A Walk in the Woods

   It was a wonderful way to come back from an extended break!  Our visit to the Litzsinger Road Ecology Center was wonderful and I've already had student requests to blog about it!  I wanted to post a picture or two until their blogs are ready!

Christian the Magician

   Christian the Magician visited us today for our participation in the summer St. Louis Public Library reading program! 

   One of our friends brought a geode to share with the class and even bought a mineral for each student to keep! What a fun way to continue learning about rocks and minerals! 

Meramec Caverns

  What a wonderful field trip!  We enjoyed rock identification and a tour of the cave!

Fast Plants

   We were delighted to observe our fast plants this morning! We planted them as seeds on the 13th, watered them and began our observation notebook.  We will continue tending to these plants as we learn and observe plant life and structure. 

   

Fitness Stations

   Students are enjoying some special stations in P.E. this week!  Mr. Hutson and Mrs. Miller have set up a series of stations to build strength, cardio, and balance!

November- A month dedicated to peace

   One of our wonderful Glenridge traditions is dedicating the month of November to peace.  We ask students to create peace within themselves, at Glenridge, and outside of Glenridge.  We kicked off November with a special CLAYMO dedicated to peace at Glenridge.  Our 5th grade leaders facilitated a conversation about how we can be peaceful within ourselves and through our day at Glenridge.
   Adults at Glenridge are taking special care in recognizing peaceful behavior and choices.  We are giving out peace loops-colorful loops students wear on their wrists for the day, symbolizing the peaceful "deed" they contributed to our community.  At the end of the day, we collect peace loops within our classroom and add them to a chain.
   We had an especially peaceful day yesterday- check out our chain for just one day!  Ask a 3rd grader what they could do to contribute to peace!

Loving Fall!

   This time of year is so enchanting! We began our Structures of Life unit at the most optimal time! The environment is going through so many changes-plants are preparing for their dormant stage of winter, animals are preparing for winter as well!

   Take this time to inspire 3rd graders to observe, ask questions, and investigate the changes in our environment! 

Science Lab- day 1

   We began our new Science unit, Structures of Life in the Science Lab!  Mr. Kearney and Mrs. Schuh will be team teaching this unit and the next science unit- Measurement, in our beautiful lab space! 

   Please look for the Family Letter from Mr. Kearney for more information!

Do our actions affect other locations?

    I "won" 20 million dollars and shared it equally with my students! The catch? They had to "build" something that we could use either in every day life or to make life more fun.  Students created some masterpieces! We had a mansion, a sports complex, a few amusement parks and more!

   When I posed the question to the class, they were confident that the choices from one location affects another location.  We had general conversations about it, then I asked them to work through a simulation with me.

   I showed the class a map of the Mississippi River.  We counted the larger cities that are located on its banks.  I asked students to place their masterpieces on the banks of our simulated Mississippi River.

   We began our simulation in St. Paul.  We had a discussion about what the river might look like in St. Paul.  We decided it would look very natural and clear because it seemed like no one wanted to build there!

   By the time we made it to St. Louis, it was a different story.  As we visited the sports complex and amusement park, we discussed the affects humans are having on the environment-specifically the river.  We placed blocks to show the affects in the river.  As the water flowed south, the pollution grew and grew, until finally, the students were gasping with horror!  The Gulf of Mexico received all the pollution from each city along the way.  

   One student said, " Can I move to St. Paul?"

   We ended with a discussion about how to minimize our impact on the environment.  Students came up with ideas such as using renewable energy, compost in, and recycling! Small changes can make a big difference!

Persistence + Resilience = Grit

   We split into super small groups to work on some especially challenging bar modeling word problems.  Our focus was to use persistence and resilience when we encountered a struggle.  We began by watching a short video clip of the meaning of grit.  Here is the link to the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwsZZ2rprqc
   We welcomed many guest teachers into math so that we could work on these challenging problems, have conversations about our strategies, and to allow for coaching through growth mindset.  Some students really enjoyed working in Mrs. Scott's small group!

   Here is what one student says grit looks and feels like- "When you're struggling through you just want to throw your pencil down.  Then, you realize you've worked out the problem and you just want to throw your hands up in celebration!"