Mrs. Salmon's Third Grade!: January 2011

Monday, January 31, 2011

A Trip Through Time and Imagination - PHASE ONE - Visit The Thorne Rooms!

A Trip Through Time and Imagination - PHASE ONE - Visit The Thorne Rooms!

Have you ever visited the Art Institute of Chicago? It has amazing art exhibits but I have to say one of my personal favorites is downstairs, called The Thorne Rooms. If you have never been, make sure to plan a trip.

You can explore European homes dated back from the 13th century to the 1930s and American homes from the 17th century to the 1930s. Each room is so detailed it is as if you could really live inside. Which is exactly why we visited!

Third Grade is embarking on a adventure-filled expedition through our imaginations.

It began with our trip to The Thorne Rooms. We spent some time browsing each room and noticing the details. Then each student picked out their favorite room (we stuck with the American rooms). For the remainder of our visit the students jotted down their observations of the room and sketched out what they saw.

Then using their imagination they entered their room and are currently creating a story based on the world that could exist in and around their room.

Here are some photos of the start of our journey. Ask you children about this experience!

The kids shared their ideas with a partner and the
partners helped them brainstorm and choose what was sounding the best!

The kids are sketching, imagining and brainstorming their story ideas
using their favorite American Thorne Room as the setting.

Hard at work sketching, imagining and brainstorming!

Try to imagine living during that time...

What type of characters would live in this house?

Angelina and Valerie sharing their ideas.

Jane and Maddie exploring a room together and imagining life inside that world and time.

Lance and Delaney bouncing ideas back and forth to try to spark more creativity.

Maggie and Oscar examining the details within the room!

With Mrs. Salmon's magic the kids entered the rooms together to explore that world!
Here are Maggie and Oscar taking walking through that room in their mind's eye.

Oscar deep in thought about who lives in this house and what they are up to!

Mary and Katie pair-sharing and helping each other through the brainstorm process.

The kids are so engaged and working so dutifully!

Kaya sketching out her story and characters.

Clive is pondering his story ideas.

Teaching Preschool About Fossils!

In Science, our Third Grade class has learned all about fossils and how animals, plants and people are very different than they once were.

But did you know that there are different types of fossils? The third graders do! And they know this so well that we invited Ms. Julie and Ms. Denise's Clifford preschool classroom up to our class so we could teach them about imprint fossils!

And not only did we teach them, but we made our own fossils!

Here is a video of Angelina giving us the steps to this project.

Here you can see Caroline and Izzy stirring the plaster of Paris and water together

to make a thick paste in order for our fossil to imprint.

Here is Angelina and Joey making their fossil of a lamb!

Here is Joey removing the lamb and you can see the imprint it made!

And finally, here are a variety of photos of our time together!

Oscar (3rd) helping Ross and Alex (preK) get ready to make their fossils.

Maddie (3rd) assisting Keira (preK) with mixing in the water.

Katie and Jane (3rd) assisting Sabine and Vonne (preK) with mixing up their plaster.

Delaney showing Andrew how to get the plaster ready to make his fossil.

Meghan (preK), Maddie (3rd), and Keira (preK) working on their fossils.

Oscar talking about fossil imprints with Ross.

Kaya (3rd) and Jacqueline (preK) finalizing their fossil imprint.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Homework: Monday, January 10, 2011

****Help!****
Third Grade needs paper towels and Clorox wipes!

Reading
Read 20 minutes OUT LOUD!

Math:
Math Workbook page 41

Language Arts/English:
Spelling Sentences #1-7
:

OSM's Christmas Pancake Breakfast

The last day of school before Christmas break is a wonderful Old St. Mary's School tradition - the Christmas Pancake Breakfast and Santa!

We began the morning with each student sharing their "Twas the Night Before Christmas" poem renditions with the class. I hope everyone enjoyed the book of the kids' poetry, I was so impressed by every one's creativity and poetic skills!

As a treat we then watched an animated version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" where a town stops believing in Santa, so Santa decides not to visit that year. We had a wonderful discussion about this version and how it connected to Narnia - with the children believing in Aslan as well as Christianity - and people believing in Jesus (or not believing). We discussed how you do not have to see and feel things with your own eyes and hands for it to be true, you just have to know it in your heart.

Then Christmas Pancake Breakfast! Everyone enjoyed chatting with Santa and feasting on the delicious food!

(More Pictures to be added later today/tomorrow)

Angelina and Santa

Brendan and Santa

Caroline and Santa

Delaney and Santa

Jane and Santa

Katie and Santa

Kaya and Santa

Lance and Santa

Maddie and Santa

Maggie and Santa

Mary and Santa

Oscar and Santa

Patrick and Santa

Trent and Santa

Valerie and Santa

After breakfast we came back up to the classroom and had our Secret Santa Reveal. Kudos to all the students and the awesome, creative hand-made gifts they gave each other. It is amazing what a recycled soda bottle, paper towel roll or shoe box can turn into! The kids had a blast opening their gifts and ornaments and guessing who their Secret Santa was!

Lastly, before we said goodbye for the break, the kids opened up their gifts from me which included a book and they got to go around the room for a Book Exchange, trading and reading the back cover of the books they received and ending up with the book they wanted. It was amusing seeing the persuasion taking place by some.

I hope everyone had a lovely, blessed Christmas and New Year's!

The Ancient Americans versus Americans Today!

Third Grade took a field trip to wrap up a Social Studies unit about communities in America.

Beginning with our First Thanksgiving Unit, we had been studying how the Native American were the first to settle in our country and we capped it all off by visiting the Field Museum's Ancient Americas exhibit.

The exhibit was not in chronological order but in order of how people have adapted to their environment and come up with ways to survive and prosper. We examined how they tried hunting and gathering, farming, different types of leadership and worship.

We also took a tour of the Pawnee Earth Lodge, a full-scale reconstruction of a typical lodge built by the Pawnee Indians of the Great Plains.

During the field trip, the students took notes about what they were seeing and all the facts that interested them. When we returned to school, the class filled out Venn Diagrams comparing and contrasting the Ancient Americans ways of life to today's Americans. The students then completed a writing assignment describing how we are alike and different. These writing assignments can be seen on display as you enter the upstairs hallways.