Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals

Last Wednesday, February 11th, we had the pleasure of going to visit the Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals in Hillsboro. Justin, our tour guide, was extremely knowledgable and did a wonderful job showing us around the enchanting Rice mansion and teaching us about all of the mind-blowing relics this museum holds. This place rocks! 

Students and parents alike gathered round a giant thunderegg (Oregon's state rock) to hear Justin speak. 

We <3 our thundereggs!

Just another day at the office... 

Justin demonstrating how scientists test the hardness of minerals. 

The Alma Rose, the second largest mined rhodochrosite in the world, found in the Colorado Rockies and worth about 3 million dollars, although some would pay much more than that for this priceless gemstone.

Find out more at www.ricenorthwestmuseum.org . Thanks to Matt, Jill, Marike, Nicole, and Ginger for joining us! 

What's Going on in 3rd Grade

Math: We are about halfway through our unit on multiplication and division patterns and concepts. This week we are seeing what strategies we can use to solve a variety of word problems involving a game store. It is really informative to see students' work and have them talk the class through how they solved the problem. Some strategies used were grouping (as seen in the Loops and Groups game that was homework a couple weeks ago), repeated addition, tally marks, and drawing a picture. Students will continue working on a variety of multiplication and division story problems before getting a chance to write their own problem later this week.

Reading: We finished up Tales from the Odyssey Part 1 by Mary Pope Osborne last week. She left us with a cliffhanger and there was much enthusiasm to continue onto the second (and final) book in the series. Will Odysseus ever return to his homeland and his beloved wife and son? What dangers and perils await him as he continues his seemingly never-ending journey home? We will find out as we continue reading this fantastical and gripping tale.

We have also been focusing on reading non-fiction in class. Students have been reading articles on Newsela.com and answering some of the quiz questions that are included on the website. The website offers the same article at a range of reading levels and covers a wide-range of current event topics happening all over the country and all over the world. We have also started reading Scholastic News in the classroom every other week. We will be starting this week's edition about Rosa Parks tomorrow.

Writing: In January we were lucky enough to have a dear friend of mine visit our classroom for a poetry workshop. Francesca has been writing poetry and leading workshops all over the country and was happy to come and share some of her prompts and ideas with our very curious and engaged third graders. Students also got to practice writing found word poems after we read the powerful book Martin's Big Words to celebrate and learn more about the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We will be starting a research project in conjunction with our rocks and minerals unit after our field trip to the Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals next Wednesday.

Science: This week we have officially kicked of our unit on Rocks and Minerals. Students have been brainstorming what we think we know and what we want to learn about rocks and getting to explore a variety of rocks with our senses, write down our observations and practice sorting our rock collections in different ways. We will continue to learn about how rocks are formed and how they are categorized before moving on to minerals next week.

Wapato: Our next trip to Wapato will be on Thursday, February 19th. We will be continuing our routines of sit-spots and sharing, as well as writing some nature inspired haikus and doing some observations related to our work with rocks and minerals in the classroom.

Our Winter Music concert is happening Wednesday, February 4th, at 6pm at the Scappoose High School. 

Talent Show: Our school wide talent show is happening on Friday, February 27th, at 6pm. Third graders are invited to audition for me in class during recess anytime between now and February 21st. Their act should be 3 minutes or less. Students can perform on their own or with a group of friends. If your act includes music, you will need to provide a CD or flash drive with your song for the talent show.

As always, please let me know if you have questions or concerns about anything mentioned above. Thanks!

Kicking Off Our Rocks and Minerals Unit!

Today we had our first official lesson of our Rocks and Minerals Science Unit. Students shared some things that we think we know about rocks and minerals and some questions we still have, which included "How are rocks formed?", "What is the difference between a rock and a mineral?", and "Do some rocks come from space, if so, how are they formed?". After sharing out our thoughts and questions, students had some time to investigate three different rocks and write down/sketch their observations. One thing is for sure, 3rd grade at SIA Rocks!!!

Salmon Release Photos

Last Tuesday we said farewell to our salmon fry. They had been a part of our classroom community since the end of October but they were swimming around and ready to get into their natural habitat. Thanks to Marike for these fabulous photos documenting our trip to Wapato. Farewell salmon! Good luck on your journey. Maybe we will see you when you make your way back here in a few years. 

After we released our fry we did a bit of sit spot writing. It was nice to be in a new area of Wapato Park. Our next field study will be on Thursday, February 19th. 

Wapato Field Study in December

Here are a few shots from our trip to Wapato last month. Thanks to Nicole for these shots. Photos from our salmon release this week coming soon!

Fish Dissection Photos

Here are a few photos of our visit from Andy with the Estuary Partnership last month.

We did not dissect these guys but aren't they cute?!

Welcome to December!

Hello Dear Parents of 3rd Graders! I apologize for how long it has been since my last post. November was a busy but short month in terms of teaching days. I really enjoyed getting to connect with you all last week and discuss the progress your children are making at school. I hope everyone had lovely vacations with their families. I was able to enjoy my first American Thanksgiving in three years! It was delicious. 

Here is what we have going on this month:

Literacy: We are wrapping up our Personal Narrative Unit and will have an Author's Tea/ Publishing Party this Friday afternoon (please let me know if you are interested in being a part of this event). We will also be wrapping up our read aloud book The One and Only Ivan this week before moving on to our study of Native American Folktales. Students will continue to build stamina by reading for at least 20 minutes on their own every day (we also have two to three volunteers reading with first graders every day). Starting next week they will be working in small groups to read and discuss the message of the short Native American folktales and present them to the class. 

Math: We have wrapped up our unit on Place Value and multiple digit addition and subtraction and have moved on to Two and Three-Dimensional Geometry. Before our break from school we read a story called The Greedy Triangle and practiced drawing and thinking about where we see shapes in our everyday world. This week we will be creating our own tangram sets and working with geoboards to continue to build geometric vocabulary and a deeper understanding of geometric concepts. 

Social Studies/Science: We had a fabulous time at the Lelooska Cultural Center on November 20th. We weren't able to take pictures of the actual performance itself but we heard a variety of folktales were told in front of the campfire and were then reenacted with dancing, singing, and colorful masks. We then had some time to explore the artifacts in their museum before heading to Lake Merwin Park for lunch and a group photo ( see below). Students will be bringing in their Gifts of Nature next week for our in class potlatch and gift exchange. We will continue our study of local indigenous cultures through the reading and discussing of folktales in the coming weeks. As of now it does not look like the Tribal Heritage Night will be happening this year.

Our Salmon Fry continue to thrive! We have only had a few casualties thus far and one minor "crisis" which ended up not being a big deal after all. We will be learning more about the salmon life cycle and anatomy in the next two weeks before we say farewell to the salmon and release them to their natural habitat on Thursday, December 11th. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Education Department will be coming in on Tuesday December 9th to lead an activity on Salmon Dissection, it should be very informative and slightly smelly and gross. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week!