stations of the Cross on a weekly basis. This past Friday, our 7th and 8th graders did such a nice job presenting Stations. Our Marvelous Mission had the students look more in-depth at the life of Bessie Coleman and concluded with making a pop-up report. We are brainstorming for our upcoming Mission: Mars STEM project.
February 11, 2024
During the week, the third graders participated in several nontraditional review activities. I wanted to show the students that review and practice don’t always need to center around book work. (Yes, learning can be fun 😉) The students played Geometry Jenga (see pics) to review those skills. We also played Hedbanz (forgot to take pics) to review Geometry vocabulary. The students really enjoyed the review games 😊. We made significant progress in our space stories. These stories will also help prepare us to participate in our second schoolwide STEM project, Mission: Mars. We are learning about adverbs in English, and we’re finally assembling our snowman matter book. (Speaking of which….where’s the snow?) New on Fridays: Mrs. Cobleigh and I have created two small focus groups. I am taking the girls on an American Girl doll adventure to Chile (ties into our Mars study), and Mrs. Cobleigh is taking the boys on an Arctic adventure (ties in STEM). We have just started this new venture, but so far, the students seem very excited. Friday’s Marvelous Mission brought us a new activity. The students learned about the Black American Inventor, Mark Dean. He is cocreator of the personal computer. While working at IBM, he even earned several patents during this process. We watched a couple of short videos about him and then created our own personal laptops. I brought in an old laptop that had been taken apart so the students could see the insides of a real computer. We talked about each part to complete a matching activity. Then, we chose our case colors, put in our hardware, added the monitor and keyboard, and voila!—each student had their own laptop. Of course, there had to be some decorating. I took some fun pics of the students working hard using their laptops and a few posed pics. This activity was a keeper! Now, are you ready for some football? Enjoy!
During the week, the third graders participated in several nontraditional review activities. I wanted to show the students that review and practice don’t always need to center around book work. (Yes, learning can be fun 😉) The students played Geometry Jenga (see pics) to review those skills. We also played Hedbanz (forgot to take pics) to review Geometry vocabulary. The students really enjoyed the review games 😊. We made significant progress in our space stories. These stories will also help prepare us to participate in our second schoolwide STEM project, Mission: Mars. We are learning about adverbs in English, and we’re finally assembling our snowman matter book. (Speaking of which….where’s the snow?) New on Fridays: Mrs. Cobleigh and I have created two small focus groups. I am taking the girls on an American Girl doll adventure to Chile (ties into our Mars study), and Mrs. Cobleigh is taking the boys on an Arctic adventure (ties in STEM). We have just started this new venture, but so far, the students seem very excited. Friday’s Marvelous Mission brought us a new activity. The students learned about the Black American Inventor, Mark Dean. He is cocreator of the personal computer. While working at IBM, he even earned several patents during this process. We watched a couple of short videos about him and then created our own personal laptops. I brought in an old laptop that had been taken apart so the students could see the insides of a real computer. We talked about each part to complete a matching activity. Then, we chose our case colors, put in our hardware, added the monitor and keyboard, and voila!—each student had their own laptop. Of course, there had to be some decorating. I took some fun pics of the students working hard using their laptops and a few posed pics. This activity was a keeper! Now, are you ready for some football? Enjoy!
February 4, 2024
Wow, what a busy week! Our float design team worked hard to problem solve our issues with creating the axolotl float for the STEM/service project. We were on ‘Plan C’ with ‘Plan D’ waiting, if needed. Luckily, Plan C worked! There are a few pics below. The write-up team also completed the parade commentary. So, mission accomplished. In Math, we worked on perimeter, area, and volume. There are a few pics of the students practicing these skills with Cheez-its (they make excellent math manipulatives!). We were able to squeeze in a few more subject areas along with the Catholic Schools Week festivities. The third graders enjoyed all of the opportunities to dress according to the daily theme. It was also nice to see how supportive and encouraging the students were with our Principal of the Day! Good job, Miss Taylor!
Wow, what a busy week! Our float design team worked hard to problem solve our issues with creating the axolotl float for the STEM/service project. We were on ‘Plan C’ with ‘Plan D’ waiting, if needed. Luckily, Plan C worked! There are a few pics below. The write-up team also completed the parade commentary. So, mission accomplished. In Math, we worked on perimeter, area, and volume. There are a few pics of the students practicing these skills with Cheez-its (they make excellent math manipulatives!). We were able to squeeze in a few more subject areas along with the Catholic Schools Week festivities. The third graders enjoyed all of the opportunities to dress according to the daily theme. It was also nice to see how supportive and encouraging the students were with our Principal of the Day! Good job, Miss Taylor!
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January 28, 2024
Third quarter is in full swing in Hero Headquarters. We continue to progress in all our subject areas. In Math, we read Fly on the Ceiling, a math myth. It explains how the Cartesian Coordinate System came to be created by Rene Descartes. The students then practiced graphing ordered pairs by playing “Fly on the Ceiling” with a partner (similar to Battleship). We have used geoboards to practice and review the many geometry vocabulary words. In other areas, we are working on adjectives, context clues, bossy “r” words, and matter. Now, let’s highlight some of the work the students have completed. The third grade artists completed snow scenes for our winter bulletin board. We have long lanky snowmen showing off multiplication and division fact families (sorry, no pic). Our hall table displays the habitats completed with Mrs. Cobleigh. During school tours, our hallway is a favorite stopping place for visitors. The “hero hallway” is soaring with super work! This week, we are suiting up for Catholic Schools Week!
Third quarter is in full swing in Hero Headquarters. We continue to progress in all our subject areas. In Math, we read Fly on the Ceiling, a math myth. It explains how the Cartesian Coordinate System came to be created by Rene Descartes. The students then practiced graphing ordered pairs by playing “Fly on the Ceiling” with a partner (similar to Battleship). We have used geoboards to practice and review the many geometry vocabulary words. In other areas, we are working on adjectives, context clues, bossy “r” words, and matter. Now, let’s highlight some of the work the students have completed. The third grade artists completed snow scenes for our winter bulletin board. We have long lanky snowmen showing off multiplication and division fact families (sorry, no pic). Our hall table displays the habitats completed with Mrs. Cobleigh. During school tours, our hallway is a favorite stopping place for visitors. The “hero hallway” is soaring with super work! This week, we are suiting up for Catholic Schools Week!
January 19, 2024
Thanks to Mother Nature, we had a very short week. If I’m being honest, I’m not too upset with her because I think she owed us a couple of snow days. We did make progress in a few areas. We reviewed our Geometry skills and added the terms "congruent" and "similar" to our Math vocabulary. The verbs unit has finally concluded, and we made progress in our matter unit in Science. This week, I wanted to step out of our classroom to spotlight what the students have been doing in PE. When I pick the students up from the STC Arena, Coach B. has them on the ‘ice’ and involved in playing intense hockey games. I enjoy watching them play and hearing Coach B.’s perseverance in making sure the students are playing the game correctly and safely. Trust me, the students take these games very seriously--it’s just like watching the Caps! Enjoy!
Thanks to Mother Nature, we had a very short week. If I’m being honest, I’m not too upset with her because I think she owed us a couple of snow days. We did make progress in a few areas. We reviewed our Geometry skills and added the terms "congruent" and "similar" to our Math vocabulary. The verbs unit has finally concluded, and we made progress in our matter unit in Science. This week, I wanted to step out of our classroom to spotlight what the students have been doing in PE. When I pick the students up from the STC Arena, Coach B. has them on the ‘ice’ and involved in playing intense hockey games. I enjoy watching them play and hearing Coach B.’s perseverance in making sure the students are playing the game correctly and safely. Trust me, the students take these games very seriously--it’s just like watching the Caps! Enjoy!
January 14, 2024
Since our Frosty Christmas show performance, snowmen have been an important focus in third grade. Frosty winter activities included making a snowman fact family for Math, artistic snow scenes for our hall bulletin board, and now, a How to Catch a Snowman “how-to” writing activity is underway. This coming week, we will complete a snowman flap book as part of our matter unit in Science. In Math, Geometry has started–this is a fun unit, but it has a lot of vocabulary terms. We will conclude verbs this coming week in English. We had an interesting discussion and read aloud on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We will circle back to him when we discuss timelines. This week’s pics focus on a habitat STEM project that Mrs. Cobleigh completed with our third graders. The students worked in small groups to complete a habitat for a made-up animal. The remaining pics center around the mini heroes preparing and planning for our axolotl parade float. The students have been divided into groups for this project: the Data and Statisticians, the Researchers, the Designers, and the Writers. We will keep you updated on our progress. Until next time – think snow!
Since our Frosty Christmas show performance, snowmen have been an important focus in third grade. Frosty winter activities included making a snowman fact family for Math, artistic snow scenes for our hall bulletin board, and now, a How to Catch a Snowman “how-to” writing activity is underway. This coming week, we will complete a snowman flap book as part of our matter unit in Science. In Math, Geometry has started–this is a fun unit, but it has a lot of vocabulary terms. We will conclude verbs this coming week in English. We had an interesting discussion and read aloud on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We will circle back to him when we discuss timelines. This week’s pics focus on a habitat STEM project that Mrs. Cobleigh completed with our third graders. The students worked in small groups to complete a habitat for a made-up animal. The remaining pics center around the mini heroes preparing and planning for our axolotl parade float. The students have been divided into groups for this project: the Data and Statisticians, the Researchers, the Designers, and the Writers. We will keep you updated on our progress. Until next time – think snow!
January 7, 2024
We soared into 2024 with gusto. The students greeted friends and settled down to work. During the week, as we explored the relationship between multiplication and division facts, we discovered that we already knew our division facts (we just didn’t know that we knew them). We will now move on to our Geometry unit. We completed a Spelling unit and continued our study of verbs. Reading maps was the focus of Social Studies, and through the magic of Reading, we began our journey into space! This week’s pictures show the third grade artists working on winter scenes for our new bulletin board. Please make sure you have read the letter sent home on Jan. 5. Your third grader has a household chore to do as we begin to prep and plan for our first schoolwide STEM project and presentation. It was a short but busy week!
We soared into 2024 with gusto. The students greeted friends and settled down to work. During the week, as we explored the relationship between multiplication and division facts, we discovered that we already knew our division facts (we just didn’t know that we knew them). We will now move on to our Geometry unit. We completed a Spelling unit and continued our study of verbs. Reading maps was the focus of Social Studies, and through the magic of Reading, we began our journey into space! This week’s pictures show the third grade artists working on winter scenes for our new bulletin board. Please make sure you have read the letter sent home on Jan. 5. Your third grader has a household chore to do as we begin to prep and plan for our first schoolwide STEM project and presentation. It was a short but busy week!
December 24, 2023
Superhero Parents, I want to thank you for helping the students be ready for the Christmas show—they all had their white on and were in attendance. In my humble (and biased) opinion, they were also the stars of the show. I am very proud of my mini-heroes!!
Outside of the show, the students also did a nice job on their Home Alone houses. We spent time learning about the six different simple machines. Each student then completed a blueprint for a house layout. One blueprint was chosen per group to be drawn into a box, which became the house for each group. Then, the groups started applying their new simple machine knowledge by designing traps to catch the bad guys. Each trap had to include a simple machine. The minimum requirement was three simple machines. Almost all groups exceeded the minimum. Below, you will find pics of the students working on their houses and the finished products.
We did work on Math and Spelling throughout the week while sprinkling in a few festive activities. The students enjoyed a rousing holiday trivia game (in class) and a movie and popcorn with their schoolmates on Friday (in the hall).
We are looking to forward to what 2024 will bring our way. See you next year!
Superhero Parents, I want to thank you for helping the students be ready for the Christmas show—they all had their white on and were in attendance. In my humble (and biased) opinion, they were also the stars of the show. I am very proud of my mini-heroes!!
Outside of the show, the students also did a nice job on their Home Alone houses. We spent time learning about the six different simple machines. Each student then completed a blueprint for a house layout. One blueprint was chosen per group to be drawn into a box, which became the house for each group. Then, the groups started applying their new simple machine knowledge by designing traps to catch the bad guys. Each trap had to include a simple machine. The minimum requirement was three simple machines. Almost all groups exceeded the minimum. Below, you will find pics of the students working on their houses and the finished products.
We did work on Math and Spelling throughout the week while sprinkling in a few festive activities. The students enjoyed a rousing holiday trivia game (in class) and a movie and popcorn with their schoolmates on Friday (in the hall).
We are looking to forward to what 2024 will bring our way. See you next year!
December 10, 2023
HO! HO! HO! It’s time for the show! So, while we forged ahead in our subject areas, we were also very busy with show rehearsals. One final reminder: please make sure you have seen the attire requirements. We are busy learning about simple machines for a fun STEM project. We completed our Kwanzaa story and will enjoy a seasonal read that ties in with our STEM project this coming week. The students made snowmen to adorn our new bulletin board. Snowmen have certainly been important for third grade this year (this is a show hint 😊) and will be into January of the coming year. We will do our best to tie up loose ends before break this coming Friday. This week will be so busy, and I know it will just fly by. We hope to see all of our Superhero parents in the audience this Wednesday @ 1pm.
HO! HO! HO! It’s time for the show! So, while we forged ahead in our subject areas, we were also very busy with show rehearsals. One final reminder: please make sure you have seen the attire requirements. We are busy learning about simple machines for a fun STEM project. We completed our Kwanzaa story and will enjoy a seasonal read that ties in with our STEM project this coming week. The students made snowmen to adorn our new bulletin board. Snowmen have certainly been important for third grade this year (this is a show hint 😊) and will be into January of the coming year. We will do our best to tie up loose ends before break this coming Friday. This week will be so busy, and I know it will just fly by. We hope to see all of our Superhero parents in the audience this Wednesday @ 1pm.
December 3, 2023
December has certainly arrived in HERO Headquarters! We have started several new subject units: verbs in English, multiplication in Math, and a Kwanzaa study/comparison in Reading. We explored different kinds of communities in Social Studies. On last week’s half-day, we completed the artwork for our new bulletin board. We are gearing up to do one of my absolute favorite STEM projects of the year! More to come on that in next week’s issue. While in the midst of our studies, the third graders have started practicing their songs for the Christmas show. Check out the most recent newsletter for show attire requirements and mark your calendars for December 13 @ 1 pm. It is also posted on this site under “Hero Alerts.” It was fun seeing some of my little friends at Breakfast with Santa. Everyone seemed to be having a great time. There are a few pictures this week. However, I do have a picture of my little turkeys who completed their word problem turkeys in the “Turkey Trot” prior to Thanksgiving. This was quite a challenge! Another pic shows the “How to Catch a Turkey” sequence TVs on which the students worked. There is also a sneak peek into the new theme of the December bulletin board. We only have 22 shopping days left – try to enjoy a little peace and comfort along the way!
December has certainly arrived in HERO Headquarters! We have started several new subject units: verbs in English, multiplication in Math, and a Kwanzaa study/comparison in Reading. We explored different kinds of communities in Social Studies. On last week’s half-day, we completed the artwork for our new bulletin board. We are gearing up to do one of my absolute favorite STEM projects of the year! More to come on that in next week’s issue. While in the midst of our studies, the third graders have started practicing their songs for the Christmas show. Check out the most recent newsletter for show attire requirements and mark your calendars for December 13 @ 1 pm. It is also posted on this site under “Hero Alerts.” It was fun seeing some of my little friends at Breakfast with Santa. Everyone seemed to be having a great time. There are a few pictures this week. However, I do have a picture of my little turkeys who completed their word problem turkeys in the “Turkey Trot” prior to Thanksgiving. This was quite a challenge! Another pic shows the “How to Catch a Turkey” sequence TVs on which the students worked. There is also a sneak peek into the new theme of the December bulletin board. We only have 22 shopping days left – try to enjoy a little peace and comfort along the way!
Happy Thanksgiving!
from the Third Grade Artists
from the Third Grade Artists
November 19, 2023
Well, it was another action-packed week in Hero Headquarters. The mini heroes completed their spider stories in Reading and concluded nouns in English. In Spelling, we reviewed long and short “u” sounds. Subtraction continues to challenge us in Math. This is our last topic to complete prior to break--practice! In a few pictures below, you will see small groups of students working on a word problem. They had to decide on the correct operation to use, write the problem, show the work, and draw a picture. Then, each group presented their problem. Last Monday, we took a little time to explore Diwali. The students used their iPads to watch a couple of videos and research to provide facts on this holiday also known as the Festival of Lights. In Science, we discovered that plants are superheroes too! They make many adaptations to survive in their surroundings. (This is leading to a project--more to come.) We also unbagged the bean seeds to document and observe our findings. We had a couple of beans that wanted to sprout but only one that really took off. Since the sprout did not grow straight, we used string to measure it. In one week, it grew a whopping 5.25 inches. The student who planted it in class volunteered to take it home and plant it in soil. Last but not least, we assembled 7 super magnifying devices (otherwise known as microscopes) to take a close-up look at plant related slides. The students saw pollen, leaf veins, stems, and dandelion fuzz. After we documented those findings, we used the microscopes to look at a few different topics: dog hair, a mosquito, a honey-bee leg, crushed human bone, and a fruit-fly to name a few. I am hoping we now have some budding scientists among us!
Well, it was another action-packed week in Hero Headquarters. The mini heroes completed their spider stories in Reading and concluded nouns in English. In Spelling, we reviewed long and short “u” sounds. Subtraction continues to challenge us in Math. This is our last topic to complete prior to break--practice! In a few pictures below, you will see small groups of students working on a word problem. They had to decide on the correct operation to use, write the problem, show the work, and draw a picture. Then, each group presented their problem. Last Monday, we took a little time to explore Diwali. The students used their iPads to watch a couple of videos and research to provide facts on this holiday also known as the Festival of Lights. In Science, we discovered that plants are superheroes too! They make many adaptations to survive in their surroundings. (This is leading to a project--more to come.) We also unbagged the bean seeds to document and observe our findings. We had a couple of beans that wanted to sprout but only one that really took off. Since the sprout did not grow straight, we used string to measure it. In one week, it grew a whopping 5.25 inches. The student who planted it in class volunteered to take it home and plant it in soil. Last but not least, we assembled 7 super magnifying devices (otherwise known as microscopes) to take a close-up look at plant related slides. The students saw pollen, leaf veins, stems, and dandelion fuzz. After we documented those findings, we used the microscopes to look at a few different topics: dog hair, a mosquito, a honey-bee leg, crushed human bone, and a fruit-fly to name a few. I am hoping we now have some budding scientists among us!
November 12, 2023
November is moving right along in Hero Headquarters. The highlights of this week were Parent Teacher Conferences and Pie. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me this week. I sincerely appreciate your support and dedication to our mission. In Reading, we opened the “Super Pie Bake Shop” to review author’s purpose. The bakers looked for examples of books used to persuade, inform, and entertain. Of course, we enjoyed a pie sample during lunch. The study of plants continues in Science. We soaked lima bean seeds in water so that the students could dissect a seed to see the seed coat, plant food, and embryo inside the seed. Then, each group placed bean seeds in a plastic bag: we are trying to get the seeds to sprout and grow. You will see in the pic below that we actually have a sprout. We will make observations and measurements over the coming week or so. Math has the mini heroes subtracting with regrouping. Yes, this skill actually takes superpowers to master--so please practice! We played a rousing game of Connect 4 to review plurals in English. We will be working hard to wrap up a few units before Thanksgiving break. So, please stay on top of checking those planners!
November is moving right along in Hero Headquarters. The highlights of this week were Parent Teacher Conferences and Pie. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me this week. I sincerely appreciate your support and dedication to our mission. In Reading, we opened the “Super Pie Bake Shop” to review author’s purpose. The bakers looked for examples of books used to persuade, inform, and entertain. Of course, we enjoyed a pie sample during lunch. The study of plants continues in Science. We soaked lima bean seeds in water so that the students could dissect a seed to see the seed coat, plant food, and embryo inside the seed. Then, each group placed bean seeds in a plastic bag: we are trying to get the seeds to sprout and grow. You will see in the pic below that we actually have a sprout. We will make observations and measurements over the coming week or so. Math has the mini heroes subtracting with regrouping. Yes, this skill actually takes superpowers to master--so please practice! We played a rousing game of Connect 4 to review plurals in English. We will be working hard to wrap up a few units before Thanksgiving break. So, please stay on top of checking those planners!
November 5, 2023
Warning! If you suffer from arachnophobia, stay out of our third grade hallway. Spiders—of all varieties—are on the loose. Black widows, tarantulas, brown recluses, and even spiny orb weavers (to name just a few) have been spotted crawling around the hallway (Mr. Ricky has verified those sightings). Luckily, during the school day when the students are around, awe have good little spiders who like to sit on the table and be admired by onlookers. The students did a very nice job with their spider projects! A SUPER “thank you” to Mrs. Hipolito and Mrs. Brown for our Halloween party. The students enjoyed all the yummy treats and the Bingo game! During the week, we completed a quick celery experiment. Surprisingly, celery is cool because you can easily see the tubes, or veins, at the bottom of its stem. This makes celery handy for demonstrating capillary action because it has a lot of xylem tubes in the stalk, making for fast water uptake. The students observed the pale green leaves take on bluish and blackish colors as the dissolved food coloring moved with the water through the xylem tubes into the celery stalk and leaves. In Math, subtraction with regrouping is the focus of our current lessons. (Please practice!) The students and I enjoyed discussing the common elements of fairy tales as we compared and contrasted two Halloween Cinderella stories. We have soared right into second quarter with new adventures ahead. Until next time….
Warning! If you suffer from arachnophobia, stay out of our third grade hallway. Spiders—of all varieties—are on the loose. Black widows, tarantulas, brown recluses, and even spiny orb weavers (to name just a few) have been spotted crawling around the hallway (Mr. Ricky has verified those sightings). Luckily, during the school day when the students are around, awe have good little spiders who like to sit on the table and be admired by onlookers. The students did a very nice job with their spider projects! A SUPER “thank you” to Mrs. Hipolito and Mrs. Brown for our Halloween party. The students enjoyed all the yummy treats and the Bingo game! During the week, we completed a quick celery experiment. Surprisingly, celery is cool because you can easily see the tubes, or veins, at the bottom of its stem. This makes celery handy for demonstrating capillary action because it has a lot of xylem tubes in the stalk, making for fast water uptake. The students observed the pale green leaves take on bluish and blackish colors as the dissolved food coloring moved with the water through the xylem tubes into the celery stalk and leaves. In Math, subtraction with regrouping is the focus of our current lessons. (Please practice!) The students and I enjoyed discussing the common elements of fairy tales as we compared and contrasted two Halloween Cinderella stories. We have soared right into second quarter with new adventures ahead. Until next time….
October 29, 2023
My goodness, it is almost November! Even though it was a short week, Hero Headquarters continued to be alive with learning. In Math, we concluded addition and will be moving onto subtraction with regrouping. This often needs a lot of practice: please be sure to work with your student on this skill. English has us learning about nouns. We continue to explore plants in Science. Vowel sounds will continue to be our focus in Spelling. Students defined and identified facts and opinions in Reading. Also, we are making good progress with our spider stories. Each student chose a spider to research and create that spider as a realistic 3D model (due Nov. 2). The students were given time to use their iPads to research spider facts. With Halloween right around the corner, I am looking forward to seeing the superheroes step out of their capes and don other costumes. We only have a few pics this week. Have a FANGtastic and SPOOKtacular Halloween 😊
My goodness, it is almost November! Even though it was a short week, Hero Headquarters continued to be alive with learning. In Math, we concluded addition and will be moving onto subtraction with regrouping. This often needs a lot of practice: please be sure to work with your student on this skill. English has us learning about nouns. We continue to explore plants in Science. Vowel sounds will continue to be our focus in Spelling. Students defined and identified facts and opinions in Reading. Also, we are making good progress with our spider stories. Each student chose a spider to research and create that spider as a realistic 3D model (due Nov. 2). The students were given time to use their iPads to research spider facts. With Halloween right around the corner, I am looking forward to seeing the superheroes step out of their capes and don other costumes. We only have a few pics this week. Have a FANGtastic and SPOOKtacular Halloween 😊
October 22, 2023
Halloween is definitely in the air at HERO Headquarters. You can just feel the excitement brewing! Meanwhile, we continue to move along with our studies. Hopefully, the addition unit will wrap up soon (practice!). I included IXL practice sections on our class newsletter. The noun unit is underway, Spelling continues, and our spider stories are creeping along. Exciting news: we finally completed our first chapter book read aloud, There’s a Dragon in My Popcorn. The students enjoyed listening to the antics of Eric and Pan in this fun story! This week will be a pic-palooza! Most of the pics center around Science activities. The students perfected their diagramming skills by using a Mr. Potato Head. They completed a mini science investigation of a potato and charted their findings. Once again, Farmer Flores resurfaced – via video – to teach the students about potatoes and nonfiction text features. We paired two fiction potato themed books into our studies: Couch Potato and Potato Pants. The second story became the focus of this week’s STEM project. The small groups were tasked with creating a pair of pants for a potato. Mrs. Vickers was our guest judge. She chose her favorite pair of potato pants and explained to the designers her reasoning! We also discovered that creating a pair of pants for a potato is not as easy as it seems. Our October individual STEM stations/challenges are underway. I have included a few pics of students who have completed various challenges. Enjoy all of the pics!
Halloween is definitely in the air at HERO Headquarters. You can just feel the excitement brewing! Meanwhile, we continue to move along with our studies. Hopefully, the addition unit will wrap up soon (practice!). I included IXL practice sections on our class newsletter. The noun unit is underway, Spelling continues, and our spider stories are creeping along. Exciting news: we finally completed our first chapter book read aloud, There’s a Dragon in My Popcorn. The students enjoyed listening to the antics of Eric and Pan in this fun story! This week will be a pic-palooza! Most of the pics center around Science activities. The students perfected their diagramming skills by using a Mr. Potato Head. They completed a mini science investigation of a potato and charted their findings. Once again, Farmer Flores resurfaced – via video – to teach the students about potatoes and nonfiction text features. We paired two fiction potato themed books into our studies: Couch Potato and Potato Pants. The second story became the focus of this week’s STEM project. The small groups were tasked with creating a pair of pants for a potato. Mrs. Vickers was our guest judge. She chose her favorite pair of potato pants and explained to the designers her reasoning! We also discovered that creating a pair of pants for a potato is not as easy as it seems. Our October individual STEM stations/challenges are underway. I have included a few pics of students who have completed various challenges. Enjoy all of the pics!
October 15, 2023
Fall was definitely in the air this past week, and the mini heroes were very happy to have more outside time during PE and recess. Inside of headquarters, we were busy progressing in our subject areas. In Math, we have started an addition unit, English has us practicing nouns, spider stories and related skills continue in Reading, and we are exploring potatoes in Science. Our most recent in-class tests show that most of the third graders need to develop study habits (see last week’s post). We are growing up and will no longer be able to “wing it” on tests. A couple of pics below show our new “Writing Boot Camp” kick-off. Throughout the year, the students will be working to improve their writing skills with a variety of tasks! To conclude the week, the students enjoyed more outside time during the 7th and 8th grade football game. We will begin October STEM stations this coming week. I can’t wait to see all of the creations the students design. Speaking of October, it will be over before you know it! Take time to enjoy a few fall festivities and the nice weather.
Fall was definitely in the air this past week, and the mini heroes were very happy to have more outside time during PE and recess. Inside of headquarters, we were busy progressing in our subject areas. In Math, we have started an addition unit, English has us practicing nouns, spider stories and related skills continue in Reading, and we are exploring potatoes in Science. Our most recent in-class tests show that most of the third graders need to develop study habits (see last week’s post). We are growing up and will no longer be able to “wing it” on tests. A couple of pics below show our new “Writing Boot Camp” kick-off. Throughout the year, the students will be working to improve their writing skills with a variety of tasks! To conclude the week, the students enjoyed more outside time during the 7th and 8th grade football game. We will begin October STEM stations this coming week. I can’t wait to see all of the creations the students design. Speaking of October, it will be over before you know it! Take time to enjoy a few fall festivities and the nice weather.
October 8, 2023
The mini heroes completed our first Math unit and will soon complete our first English unit. If you have not already, it is time to start teaching your third grader how to study. These are lessons that will pay off down the road of their educational career. I also give them pointers on how to study for upcoming tests. (We discussed early on how to study for Spelling–please do not skip the study time.) Learning to study will be extremely important as the students transition to earning letter grades next school year, so start now! In other news, we visited the farm and operating room this week. The students participated in a Rodeo Roundup down on the farm with Farmer Flores. The mini farmers were assigned a number, and they had to find pigs that rounded to that number. We had 80 pigs roaming in our room: 50 balloons and 30 paper pigs. This activity provided rounding practice prior to our math test. At the end of the day, the students had a great time popping the balloons 😊 Another highlight of our week was the opening of “Hero Hospital.” The mini heroes suited up and transformed into surgeons to save our patients (sentences). The surgeons used their scalpels (scissors) to dissect sentences into subjects and predicates. They used tweezers, liquid stitches (glue), and sponges to accomplish this task. Our big back table was the recovery room, the lunch cart was the patient transport, and our tv was the heart monitor. All in all, the surgeons did a pretty good job–only one or two patients ended up on the floor! Whew, what a busy week! Enjoy all of the pics!
The mini heroes completed our first Math unit and will soon complete our first English unit. If you have not already, it is time to start teaching your third grader how to study. These are lessons that will pay off down the road of their educational career. I also give them pointers on how to study for upcoming tests. (We discussed early on how to study for Spelling–please do not skip the study time.) Learning to study will be extremely important as the students transition to earning letter grades next school year, so start now! In other news, we visited the farm and operating room this week. The students participated in a Rodeo Roundup down on the farm with Farmer Flores. The mini farmers were assigned a number, and they had to find pigs that rounded to that number. We had 80 pigs roaming in our room: 50 balloons and 30 paper pigs. This activity provided rounding practice prior to our math test. At the end of the day, the students had a great time popping the balloons 😊 Another highlight of our week was the opening of “Hero Hospital.” The mini heroes suited up and transformed into surgeons to save our patients (sentences). The surgeons used their scalpels (scissors) to dissect sentences into subjects and predicates. They used tweezers, liquid stitches (glue), and sponges to accomplish this task. Our big back table was the recovery room, the lunch cart was the patient transport, and our tv was the heart monitor. All in all, the surgeons did a pretty good job–only one or two patients ended up on the floor! Whew, what a busy week! Enjoy all of the pics!
October 1, 2023
The mini heroes conquered one of their biggest missions of the year – standardized testing. We have now concluded our tests and will return to our normal schedule this week. I will be able to share more on these tests by conference time in November. In other news, the old saying “out with the old and in with the new” was our motto for the end of week activity. You will see in the pics that the students are working on artwork for the October bulletin board in our hallway. I have included a pic of our old bulletin board below and the new one will be coming soon! Stay tuned.
The mini heroes conquered one of their biggest missions of the year – standardized testing. We have now concluded our tests and will return to our normal schedule this week. I will be able to share more on these tests by conference time in November. In other news, the old saying “out with the old and in with the new” was our motto for the end of week activity. You will see in the pics that the students are working on artwork for the October bulletin board in our hallway. I have included a pic of our old bulletin board below and the new one will be coming soon! Stay tuned.
September 24, 2023
Happy Fall, Y’all! It has been so nice to open the windows of the classroom for some fresh air this past week. Most importantly, the students were able to get outside and run around during recess! Rounding numbers has been the focus of Math this week, and it needs to be practiced! In English, we are dividing sentences into subjects and predicates. We have concluded our “Do characters change in stories?” unit in Reading. Several pics show the mini heroes comparing and contrasting characters across stories and making text-to-text connections. Spelling brought us tricky digraphs, and in Social Studies, we started diving into communities. We took a super mini field trip to the sidewalk corner by our building to explore the community immediately surrounding us. We then charted what we were able to see. Our MARVELous Mission for Friday afternoon was a STEM project that once again centered on popcorn and introduced the concept of volume. Through our nonfiction readings, we learned that over 5,600 years ago, 293 pieces of popped popcorn were discovered in a bat cave in New Mexico. Our job – just like Indiana Jones – was to go into the cave and safely retrieve the popcorn. Therefore, we needed to build a container that would get the job done. Mrs. Flores brought in 293 pieces of popped corn to test all of the containers. Prior to building, the students were only able to estimate measurements using a bag with just ten pieces of popped popcorn. All groups were successful in building a container – some a little too big and one a little too small – but the students all got the job done! To show a little appreciation for their efforts, each student was given a popcorn scented bookmark. The stinky bookmark was the true highlight of the week 😊.
Happy Fall, Y’all! It has been so nice to open the windows of the classroom for some fresh air this past week. Most importantly, the students were able to get outside and run around during recess! Rounding numbers has been the focus of Math this week, and it needs to be practiced! In English, we are dividing sentences into subjects and predicates. We have concluded our “Do characters change in stories?” unit in Reading. Several pics show the mini heroes comparing and contrasting characters across stories and making text-to-text connections. Spelling brought us tricky digraphs, and in Social Studies, we started diving into communities. We took a super mini field trip to the sidewalk corner by our building to explore the community immediately surrounding us. We then charted what we were able to see. Our MARVELous Mission for Friday afternoon was a STEM project that once again centered on popcorn and introduced the concept of volume. Through our nonfiction readings, we learned that over 5,600 years ago, 293 pieces of popped popcorn were discovered in a bat cave in New Mexico. Our job – just like Indiana Jones – was to go into the cave and safely retrieve the popcorn. Therefore, we needed to build a container that would get the job done. Mrs. Flores brought in 293 pieces of popped corn to test all of the containers. Prior to building, the students were only able to estimate measurements using a bag with just ten pieces of popped popcorn. All groups were successful in building a container – some a little too big and one a little too small – but the students all got the job done! To show a little appreciation for their efforts, each student was given a popcorn scented bookmark. The stinky bookmark was the true highlight of the week 😊.
September 17, 2023
During the week, the mini heroes continued learning in all subject areas. Spelling homework needs a bit of kapowing but we will work on it. We completed a mini-Science unit on the five senses by using and applying our senses to writing, reading, and making observations. Friday was theme day. We completed many activities using a great topic – POPCORN! First, we listened to a read aloud of The Popcorn Book by Tomie DePaola. This gave us a lot of interesting history on popcorn. Second, we collected data on our favorite kind of popcorn by participating in a taste test and then completed a tally chart. Next, after our results were charted, we turned that data into a bar graph. The students sampled air popped, cheese, butter, and kettle corn. Check out the pic below to see which was our favorite kind. The air popped corn was popped in the classroom. (I shared with the students how lucky they were that I “cooked” for them. I am not a cook and that was cooking to me but the students didn’t agree ☹.) Anyway, while the corn was popping, we used our senses to brainstorm a list of sensory words to describe popcorn. For the last activity of the day, the students used those words to create and publish a five senses poem. (See a few pics below.) Of course, we munched a little popcorn along the way for inspiration! We had an
a-maize-ing day! We still have a popcorn STEM project that we will finish up this coming week. Thanks for popping on our site to read about our week.
During the week, the mini heroes continued learning in all subject areas. Spelling homework needs a bit of kapowing but we will work on it. We completed a mini-Science unit on the five senses by using and applying our senses to writing, reading, and making observations. Friday was theme day. We completed many activities using a great topic – POPCORN! First, we listened to a read aloud of The Popcorn Book by Tomie DePaola. This gave us a lot of interesting history on popcorn. Second, we collected data on our favorite kind of popcorn by participating in a taste test and then completed a tally chart. Next, after our results were charted, we turned that data into a bar graph. The students sampled air popped, cheese, butter, and kettle corn. Check out the pic below to see which was our favorite kind. The air popped corn was popped in the classroom. (I shared with the students how lucky they were that I “cooked” for them. I am not a cook and that was cooking to me but the students didn’t agree ☹.) Anyway, while the corn was popping, we used our senses to brainstorm a list of sensory words to describe popcorn. For the last activity of the day, the students used those words to create and publish a five senses poem. (See a few pics below.) Of course, we munched a little popcorn along the way for inspiration! We had an
a-maize-ing day! We still have a popcorn STEM project that we will finish up this coming week. Thanks for popping on our site to read about our week.
September 10, 2023
During our second week in headquarters, we soared right into our content areas. The mini heroes conquered initial blends in Phonics, started place value skills in Math, explored how characters change in Reading, and mastered kinds of sentences in English. Mr. Flores has started Religion lessons with the third graders. Also, we have now attended all our “specials” classes.
On Thursday, our very own superhero parents gave their time to POP into our classroom and participate in a popcorn-themed HERO Headquarters Hunt for Back to School Night. We hope you had a little fun while learning more about grade 3. Thanks for sending in your selfies. (Check below!)
We concluded the week with our very first (escape room-style) superhero mission. Our principal went “missing,” and Mrs. Vickers called on Superheroes to help! We accepted the mission and went straight to work. Afterwards, we donned our superhero capes and masks and took a trip to the office to verify that everyone was there, and it was calm. (We wanted the principal back to make the dismissal announcement so we could go home! 😊 Mission accomplished!
During our second week in headquarters, we soared right into our content areas. The mini heroes conquered initial blends in Phonics, started place value skills in Math, explored how characters change in Reading, and mastered kinds of sentences in English. Mr. Flores has started Religion lessons with the third graders. Also, we have now attended all our “specials” classes.
On Thursday, our very own superhero parents gave their time to POP into our classroom and participate in a popcorn-themed HERO Headquarters Hunt for Back to School Night. We hope you had a little fun while learning more about grade 3. Thanks for sending in your selfies. (Check below!)
We concluded the week with our very first (escape room-style) superhero mission. Our principal went “missing,” and Mrs. Vickers called on Superheroes to help! We accepted the mission and went straight to work. Afterwards, we donned our superhero capes and masks and took a trip to the office to verify that everyone was there, and it was calm. (We wanted the principal back to make the dismissal announcement so we could go home! 😊 Mission accomplished!
September 3, 2023
This week, Hero Headquarters welcomed 22 new recruits. It has been a pleasure to welcome so many new recruits to our STC family. The mini heroes are learning their new routines and procedures as we begin our yearlong mission of conquering third grade. We have spent time this week discussing kindness and teamwork. Then, small groups of mini heroes had to work together to build a skyscraper, but each group had different materials. We made a second attempt at the skyscrapers by combining small groups and their different materials. We discovered that self-control and teamwork are not as easy as they seem. The mini heroes reviewed “The Nym Family” with several activities that helped us: antonyms, synonyms, and homonyms. We concluded the week with Mass and a very special delivery. COMMAND (an unidentified agent) dropped off a super story and wrist devices for us at the school office. The story shared how my students—with their unique talents and gifts—were chosen to be a part of our superhero class this year. The students wore their wrist devices and waited for them to activate. Once we went out to dismissal, all our devices activated signaling that the superhero initiation was now complete. I sent home a class of newly formed superheroes! The week’s activities, lessons, and discussions were supported by read-aloud books. We had a busy but very productive week. I hope each student continued to see their superhero bracelet shining brightly over the weekend! (Pictures this week are from a get-to-know-you activity and the tower-building STEM.)
This week, Hero Headquarters welcomed 22 new recruits. It has been a pleasure to welcome so many new recruits to our STC family. The mini heroes are learning their new routines and procedures as we begin our yearlong mission of conquering third grade. We have spent time this week discussing kindness and teamwork. Then, small groups of mini heroes had to work together to build a skyscraper, but each group had different materials. We made a second attempt at the skyscrapers by combining small groups and their different materials. We discovered that self-control and teamwork are not as easy as they seem. The mini heroes reviewed “The Nym Family” with several activities that helped us: antonyms, synonyms, and homonyms. We concluded the week with Mass and a very special delivery. COMMAND (an unidentified agent) dropped off a super story and wrist devices for us at the school office. The story shared how my students—with their unique talents and gifts—were chosen to be a part of our superhero class this year. The students wore their wrist devices and waited for them to activate. Once we went out to dismissal, all our devices activated signaling that the superhero initiation was now complete. I sent home a class of newly formed superheroes! The week’s activities, lessons, and discussions were supported by read-aloud books. We had a busy but very productive week. I hope each student continued to see their superhero bracelet shining brightly over the weekend! (Pictures this week are from a get-to-know-you activity and the tower-building STEM.)
CLASS OF 2022 - 2023
June 11, 2023
What a SUPER busy last week! On Monday, we cleaned out desks and filmed two more commercials. Again, check them out on our NewsFlash page. The students arrived on Tuesday and had to be checked into “Camp Columba!” After that, we quickly boarded a bus for a “camp” field trip to study STEM at the roller rink. The students thoroughly enjoyed the skating trip. They gave it their all--falling and getting up and trying again! Wednesday brought a fairly normal day to Camp. We explored temperature and fireflies with a glow stick experiment, and we caught frogs for a jumping contest. (That sentence really means we attempted to fold origami frogs for a frog jumping contest. We quickly found out that it is much harder than it seems!) We also enjoyed a crackling fire with soothing tunes and had some time to read in our tents. Thursday, our final day, was RV Day. The students enjoyed time in the video game RV and took home a s’mores treat. Camp Columba was officially closed. The students and I ended our year with a huddle and a loud: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
What a SUPER busy last week! On Monday, we cleaned out desks and filmed two more commercials. Again, check them out on our NewsFlash page. The students arrived on Tuesday and had to be checked into “Camp Columba!” After that, we quickly boarded a bus for a “camp” field trip to study STEM at the roller rink. The students thoroughly enjoyed the skating trip. They gave it their all--falling and getting up and trying again! Wednesday brought a fairly normal day to Camp. We explored temperature and fireflies with a glow stick experiment, and we caught frogs for a jumping contest. (That sentence really means we attempted to fold origami frogs for a frog jumping contest. We quickly found out that it is much harder than it seems!) We also enjoyed a crackling fire with soothing tunes and had some time to read in our tents. Thursday, our final day, was RV Day. The students enjoyed time in the video game RV and took home a s’mores treat. Camp Columba was officially closed. The students and I ended our year with a huddle and a loud: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
June 4, 2023
Superheroes, your time in HERO Headquarters is nearly done. We have an exciting week coming up. However, let’s take a quick look at this past week. We started with a 40-minute Zoom meeting with meteorologist Kevin Witt from the National Weather Service. He covered some weather basics with us and took questions from the students. He encouraged the students to find fun in meteorology. I have a few pics of that session. The focus for the rest of our time together was Egypt! Two groups have finished their stories, and one will finish this week. All travel companies/seating groups finished their letters, and I have posted pics of them. A couple still need member signatures. One group even finished their commercial. That video is posted over on our NewsFlash page (scroll down to the videos). Be sure to take a look – you don’t want to miss it! After our week ends, don’t forget to check back here for pictures from our final week together. We have a lot of fun activities in store for us. It’s time to soar, superheroes!
Superheroes, your time in HERO Headquarters is nearly done. We have an exciting week coming up. However, let’s take a quick look at this past week. We started with a 40-minute Zoom meeting with meteorologist Kevin Witt from the National Weather Service. He covered some weather basics with us and took questions from the students. He encouraged the students to find fun in meteorology. I have a few pics of that session. The focus for the rest of our time together was Egypt! Two groups have finished their stories, and one will finish this week. All travel companies/seating groups finished their letters, and I have posted pics of them. A couple still need member signatures. One group even finished their commercial. That video is posted over on our NewsFlash page (scroll down to the videos). Be sure to take a look – you don’t want to miss it! After our week ends, don’t forget to check back here for pictures from our final week together. We have a lot of fun activities in store for us. It’s time to soar, superheroes!
May 29, 2023
The third grade mini heroes are definitely feeling the end of year quickly approaching. Even with the end in sight, we keep plugging along. Our Math studies stretched our thinking by learning about expressions, variables, order of operations, factors, and number sentences. My, how we have mathematically grown up over the year! I bet you didn’t know that your student is now a part of a travel agency. That’s right, we have the Travel Panthers Company, The United Travel Company, Wild Adventurer Company, and The ITA (International Travel Agency). All travel companies (aka seating groups) wrote awesome persuasive letters convincing their audiences to go on a trip to Egypt. Pack your bags because most of these trips are for the low, low price of $150. We hope to take the letters and turn them into commercials if time permits. This was a fun way to connect our Reading stories to writing and geography. There are only a few pics this week. The first pic shows the students who dressed for World Culture Day. There are two pics from the May Crowning. It was a lovely May morning to be outside honoring Mary. Last but not least, the students and I have chatted quite a bit about their soccer games over the season. I heard the ups and downs. However, not one shared the name of their team. So, I PROUDLY present to you the grades 3 and 4 team: D-Flores Heat! How sweet of them to name their team after Mr. DiPalma and me. I hope you enjoyed your season!
The third grade mini heroes are definitely feeling the end of year quickly approaching. Even with the end in sight, we keep plugging along. Our Math studies stretched our thinking by learning about expressions, variables, order of operations, factors, and number sentences. My, how we have mathematically grown up over the year! I bet you didn’t know that your student is now a part of a travel agency. That’s right, we have the Travel Panthers Company, The United Travel Company, Wild Adventurer Company, and The ITA (International Travel Agency). All travel companies (aka seating groups) wrote awesome persuasive letters convincing their audiences to go on a trip to Egypt. Pack your bags because most of these trips are for the low, low price of $150. We hope to take the letters and turn them into commercials if time permits. This was a fun way to connect our Reading stories to writing and geography. There are only a few pics this week. The first pic shows the students who dressed for World Culture Day. There are two pics from the May Crowning. It was a lovely May morning to be outside honoring Mary. Last but not least, the students and I have chatted quite a bit about their soccer games over the season. I heard the ups and downs. However, not one shared the name of their team. So, I PROUDLY present to you the grades 3 and 4 team: D-Flores Heat! How sweet of them to name their team after Mr. DiPalma and me. I hope you enjoyed your season!
April 30, 2023
Time is really flying now! May is here…it doesn’t seem that long ago that we were chatting on Back to School Night. Even though summer is in sight, we are still quite busy in HERO Headquarters. We continued our Egypt stories and pronouns in English. We also continue to be weather watchers while collecting data, and the students are beginning to see a few weather trends in that data. In Math, we concluded our fraction unit and spent a couple of days on “Measurement Mania.” On Thursday, we completed a Math-around-the-room activity on measurement tools. Friday was fun as the students completed six hands-on measurement activities. They used balances and weights, rulers, tape measures, yardsticks, thermometers, capacity containers, and graduated cylinders. They were completely engaged and worked hard at these measurement activities, shown in the pics below. Measurement (also time and money) are easy Math skills to incorporate into activities at home. Be sure to have your mini hero help measure in the kitchen or when doing odd jobs around the house. Have them count your change, or read the time on an analog clock. Find ways to sneak those Math skills in at home 😊 The students also completed a cloud “lift the flap” book on Friday afternoon with cotton balls. They had cotton glued to their fingers but managed to get the job done. I forgot to take pics of this but I will take a few pics of the completed books this week. Until next week--
Time is really flying now! May is here…it doesn’t seem that long ago that we were chatting on Back to School Night. Even though summer is in sight, we are still quite busy in HERO Headquarters. We continued our Egypt stories and pronouns in English. We also continue to be weather watchers while collecting data, and the students are beginning to see a few weather trends in that data. In Math, we concluded our fraction unit and spent a couple of days on “Measurement Mania.” On Thursday, we completed a Math-around-the-room activity on measurement tools. Friday was fun as the students completed six hands-on measurement activities. They used balances and weights, rulers, tape measures, yardsticks, thermometers, capacity containers, and graduated cylinders. They were completely engaged and worked hard at these measurement activities, shown in the pics below. Measurement (also time and money) are easy Math skills to incorporate into activities at home. Be sure to have your mini hero help measure in the kitchen or when doing odd jobs around the house. Have them count your change, or read the time on an analog clock. Find ways to sneak those Math skills in at home 😊 The students also completed a cloud “lift the flap” book on Friday afternoon with cotton balls. They had cotton glued to their fingers but managed to get the job done. I forgot to take pics of this but I will take a few pics of the completed books this week. Until next week--
April 23, 2023
Annnnd we’re back…now sprinting to the end of our year together. We quickly settled back into our routines and picked up where we left off. The students continued fractions in Math, learned a few suffixes in Spelling, and practiced pronouns in English. Many of the pics below show the students playing pronoun games. One reviewed subject and object pronouns, and the other reinforced using I and me correctly. Our new Reading theme is Egypt, and we are excited about it! In Religion, my trusty ol’ third graders helped me (testing coordinator) launch the brand new ARK test. They were quiet and patient while we worked through our school’s first administration of the test. This is the pilot year for this new Religion testing platform. We explored the water cycle more in depth this week and are eager to begin weather tracking. Some of the pics show the students making anemometers that we will use daily as we collect our weather data. There is a pic of our new bulletin board that feature pics from Columba’s Continental Fair. Many of the countries contained Religion or the Arts – that’s why you see STREAM instead of STEM. Alessandra’s show and tell features a book her ten-year-old cousin wrote – what an inspiration! Finally, I have also included a pic of the newest McDonald’s flyer. Why, you ask? That flyer means quite a bit to me and the current fourth grade. It all stems (haha! a pun) from a huge project we did last year. However, the effects and benefits of that project are ongoing. It is wonderful when our projects have lasting effects, and the students can see that STEM and project-based learning have real world effects. We are hoping the proceeds from this lunch will benefit the school’s STEM resources. Congratulations 4th grade!
Annnnd we’re back…now sprinting to the end of our year together. We quickly settled back into our routines and picked up where we left off. The students continued fractions in Math, learned a few suffixes in Spelling, and practiced pronouns in English. Many of the pics below show the students playing pronoun games. One reviewed subject and object pronouns, and the other reinforced using I and me correctly. Our new Reading theme is Egypt, and we are excited about it! In Religion, my trusty ol’ third graders helped me (testing coordinator) launch the brand new ARK test. They were quiet and patient while we worked through our school’s first administration of the test. This is the pilot year for this new Religion testing platform. We explored the water cycle more in depth this week and are eager to begin weather tracking. Some of the pics show the students making anemometers that we will use daily as we collect our weather data. There is a pic of our new bulletin board that feature pics from Columba’s Continental Fair. Many of the countries contained Religion or the Arts – that’s why you see STREAM instead of STEM. Alessandra’s show and tell features a book her ten-year-old cousin wrote – what an inspiration! Finally, I have also included a pic of the newest McDonald’s flyer. Why, you ask? That flyer means quite a bit to me and the current fourth grade. It all stems (haha! a pun) from a huge project we did last year. However, the effects and benefits of that project are ongoing. It is wonderful when our projects have lasting effects, and the students can see that STEM and project-based learning have real world effects. We are hoping the proceeds from this lunch will benefit the school’s STEM resources. Congratulations 4th grade!
April 16, 2023
Lessons learned from Kierra:
To begin, let me congratulate my Kierrans (project reference)!! I heard from so many fair visitors that they did a SUPER job presenting and explaining our project. Not only did they do a great presentation, they were also very enthusiastic and excited while doing so. Their elder (another sproject reference) is so VERY proud of them!!
The schoolwide project was to create a realistic civilization. Each grade developed their own country within this civilization. Third grade made the country of Kierra come to life!
Continuing, I started to list ways this STEM and project-based learning design challenge supported our curriculum and extended learning in our third grade class. We occasionally worked as a whole group but mostly in small groups.
We studied and/or discussed:
To keep everyone informed of what was going on in all groups, I started to document our discussions in the “Kierra” book. The students read and studied this book so they would know everything about our country and be ready to present. I hope this shows why I love STEM and project-based learning. Look at everything that was covered with one project. The students were highly engaged throughout this process. That’s why they did such an excellent job presenting our country!
Lessons learned from Kierra:
To begin, let me congratulate my Kierrans (project reference)!! I heard from so many fair visitors that they did a SUPER job presenting and explaining our project. Not only did they do a great presentation, they were also very enthusiastic and excited while doing so. Their elder (another sproject reference) is so VERY proud of them!!
The schoolwide project was to create a realistic civilization. Each grade developed their own country within this civilization. Third grade made the country of Kierra come to life!
Continuing, I started to list ways this STEM and project-based learning design challenge supported our curriculum and extended learning in our third grade class. We occasionally worked as a whole group but mostly in small groups.
We studied and/or discussed:
- local, state, and national government to prepare to create our country’s government.
- public service jobs and workers.
- Democracy (used in our country and in our class to make decisions)
- Citizen rights and responsibilities
- Legislative and Executive terms of service
- Flags of various countries
- Staple crop – what are they and why are they needed
- Ecosystems
- Climate
- Landforms
- Map-making
- Language development (stems from Morse code or robot writing as we call it in third grade – an inside joke!)
- Economy – investigated ancient forms of money; wants vs needs; goods and services; trading and bartering
- Sound by making rain sticks – investigated the sounds made by the rain sticks by using several lengths of tubes and different items in the tubes before settling on what would be in our sticks
- Kitchen chemistry (in our classroom) to make Perlogne–we watched several YouTube videos on making perfume; students learned how to zest an orange and lemon and squeeze the juice from them; used science beakers, a strainer, a funnel, and other odds and ends as we combined ingredients to make our Perlogne (perfume + cologne = good for boys and girls)
- Followed a recipe to make ink; used a mortar and pestle to crush berries and experimented on the correct amount of ingredients to make ink (when the recipe didn’t go quite as planned).
- Discussed Gods and Goddesses; utilized creative writing and thinking when our Goddess was created and the “Mystery at the Great Mount” was written
- Made reference to Native Americans when discussing how they believed it was necessary to take care of the land; the 10 rules of nature were written to justify their beliefs and show the importance of nature to Kierra; this also emulated “The 10 Commandments” as an important aspect of the Kierrans’ religion and beliefs
- Made reference to the pilgrims and the “Mayflower Compact;” the Kierran Code of Conduct was then written
To keep everyone informed of what was going on in all groups, I started to document our discussions in the “Kierra” book. The students read and studied this book so they would know everything about our country and be ready to present. I hope this shows why I love STEM and project-based learning. Look at everything that was covered with one project. The students were highly engaged throughout this process. That’s why they did such an excellent job presenting our country!
April 2, 2023
This past week, we attended an assembly with “The United Crowns Mobile Black History Museum.” This traveling exhibit shares the rich history, culture, and achievements of the Black community. Dr. Tracy Washington, the presenter, shared many SUPER artifacts with the students. I have posted several pics from that day. In other news, we worked on fractions in Math and theme in Reading. There are a few pics of students working in small groups to find the theme of a picture book. We are continuing with prefixes in Spelling, pronouns in English, and the water cycle in Science. The students are eagerly awaiting the STEM fair. Please try to come out and see our exhibit and talk with the students about the project. Parents may visit the fair on April 4 @ 2 – 2:30 in the Father Dewan Hall. The highly anticipated spring break is right around the corner! 😊
This past week, we attended an assembly with “The United Crowns Mobile Black History Museum.” This traveling exhibit shares the rich history, culture, and achievements of the Black community. Dr. Tracy Washington, the presenter, shared many SUPER artifacts with the students. I have posted several pics from that day. In other news, we worked on fractions in Math and theme in Reading. There are a few pics of students working in small groups to find the theme of a picture book. We are continuing with prefixes in Spelling, pronouns in English, and the water cycle in Science. The students are eagerly awaiting the STEM fair. Please try to come out and see our exhibit and talk with the students about the project. Parents may visit the fair on April 4 @ 2 – 2:30 in the Father Dewan Hall. The highly anticipated spring break is right around the corner! 😊
March 26, 2023
It was another long and busy week in HERO Headquarters. All groups have finished their robot stories, and we focused on main idea skill lessons for the week. We will start new chapter books after spring break. We are easing our way into the final English unit: Pronouns. Spelling had us investigating prefixes. We reviewed for our division Math test. SpongeBob helped with error analysis of division problems. As it turned out, SpongeBob and friends are not such great dividers. It was a good thing we could help them! We also played division tic-tac-toe. I have a few pics of happy game winners! In Science and Social Studies, we discussed topics important to our STEM project. We only have a week and a day – YIKES! – to finish our STEM project. The students have been actively engaged and are working hard to finish. Then, we will prepare and practice for visitors. (Again, mark your calendars: April 4, 2:00 – 2:30). I included two sneak peek pictures below for you! Needless to say, we are all feeling the excitement of spring break inching closer and closer! Until next time :)
It was another long and busy week in HERO Headquarters. All groups have finished their robot stories, and we focused on main idea skill lessons for the week. We will start new chapter books after spring break. We are easing our way into the final English unit: Pronouns. Spelling had us investigating prefixes. We reviewed for our division Math test. SpongeBob helped with error analysis of division problems. As it turned out, SpongeBob and friends are not such great dividers. It was a good thing we could help them! We also played division tic-tac-toe. I have a few pics of happy game winners! In Science and Social Studies, we discussed topics important to our STEM project. We only have a week and a day – YIKES! – to finish our STEM project. The students have been actively engaged and are working hard to finish. Then, we will prepare and practice for visitors. (Again, mark your calendars: April 4, 2:00 – 2:30). I included two sneak peek pictures below for you! Needless to say, we are all feeling the excitement of spring break inching closer and closer! Until next time :)
March 12, 2023
Now that we’re in the season of Lent, Religion was given extra emphasis this past week. The students prepared for their Lenten confessions, attended Mass, and joined the school in Stations of the Cross presented by our 7th and 8th grade students. We have concluded our Unit 5 in English and continued our robot stories with two groups ready for comprehension testing. The students wrapped up ecosystems this week as we prepare for Watkins Regional Park’s school visit and session this week. We are also using our knowledge of ecosystems in our newest STEM project. The highlight of the week continues to be long division. You will see a few pics below of some happy little people who just completed and presented a long division problem. Yay, and GO us! 😊 Not everyone has been to the board yet. Hopefully, I will be able to continue this week. However, that old adage, “Practice makes perfect,” needs to be applied. Please review this with your third grader. They have a copy of the division steps I use when teaching long division. I have included a few pics of the super work displayed in our hallway!
Now that we’re in the season of Lent, Religion was given extra emphasis this past week. The students prepared for their Lenten confessions, attended Mass, and joined the school in Stations of the Cross presented by our 7th and 8th grade students. We have concluded our Unit 5 in English and continued our robot stories with two groups ready for comprehension testing. The students wrapped up ecosystems this week as we prepare for Watkins Regional Park’s school visit and session this week. We are also using our knowledge of ecosystems in our newest STEM project. The highlight of the week continues to be long division. You will see a few pics below of some happy little people who just completed and presented a long division problem. Yay, and GO us! 😊 Not everyone has been to the board yet. Hopefully, I will be able to continue this week. However, that old adage, “Practice makes perfect,” needs to be applied. Please review this with your third grader. They have a copy of the division steps I use when teaching long division. I have included a few pics of the super work displayed in our hallway!
March 5, 2023
On a Monday morning, if your students enter the classroom with wide eyes and then jump up and down and hug each other, you know you have hit on a good theme for the day. This was the case for our National Pokémon Day celebration. After listening to the Pokémon theme song, we dove into the day’s activities. We used the stats and characters on Pokémon cards to write word problems with extra information. The students designed their own Pokémon characters and cards to emphasize the use of capitalization and punctuation. During Reading, we used Pokémon characters to help us make inferences. However, the grand finale of the day was sending my new trainers out to catch Pokémon. Many thanks to several teachers (who allowed me to hide Pokémon in their classrooms) and my family (who helped change the bulletin board and hide 100 Pokémon stickers) for all of your assistance. Even Pokémon trainer Ash Ketchum made an appearance. Check out the video on our NewsFlash page to see clips of the Pokémon hunt. Tuesday brought our very first field trip. The students explored Revolutionary! Stem at Mount Vernon. The students and I enjoyed this trip. We had nice weather and great guides. Also, the students were prepared and able to engage in knowledgeable discussions with the guides. Thanks to Mrs. Cobleigh who helped me prepare the students for this trip. Thanks to Mrs. Estrella for chaperoning and documenting our field trip: check out her SUPER photos and video here. After the exciting beginning to our week, it was time to settle down into our normal routines to conclude the week. In Math, we have started long division. OMG!! This requires practice, parents! Most of the students were excited for this new challenge. For Book Character Day on Thursday, we completed a mini project with writing quotations. On Friday, we made more plans for our school-wide STEM project. It was a very busy and productive week for us! Make sure you mark your calendars to visit the Fr. Dewan Hall on April 4 from 2 – 2:30. You will be able to see our exhibit and chat with a few classroom representatives (TBD). We are also featured in the school’s March monthly newsletter – check us out!
On a Monday morning, if your students enter the classroom with wide eyes and then jump up and down and hug each other, you know you have hit on a good theme for the day. This was the case for our National Pokémon Day celebration. After listening to the Pokémon theme song, we dove into the day’s activities. We used the stats and characters on Pokémon cards to write word problems with extra information. The students designed their own Pokémon characters and cards to emphasize the use of capitalization and punctuation. During Reading, we used Pokémon characters to help us make inferences. However, the grand finale of the day was sending my new trainers out to catch Pokémon. Many thanks to several teachers (who allowed me to hide Pokémon in their classrooms) and my family (who helped change the bulletin board and hide 100 Pokémon stickers) for all of your assistance. Even Pokémon trainer Ash Ketchum made an appearance. Check out the video on our NewsFlash page to see clips of the Pokémon hunt. Tuesday brought our very first field trip. The students explored Revolutionary! Stem at Mount Vernon. The students and I enjoyed this trip. We had nice weather and great guides. Also, the students were prepared and able to engage in knowledgeable discussions with the guides. Thanks to Mrs. Cobleigh who helped me prepare the students for this trip. Thanks to Mrs. Estrella for chaperoning and documenting our field trip: check out her SUPER photos and video here. After the exciting beginning to our week, it was time to settle down into our normal routines to conclude the week. In Math, we have started long division. OMG!! This requires practice, parents! Most of the students were excited for this new challenge. For Book Character Day on Thursday, we completed a mini project with writing quotations. On Friday, we made more plans for our school-wide STEM project. It was a very busy and productive week for us! Make sure you mark your calendars to visit the Fr. Dewan Hall on April 4 from 2 – 2:30. You will be able to see our exhibit and chat with a few classroom representatives (TBD). We are also featured in the school’s March monthly newsletter – check us out!
February 19, 2023
Last week was SWEET in third grade. Buckle up because this post is what I am calling Pic-a-palooza! Early in the week, the students presented their candy research projects. It was so nice to see that many of them had practiced and were prepared to present. ALL of the students brought in candy to share. THANKS, parents! Below, you will see the candy buffet set-up on our back table, as well as individual pictures of the students and their projects. The posters are now making our STC hallways a little sweeter. That same afternoon, we celebrated Valentine’s Day! Many thanks to Mrs. Smith and all our parents for the SUPER party. The students were definitely wound-up and ready to party. Over the next couple of days, we settled back into our routine and focused on our studies. Friday brought us our biggest coding challenge to date. The students not only program actual robots, they also work on coding skills in Dash’s virtual world by using the iPads. In Dash’s virtual world, the students have been completing challenge cards to learn various coding skills. So, it was now time to put those skills to the test. For inspiration, the students watched one of my old virtual learning videos: Indiana Flores and the Temple of Zoom. This video discussed context clues (our reading skill). However, it also set the scene for Indiana Dash. On our back table, I set up Volcano Island. We discussed what an island is and how this would matter in the story. There were four obstacles for Dash to avoid on the island: flying dragons, giant spiders, gorillas, and the volcano. The students met with their robot partner and completed the story map. The story had to be written in third person, and it needed to use character traits or adjectives. They also had to plan an escape for Dash. Right before lunch, the students made Dash an adventurer hat and drew any needed props. Finally, the afternoon brought us to the stage and coding time. This was quite a challenge for the students. Each pair recorded sound effects (a required element at each obstacle) and began to code the robot. Trying to get the timing right for the reader and the coder was difficult. Not to mention – that with eager coders – the obstacles kept getting moved around – yikes! After almost an hour (most of the students really worked hard on this), we had one coding pair – Alonzo and Violet – that basically met the challenge. Be sure to watch the video (Indiana Yukon and Volcano Island) on our NewsFlash page. Be sure to turn the volume up and listen for Yukon’s sound effects. (By the way, all our Dash robots have their own individual names.) Enjoy!
Last week was SWEET in third grade. Buckle up because this post is what I am calling Pic-a-palooza! Early in the week, the students presented their candy research projects. It was so nice to see that many of them had practiced and were prepared to present. ALL of the students brought in candy to share. THANKS, parents! Below, you will see the candy buffet set-up on our back table, as well as individual pictures of the students and their projects. The posters are now making our STC hallways a little sweeter. That same afternoon, we celebrated Valentine’s Day! Many thanks to Mrs. Smith and all our parents for the SUPER party. The students were definitely wound-up and ready to party. Over the next couple of days, we settled back into our routine and focused on our studies. Friday brought us our biggest coding challenge to date. The students not only program actual robots, they also work on coding skills in Dash’s virtual world by using the iPads. In Dash’s virtual world, the students have been completing challenge cards to learn various coding skills. So, it was now time to put those skills to the test. For inspiration, the students watched one of my old virtual learning videos: Indiana Flores and the Temple of Zoom. This video discussed context clues (our reading skill). However, it also set the scene for Indiana Dash. On our back table, I set up Volcano Island. We discussed what an island is and how this would matter in the story. There were four obstacles for Dash to avoid on the island: flying dragons, giant spiders, gorillas, and the volcano. The students met with their robot partner and completed the story map. The story had to be written in third person, and it needed to use character traits or adjectives. They also had to plan an escape for Dash. Right before lunch, the students made Dash an adventurer hat and drew any needed props. Finally, the afternoon brought us to the stage and coding time. This was quite a challenge for the students. Each pair recorded sound effects (a required element at each obstacle) and began to code the robot. Trying to get the timing right for the reader and the coder was difficult. Not to mention – that with eager coders – the obstacles kept getting moved around – yikes! After almost an hour (most of the students really worked hard on this), we had one coding pair – Alonzo and Violet – that basically met the challenge. Be sure to watch the video (Indiana Yukon and Volcano Island) on our NewsFlash page. Be sure to turn the volume up and listen for Yukon’s sound effects. (By the way, all our Dash robots have their own individual names.) Enjoy!
However, the true stars of the week were our Dash robots. Using the robots, Math and coding joined forces. The students coded their robots to find a particular point or object on a huge treasure map. This provided a lot of fun learning for the students. We do have a few technology glitches that we need to solve to make the next robot learning adventure even better. I must also say, we have the coolest robots in town. Check out the picture of our bots in their new “Bot Mobile.” It was made possible by auction donations to the third grade wish list. Thanks!!
January 15, 2023
Beep! Clang! Zoink! Robots have zoomed right into our classroom. All reading groups have started fictional robot stories. One read aloud this week, Facts vs Opinions vs Robots, helped us review identifying facts and opinions. The students then read a nonfiction piece on robots and highlighted an important fact in each paragraph. We used those facts to create robots. On Friday afternoon, our classroom was transformed into “Droid Depot” (a la in Galaxy’s Edge/Walt Disney World). Here’s a little video that I shared with the students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbYmsqJYol0. Since we were in a robot factory, the students wore aprons and hard hats to work in the factory. They got a tray and moved down the table as the conveyor belt moved robot parts waiting to be selected. Once all selections were made, students used their tools (scissors, pencils, and glue) to assemble their very own robot. The robot body encases important intelligence: facts and opinions 😊
Beep! Clang! Zoink! Robots have zoomed right into our classroom. All reading groups have started fictional robot stories. One read aloud this week, Facts vs Opinions vs Robots, helped us review identifying facts and opinions. The students then read a nonfiction piece on robots and highlighted an important fact in each paragraph. We used those facts to create robots. On Friday afternoon, our classroom was transformed into “Droid Depot” (a la in Galaxy’s Edge/Walt Disney World). Here’s a little video that I shared with the students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbYmsqJYol0. Since we were in a robot factory, the students wore aprons and hard hats to work in the factory. They got a tray and moved down the table as the conveyor belt moved robot parts waiting to be selected. Once all selections were made, students used their tools (scissors, pencils, and glue) to assemble their very own robot. The robot body encases important intelligence: facts and opinions 😊
January 8, 2022
Third grade soared into 2023 with a KAPOW! The highlights of our week centered around melting snowmen and pie. Our third graders were turned into snowmen—via a Math escape room activity—and had to use division facts to prevent themselves from melting. (This was tricky since the weather was so warm 😊) The students worked very hard on this activity! By the conclusion (almost 2 hours later – yikes!), we had a 75% success rate and only a few slushy snowmen. English introduced us to adjectives, while Science culminated in a simple machines graded activity. Additional frosty activities included making a snowman fact family for Math and artistic snow scenes for our hall bulletin board. In Reading, we focused on the skill “author’s purpose.” This uses the acronym P.I.E., which stands for persuade, inform, and entertain. We dressed as pie chefs while searching for examples of books to identify their purpose and worked on an author’s purpose group activity. The grand conclusion of the week was enjoying a very small slice of (real) pie! Needless to say, the students were as happy as pie (pun intended)!
Third grade soared into 2023 with a KAPOW! The highlights of our week centered around melting snowmen and pie. Our third graders were turned into snowmen—via a Math escape room activity—and had to use division facts to prevent themselves from melting. (This was tricky since the weather was so warm 😊) The students worked very hard on this activity! By the conclusion (almost 2 hours later – yikes!), we had a 75% success rate and only a few slushy snowmen. English introduced us to adjectives, while Science culminated in a simple machines graded activity. Additional frosty activities included making a snowman fact family for Math and artistic snow scenes for our hall bulletin board. In Reading, we focused on the skill “author’s purpose.” This uses the acronym P.I.E., which stands for persuade, inform, and entertain. We dressed as pie chefs while searching for examples of books to identify their purpose and worked on an author’s purpose group activity. The grand conclusion of the week was enjoying a very small slice of (real) pie! Needless to say, the students were as happy as pie (pun intended)!
December 11, 2022
This is your last chance to grab this special item from the auction. Your students worked extremely hard on this project. Just look at those adorable paintings! Happy Advent!
This is your last chance to grab this special item from the auction. Your students worked extremely hard on this project. Just look at those adorable paintings! Happy Advent!
October 23, 2022
Extra! Extra! Read all about it:
Superheroes Become STC3 News Reporters!
October 19, 2022 The third-grade superheroes at St. Columba School took on an additional role as news reporters this week. That’s right, you heard it here first! By reporting the news, they learned cause and effect skills. They also used their acting skills and found a good use for all of that “eight-year-old drama” stirring inside them. 😊 Be sure to watch the video clips of this riveting reporting. You will find out the scoop on several current events: what happened when Alexander went to sleep with gum in his hair, or what happened when the wolf got sick and sneezed, or what happened when the mosquito told a lie, or what happened when people made fun of Chrysanthemum. I have also included some footage of smaller events in and around our community. Be sure to watch this must-see tv over on our NewsFlash page! For the best viewing, you will need to pump up the volume. Below, you will find a few photos of the reporters hard at work while preparing their stories. Enjoy!
Extra! Extra! Read all about it:
Superheroes Become STC3 News Reporters!
October 19, 2022 The third-grade superheroes at St. Columba School took on an additional role as news reporters this week. That’s right, you heard it here first! By reporting the news, they learned cause and effect skills. They also used their acting skills and found a good use for all of that “eight-year-old drama” stirring inside them. 😊 Be sure to watch the video clips of this riveting reporting. You will find out the scoop on several current events: what happened when Alexander went to sleep with gum in his hair, or what happened when the wolf got sick and sneezed, or what happened when the mosquito told a lie, or what happened when people made fun of Chrysanthemum. I have also included some footage of smaller events in and around our community. Be sure to watch this must-see tv over on our NewsFlash page! For the best viewing, you will need to pump up the volume. Below, you will find a few photos of the reporters hard at work while preparing their stories. Enjoy!
June 18, 2022
To my Dear 2021 - 2022 Third Grade Superheroes,
There is only one thing left to say:
To my Dear 2021 - 2022 Third Grade Superheroes,
There is only one thing left to say:
June 10, 2022
I am so proud of my Third Grade Superheroes. They practiced all week on delivering and presenting their Reading Fair presentations. They were ready and excited!! The heroes also received many compliments. After the fair, the students were treated to a “Book Buffet” to celebrate all of their accomplishments during our year together. Thanks to all of the volunteers and students who visited our classroom to listen to their presentations and offer advice. A special thank you to my daughter (my mini me) who took the day off of work to help us set everything up for the fair. This week, the students also met their “Mary Poppins” themed Spelling challenge with enthusiasm! Last, but certainly not least, the heroes enjoyed their McDonald’s lunch. One student shared that he ate so fast that he had heart burn! They loved it! Enjoy the photo dump and be sure to check out the new videos posted on our NewsFlash page!! The end is in sight -- Hero Headquarters will be closing soon. ☹
I am so proud of my Third Grade Superheroes. They practiced all week on delivering and presenting their Reading Fair presentations. They were ready and excited!! The heroes also received many compliments. After the fair, the students were treated to a “Book Buffet” to celebrate all of their accomplishments during our year together. Thanks to all of the volunteers and students who visited our classroom to listen to their presentations and offer advice. A special thank you to my daughter (my mini me) who took the day off of work to help us set everything up for the fair. This week, the students also met their “Mary Poppins” themed Spelling challenge with enthusiasm! Last, but certainly not least, the heroes enjoyed their McDonald’s lunch. One student shared that he ate so fast that he had heart burn! They loved it! Enjoy the photo dump and be sure to check out the new videos posted on our NewsFlash page!! The end is in sight -- Hero Headquarters will be closing soon. ☹
June 5, 2022
This was an exciting week in HERO Headquarters. The mini heroes sent home their McDonald’s lunch flyer – Kapow!! We commemorated that moment with a class pic – Flash!! They were even more excited to learn that their lunch would be free – Zap!! Later that day, we opened the STC Superhero Cafe and made edible landforms and bodies of water. This helped us review our Science lesson. In Math, we calculated supply costs and profits for our lemonade stands. The students are enjoying the read aloud book, The Lemonade War, which accompanies this Math project. We are *nervously* looking forward to the upcoming Reading Fair on June 10. Don’t forget, the doors open to third grade parents at 1:40 (until 2 pm). The students will not be dismissed until regular time that day, so please don’t plan on taking them early: yes, there is a reason! 😊 This coming week, we will delve into the world of stop motion animation. There’s never a dull moment in headquarters!!
This was an exciting week in HERO Headquarters. The mini heroes sent home their McDonald’s lunch flyer – Kapow!! We commemorated that moment with a class pic – Flash!! They were even more excited to learn that their lunch would be free – Zap!! Later that day, we opened the STC Superhero Cafe and made edible landforms and bodies of water. This helped us review our Science lesson. In Math, we calculated supply costs and profits for our lemonade stands. The students are enjoying the read aloud book, The Lemonade War, which accompanies this Math project. We are *nervously* looking forward to the upcoming Reading Fair on June 10. Don’t forget, the doors open to third grade parents at 1:40 (until 2 pm). The students will not be dismissed until regular time that day, so please don’t plan on taking them early: yes, there is a reason! 😊 This coming week, we will delve into the world of stop motion animation. There’s never a dull moment in headquarters!!
May 29, 2022
Time is just flying by as we set our sights on the end of the school year. We are working on our big I Survived reading finale in class. Students should also be working on it at home too. You will see from the pics that we continued to work on our gem excavation: all gems have been found! We also did a soil observation using a cellular device microscope that magnified 30x. As always, the mini heroes are learning and exploring. We have exciting news on our McDonald’s project from earlier in the year. However, more on that later...stay tuned!
Time is just flying by as we set our sights on the end of the school year. We are working on our big I Survived reading finale in class. Students should also be working on it at home too. You will see from the pics that we continued to work on our gem excavation: all gems have been found! We also did a soil observation using a cellular device microscope that magnified 30x. As always, the mini heroes are learning and exploring. We have exciting news on our McDonald’s project from earlier in the year. However, more on that later...stay tuned!
May 22, 2022
YAY, we met our fundraising goal in the Fun Run!! Thanks so much to all of the parents, students, grandparents, relatives, friends, and ALL who helped! We should have a donut party coming in the near future. Also, a big "thank you" to all who participated in our annual Walk for Education. In class, we started our I Survived books. I will be sending display boards and directions home (hopefully) this week. Students have reading packets to help them take notes and remember the important events in their stories. We also went on a “Gem Excavation” this week. While we had good intentions, our schedule only allowed a couple of people to dig this week, but it will continue this coming week. The students had a great and hot field day!! It was good to break our normal routine with some outside time. The last two pictures show my mini heroes posing in Egypt. This is based on one of the chapter books a group just finished reading. They were so eager to show me the setting and story that they brought to life!! (However, I think Egypt has since been invaded and is now ‘The Lounge,’ but it was great while it lasted.) Way to go, Superheroes! 😊
YAY, we met our fundraising goal in the Fun Run!! Thanks so much to all of the parents, students, grandparents, relatives, friends, and ALL who helped! We should have a donut party coming in the near future. Also, a big "thank you" to all who participated in our annual Walk for Education. In class, we started our I Survived books. I will be sending display boards and directions home (hopefully) this week. Students have reading packets to help them take notes and remember the important events in their stories. We also went on a “Gem Excavation” this week. While we had good intentions, our schedule only allowed a couple of people to dig this week, but it will continue this coming week. The students had a great and hot field day!! It was good to break our normal routine with some outside time. The last two pictures show my mini heroes posing in Egypt. This is based on one of the chapter books a group just finished reading. They were so eager to show me the setting and story that they brought to life!! (However, I think Egypt has since been invaded and is now ‘The Lounge,’ but it was great while it lasted.) Way to go, Superheroes! 😊
May 15, 2022
Once again, last week proved to be a busy yet productive week for the mini heroes. All reading groups finished up their chapter books! We read some great books this past month or so! These books also provided a good challenge for the students. Now, we are moving on to survive the end of the school year with the I Survived series and our reading fair. Please make sure you have read the email sent this past Wednesday, May 11. We are touching on some quick topics in Math to prepare for our end of year Scantron. Those tests are this week. Please make sure your student eats a good breakfast and is rested. Of course, all students need to be on time to school. It just makes for a smooth morning before we transition to our testing session. IXL is a good source of review for English/Language Arts and Math topics!! Our week concluded with the mini heroes coding their robots to meet various challenges. Prior to the coding session, we enjoyed a mini STEM session to build a bulldozer attachment for the Dash robots with Legos. Check out the pics to see the students and robots in action! I have also posted a few pics from our hall bulletin board, “STEMories.” There are many pics on this bulletin board that show our STEM carnival student engineers at work. Additionally, my third grade photo booth photographers’ pictures are posted. They did a nice job with the pics!! This week coming up, we conclude with the Fun Run and Walk for Education. Also, if you need service hours, please see our Class Wish List. Info on the events and wish list can be found on our Hero Alerts page on this website.
Once again, last week proved to be a busy yet productive week for the mini heroes. All reading groups finished up their chapter books! We read some great books this past month or so! These books also provided a good challenge for the students. Now, we are moving on to survive the end of the school year with the I Survived series and our reading fair. Please make sure you have read the email sent this past Wednesday, May 11. We are touching on some quick topics in Math to prepare for our end of year Scantron. Those tests are this week. Please make sure your student eats a good breakfast and is rested. Of course, all students need to be on time to school. It just makes for a smooth morning before we transition to our testing session. IXL is a good source of review for English/Language Arts and Math topics!! Our week concluded with the mini heroes coding their robots to meet various challenges. Prior to the coding session, we enjoyed a mini STEM session to build a bulldozer attachment for the Dash robots with Legos. Check out the pics to see the students and robots in action! I have also posted a few pics from our hall bulletin board, “STEMories.” There are many pics on this bulletin board that show our STEM carnival student engineers at work. Additionally, my third grade photo booth photographers’ pictures are posted. They did a nice job with the pics!! This week coming up, we conclude with the Fun Run and Walk for Education. Also, if you need service hours, please see our Class Wish List. Info on the events and wish list can be found on our Hero Alerts page on this website.
May 8, 2022
OMG, third grade superhero parents!! I am so very appreciative and humbled by the cards, flowers, and gifts. Your thoughtfulness and generosity just made my day! My giraffe flowers are still beautiful, and I have enjoyed a Starbucks coffee and chips (not together though). I used Amazon and Target cards to get surprises for the students at a later date. Since it's been so chilly, I have used the throw from the basket. It’s just been SUPER--thanks again!
During the week, May 4th was one of our favorite days! The force was definitely with us as we celebrated Star Wars Day. We weaved Star Wars themed academics into all areas of our day. However, a coding challenge with our droids (Dash robots) was a highlight. You can see from the pics that our robots even got in on the Star Wars fun with their crowns. We concluded the day with mini light sabers. See the short video clip on the NewsFLASH page.
OMG, third grade superhero parents!! I am so very appreciative and humbled by the cards, flowers, and gifts. Your thoughtfulness and generosity just made my day! My giraffe flowers are still beautiful, and I have enjoyed a Starbucks coffee and chips (not together though). I used Amazon and Target cards to get surprises for the students at a later date. Since it's been so chilly, I have used the throw from the basket. It’s just been SUPER--thanks again!
During the week, May 4th was one of our favorite days! The force was definitely with us as we celebrated Star Wars Day. We weaved Star Wars themed academics into all areas of our day. However, a coding challenge with our droids (Dash robots) was a highlight. You can see from the pics that our robots even got in on the Star Wars fun with their crowns. We concluded the day with mini light sabers. See the short video clip on the NewsFLASH page.
May 1, 2022
Superman states, “I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” As we returned from spring break, we were able to do just that: persevere and endure. We started the week by getting back into our routines and schedule, and by Thursday, we were ready to perform surgery! The students were tasked with operating on words to form contractions. Only “scalpels” (aka scissors), tweezers, and band-aids were allowed in the operating room. I think our scalpels may have been a little rusty. Out of 17 patients, we only managed to save 10. Oh my ! That same afternoon, one of my reading groups enjoyed a special group of visitors. That group is reading a fiction book that has ties to Shakespeare. A group of 8th graders came to share their experience in reading and viewing a Shakespeare play. It was wonderful chatting and sharing with those 8th graders!! They brought so much enthusiasm about Shakespeare to our reading group. Of course, my other reading group listened in on the discussion. The 8th graders and I couldn’t help but do a little reminiscing about their time in 3rd grade. I (and the students) even remembered where they sat in my 3rd grade class 😊. Many thanks to Mr. Schroeder and the 8th graders for the visit! To conclude the week, we enjoyed the goodness (Dash robots) on that little blue cart (see pic). I made sure I sat that cart out earlier during the week to pique the curiosity of my mini heroes, and they could hardly wait!! During May, we will use those robots to learn and practice coding skills during our STEM time. We had a great time with the robots!
Superman states, “I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” As we returned from spring break, we were able to do just that: persevere and endure. We started the week by getting back into our routines and schedule, and by Thursday, we were ready to perform surgery! The students were tasked with operating on words to form contractions. Only “scalpels” (aka scissors), tweezers, and band-aids were allowed in the operating room. I think our scalpels may have been a little rusty. Out of 17 patients, we only managed to save 10. Oh my ! That same afternoon, one of my reading groups enjoyed a special group of visitors. That group is reading a fiction book that has ties to Shakespeare. A group of 8th graders came to share their experience in reading and viewing a Shakespeare play. It was wonderful chatting and sharing with those 8th graders!! They brought so much enthusiasm about Shakespeare to our reading group. Of course, my other reading group listened in on the discussion. The 8th graders and I couldn’t help but do a little reminiscing about their time in 3rd grade. I (and the students) even remembered where they sat in my 3rd grade class 😊. Many thanks to Mr. Schroeder and the 8th graders for the visit! To conclude the week, we enjoyed the goodness (Dash robots) on that little blue cart (see pic). I made sure I sat that cart out earlier during the week to pique the curiosity of my mini heroes, and they could hardly wait!! During May, we will use those robots to learn and practice coding skills during our STEM time. We had a great time with the robots!
April 14, 2022
Have a SUPER fabulous Easter break! I will see you on April 25th rested and ready to soar.
Have a SUPER fabulous Easter break! I will see you on April 25th rested and ready to soar.
April 9, 2022
Last week began with a wonderful trip to the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Usually, the students attend this trip in second grade, however that was not possible last year. So, Mrs. Galbreath and I collaborated to make it happen this year. The students attended a very informative guided tour of the facility. Many thanks to Mrs. Galbreath and our chaperones for making the trip a reality! Later in the week, we attended our school’s first ever STEM Carnival. The students thoroughly enjoyed playing the games their schoolmates created as well as working our own events, Photo Booth with props and SUPER Frisbee Toss. I walked away from this event feeling SUPER proud of all of our St. Columba stemgineers!!
Last week began with a wonderful trip to the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Usually, the students attend this trip in second grade, however that was not possible last year. So, Mrs. Galbreath and I collaborated to make it happen this year. The students attended a very informative guided tour of the facility. Many thanks to Mrs. Galbreath and our chaperones for making the trip a reality! Later in the week, we attended our school’s first ever STEM Carnival. The students thoroughly enjoyed playing the games their schoolmates created as well as working our own events, Photo Booth with props and SUPER Frisbee Toss. I walked away from this event feeling SUPER proud of all of our St. Columba stemgineers!!
April 3, 2022
It was a whirlwind of a week in HERO Headquarters. Lots of extras factored into our schedule that kept us super busy! We have been busy planning, creating, and building “events” for our STEM carnival. I posted a few sneak peek pics below. The mini heroes are excited to see “their stuff coming together” as they put it. The students took the Faith Knowledge Assessment for the first time (it starts in third grade). Then–on short notice–we were asked to sing for the Cardinal’s visit. The “hero choir” only had 3 sessions to practice. They did a terrific job! I even got a little teary-eyed during one song as I thought to myself, “Look at my babies singing their little hearts out. They sound so nice!” What was even nicer was watching that little choir hug and congratulate each other when they were all finished. They were so nervous but were complimented by many! I tried to get a pic of them too. Please keep a check on our calendar: several adjustments have been made or will be made for uniform requirements as we march into Spring break. Thanks!
It was a whirlwind of a week in HERO Headquarters. Lots of extras factored into our schedule that kept us super busy! We have been busy planning, creating, and building “events” for our STEM carnival. I posted a few sneak peek pics below. The mini heroes are excited to see “their stuff coming together” as they put it. The students took the Faith Knowledge Assessment for the first time (it starts in third grade). Then–on short notice–we were asked to sing for the Cardinal’s visit. The “hero choir” only had 3 sessions to practice. They did a terrific job! I even got a little teary-eyed during one song as I thought to myself, “Look at my babies singing their little hearts out. They sound so nice!” What was even nicer was watching that little choir hug and congratulate each other when they were all finished. They were so nervous but were complimented by many! I tried to get a pic of them too. Please keep a check on our calendar: several adjustments have been made or will be made for uniform requirements as we march into Spring break. Thanks!
March 27, 2022
On Friday, March 25, the mini heroes and I closed out third quarter. It is hard to believe that our time is quickly coming to an end. Until then, we will keep working hard! This week, in a nutshell, we worked on suffixes, fractions, pronouns, new chapter books, and concluded the weather and world units. I realized that I never shared the last big writing project we completed. So, the pics from this week highlight the students’ “Magical Boxes of Chocolate.” Prior to writing, we set the scene: each student went into a candy shop and purchased a magical box of chocolates. The box had to be set up with wishes made for someone else in their life. Each chocolate represents one wish that person would enjoy and why. You will see from the pics that someone in our STC family was granted a new gaming system, vacation, and robot 😊 Enjoy!
On Friday, March 25, the mini heroes and I closed out third quarter. It is hard to believe that our time is quickly coming to an end. Until then, we will keep working hard! This week, in a nutshell, we worked on suffixes, fractions, pronouns, new chapter books, and concluded the weather and world units. I realized that I never shared the last big writing project we completed. So, the pics from this week highlight the students’ “Magical Boxes of Chocolate.” Prior to writing, we set the scene: each student went into a candy shop and purchased a magical box of chocolates. The box had to be set up with wishes made for someone else in their life. Each chocolate represents one wish that person would enjoy and why. You will see from the pics that someone in our STC family was granted a new gaming system, vacation, and robot 😊 Enjoy!
March 20, 2022
The mini heroes steamed into last week full speed ahead. We had a mobile STEAM museum visit our school. The students enjoyed exploring, trying out, and investigating the items in the museum. During the week, we continued our studies. We will be concluding long division soon–practice, practice, and practice! The students learned about theme in reading. Some of our pics show students meeting in groups and reading a picture book. Then each group had to find the theme of their story. Once again, they are doing a nice job! We started pronouns in English and continued to track the weather in Science. We also finished our “Limitless Luck” STEM project. The students learned that the stem project centered on probability. This was a fun way to sneak in a little more Math 😊 We also decided that we are going to use part of this project for our schoolwide STEM carnival. But, of course, it will be superhero themed!
The mini heroes steamed into last week full speed ahead. We had a mobile STEAM museum visit our school. The students enjoyed exploring, trying out, and investigating the items in the museum. During the week, we continued our studies. We will be concluding long division soon–practice, practice, and practice! The students learned about theme in reading. Some of our pics show students meeting in groups and reading a picture book. Then each group had to find the theme of their story. Once again, they are doing a nice job! We started pronouns in English and continued to track the weather in Science. We also finished our “Limitless Luck” STEM project. The students learned that the stem project centered on probability. This was a fun way to sneak in a little more Math 😊 We also decided that we are going to use part of this project for our schoolwide STEM carnival. But, of course, it will be superhero themed!
March 13, 2022
Top of the morning to you! I hope everyone remembered to “spring forward” this weekend. Speaking of which, our mini heroes have done just that – sprung forward! It’s so wonderful to see the leaps they are taking in their studies. The students are doing a nice job with long division (please practice at home). We made anemometers this week and are now tracking the weather looking for trends and patterns. We have completed our Reading chapter books and will be moving on to new books. The students are writing more: they are learning and practicing paragraph development. We played “Trashketball” to review for our Unit 5 English test. If you answered your review questions correctly, you got to crumple it up and try to make a basket! The students were a little nervous when Mrs. Patton walked in on us shooting paper balls everywhere but she knows to expect the unexpected when superheroes are involved. She took it all in stride…whew!! Moving on, English will bring our last new ‘parts of speech’ unit. This past Friday, our theme for the day was “luck.” We were so lucky to have witnessed our upper-wing students lead the Stations of the Cross. The older students did such a wonderful job, and our third graders were so moved by stations! They said they can’t wait until it’s their turn. It’s been two years since we have all been together in the church for stations. That in and of itself was encouraging and inspiring. Also on Friday, each Reading group read a selection that had something to do with luck. We discussed bad/good luck superstitions and charms. This led to our “Limitless Luck” STEM activity. The students were tasked with making a four-leaf clover frisbee/coin. The challenge is to make sure your frisbee/coin always lands face-up. During this process—I just want you to know—I was deemed a good luck charm by Rocco. How blessed am I 😊 This activity will continue this coming week - stay tuned!!
Top of the morning to you! I hope everyone remembered to “spring forward” this weekend. Speaking of which, our mini heroes have done just that – sprung forward! It’s so wonderful to see the leaps they are taking in their studies. The students are doing a nice job with long division (please practice at home). We made anemometers this week and are now tracking the weather looking for trends and patterns. We have completed our Reading chapter books and will be moving on to new books. The students are writing more: they are learning and practicing paragraph development. We played “Trashketball” to review for our Unit 5 English test. If you answered your review questions correctly, you got to crumple it up and try to make a basket! The students were a little nervous when Mrs. Patton walked in on us shooting paper balls everywhere but she knows to expect the unexpected when superheroes are involved. She took it all in stride…whew!! Moving on, English will bring our last new ‘parts of speech’ unit. This past Friday, our theme for the day was “luck.” We were so lucky to have witnessed our upper-wing students lead the Stations of the Cross. The older students did such a wonderful job, and our third graders were so moved by stations! They said they can’t wait until it’s their turn. It’s been two years since we have all been together in the church for stations. That in and of itself was encouraging and inspiring. Also on Friday, each Reading group read a selection that had something to do with luck. We discussed bad/good luck superstitions and charms. This led to our “Limitless Luck” STEM activity. The students were tasked with making a four-leaf clover frisbee/coin. The challenge is to make sure your frisbee/coin always lands face-up. During this process—I just want you to know—I was deemed a good luck charm by Rocco. How blessed am I 😊 This activity will continue this coming week - stay tuned!!
March 6, 2022
The students celebrated Reading this past week. It is crucial that our mini heroes are always reading. Be sure to talk to them about their reading to check for understanding. Many have developed into fluent readers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are understanding the words they are calling. Reading discussions will also help you get a good feel for their reading interests and preferences. Family read-togethers are super ways to encourage reading!! Some of the pics below show mixed reading groups comparing and contrasting their carnival stories. Each group read a book that centered on a different type of carnival. Our stories and discussions will also give us a few ideas when we need to plan and build for our future STEM carnival. The students did a nice job with their Venn diagrams. We took a huge step in Math this week--the dreaded long division is finally here!! To divide, the students must know their multiplication facts. I can’t say this enough: the students must know those facts. Long division takes practice, so please help your third grader by setting aside some practice time. Our super quotes (complete with lightning bolt quotes and commas) have been displayed in our hallway. I have included several pics. It is definitely looking like spring in our hallway! Now, we just need the weather to cooperate.
The students celebrated Reading this past week. It is crucial that our mini heroes are always reading. Be sure to talk to them about their reading to check for understanding. Many have developed into fluent readers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are understanding the words they are calling. Reading discussions will also help you get a good feel for their reading interests and preferences. Family read-togethers are super ways to encourage reading!! Some of the pics below show mixed reading groups comparing and contrasting their carnival stories. Each group read a book that centered on a different type of carnival. Our stories and discussions will also give us a few ideas when we need to plan and build for our future STEM carnival. The students did a nice job with their Venn diagrams. We took a huge step in Math this week--the dreaded long division is finally here!! To divide, the students must know their multiplication facts. I can’t say this enough: the students must know those facts. Long division takes practice, so please help your third grader by setting aside some practice time. Our super quotes (complete with lightning bolt quotes and commas) have been displayed in our hallway. I have included several pics. It is definitely looking like spring in our hallway! Now, we just need the weather to cooperate.
February 27, 2022
It’s hard to believe that March is right around the corner. Our mini heroes are getting ready to soar into fourth grade before we know it! The Guardians of Kindness struck once again by making a welcome kit for a new STC student in the upper wing. During the week, the students continued working in all subject areas. They turned in awesome African-American scrapbooks, and I can’t wait to read through them. We practiced our multiplication and regrouping skills, which included an exhilarating game of Hulk Smash! Be sure to check out the video. The students continued reading our “Carnival” stories. It has been so fun to see the third graders so engaged in these stories. We have had some super discussions and revelations as we read together! On Friday, we made superhero masks. Then the superheroes donned their capes and newly made masks and wrote “super quotes.” The mini heroes cast lightning bolts for some of the punctuation!! Since we were already dressed in our superhero garb, we decided to remind the rest of the school that superheroes are in their midst. We did this with a little parade--it was just a little Friday fun!! Be sure to see the video on the NewsFLASH page!
It’s hard to believe that March is right around the corner. Our mini heroes are getting ready to soar into fourth grade before we know it! The Guardians of Kindness struck once again by making a welcome kit for a new STC student in the upper wing. During the week, the students continued working in all subject areas. They turned in awesome African-American scrapbooks, and I can’t wait to read through them. We practiced our multiplication and regrouping skills, which included an exhilarating game of Hulk Smash! Be sure to check out the video. The students continued reading our “Carnival” stories. It has been so fun to see the third graders so engaged in these stories. We have had some super discussions and revelations as we read together! On Friday, we made superhero masks. Then the superheroes donned their capes and newly made masks and wrote “super quotes.” The mini heroes cast lightning bolts for some of the punctuation!! Since we were already dressed in our superhero garb, we decided to remind the rest of the school that superheroes are in their midst. We did this with a little parade--it was just a little Friday fun!! Be sure to see the video on the NewsFLASH page!
February 20, 2022
This week in Headquarters started with a super Valentine’s Day party. Again, thanks to our room-moms for all they do for us. The Guardians of Kindness (our kindness club) made and put Valentines on the windshields of all of our teachers. Hopefully, this small act put a smile on the teachers’ faces! The week continued with our typical routines…with one exception. The mini heroes were so sweet and supportive while helping me problem solve. We were able to put our reading skills of making inferences to good use. They even put on plastic gloves to evaluate evidence (just like detectives, according to them). We found clues, took notes, made conclusions, and wrote letters all in an effort to help me out. They were so engaged that they worked all Friday afternoon! 😊 The students also found that the discussions on nutrition with Mr. Barnhardt throughout the week were very helpful in making their inferences. I am thrilled to report that all of their hard work has paid off. I am feeling so refreshed and energized! THANKS, mini heroes!!
This week in Headquarters started with a super Valentine’s Day party. Again, thanks to our room-moms for all they do for us. The Guardians of Kindness (our kindness club) made and put Valentines on the windshields of all of our teachers. Hopefully, this small act put a smile on the teachers’ faces! The week continued with our typical routines…with one exception. The mini heroes were so sweet and supportive while helping me problem solve. We were able to put our reading skills of making inferences to good use. They even put on plastic gloves to evaluate evidence (just like detectives, according to them). We found clues, took notes, made conclusions, and wrote letters all in an effort to help me out. They were so engaged that they worked all Friday afternoon! 😊 The students also found that the discussions on nutrition with Mr. Barnhardt throughout the week were very helpful in making their inferences. I am thrilled to report that all of their hard work has paid off. I am feeling so refreshed and energized! THANKS, mini heroes!!
February 13, 2022
Our mini heroes had plenty of mission objectives this week. We completed our geometry unit and started multiplying 2-digits with regrouping. Our new English unit has us refining our capitalization and punctuation skills. We jumped back into our world unit in Social Studies. In Reading, we continued our carnival stories while practicing context clues. Indiana Flores made an appearance in the film short The Temple of Zoom to help us with context clues. The Guardians of Kindness (our new kindness club) worked on a little secret project to be revealed on Monday. Last, but not least, we worked on (but didn’t finish) a three-paragraph writing craftivity called “The Magical Box of Chocolates.” After the picture overload from last week, I just have a few pics to show our ‘happy seating groups.’ 😊
Our mini heroes had plenty of mission objectives this week. We completed our geometry unit and started multiplying 2-digits with regrouping. Our new English unit has us refining our capitalization and punctuation skills. We jumped back into our world unit in Social Studies. In Reading, we continued our carnival stories while practicing context clues. Indiana Flores made an appearance in the film short The Temple of Zoom to help us with context clues. The Guardians of Kindness (our new kindness club) worked on a little secret project to be revealed on Monday. Last, but not least, we worked on (but didn’t finish) a three-paragraph writing craftivity called “The Magical Box of Chocolates.” After the picture overload from last week, I just have a few pics to show our ‘happy seating groups.’ 😊
February 6, 2022
We had an awesome Catholic Schools Week in HERO Headquarters! On Monday, we used Legos to practice area and perimeter. That afternoon, we built adventure, fantasy, or realistic stories using Legos. Tuesday afternoon brought us the challenge of the domino rally. This was a lot of fun for the whole school. Of course, since we’re superheroes, we set up our section a little differently. Be sure to check out our video. After open house on Wednesday, we got our furry friends and slipped into our slippers to enjoy a little flashlight reading. The third graders definitely brought their “A-game” all day long on Thursday. We started the day playing geometry Jenga. During indoor recess, the students played traditional board games. During reading, we played reading skill games. To conclude the week, we dressed our best for Jesus while attending Mass. That day finished with the mini heroes playing geometry Hedbanz and Bingo! In our pictures, you will also notice all of the different “dress-up” days the students participated in during the week!! Whewwww! What fun!
We had an awesome Catholic Schools Week in HERO Headquarters! On Monday, we used Legos to practice area and perimeter. That afternoon, we built adventure, fantasy, or realistic stories using Legos. Tuesday afternoon brought us the challenge of the domino rally. This was a lot of fun for the whole school. Of course, since we’re superheroes, we set up our section a little differently. Be sure to check out our video. After open house on Wednesday, we got our furry friends and slipped into our slippers to enjoy a little flashlight reading. The third graders definitely brought their “A-game” all day long on Thursday. We started the day playing geometry Jenga. During indoor recess, the students played traditional board games. During reading, we played reading skill games. To conclude the week, we dressed our best for Jesus while attending Mass. That day finished with the mini heroes playing geometry Hedbanz and Bingo! In our pictures, you will also notice all of the different “dress-up” days the students participated in during the week!! Whewwww! What fun!
January 30, 2022
This week, HERO Headquarters was alive with learning. I was secretly waiting for Friday–one of my favorite days of the year. Once Friday finally arrived, we celebrated “International Lego Day!!” Our mini heroes transformed into Lego Master Builders. The builders donned their hard hats and got to work building their favorite animals. We then used our Legos to learn about perimeter in Math. The builders made ornaments for our Lego tree (something I wanted to set up for years!!). During lunch, we enjoyed a bit of the Lego Movie and ate Lego brick brownies. Our festivities were cut short by the early release announcement. I promised the builders that we would continue on Monday! Until then, enjoy our pics and Leg godt!
This week, HERO Headquarters was alive with learning. I was secretly waiting for Friday–one of my favorite days of the year. Once Friday finally arrived, we celebrated “International Lego Day!!” Our mini heroes transformed into Lego Master Builders. The builders donned their hard hats and got to work building their favorite animals. We then used our Legos to learn about perimeter in Math. The builders made ornaments for our Lego tree (something I wanted to set up for years!!). During lunch, we enjoyed a bit of the Lego Movie and ate Lego brick brownies. Our festivities were cut short by the early release announcement. I promised the builders that we would continue on Monday! Until then, enjoy our pics and Leg godt!
January 23, 2022
It was a short week in HERO Headquarters: we reassembled and reviewed our objectives as we aim to complete our third grade mission successfully. We continued our studies in our subject areas. On Friday afternoon, we tested our snow shovels. Our tests helped us draw some new conclusions in snow shovel construction. The pictures this week show our multiplication and division fact families, mini polar bear projects, and the snow fun division facts. Wait…what’s that picture of the white tree all about??? Stay tuned!!
It was a short week in HERO Headquarters: we reassembled and reviewed our objectives as we aim to complete our third grade mission successfully. We continued our studies in our subject areas. On Friday afternoon, we tested our snow shovels. Our tests helped us draw some new conclusions in snow shovel construction. The pictures this week show our multiplication and division fact families, mini polar bear projects, and the snow fun division facts. Wait…what’s that picture of the white tree all about??? Stay tuned!!
December 19, 2021
Wow!! What a week for our mini superheroes! They did a super nice job with their song and Principal presentation!! I am very proud of the third graders! Also, THANKS to all superhero parents for encouraging, supporting, and dressing your mini hero!
Hopefully, you will receive our song video soon. The pop of red in their outfits and the white gloves really brought our video to life!
Mrs. Patton and Mrs. Vickers were VERY impressed with the McDonald’s presentation. They commented on the professionalism of the students and the excellent quality of their work. The students were nervous, but the STC3 Partners worked as a team to deliver. They were definitely dressed for success! They are eagerly awaiting Mrs. Patton’s decision after Christmas break. A BIG thank you to Mrs. Lauren Downs for twice giving up her planning period to watch us rehearse and offer feedback.
At the beginning of the week, we used our iPads and QR codes to find a Kwanzaa site for research purposes. Then later in the week, the students worked together to complete a Lego advent wreath. We will use the wreath to compare and contrast it to the Kwanzaa kinara.
We are also busily working on our Home Alone project. We will conclude it on Monday with presentations of the simple machines, aka “bad guy traps.”
Christmas excitement is definitely in the air! I hope you all have a wonderful and restful Christmas break! (Be sure to check out all of our pics!)
Until next year--
Wow!! What a week for our mini superheroes! They did a super nice job with their song and Principal presentation!! I am very proud of the third graders! Also, THANKS to all superhero parents for encouraging, supporting, and dressing your mini hero!
Hopefully, you will receive our song video soon. The pop of red in their outfits and the white gloves really brought our video to life!
Mrs. Patton and Mrs. Vickers were VERY impressed with the McDonald’s presentation. They commented on the professionalism of the students and the excellent quality of their work. The students were nervous, but the STC3 Partners worked as a team to deliver. They were definitely dressed for success! They are eagerly awaiting Mrs. Patton’s decision after Christmas break. A BIG thank you to Mrs. Lauren Downs for twice giving up her planning period to watch us rehearse and offer feedback.
At the beginning of the week, we used our iPads and QR codes to find a Kwanzaa site for research purposes. Then later in the week, the students worked together to complete a Lego advent wreath. We will use the wreath to compare and contrast it to the Kwanzaa kinara.
We are also busily working on our Home Alone project. We will conclude it on Monday with presentations of the simple machines, aka “bad guy traps.”
Christmas excitement is definitely in the air! I hope you all have a wonderful and restful Christmas break! (Be sure to check out all of our pics!)
Until next year--
October 31, 2021
Oxon Hill, MD--Superheroes take some time to relax and party for Halloween. That’s right, you heard it correctly. Over at St. Columba School, sixteen superheroes reunited to celebrate. They donned their capes and masks and had fa-boo-lous celebration. One hero I interviewed wanted to thank Commissioner Graham and Commissioner Contreras for organizing the event.
In other news, the superheroes held their last Lego Masters competition. The heroes had to design a creative and detailed haunted house room. It was quite a nail-biter. However, in the end, seating group Fidem ran away with the final prize packages!
It’s hard to believe that November is coming to HERO Headquarters! Report cards will be issued shortly and conferences will be held. Please make sure you have signed up for a time slot. Reference the email sent on Oct. 19. Happy Haunting!
Oxon Hill, MD--Superheroes take some time to relax and party for Halloween. That’s right, you heard it correctly. Over at St. Columba School, sixteen superheroes reunited to celebrate. They donned their capes and masks and had fa-boo-lous celebration. One hero I interviewed wanted to thank Commissioner Graham and Commissioner Contreras for organizing the event.
In other news, the superheroes held their last Lego Masters competition. The heroes had to design a creative and detailed haunted house room. It was quite a nail-biter. However, in the end, seating group Fidem ran away with the final prize packages!
It’s hard to believe that November is coming to HERO Headquarters! Report cards will be issued shortly and conferences will be held. Please make sure you have signed up for a time slot. Reference the email sent on Oct. 19. Happy Haunting!
October 24, 2021
**Spoiler Alert! This post contains spoilers for STC Lego Masters episode 3. First, go watch our video trailer over on our NewsFLASH page and then come back 😊 The mini superheroes are soaring right along in our studies. We have a Math test (Chapter 2 – Addition) coming up this week: be sure to complete some practice problems. Remember, any time spent on teaching study skills to your third grader is time well spent! We had a great time in the Science Mobile Lab this week. The students studied the “Wetlands” and “Oil Spills” with hands-on activities. This Thursday not only brings Halloween festivities, but it also brings the conclusion to our STC Lego Masters competition! During the first two weeks, we tied in writing with our builds, and this past week, we tied in estimation. The groups had to build a decorative candy container for Halloween. They then estimated how much candy I had for the trials and how much candy their container would hold. Thanks to our guest judge, Mrs. Vickers. Let’s congratulate the seating group Imperium for the overall win this week. What will this upcoming week bring?? Don’t forget that this week is Spirit Week! Make sure your student joins in the fun! Lastly, check out the first pic below. It is an opportunity for your third grader to meet Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. However, you need to act fast!! (Here is the link from the pic: Tickets)
**Spoiler Alert! This post contains spoilers for STC Lego Masters episode 3. First, go watch our video trailer over on our NewsFLASH page and then come back 😊 The mini superheroes are soaring right along in our studies. We have a Math test (Chapter 2 – Addition) coming up this week: be sure to complete some practice problems. Remember, any time spent on teaching study skills to your third grader is time well spent! We had a great time in the Science Mobile Lab this week. The students studied the “Wetlands” and “Oil Spills” with hands-on activities. This Thursday not only brings Halloween festivities, but it also brings the conclusion to our STC Lego Masters competition! During the first two weeks, we tied in writing with our builds, and this past week, we tied in estimation. The groups had to build a decorative candy container for Halloween. They then estimated how much candy I had for the trials and how much candy their container would hold. Thanks to our guest judge, Mrs. Vickers. Let’s congratulate the seating group Imperium for the overall win this week. What will this upcoming week bring?? Don’t forget that this week is Spirit Week! Make sure your student joins in the fun! Lastly, check out the first pic below. It is an opportunity for your third grader to meet Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. However, you need to act fast!! (Here is the link from the pic: Tickets)
October 17, 2021
We are moving right along in our subject areas. In Math we are regrouping while adding large numbers, English has us making plural nouns, creepy crawly spiders is the topic of our Reading stories, and Science has us visiting the Wetlands. In other news, we completed our second STC Lego Masters challenge. The students had to build a silly monster. Congratulations to the seating group, Viribus, who earned the Golden Brick this week! Be sure to check out our pics! See you next week.
We are moving right along in our subject areas. In Math we are regrouping while adding large numbers, English has us making plural nouns, creepy crawly spiders is the topic of our Reading stories, and Science has us visiting the Wetlands. In other news, we completed our second STC Lego Masters challenge. The students had to build a silly monster. Congratulations to the seating group, Viribus, who earned the Golden Brick this week! Be sure to check out our pics! See you next week.
October 10, 2021
October brings new activities to HERO Headquarters. We have started our spider unit, which includes literature, research, and STEM. We have started several new units in our other subject areas too. The school’s football tradition continues this Friday (an out of uniform day: sports teams theme). A school spirit week will happen at the end of the month. For my third graders, the most exciting activity has been starting our very own version of Lego Masters! Each week will bring a new challenge and writing assignment. This week’s challenge was for each seating group to create a “Fall Scene.” Each student wrote a description which included a hook to catch our judge’s (Mrs. Vickers) attention. Congratulations to the “Animo” seating group for winning our first Lego Masters challenge! Currently, they are now the proud owners of the “Golden Brick!” Check out the pics below.
October brings new activities to HERO Headquarters. We have started our spider unit, which includes literature, research, and STEM. We have started several new units in our other subject areas too. The school’s football tradition continues this Friday (an out of uniform day: sports teams theme). A school spirit week will happen at the end of the month. For my third graders, the most exciting activity has been starting our very own version of Lego Masters! Each week will bring a new challenge and writing assignment. This week’s challenge was for each seating group to create a “Fall Scene.” Each student wrote a description which included a hook to catch our judge’s (Mrs. Vickers) attention. Congratulations to the “Animo” seating group for winning our first Lego Masters challenge! Currently, they are now the proud owners of the “Golden Brick!” Check out the pics below.
