Building a Community

The children showed their creativity and design sense when they built gingerbread houses this week. They constructed many different and unique homes from the variety of ingredients donated by parents. When they completed their homes they arranged them on a small map according to their coordinates. Thank you to all the parents for the many donations and a special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Ackroyd, Mrs. Roiu, Mrs. Foley, and Mrs. Wicklund for volunteering their time!

Water! Water! Everywhere!

This week the children finished up their study of water by making water wheels and looking at water quality. They were very successful discovering the locations of four samples of water. By looking at the color, clarity, and smell of the samples, they were able to determine they were looking at ocean, swamp, faucet, and dish water.
Finally, they worked in cooperative groups and made water wheels. Their goal was to use flowing water to move the wheel and lift a load. In the end, all groups were successful and some a little wet!

Evaporation and Surface Area

Students investigated water evaportion and surface area. They put equal amounts of water into a cylinder, dome lid, a beaker, and flat lid. After two days they measured the remaining water and found the container with the largest surface area had the most evaporation and the container with the smallest surface area had the least evaporation. In conclusion, if you want water to evaporate expose it to as much air as you can!

Pumpkin Extravaganza!

Students used their estimating skills in determining the weight, circumference, and number of seeds of different sized pumpkins. They came to the conclusion that there was no correlation between the size of the pumpkin and the number of seeds. Thanks to some wonderful parents that volunteered to help the event was a success!

Water Investigations

Students have been performing different investigations with water to discover their properties. They have learned that water flows down a slope, it will flow faster down a steep slope, and bigger drops of water will flow faster. They also learned cold water is denser than room temperature water when they observed a blue dyed ice cube melt to the bottom of a cup of room temperature water. Using a thermometer they discovered the temperature to be colder at the bottom of the cups which proved that cold water is denser. Students are enjoying the many water activities in the water unit!

Noun Search!

Students searched for nouns around the classroom. They realized first hand that most things are nouns in our classroom. Nouns are words that name a person, place, or thing. Students also learned the difference between common and proper nouns.

Large Numbers in Standard Form

In math students are working on numeration. This week they had fun changing numbers from expanded form to standard form, Also, they learned about the importance of commas to separate the ones, thousands, and hundreds periods. Do you know how to write the number in word form?

Welcome Back!

Field Trip to URI Learning Landscape

Students had a wonderful day on their field trip to URI. They enjoyed visiting different stations around the center. They learned about insects, animal pelts, greenhouse plants, the importance of keeping water clean, plants growth, and the red wiggler worm. After experiencing the centers, the students enjoyed a beautiful lunch in the garden!

Fluffy Chicks

Our eggs hatched and we got ten baby chicks. The children got to hold them the day after they hatched and could not believe how soft and fluffy they were!

What's Inside an Egg?

The third grade classes are hatching eggs. If all goes well, our eggs will hatch on Monday, May 24th. Last week our class looked inside an egg to see what parts help the growing chick. Students could find and identify all parts of the egg, even the white spot that will become the chick. It's hard to believe it only takes three weeks for an egg to hatch!

Thinking About Sound

Students have begun the new unit on Sound. They will be investigating what causes sound, how sound travels, how it changes and will be making instruments.
The students explored sounds produced by two tuning forks.