Celebrating Life Cycles

In honor of spring, our class will be learning about the life cycles of different plants and animals.

Below are some links to videos featuring different life cycles.

What are some similarities and differences you see between the life cycles of these plants and animals? 

Videos on BrainpopJr.

Over the weekend I collected some eggs from a local farmer.

Together with our buddies we will be learning about the life cycle of chickens and will be hatching our own baby chicks. Through careful observation we will be able to watch this chicks develop!

The first thing we needed to do was set up and environment that mimics, or copies, that of an egg being incubated by its own mother, a hen! 

Our incubators will provide heat, oxygen and even water for the eggs while they develop!

What is the most impressive thing you learned today?

With our buddies we made a prediction of how many eggs we think will hatch into baby chicks.

           How many eggs do you think will hatch and why?
 

Can you find any interesting facts about the life cycle of chicks?

Please write at least 3 sentences. One of your sentences must be a compound sentences using conjunctions. 

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Have you ever read a Dr. Seuss book? I am sure you have! 

Dr. Seuss, or Theodor Seuss Geisel, is an important author whose books have inspired readers of all ages. 

 

Watch the BrainPopjr.

 Dr. Seuss wasn't always famous though. He brought his books to over 20 different publishers who all rejected his ideas, but Geisel persevered!

 

Rather than giving up on his dreams, Geisel kept on writing and now  About 600 million copies of his books have been sold. His creative stories have been translated into more than 20 different languages to reach readers across the globe.

 

Did Dr. Seuss help you learn how to read? 

What is your favorite Dr. Seuss book? 

What could you learn from Dr. Seuss' books as a third grader? 

Write 3 - 5 sentences answering the questions above. Be sure to write in complete sentences and GIVE EXAMPLES!

Sensational Slogans

Sensational Slogans

A slogan is a short phrase that is used to advertise something. Slogans are an effective way to get people to remember different people, places or things. Many companies and restaurants use slogans in commercials or billboards. This helps draw people to buy their products. Here are some familiar ones you may recognize. 

 

People can also use slogans. During the presidential race, candidates create slogans for themselves. The catchy phrases bring attention to the candidate. 

What kind of slogans have you seen our heard? What is the slogan advertising? Could you come up with your own slogan for your favorite toy or place? What about a slogan for a book you are reading? What catchy phrase would you create to convince a friend to read the book?

We Love Our School

We Love Our School!

 

 

Last week we celebrated the 100th day of school! Can you believe we have been learning and growing together for 100 days! 

We got together with our Kindergarten buddies and brainstormed 100 reasons we loved our school.

 

 

Since we needed a total of 100 hearts, we needed to do some math. 

If there are 24 students in both Mrs. Broussard's class and Ms. Van Dyke's class how many hearts does each student need to make? 

 

 

Look at how beautiful our final project looks! 

 

 

Pick one thing you love about school and write three to five sentences explaining it. Please be sure to use high vocabulary and always end in a question!

Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 Last week we spent many days discussing MLK and his contribution to the world.  Martin Luther King was a brave and determined man who worked hard for a dream he deeply believed in.

 Watch a clip from MLK's famous "I have a dream" speech. 

In honor of MLK day we spent some time with our 2nd grade blogging buddies asking each other questions about Martin Luther King. Watch the videos we created below.

Rainy Days

Rainy Days

This week we have been enjoying some tremendous weather!

Have you ever wondered what causes lightning and thunder? 

Watch this Brainpop video to find out. 

Rainy days keep us inside for most of the day, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun!

Today we brought in blankets and pillows and cuddled up with our books. 

We laid out blankets, uncurled sleeping bags and even made forts from sheets.

Once we were all settled we pulled out our chapter books and plunged in. 

We even sipped on some hot chocolate as we enjoyed our books!

What is your favorite thing to do on a rainy day?

Do you prefer the rain or the snow?

Write a 3 -5 sentence comment. Make sure you use adjectives  to describe your activity or setting.

Holiday Traditions

Winter Holidays 

One of the most exciting things winter are all of the holidays people celebrate with their friends and families. There are many different holidays that fall during the winter season. 

Watch the BrainpopJr. video on Winter Holidays. 

No matter what holiday you celebrate, you and your family have special traditions. 

A tradition is something that family, friends, or another group of people has done for many years and continues to do on a regular basis. 

Learning about other people's traditions is an excellent way to learn  about other cultures, beliefs and more about your friend!

Each student in Third Grade has had the privilege of participating in a 1 to 1 program. This means that each student gets their own Acer to work on in class. Having our own Acers lets us practice many skills including blogging. Since we have access to our own computers we thought it would be fun to invite another classroom to work with us.

We got together with a Mrs. Levy's 2nd grade class who will get this opportunity to work on their own Acers next year.  But that doesn't mean they don't know how to blog! In fact, Mrs. Levy has a wonderful blog where students can leave insightful comments. Here is her link! Mrs. Levy's Class Blog

After completing your interview, leave a comment with your "Blogging Buddy"about the winter holiday traditions you celebrate.

What are some traditions you and your family practice over the winter holidays? Which is your favorite tradition? Why is it special?  

Don't forget, excellent comments include:

- complete sentences

- high vocabulary

- questions that can spark a conversation

 

Turkey vs. Eagle 

Can you imagine Thanksgiving without turkey?  

Well, if Benjamin Franklin had it his way we may not be eating turkey for Thanksgiving at all! According to a letter Benjamin Franklin wrote to his daughter in 1784 he wanted to make the wild turkey, not the bald eagle, the national bird of the United States!

What did Ben Franklin see in the plump wild turkey besides a delectable dinner? According to his letter he clearly did not think the bald eagle was an appropriate candidate to represent the Unites States. He claimed the eagle was a lazy thief, and a coward.

Do you agree with Ben Franklin? 

Use World Book online to research a few facts about eagles or wild turkeys. 

What facts support your opinion? 

Write a 3-5 sentence paragraph stating your opinion. Be sure to explain your facts in your own words. 

 

Many Magnificient Multiplication Strategies

Many Magnificent Multiplication Strategies

Over the last few weeks we have been working on multiplication. We have been learning many different strategies to help us solve multiplication problems. 

We started with repeated addition. If Sophia has 3 packs of popsicle. Each pack has 4 popsicles in it. Sophia could either use addition or multiplication to find how many she has in all.

Another strategy is creating equal groups and counting the total number. So, Sophia could draw 3 packs with  4 popsicles in each. 

We practiced making equal groups with items in our classroom. Can you identify the multiplication sentence for these groups?

We also learned how create helpful arrays. An array is a great visual way to organize numbers into neat rows and columns. 

In honor of Halloween we used slimy pumpkin seeds to make arrays. Check out the addition sentences and multiplication sentences!

  I bet you don't realize how frequently you use multiplication to solve day to day problems.

For example, Angelisse was preparing for her birthday and needed to buy goodies for her party. She invited 26 friends to join in her celebration. When she went to Target she found the most precious notepads she was certain her friends would treasure. They came in packs of 6. How many packs does Angelisse need to purchase to have enough for all of her friends? 

Multiplication is a skill you will be grateful to have perfected!

Can you create some word problems that require multiplication for a friend to solve? 

For an extra challenge, create a two step problem for your friends to solve. 

Your word problem must include at least 3 sentences. Practice your writing and vocabulary skills by writing strong sentences! 

Bar Graphs

There are many different ways to share data with other people. Our favorite way is by graphing it! There are different types of graphs like a picture graph or line plot, but our favorite is the bar graph.

Here are some extremely creative and informative bar graphs we created our selves. 

 Every bar graph must have the following three things: 

1. Title (three labels)

2. Categories

3. Scale

In the bar graph below the title is Favorite Video Games. This tells us that the graph will give us information about the classes favorite video games.  

by Kaden and Tyler

We can use bar graphs to compare data. In this bar graph we can see that 2 more students voted for puppies than for
bunnies.

by Kate and Miss P

We can also use bar graphs to find how many students voted in all by adding all of the data together. How many students voted for their favorite video game in this graph?

By Noah and Alexa

Here are two more bar graphs we created. What information can you learn?  

By Hunter and Ella

By Leo Carillo

Use the sentence frames we made in class to ask the class a question about one of the graphs. 

1. Name the graph and the creators of the graph.

2. Fill out the spaces in our sentence frame with categories and numbers from the graph. Be sure it makes sense! So check your numbers carefully!

3. Ask the class to solve your question. 
4. Answer someone's question. Be sure no one else has already answered it.