Earth Day Activity - Oil Spill

For Earth Day, my class worked through an Oil Spill lesson. It's all over Pinterest and I knew my third graders would love it! 

We read the book Oil Spill and look at photos from the National Geographic website. The kids were very concern about the animals and how they were cleaned up. 

To complete our experiment, I filled containers halfway with water and poured a layer of vegetable oil over the top. I showed them that even if you try to mix the oil & water, they separate with the oil settling on top of the water. 

My students were placed into groups. Each group had a different tool to get the oil off the water. The tools my students used were: a spoon, a cup, cotton balls, yarn, and a sponge. 

50 States - Update

The kids are LOVING our 50 States Postcard Challenge! We are so excited when the mail comes each day to see if we get a new state to add to our collection. We have 39 out of 50 states right now!

Mothers' Day Card & Art

We worked hard on writing a poem and creating flower art for our moms this week. My students loved making the personalized flowers for their moms in this project!

50 States - Update

The kids are LOVING our 50 States Postcard Challenge! We are so excited when the mail comes each day to see if we get a new state to add to our collection. We have 29 out of 50 states right now!

I read the book The Little Man in the Map and it has an amazing way to teach the students tricks to learn the states. The day after reading this book, we went over a blank map and my students were able to work as a class to name all 50 states. This is after their states pretest had an average of 9 correct states. My students are able OBSESSED with the Fifty Nifty United States song. I am so proud of my students for how far they've come in learning the states of our nation!

Math Review: Add/Sub

We have completed our math curriculum (Math Expressions) and are now reviewing what we learned all year long. Today was 3-digit addition and subtraction. Students competed against partners to get four in a row correct. They used calculators to check their answers. They LOVED it!!

Happy Earth Day!!

Each year, our school celebrates EARTH DAY with fun rotations! Here's a peek at what we did today:

Paper Towel Rainstick

Recycled Relays

 Recycle Speaker

Story Time & Snack

Peel Crayons to Make New Crayons

Book Swap

 Pavers (each grade made one for our outdoor area)

Learning Our 50 States

In 4th grade, our students will be expected to learn all 50 states and their capitals. To get them started, we are introducing the states this spring.  One of the fun ways we are showing off the states is to collect postcards from (hopefully) all 50 states. We are not doing a normal postcard challenge with other schools, but simply asking family and friends to ask their out of state acquaintances to mail our class a postcard.

Here is the information I sent to my parents:

Hi Parents,

We will soon begin our study of the states in our wonderful nation. To add a little fun, we would like to receive postcards from all the states. This is where you come in! Please contact (call, email, facebook.etc.) any friends or family that live in other states and request a postcard. Below is an example request:

 

"Hi there! My child's 3rd grade class is studying the 50 states of our country. They would like to receive a postcard from each state. Please send a state-theme (e.g., Kansas postcard might have a sunflower, California might have a beach) postcard to our class. If you are able, please include a fact about your state on the postcard. Please mail the postcard to Moonlight Elementary, Attn: Mrs. Brown, ___________________. Thank you!"

 

I will update you with which states have come in and which we are still missing. Thank you so much for helping with this fun project!

Mrs. Brown

 

This email went out Monday and we are looking forward to receiving mail from around our nation. We have a map to color in the states we have received a postcard from. Hope to share positive results soon!