Geometry: Polygons & Angles

Our next Math Expressions unit covers Polygons & Angles. To help the students "see" these more often, our third grade team taped down some polygons and angles to our carpets.

I use these in a couple ways:

1. We have gone on "Right Angle Hunts" where we look carefully at each shape or angle to determine if there is a right angle. My students have also learned the geometry words acute and obtuse. They love sounding so smart using these grown up math words!
2. I have also called on students or groups of students to "Find the ____" (trapezoid, rectangle, obtuse triangle, etc.). Once everyone is in their places, they have to discuss as a small group what makes their shape/angle unique and unlike the others in the room. Each group then gets to share about their shape/angle's attributes.

Oogly - Clay Monster Creations

Each year, the Oogly Lady comes to visit our school. She is a wonderful artist who brings such unique creations from my students! I love to see what they make.

The students start with a ball of clay and create a pinch pot. This pinch pot becomes the mouth & body of their Oogly monster. Next, a nose and eyes are added. With a little bit of rolled clay, the monster has legs and arms. My students get very into the details of their monsters, adding teeth, hair, a spiky tail, etc.

The Oogly Lady takes our monsters with her to fire them in the kiln. Meanwhile, we write a fictional fantasy story about the creatures. The Ooglies are a prized possession and are kept for many, many years!

Leprechaun Madness - Lots of Pictures!

Today is an inservice/work time day for teachers and next week is Spring Break. That means any St. Patrick's Day celebrations had to be done this week instead of next!

We started out telling the students that last year a leprechaun reeked havoc on the third grade. He destroyed our classroom in his search for gold! This definitely got the students' attention. We designed traps to catch the leprechaun and had a STEM-related discussion about how they intended on catching the little rascal.

We set the traps on Wednesday evening, I locked our classroom door on the way out so that no one could mess with them. On Thursday morning, our classrooms were a disaster! We checked each trap, but the slippery little leprechaun escaped us again!

The clean up process begins...

Valentine's Buckets & Teacher Gifts

My students decorated large cans (recycled from our cafeteria!) to hold their Valentines. They loved adding their own personal touch to them and lots of stickers didn't hurt either!

Our third grade team gave the students glow bracelets for Valentine's Day. I really like to trend of not always giving candy out with the cards.

Methods of Subtraction

Our district adopted Math Expressions as our math curriculum (below are pictures from my teachers' manual). This is our first year with Math Expressions and I am in LOVE with it! I previously blogged about the addition strategies the students have learned. With subtraction, the students learned three strategies: Common U.S. Method, Ungroup First Method, and Expanded Method. Again, the students use Proof Pictures to show the ungrouping in subtraction and how to "take away" from the bigger number.

The Olympics Are Coming: Research A Sport

Curling? Luge? Biathlon? Nordic Combined? The Winter Olympics has some obscure sports. In order to understand the sports that will be played in the Winter Olympics, my students worked in partners to researchthe some of the non traditional sports. Each of them filled out an Olympics book and together they created a poster to present to the class. They loved watching videos about their sport and really got into the research!

 

 Moving onto the excellent posters for their presentations:

My students are ready for the Winter Olympics and are going to know so much about the sports as they watch!