Friday Free Play

They call it Free Play Friday...I call it self-directed learning; we all call it F-U-N!

Two of the best decisions I have made as a teacher were to incorporate free play into our weekly routine in 3rd grade.  The other?  A second recess each day!  Yes, in this day of high stakes testing, rigourous Common Core standards, and the pressures of never enough time, I have made play and physical activity a priority and have not regretted it once.  

"Hey guys, I can feel the force of the
magnet through my hand!" -Chais

Inspired by a recent trip to Finland, where students have 15 minutes of recess every hour during the school day and the education of students is based on developmentally appropriate nurturing of the whole child, I decided to experiment with these changes in my classroom to hopefully improve the health and well being of my students.  To be completely honest, I was also inspired by one of my third graders who exclaimed, "No fair!" upon beholding an extravagently engineered cup tower in the block area of our kindergarten reading buddy's classroom.  His comment stuck with me.  I was as enamored as he with that tower and shared his sentiment.  Why should kindergartners have all the fun?  I went out a few weeks later and purchased an entire bucket of cups that students could build with during inside recess and placed an order for some wooden blocks.

Now, Friday mornings have a wonderfully relaxed feel as students come in, read the mornging message, create a learning statement for the week, and engage with their friends in 30-40 minutes of play.  After a long
week of very focused, challenging work, it is exactly what we all need.

Our second recess is short, only15 minutes during the final hour of our day.  During winter, with all the snow gear, it sometimes takes us as long to get ready as we have to be outside, but it is still worth it. Students get a shot of fresh air and a few minutes to run, yell, and well, be kids!  I expect a lot out of my students behaviorally and academically during the day.   At 1:30 in the afternoon I can feel the low energy settle over the room. We are all exhausted.  Our extra recess re-energizes the group and gives us the necessary stamina to make it throught the rest of our day.  

"For every 15minutes of play, children tend to use a third of that time engaged in learning about mathematical, spatial, and architectural principles." -Sarah Lewis in The Rise:  Creativity, The Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery

Thinking about incorporating more play in your school day?  Here are a few more reasons you should consider it straight from the experts...

"It gives your brain a break." -Kaitlyn

"It gives us another chance to be outside so that we can be more focused.  We can get our energy out." -Natalie

"Kids need, well everyone needs, about 2 hours of activity everyday." -Sam

"It give us a chance to talk with our friends." -Max

"It helps us calm down when we're inside." -Jen

So, as we begin a new year in 3rd grade, free play and 2nd recess continue to be part of this teacher's class schedule.  Here's to happy, healthy, focused students!  Have a great school year.

Rocking Our Way to Success!

I'm excited to announce that I have launched my first ever Donor's Choose project!  

Mrs. Sullivan's Donor's Choose Project

It has been a dream of mine for a while to expand the seating options in our classroom.  Over the years I have slowly added yoga balls, stability discs, and Bilibo seats as my budget has allowed. However,  I have had my eye on these active learning stools for quite some time and haven't been able to find the funds to purchase them. These beauties have a curved rubber bottom that allows students a wide range of movement and encourages core strength.

I finally decided, after seeing other educators successfully fund their projects, to give it a go! Even if you can't contribute funding for my project, you can still help by spreading the word.

Hopefully, I will soon be posting pictures of happy, energetic students rocking their way to success on these stools!  

Under Construction

As the custodial staff is racing to finish sprucing up GEMS before our first day, teachers have begun to sneak into their classrooms this week to find freshly waxed, sparkling floors and piles of furniture to rearrange.  So it begins, the exciting process of putting our rooms back together to welcome our new students on August 29th.  

Our 3rd grade classroom is under construction this week.  

As a teacher, August signals the end of  summer vacation, but it is still one of my favorite times of year.  There is a palpable excitment to the start of school when the lifeless hallways are once again filled with reenergized teachers and wide eyed students bouncing down the halls.  I am so excited to welcome my new students and begin building an awesome learning community together.  We are going to have a great year!

Third Grade Life Science

This month students have been studying living organisms.  We have completed science observations noticing how different organisms look, move, and respond to their environment.  We have learned that living things share certain characteristics: they move, breathe, need energy, have a life cycle, reproduce, and die.

Students are brainstorming characteristics that all living things have in common

Students were curiuos (some skeptical) if plants really moved .  So, we set up a simple science experiment to capture the movement of a plants leaves as they angle toward the sun.  We were able to see evidence of how a plant responds to its' environment.

 We worked to categorize various objects as living, non-living, or dead and realized that there is yet another category when we had disagreements about where to place our peas seeds.

We took our learning outside and worked to categorize organisms we encountered on our nature walk. 


This week students are using what they know about animal adaptations to create a "Creative Amphibian" model of an animal that has adaptations for living on land and water.  Students will combine features from their favorite animals to make a unique creature.

      

Room B-214 Sneak Peek

Hello Third Graders!

Only ten days until school starts and there is still so much left to do!  I have been at school all week rearranging and organizing our classroom so it's ready for us on August 30th.  Here is a sneak peek of our room. Of course, there are many "finishing touches" still left to complete. Everyone is working hard to get the school in tip-top shape for our first day.  GEMS continues to be under construction in the middle school wing; furniture is still being moved and floors are still being cleaned and waxed.  There is a flurry of activity as it all comes together in the final days.  I am so excited to welcome you to 3rd grade.  See you soon!

Cardboard Carnival

Just before April vacation our 3rd grade class, together with Miss Sikorky's class,  held a cardboard carnival inspired by Caine's Arcade.  Students imagined and planned different types of arcade and carnival games they could create, and used cardboard and other recycled materials to bring their plans to life.  Building their games presented many opportunities for students to practice patience and perseverance.  Lawrence recounts his experience with improving, "When we were building l didn't like my idea so I did some improvements on my game because when I flicked it (the football) would go flying into a friend's game."

When games were complete students wrote game directions which outlined the object of the game, materials, and the procedure for playing.  Their final drafts were typed using an iPad, and students learned how to take and embed a photograph in their document.  In art class Mrs. Hogg worked with students to design and create signs advertising the name of their game.

  

When the big day arrived we invited our Kindergarten reading buddies, parents, teachers, and other classes to play our games for a penny.   You could feel the nervous excitement.  Adeline recalls, "First, I was nervous because I didn't know if people would like my game, but when some people came to my game and liked it I became less nervous for the other people."  

Students had lots of opportunity to practice speaking and listening skills as they introduced their game and taught customers how to play.  Some students used creative methods to lure in customers.  Sophia explains, "At first no one was coming to my game so I started advertising, "Step right up to Kitten Drop!" I would say."  

As a class we worked together to find a grand total for all the money we collected.  Our class raised $66.05.  Together with Miss Sikorsky's class, we raised over $100.00 to benefit the Georgia Food Shelf.  Samara sums it up here, "Cardboard Carnival was fun, but had some very hard work!  Cardboard Carnival was exciting overall!!"

Forces and Interacions

Students are exploring forces in science.  They are using what they have learned about magnetism's repelling and attracting forces to  design a vehicle that levitates and transports washers along a magnetic track

Students work to improve their levitating vehicles.  "My first was too small so it kept tipping and sticking to the track," Drew said.  "I put cardboard on it because when it was plastic I needed it sturdier," Lawrence said.

Students gather to test their levitating vehicles by adding metal washers until it no longer levitates or glides smoothly along the track.  This was Ava's test; her vehicle held 28 washers.