The Science of Sound

We have been so busy in science learning all about the physics of sound.  Our experiments and explorations were grouped into three different investigations.

Drop Chambers

During Investigation 1 we learned about sound discrimination, or the ability to tell sounds apart.  The students really enjoyed playing Drop Chamber Challenge. Ask your student how we tested our sound discrimination with this fun game.  We also used sound discrimination to create a code, and then we challenged our partners to decode our message.  During this investigation we also learned that sounds come from a source that is vibrating.  The students enjoyed learning about this using long gongs and tuning forks.  Have your child tell you what happened when they held the tuning fork up to the ping pong ball or dipped it in the water.

Using long gongs and tuning forks to 'see' sound vibrations

During Investigation 2 we explored pitch.  Check out the fun pictures from our exploration with some different instruments.  Have your scientist tell you what we learned from this experience.  They should be able to tell you that shorter items vibrate quickly and have a higher pitch.  Longer items vibrate slower and have a lower pitch.  During another exploration we tested to see how tension affects pitch.  We learned that increasing the tension leads to a higher pitch sound.

Exploring how length affects pitch

Exploring how tension affects pitch

Testing if sound travels through water

During Investigation 3 we experimented with sounds traveling through different mediums.  We first tested to see if sound travels through water.  Our class made a hypothesis that sound would travel through water, but not as well as it travels through air.  Ask your scientist how we tested this hypothesis and what our surprising conclusion was (sound travels better through water!).  We also experimented to find out if sounds travel though solids.  In addition to learning about sound, the students also got to practice going through the scientific method during the Investigation 3 experiments.  They were pretty sad when they learned that we have completed all of our sound experiments, but they are excited to start our upcoming experiments on light.

Checking if sound can travel through solids

   

Show, Don't Tell

We are becoming better writers every day!  One way we have worked on this is by working on "Show, Don't Tell" in our writing.

In Show, Don't Tell, we use our words to show ideas to our readers instead of just telling them.  This makes our writing a lot more interesting to read and it helps the reader paint a picture of our story in their mind.  Check out the example that we wrote together in class to show that that the boy was mad.

We have gotten pretty good at this skill.  Give your child a telling sentence (The girl was happy.  I am hungry.  The desk is messy. The student is nervous.  It is a nice day.) and let them tell you what great sentences they would use to show this idea.  Check out the examples below from some of the authors in our class, and see if you can figure out what the writer is trying to show you.  

Click the picture to check your answer.

Click the picture to check your answer.

Click the picture to check your answer.

Click the picture to check your answer.

Encourage your child to find examples of Show, Don't Tell in the chapter books they are reading.  We can learn a lot from published authors!  Also, have them point out places in their writing where they included Show, Don't Tell.  If they can't find an example, encourage them to find a place where they can add it in.  It is neat to see how much their writing grows once they start adding Show, Don't Tell into their writing!      

Immigration Simulation Game

To kick off our unit on immigration and cultures, we played an immigration simulation game.  In each round of this game, the students participated in an activity and experienced some unusual rules that they could connect with our reading about immigration that day.  Have your child tell you about the game and how they connected the ideas in the game to the ideas in our textbook.

Here are some questions that can spur a conversation about our immigration game.

Round 1:

• What did you do on this day?  Have your child explain what is happening in the pictures.
• Why are there so many people in the little rectangle?  What did you connect it to?
• What are those pictures students are holding up?  
• What were the unfair rules in the game?

• Why do some immigrants choose to immigrate to a new country?  

Round 1

Round 1 Connections

Round 2:

• What did you do on this day?
• Why are kids crab walking? What did you connect it to?
• What is happening with the eye chart? What did you connect it to?

• What were some challenges immigrants faced when immigrating?

Round 2

Round 2 Connections

Round 3

• What did you do on this day?
• How was this day's picture contest different than day 1?

• What did you learn about an immigrant's life after immigrating?  What are some pros and cons of immigrating?

Round 3

Round 3 Connections

As a bonus assignment, some students talked with their families about where their family immigrated from.  Some shared stories of recent immigrations, while others shared about their great, great, great grandparents.  If you haven't yet shared your family's story with your child, I am sure they would enjoy hearing about it.  

Minerals Project

We wrapped up our rocks and minerals unit with a fun project using ChatterPix.  Each partnership researched a different mineral from our field guide.  They decided what was most important about that mineral and then created a script in first person, as if the mineral was speaking.  Using ChatterPix, they took a photograph of their mineral, recorded their script, and decorated their mineral with digital stickers.  They were very excited to create these, and I was very excited to see them working together and researching minerals.  It was the perfect way to wrap up this science unit!

We will be using the ChatterPix app again soon to write book recommendations.  Stay tuned--more clips are coming soon!

Best Week Yet!

We had a really great week in room 10.  The students have really come together as a class, and we have finally hit our stride.  Our behavior was at its all time best this week, and this allowed us to accomplish even more academically.  I am so proud of the class for the progress I have seen recently, and this makes me very excited for the rest of the year.

Discussing our biographies

This week we worked on biographies in reading.  Every group read about a different person, but all of the books could be tied to our big question in Unit 1: How do people help others?  After reading the biographies, the groups met to discuss how their person helped others.  Some of the groups even led the discussions themselves!  During our shared reading time we discussed point of view, examining different texts and determining if they were written in first person or third person point of view.  The students were able to apply this to their biography as they discussed the difference between biographies and autobiographies.  

If you want to spur a discussion with your child about their work in reading, try some of the following questions:

• Who did you read about this week?
• What did you learn about him?
• How did he help others?
• What questions did you (or do you) have about him?
• Was the book a biography or an autobiography?  How do you know?

Looking for minerals in rocks

Our geologists have continued their great work in our rocks and minerals unit.  This week we learned that rocks can be sorted by how they were formed.  We also learned the characteristics of sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks. 

We started our work on minerals and learned that minerals can be found in rocks.  We then examined our rocks for evidence of minerals.  We also set up our mineral field guide and will now start some field tests in order to describe and identify our minerals.  

Take a moment to visit the "Pictures" tab on our class blog to see our geologists hard at work in science.  You can also see pictures of the students with their favorite rocks. :)  

Our Favorite Rocks: See "Pictures" tab to see all students

 

Testing Update: 

The students did a nice job when they took the practice test for the MAP assessment last Monday.  We will take the actual MAP tests on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday of this week.  Please make sure that your child gets a full night's sleep and has a good breakfast on those days.  If you have not had a chance to read my blog post from last week on the MAP assessment, please take a moment to do so.

   

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

Carmel Clay Schools is participating in a new assessment system through NWEA (Northwest Evaluation Association: www.nwea.org).

In 3rd grade we will take an assessment called MAP, and it will cover reading, language usage, and math.  These tests are taken on the computer, and they are adaptive which means they will be individualized for each student.  The data we gain from these assessments will ensure that we not only know your child's strengths and weaknesses in these different areas, but that we also know what they are best prepared to learn next.

To learn more, follow this link to take you to a “Parent Toolkit” on the NWEA website.  The toolkit is a PDF file with information and FAQs. 

There is also a widget on your parent myCCS page.  It is in the upper left hand corner and provides links to practice tests that parents and kids can take.  Students will take a practice test in the computer lab so that they are comfortable with the format of the test.

Look for this widget on your myCCS page . . .

I am excited to have this new assessment tool available so that we can make sure that every child is getting what they need to grow into the best students they can be.  Please let me know if you have any questions.  

We've Got Spirit, Yes We Do! We've Got Spirit, How 'Bout You?

Crazy Sock Day

Country Day

It was a fun spirit-filled week here at Carmel Elementary.  We enjoyed dressing up to show our support for CHS Homecoming.  Pictures of our class from these spirit days can be found on the "Pictures" tab on our class blog.

Homecoming Parade

Working hard at acing our first math test

This week wasn't just fun spirit days, we also fit in a lot of great learning.  My math class did such an  impressive job on our first test of the year.  We will now move on to Unit 2.  Unit 2’s emphasis is on addition and subtraction.  There are four main areas of focus:

• To review fact families and number families
• To solve “What’s my Rule?” problems
• To use diagrams to help solve number stories
• To review algorithms for addition and subtraction

Narrowing our topics to a 'seed story'

We worked on narrowing our topic in writing.  Ask your child if they can explain to you what a 'seed story' is and why we want to write seed stories.  In addition to this, we worked on how to plan our seed story with a beginning, middle, and end.  Now that our planners are complete, we will start writing our stories next week.  

In reading we have continued to read stories centered around our Unit 1 Big Question: 'How do people help each other?'  See if your child can retell the story they read with their small group.  They will be retelling it to classmates that read different stories, and they will discuss how each of these books relates to the Big Question.  

We wrapped up our geography unit in social studies this week.  We also started our science unit on rocks and minerals.  My little geologists have been very enthusiastically examining 12 different  kinds of rocks this week.  We have recorded our observations, and we sorted the rocks by different properties.  Next week we will learn how we can classify rocks by how they were formed, and we will also start our work on minerals. 

Making observations on rocks in science

Subjects and Predicates Song

We have been studying subjects and predicates in class.  In the process, we came across this fun song on YouTube about subjects and predicates (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbhLKwZz5Ls).  The students have enjoyed this song so much, they beg to listen to it.  I thought you might want to see them singing it--check out the video below!




Test your children on their knowledge of subjects and predicates.  Given a simple sentence (The wonderful class sings a song), they should be able to tell you the subject and the predicate.

You could also give them a subject or predicate (The happy baby or jumped up and down).  They should be able to tell you if it is a subject or a predicate and then add what it needs to be a complete sentence.  Next week we will work on simple subjects and predicates and dependent clauses--pretty impressive stuff for 3rd graders! :)

Our First Full Week: Full of Learning

We made it through our first full week in 3rd grade!  The students worked hard as we dove into 3rd grade academics.  Reading was a big focus this week.  We learned how to find 'Just Right' books by using the 5 finger test.  We also discussed the difference between real and fake reading and we practiced our real reading a lot!

Our strategy focus this week was on making predictions.  We now know the two most important aspects of being good predictors: 1. We need to make our predictions based on details in the story.  2. After making our predictions, we must read on to see if our predictions are correct.  We practiced making predictions with the book Those Shoes, which quickly became a favorite of many students.  We also used this story with our work on character traits this week.  Ask your child what trait they chose to describe Jeremy--and why they chose that trait.  As you can see, we fit a lot of reading into one week!

Here are some highlights from our other subjects:

In math we worked a lot on number sense.  We also worked on telling time.

• Name a number.  See if your child can tell you 10 less, 10 more, 100 less, and 100 more.  Want to really challenge your child?  Choose tricky numbers like 994.
• Your child should be able to tell you the time to the exact minute.  If you want to challenge your child, see if they can tell you what time it will be in 10 minutes, 30 minutes, and 1 hour.

In social studies we started our unit on geography.  We went on a simulated space trip and had to use geography to make it home.  

• Ask your child where we are right now--hemispheres, continent, country, state, and city.

We worked on nouns in grammar.  Students should be able to find the nouns in sentences and tell if they are common or proper.  

• Test your student with this sentence: My friends go to Carmel Elementary School, and they have fun.

Check out the 'Pictures' tab to see some photos from last week's team building challenge.  

Overall, it was a pretty good first full week.  I am excited to see what the coming year holds!  

First Week Fun

We had a great first week in 3rd grade!  In addition to learning about procedures and expectations of 3rd grade, we also learned about our classmates.  After reading the book The Matchbox Diary, we presented our own 'Paper Sack Diaries' so that we could get to know our new classmates better.  We also worked on our teamwork building skills so that we will be prepared for all of the collaborative work in the coming year.  If you are following our class on Twitter (@Grade3atCE) you saw some fun pictures from these team building activities--I'll be posting more to the blog later.  All in all, it was a successful first week, and I am excited about the upcoming year!    Take a moment to check out the 'Pictures' tab on our class blog for some more photos from our first week.

I look forward to seeing all of the parents at our "Meet the Teacher" night
on Wednesday at 7:00 pm.