Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Cause and Effect Pictionary

Cause and effect- what a tricky concept for most 3rd graders.  When I first introduced the skill to my class several months ago, I wasn't quite sure how to go about it.  I was all ready to have my class read about the skill in their reading text books when I suddenly had an idea.  Why not get them drawing the concept and try teaching the idea through Pictionary.

Now, I am using the term Pictionary very loosely as I did not actually turn this activity into a game (I am sure it could be done though!).  But, the concept did help my students understand that this was a fast paced activity.  I gave them a time limit of one minute per picture, otherwise we still would be trying to complete this lesson.  :)

On my whiteboard, I drew a fast sketch of a cause.  After allowing my class time to draw the cause, I gave them one minute to sketch the effect or "what happened next."  They had time to share with the class their ideas and then we tried a different one!

I will tell you that my kiddos were definitely beginning to understand this concept.  My classroom is the inclusion room for both English Learners and Special Education- and this activity really helped them to understand the difference.

Eventually, I got even more tricky by giving them a picture of an effect first!

This is a sample of one of my students' notebooks.

We are just now back to reviewing this skill, and it is still looking good!  This time, however, I let my students move around the classroom and put a Post-It note with their picture (or words) on a chart.  It was a great quick check of who retained this information!  Most of them did!

Our (super quick) anchor chart!

Thanks for reading!

-Heidi

Movement in Math

I try to incorporate movement into as many lessons as possible.  We have been studying geometry during our math blocks.  My students have been busy discovering shape attributes and then using those attributes to compare and contrast shapes.

Identifying angles, however, have proved to be tricky.  Since, learning actual angle names is not part of the 3rd grade common core, I have been allowing my students to use names that make sense to them.  In order to practice finding and recognizing these types of angles, I had my students make the 3 types of angles using their bodies.

These are the names we use for acute, right, and obtuse angles.  For now, this is just fine!

As you can see, they are very creative, and they learned a lot!  The next step: writing a song that describes the attributes we look for each class!

-Heidi

10 x 10 Day!

The 100th day of school was a blast.  And, of course being 3rd graders, we called it 10 x 10 day!

They were so excited to come to school and see our classroom door entrance.  

We lucked out having our doors so close together!

Thank you Pinterest for the wonderfully fun idea!  Here is a link to the actual picture that the idea came from: 100th day door.

Throughout the day, my kids actually started calling it our "Magic Portal."  When they stepped through the door into the room, they became 100 years old.  But, magically, when they entered the hallway, they became "youthful."

Great classroom management skill, right there! Ha! (Have them pretend to be 100.  100 year old children tend to be much quieter)  ;)

Race to Zero

   I already mentioned that I have found it extremely difficult to keep up a blog and start a new grade level.  So, this is actually a post I began towards the beginning of the year.  My kids really enjoyed this game, and occasionally still reference it.  Race to Zero really seemed to help them visualize what happens during subtraction.

  (Previous Post) We have been working in my classroom with subtraction, particularly with the idea of borrowing.  For some of them this idea was pretty tricky.  I found an idea online about a game called Race to 100 and figured we could easily do the opposite and Race to Zero.  I am sure that there are already versions of this game being played, but I thought I would share what I created to go with the game.

In this game, students use base 10 blocks to model subtraction and the regrouping process.  As their knowledge of subtraction grew, we increased the starting value to 200 or 300.  (This version did take quite some time though!)

If you click here you will be directed to the game directions and recording sheet.

Happy racing!

-Heidi

Dictionary Word Sort

Beginning a new year in 3rd grade has kept me much busier than I originally thought.  So, I might not get to many updates until later this summer!

One area my class has been working on is alphabetizing.  Not just any old alphabetizing, but figuring out the words that go between guide words in a dictionary.

I created a couple practice sheets for my students to work with.

I was surprised at how much my students enjoyed this activity.  I was able to differentiate this activity by putting my students into small groups to complete the task together.  The conversations I heard about words was wonderful.  Each student was fully engaged and was very willing to explain his or her thinking about the correct order.

Click here to get this activity for free!

Enjoy and happy sorting!

-Heidi