Observing on the Nature Trail, Part 2

We've been working hard on our Night Letters project.  We used our observations to create letters from the subject that we observed.  Mrs. Lord and Mrs. Wertenberger were very impressed with our creativity! In the story, Lily's letters were written from the subject and addressed to Lily.  This was a fun way for us to think about point-of-view!

After completing our letters, we began work on the front of our postcards.  We talked about the medium of collage while reading another story so we used collage to create the picture on the front of our postcards.

Collaging and writing!

Working hard to transfer edits to a final draft

Then, today in computer lab, we typed our letters using Microsoft Word.  Tomorrow, we'll put it all together.  More to come!

Learning about Microsoft Word

Typing up the letter

Using our final draft to type our letter

Math Inquiry: How Many Cups in a Gallon?

We have been experimenting with capacity this week.  We started off by discovering how many cups are in a gallon.  Before our experiment, we made a prediction and collected our prediction data on a line plot. Then we came up with a plan for how we were going to go about this experiment.  The class decided to fill some gallon milk jugs with water and then use our measuring cups to pour the water into and count how many cups with got out of the gallon.  Then we set out to test our predictions!  Check out our pictures below and the video in which Manuel explains our process!

After experimenting we found that we came up with many different numbers.  Some groups found 13 cups in a gallon, some 18, some 20.  What could account for such different numbers?  Perhaps our gallon jugs were filled to different levels.  Or maybe we didn't fill our measuring cups exactly.  In the end, we found out that 1 gallon is equal to 16 cups.  And because we constructed this idea through hands-on experimentation, this is an idea we aren't likely to forget!  

Observing on the Nature Trail



 We read the story Night Letters by Palmyra LoMonaco as part of our fiction reading block.  This story is about a girl named Lily who goes out each evening to look for "night letters" from her friends in nature.  We found out that Lily doesn't really receive real letters but that she has to make some inferences about what her friends in nature might be telling her.

We decided that we would like to find some of our own messages in nature!  We took our clipboards and went out onto the nature trail here at Dana School.  There we found something in nature to observe (a rock, a worm, a pinecone, etc.).  We made observations using our 5 senses.  We had to sit very still and quiet! 

We took our observations inside and discussed them with our classmates.  After that, we decided what kind of message our subject may be trying to tell us. 

You'll have to stay tuned for our final Night Letter project!  We are working hard on it now!

Field Day Fun!

We had a super time at field day today!  Though it was hot, we jumped and ran and played our little legs off!  We especially enjoyed the tails game where we had to "steal" the tails of our classmates while keeping our own tails from being stolen.  Mrs. Greene always puts together a wonderful time for field day.  Thanks Mrs. Greene!

Jazzy Jumper

Taking a rest

Our class

Clean that room!

Passing the frog

Welcome!

Welcome to "The Latest with Mrs. Lord" where you'll find out all the latest happenings in Mrs. Lord's third grade classroom!  Happy reading!