Dot Day by Julianne

We celebrated Dot Day on September  15,2014.  Dot Day is a day where we all come together to celebrate the mark we want to make!  Our class also celebrated the differences that make us unique!
For example:  Maddie was born in Alabama that is really cool. Sara was born in Connecticut-that is really far!! Ashleigh was bald in till she was three that is a long time!!  Julianne was born Maryland cool right?  Julia was the only person in her family that had blond hair.  Do you want blond hair?  Adithi was born in India- that's even farther than Connecticut wow! Liam(Salt) was born when his dad had cancer-glad he doesn't have cancer anymore!  Pepper is the dislocating king!  How does he do it? Dot Day was a great day to celebrate ourselves, but also learn about others too!!!

Enviroscape by maddie

Hi I am Maddie!
i am talking about our enviroscape activity in Social Studies.  We explored how humans affect the environment.  Humans pollute the environment in many ways-littering, not cleaning up dirt dog waste and grass clippings.  All of this stuff gets into the water from our sewers! 

   

                         This is us polluting the town the polltion is soy sauce   

 This is my friend adithi polluting the town with the soy sauce

 This is all the pollotion isn't that bad what if we did that ew i would not want to live on this planet

This is when we were making it rain with sqrit bolltes all the polltion went to the lake 

 

This is all the pollotion in the lake the town is dirty poor town :)  Here is how we can help-plant more trees or plants, just don't litter, and be kind to the Earth by picking up! 

Our First Teamwork Party By Lucia

Hi! I’m Lucia, and I’m here to tell you about our first TEAMWORK party! How we had to earn it is every time we were doing something really good, like waiting patiently for Mrs. Schuh to finish something, we would get a Student Point. But every time we were not waiting patiently or something like that, Mrs. Schuh would get a Teacher Point. Mrs. Schuh does not like getting Teacher Points! Every time we win in Student Points, we earn a letter of the word TEAMWORK. Then we put it up on the wall. Once we spelled T-E-A-M-W-O-R-K, we would get a TEAMWORK party! When we earned all the letters, everybody got excited! But we handled our excitement well. Good job, everybody! Once we got calmed down, we got on the star rug for Brain Break and voted. Two choices, BYOE (bring your own electronics) Day and PJ Day, tied! We voted again. PJ Day won!

                      

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The day of PJ day, everyone was admiring each other’s PJ’s and accents, such as slippers or a hat. Me and Ceci bought Comfortable Seating, which is a blanket or a pillow which you keep all the time in our classroom to make your seat comfy, with our Starbucks, which you might know about from Curriculum Night! I’m not sure, though.

We had lots of fun! Even Mrs. Schuh had her jammies on! See the pictures below for visual info about our first teamwork party! Bye!

Our World by Sara

Hi my name is Sara, and today I'm going to tell you about our world mapmaker activity.  We went outside today and used chalk to draw a circle to show our world. Then we drew our lines of latitude and longitude.We wrote the degrees for each line.  After we were done with that step,we drew our continents. Witch are Asia,North America,Antarctica, South America,Africa,Australia, and Europe.

                               We used the compass rose to find out our cardinal directions.

                                           We drew the Equator and the Prime Meridian.

                                           We drew our lines of latitude and longitude.

                                                Some world maps are big,and some are small.

                                                 We drew our continents in this picture.

Prove It! The Important Part of Mental Addition and Subtraction by Mrs. Schuh

I must have said "You guys are knocking my socks off" at least five times today (this makes me giggle because my last name is Schuh)!  I kept thinking, "I have to blog about these thinkers!"  

   In Science, Mr. Kearney began talking about soil.  The class immediately connected their new knowledge on soil to what we learned in Social Studies about ecosystems.  As a class, they concluded that soil is an ecosystem with only a few thinking prompts from Mr. Kearney and I.  It gave me chills to hear them connect the learning so quickly and authentically!  

   In math, we celebrated all the mental addition and subtraction strategies we use.  Again, the conversations gave me chills.  I wish I could have bottled them up and saved them!  We used our review packet to discuss mental computation strategies and how to show thinking in as many ways as possible.  The only directions I gave the class were to talk first-share your answers and how you got them.  After each voice was heard, I asked them to prove their answers in as many ways as possible.  I had to grab an ipad to document this amazing thinking and group work!  Please check out the work below and continue to ask your third grader how they know their answers are correct (in any subject-not just math!).

Playdoh Landforms by Ceci

Hi my name is Ceci. I will be telling you about are playdoh landforms! We made landforms such as mountains, islands, volcano, and mesas. We made them out of playdoh! First I want to say mesa is the spanish word for table. So it is a lot like a table but also like a hill with out a peak. You probly know what an island is. But we found out islands are just mountains that are growing under water.  After we made a mountain, we put our mountains together to make a mountain range.  Check out our colorful mountain range below!  I think you know all the other land forms.  I thought this was a fun time to learn about landforms!

Our "Happy Place" By Mrs. Schuh

   Parks, a hospital, nature, reading nooks, and more were created to contribute to our collective "Happy Place!"  Before we could jump right in to a bonafide "Happy Place," we had some work to do!  As a class, we worked hard to discuss and agree on the following 'Ways We Want Our Class to Be." 

We support each other by listening and cooperation.  We like to say “You can do it!”

or “How can I help you?”

We value learning, creativity, and kindness.  We remember to “just be nice”

and use our manners.

We take responsibility to keep our selves and others safe.   We value being unique (different is good!).

We are a positive, happy, smiling, fun team that loves to explore!  We try to smile often, have fun,

and try new things!

     We created a "Happy Place" and allowed creativity, passion, and a little engineering to drive individual projects.  Students were inspired to create something  (anything that makes themselves and others happy) to contribute to our "Happy Place."  They were given a small LED light and "button battery" without directions on how to create their "light."  All students successfully created light and incorporated their light into their Happy Place project.  (Are you getting all these metaphors? :) They proudly let their lights shine!)
   As students presented their project to the class, they explained why their addition to the Happy Place was necessary.  Students learned about each others' passions (parks=nature, hospitals=helping others, etc.) and were very proud of the Happy Place they created as a team! 

Collaboration, Curiosity, and Can-do! By Mrs. Schuh

   There is much to celebrate about our start to 3rd grade!  This group of students waltzed into 3rd grade ready for anything!  This class has an overall "Can-do" attitude-such a delight and extremely fun to plan for learning!  We have spent much of the month of August getting to know each other and forming team spirit.  I enjoy watching them collaborate and learn about each other! 
   As I shared on Curriculum Night, my goals are to help each child feel safe and positive at school.  I also strive to incorporate collaboration and curiosity (inquiry) into each lesson plan.  Parent communication is always on my mind, and constantly looking for ways to improve!  I plan on blogging alongside my students this school year.  As a parent myself, I constantly check my daughter's classroom blog.  I can't get enough of the photos and stories her teachers post.  As a teacher, I realize the importance of allowing my students opportunities to share their learning.  So, my "Schuh's News" blog will be a shared blog this school year and I hope you find yourself checking in often to see what is going on in with the Schuh Stars!  

Meet the New Schuh Stars!

This first post of the 2014-2015 school year was written by all 19 Schuh Stars!
   Walking in on the first day of school was exciting because we started 3rd grade with our new teacher Mrs. Schuh!  Mrs. Schuh is a very nice person and if you were a little nervous, she helped by saying "It's ok, because the day will feel like it goes super fast!  Everyone is nervous, and so am I!"  Mrs. Schuh also told us about our schedule and routines.  She asked us to be experts of one nook in our room.  When we explored our nook, we got to tell the class about it and name them!  Our nooks are named 'The Living Room,' 'The Great Un-Nook,' 'The Computer Kingdom,' 'The Book Nook,' and the 'Math Corner.' 
    Mrs. Schuh writes our schedule in questions because she wants us to think about what we are learning and be able to answer the questions after we learn and explore!  Also, on the first couple of days, we did not get much homework!  If we did get homework, it was fun!  We were really tired for those first few days!!!