Hopes and Dreams

Students have completed their Hopes and Dreams Clouds which now hang from our classroom ceiling.  Each cloud outlines the student's hope or goal for third grade and their dream for the future. We used these hopes and dreams as the catalyst for creating our classroom rules.  We talked about the need to support everyone in reaching their goals and students brainstormed what rules needed to be in place to make that happen.  This fits in nicely with work we are doing with Georgia government right now.  We are exploring rights and responsibilities of citizens in a community.   

Butterfly Life Cycle

Mrs. Harvey provided our class with a monarch caterpillar so students could witness the life cycle of a butterfly.  Our caterpillar decided to do most of his changing overnight when we were all asleep, so we watched videos that showed the different changes in action.  Ask your child about the molting and chrysalis videos; students were captivated.  Wednesday night our butterfly emerged and we had a new friend to greet us Thursday morning.  This was the same day we were also welcoming a new student into our class! We released our butterfly Thursday afternoon so that he could begin his long journey south.

 We will be studying life cycles and food webs during science beginning in October.

Room B-214

The start of the school year is fast approaching and I am beginning to feel the excitement that comes with preparing for my new class of students.  I spent many hours in July moving my classroom across the hall and trying to create a cozy, comfortable learning space for us.  Here is a sneak peek at our space.  I can't wait for the students to add some life and pizzazz to the space!

Writing Center & Classroom Entrance

Library Area

 Library Area & Conference Table

 Art Area

 Academic Choice Corner

 Mrs. Sullivan's Desk

 Math Corner

 Meeting Area

 Student Desks

Please "Leaf" Me Alone, I'm Reading Chair

6th Grade Buddies

Today was our final meeting with our 6th grade buddies.  Over the last few weeks our buddies have answered our questions about 5th grade, given us a tour of the middle school, and helped to make us feel more comfortable about our transition.  

Today our buddies presented us with 

"Middle School Survival Kits" and wished us luck next year in 5th grade.

Next, we played Middle School Jeopardy and learned more about what we can expect next year!

Four Winds Finale

Today was the Four Winds Finale on Ecosystems. We had an on-site field trip to the stream behind the school.  Students spent 30 minutes at various stations and had the opportunity to watch a puppet show about invertebrate adaptations, explore the stream bed for signs of life, paint or draw a stream picture, and work in small groups to design adaptations for an insect out of common household items.  We appreciate the volunteers who organized this event and were there to run the stations!  Thank You!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Last week students had the opportunity to visit Mrs. Mathieu's Spanish class to hear original stories her Spanish students had written based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  The stories were written and read in Spanish and then translated by the authors into English.    

What Happened to March?

Alas, March almost got by me without a single post to Mrs. Sullivan's Scoop!  Since the saying is "Better late than never" I thought I would share a few photos of happenings in our classroom before the calendar turns to April tomorrow.

Science

In the beginning of this month we were working to wrap up our study of electrical energy.  Students completed an engineering design challenge in which they needed to apply their knowledge of closed circuits, schematic diagrams, conductors and the engineering design process in order to design an alarm system that alerted them, via light and sound, if the water in their model trough was low.  

Literacy

We ended this month by bidding farewell to one of our classmates who moved out of state, but not before we had our first ever Book Lunch Bunch.  All students who read our picture book of the month were invited to attend.  We had a great showing!  We shared lunch together in the classroom, discussed the book The Sweetest Fig by Chris Van Allsburg, and shared a special dessert too!  Students seemed to enjoy our book discussion, and later during literacy many dove right into reading our picture book of the month for April, Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg.  Shhhh....don't tell the students that my ploy to get them reading more picture books seems to be working, it'll be our little secret.  

Chris Van Allsburg is one of my favorite picture book authors.  His stories provide many opportunities for students to make inferences.  See if your child can explain to you what an inference is.  We define it as an educated guess which combines what the text says with our own thinking in order to understand what is not explicitly stated in the reading. This is a higher level reading skill that we are trying to develop in all of our fourth grade readers.