First Days of School

We have busy learning the rules, routines, and procedures of our new third grade classroom. To get the students thinking about why rules are important we played a game. Students worked with a partner and I gave each pair dice. ( Students used either number dice, ten sided dice, double dice, or regular dice.) Once each pair had dice; I told the students to start playing the game. I was greeted by silence and confused looks. " We don't know how to play, you never told us the rules," someone finally said. This activity led to a discussion of why rules are important. Students came up with some great reasons such: keep us safe, let us know what to do, keep people under control, and help people learn. From this discussion we created our classroom rules. Our classroom rules are:

         1. Show respect for everyone

         2. Do your best work everyday

         3. Be safe

Another big part of creating our classroom rules is thinking about what our hopes and dreams for third grade are, and how to create a place where everyone can achieve their dream for third grade.

Besides learning rules, we have been getting to know our a school friends better. One way we did this was sharing a summer memory or memento. I loved hearing about all the adventures the students had over the summer.

                                        Josh shares about his trip to Gettysburg

                             Chris tells about riding the alpine slide at Mount Bromley

                      Ben tells us about going to Fenway Park with his dad. Go Red Sox!

   We had a few students who shared shells they found at the beach this summer.

                                           Caroline tells us about her day at Six Flags

                                    Even Mr. B shared about his trip to California

In math we reviewed basic addition and subtraction facts by playing the game Headfeathers. (It also includes some basic pre-algebra skills.) The game is played with three students and a deck of number cards. One student is the dealer, the dealer puts a number card on each students' forehead. The dealer tries to get the players to figure out what number card they have on their forehead by giving clues such as, " When I add the two numbers together the answer is 15." Since each player can see the other person's number, but not their own, they use the clue to figure out their number.

In math we have jumped right into third grade curriculum. Students have started learning about multiplication by thinking about it as making equal groups. This will be our first chapter in math. (Students will have math homework involving this concept next week.)

Cole and Kaisac work on a math poster involving making equal groups.

Jack and Josh hard at work on their math poster.

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I am looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow. It will be our first full week in school! I am very excited about our year together in third grade!  :)

                                Mr. Hargraves, one of our Instructional Assistants

                           I love seeing students sharing a book they find interesting!

               The web greeting at morning meeting! Always a favorite greeting!