Chorus Assembly Today!

Check out our kiddos at the assembly today! Students report for the concert tonight at 6:30 at Eastridge.

Release the Butterflies!

A few weeks ago my class started a unit on butterflies.  We received the Painted Lady butterfly in the larva stage.  I had the kids transfer their own larva to a separate small container that contained an ample amount of food (provided by our science kit).  For about a week, the kids watched their tiny caterpillars eat their way to giant, fat, hairy caterpillars.  Then after a weekend, the kids came in an discovered their caterpillar was hanging from the top of each container in a chrysalis.  Once they were all bundled up in their chrysalis forms, I taped the lid of their containers to the lid of a special butterfly habitat and we waited.  For one complete week they watched, every morning before morning work, their little caterpillar to see any changes.  Over last weekend, the hatched!

Check out the video and pictures I took of them when we released them today!
 

Video of our Painted Lady release!



One of the butterflies found a flower and got a quick snack!



Just after opening the habitat!

Mini Desert Ecosytem Research Paper

This week we will begin researching desert ecosystems.  The kiddos did a fabulous job research rainforest and wrote excellent non-fiction writing pieces!

The kids will be researching..

What is it like in a desert ecosystem?  (Thinking about the climate at night vs during the day, cold deserts?)

Animals of the desert

The third sub-heading I want them to research is totally up to them.  What interests them about the desert?

Resources

Eyewitness Video--Deserts  Seen in class, students took notes

Desert USA--Desert Life
http://www.desertusa.com/life.html

Desert Wikipedias Site
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert

Enchanted Learning Deserts
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/biomes/desert/desert.shtml

Desert Slideshow
http://www.slideshare.net/Michellesoto/3rd-grade-ecosystem

National Geographic Site on Deserts
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/desert-profile/

The Sonoran Desert, Arizona Upland
http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/exploring_ecosystems/desert.html

Desert Food Chain
http://www.world-builders.org/lessons/less/biomes/desert/hot-desert-chain.html

Animals of the Desert--great pictures not much info
http://mlbean.byu.edu/Portals/26/docs/Desert%20Adaptations.pdf

People living in the Desert

https://sites.google.com/site/geographysaharadesert/how-people-ive-in-the-sahara-desert
and
http://library.thinkquest.org/26634/desert/people.htm

Death Valley
1)  http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/national-parks/death-valley-national-park/

2)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley

Plants of the Desert
1) http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/desert_plant_page.htm

2)

Pictures from our classroom holiday party

Just some pictures of our 3rd graders doing what they do best... talking and eating.  Thanks to Mrs. Johnson who purchased our classroom their very own popcorn machine we had loads and loads of popcorn.  Our room was covered in popcorn!

We enjoyed hot chocolate, a movie and tons of cookies.  The end of our celebration was a school wide sing a long in the gym lead by Mr. T!

Happy Holidays

Mr. D

The Polar Express and a really messing classroom

Not much to say about this one.  MJ got his cupcake eating on!

The entire classroom floor cleared and they want to sit on the desks!

MJ, LW, AV, PC, and DR camping out in their Pjs

SG, JJ, DR, BH and KU talking, screaming, laughing, acting like eight year olds.

Making Holiday Ornaments!

Today my students made holiday ornaments! Check out the work they did!

Our Thanksgiving Feast

Yesterday our classroom family shared a banquet of food for our classroom Thanksgiving feast. Several families brought in food and my room moms help organize our meal! We had corn, cornbread, cranberry sauce, scalloped potatoes, veggies, cookies, cakes, and a 17 pound turkey. For desert we had a turkey cake, cookies, and brownies.

The kids destroyed that turkey!

Check out our pictures below.

The first few so our Thanksgiving craft. For morning work these past two days I had the kids write short answer responses to these two questions: what are you thankful for? What is your favorite Thanksgiving memory. Yesterday they could write either of those on their paper which was attached to their project. The crafts were not the easiest things to put together. They had to read instructions and look at a very small picture of what they were suppose to look like when completed. Just like any kid in this modern age, they weren't satisfied with the directions- I think they wanted the picture bigger! If they could have I think they would have tapped the picture to make it expand like pictures on iPod touches. I was so proud of how they worked together and helped each other finish each project. Check out one of our kids using the hair from the pilgrim sets to experiment with a new look.

The next set of pictures shows our feast.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Mr. D

Stone Soup

This week we have been reading the story Stone Soup. In one of the versions we read strangers convince a group of townspeople to share what resources they have to make a meal together. By sharing everyone has an enjoyable experience and learns to care about each other.

Today, as we worked, a kettle of soup cooked away. We reenacted almost the entire book, adding ingredients just like the characters did in the story.

Last night I cut up veggies, meat, separated spices, precooked noodles, broth, etc... All was done so each of our kids could add one ingredient. Each time I would recite the lines from the story, "ah this soup looks great but the last time I made stone soup, carrots made it more delicious. But why ask for what I cannot have."

Our room, and the hallways of our school, smelled amazing all day. At first the boiling meat wasn't too amazing. One of our students asked told me he wasn't eating anything that smelled like that. As we added the ingredients the smell changed. I think he had two bowls later on!

We enjoyed our soup as a snack after lunch. Some of our little people had two bowls while a few had three or four. I walked out of the school with a completely empty pot! Check out some of the pictures from our day.