Third Grade ~ Kitah Gimmel

Cheese Touch, Clue, Sorry, Chess, Monopoly, Life, Chutes & Ladders

We have been meeting some special shapes with some very specific characteristics.  Meet Equilateral Triangle, Isosceles Triangle, and Scalene Triangle.

(Feel free to ask them whether they may or may not contain a right angle.)

We are wrapping up math this year with a look at polygons.  What’s a polygon, you ask?  Ask a 3rd grader.  While you’re at it – see if you can come up with 6 names for a square! (we did)

As most of you know we all have blogs now in my class.  I really think you should check them out because they are very creative.  I think you will enjoy our blogs a lot –  So,  just a reminder, you can go on our blogs at any time anywhere.  So please “check out what we do”.  We appreciate your “future” comments.

We had a wonderful Mystery Skypportunity with 3rd graders at the Netivot Hatorah Day School in Toronto, Ontario!

They prepared an outstanding list of questions designed to narrow down the geographic possibilities from anywhere on the globe, which they generously shared with us ahead of time.

Both classes did an excellent job of taking turns asking questions and guessing the correct city.

Afterwards students compared facts about our schools and found we had a lot in more common than just being close to big bodies of water (For example:  We both have relatively small student populations, and spend plenty of time communicating in Hebrew).

Some students took notes on a shared Google doc, and others filled up white boards with info as more questions were answered.

We’re looking forward to more Skypportunities along with some ongoing projects as we continue to connect with our new friends to the north.

Marty McGuire Digs Worms!

That’s the title of a book we’re reading together as a class right now.  It’s about a 3rd grade class where the students compete to see who can come up with the best project to save the planet.

There are plenty of creative and novel ideas, one of them involves bringing a worm farm right into the school’s cafeteria.  There the students take pleasure in dumping their leftovers into a big bin filled with plenty of wiggly worms and loads of dirt.

How do you suppose this particular project contributes to saving our planet?  I’ll bet you could get a 3rd grader to explain it to you very clearly.

See if you can get an explanation!  While you’re at it, see what else they can tell you about worms…

When the 5th graders came to our class to talk about commenting and communicating through blogs, it began as a presentation – but it wound up as a great-big, noisy collaborative workshop.  We explained what they were going to do, then paired each 5th grader with a 3rd grader or 2.  Once they were settled at their laptops, the conversations began and the productivity level shot up.  At that point, there was nothing left for the teachers to do, but walk around marveling and taking pictures…

We just had a visit from the amazing/sensational/exceptional  5th graders.  They told us in their own words what was important about commenting on blogs.

We have realized that the comments we make on blogs must be held to a higher standard than people outside our school.  While we are happy to hear from friends, relatives and others on our blogs, we do not expect them to strive for the same excellence as we do in our comments.

Thanks, Zoe for sharing your blog on quality commenting  with us.  Thanks 5th graders for sharing your expertise with us.  You have given us the gift of inspiration, that we hope to return through our comments and our blogs.

3rd Graders  - What did you learn from our visit with the 5th graders?