Graphing on the Computer

The last two weeks in the computer lab we have been learning to graph using this website:

http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createAgraph/

Here are some examples of our graphs:

Our Food Drive

The Third Grade Food Drive ended on Friday. Below you can see a graph of each group to see how many cans each class we were responsible for brought in.

Here is a chart we made of all the mathematical information the third grade gathered related to the Food Drive. We spent most of math today together trying to use efficient strategies to find the totals.

As you can see, the total cans/boxes the third grade collected was 1,115! The food was organized after school on Monday and will be distributed to families tomorrow.

Historical Perspective

This is a picture from the book A River Ran Wild by Lynne Cherry. It is one of the few pictures with people in it. As we were reading it, Liam made some inferences about what the characters were probably thinking and saying to one another. We discussed body language and other visual clues. We were learning to read a picture. Students were then invited to record their own ideas about what these people were thinking and saying to one another. This invitation helped us begin to better understand different voices in history and the effect that exploration had on the Native Americans. 

Here is Tenly's perspective writing. Notice how her ideas here connect to her writing in the next blog post.

A River Ran Wild

This is the third book we've read by Lynne Cherry. We notice that she seems to like writing stories about the environment. Lynne Cherry’s book A River Ran Wild takes readers through the history of New England's Nashua River--how it was respected by generations of Indians, overtaken by early European setters, polluted in the wake of the industrial revolution, and restored in recent years through the efforts of concerned citizens. We read it a few times. The second time we paused to record burning questions. Using this list of question students were invited to create a paper blog post, sharing their thinking (not a summary) about any part of the story or issue that really stuck out to them. Students understood that their peers would be reading and commenting on their post, which made the audience real and immediate.

Here is Tenley's post:

Here are some of the comments Tenley received on her blog post from other students (and me!):

Repsonding to each other's ideas is getting us ready to have meaningful discussions about books when we get back after winter break. We are learning a lot about what it means to write someone a "thought provoking comment."

Writing leads

On Tuesday we read the book, Monarch and Milkweed  by Helen Frost and Leonid Gore. We looked at the first two pages of the book with the words covered. We tried to imagine how Helen and Leonid may have started the story knowing that the lead is one of the most important parts of a story. It should grab the reader's attention and make them want to read on. In writing our podcasts we have also talked a lot about the delicate balance between informing and entertaining. An author who we think does a masterful job at this is Byrd Baylor. We may need to add Helen and Leonid to our list too!

Below you will see the first two pages of the book. On each page the words were covered up, but students were given the 3-4 informative words that the authors had included. After we shared our writing, we felt like maybe we came up with some better ideas than even the authors. What do you think?

Actual lead:

"In a patch of dirt behind an old red barn, Milkweed stretches into warm spring air. Its roots reach deep and wide, its stem points to the sky."

Our Ideas: (Remember, we didn't read the published lead until after writing!)

The Milkweed rests in the spring air. The stem emerges into the world, and the roots awake with joy.

The Milkweed roots burst out of sleeping into the Spring air.

The Milkweed roots blast the stem up out of the ground into the warm fresh Spring air.

Up on a spring hill, my stem holds high. The roots deep in the floor hold the Milkweed strong and sturdy.

Milkweed feeds Monarch late in Spring. Their roots suck glistening water and feed the stem.

A single Milkweed curls its roots down into the brown wormy soil. Slowly, slowly, the stem up up into the wide open air. Brining a new life into the big open green world.

Actual second page text:

"Monarch spreads her wings and rides the wind -- past white and yellow daisies, across a creek, heading north."

Our Ideas:
An orange cloud of Monarchs fly north on silent silky wings.

Monarchs' golden wings glow in the whistling wind as they float on air northward bound.

Monarchs' wings pound the velvety black sky.

My wings hold me in the breeze when I fly north with my Monarch family.

Up above the daisy hills, I fly tipping my wings in the rushing creek.

The Monarchs' wings pound hard like a dash of air, the graceful Monarch struck its wings fast to get to the north.

A Monarch soars above, and peers down, to find a bath of daffodils.

Third Grade Food Drive

The Stony Point Third Grade has a tradition of coordinating the Stony Point School Food Drive.  In each third grade classroom, students have been assigned to five different groups.  Each group is responsible for coordinating the food drive of a specific classroom in the school, grades K – 5. The classrooms we are responsible for are Ms. Frazier, Ms. May, Ms. Payne, Ms. Amatucci, and Mr. Wells. 

Last week we worked in groups to write speeches for this food drive.  Like any good piece of writing, we made sure that we included a good lead or attention grabber, the body of the speech with important details for the audience, and a closing which reminded the audience of the purpose. Will, Caleb, and Clare's speech is on the right. Monday morning we went to our assigned classrooms and presented our speeches. This took a lot of practice!  Each group also prepared a bar graph to put outside their classroom to record the number of food items their classroom brings in each day.

Each day during the food drive, we go with our groups to collect food items and record the day’s total on their classroom's bar graph.  We return to class and record each day’s data on their own graphs in our Math Notebooks. We also keep a chart of the types of foods that we collect using tally marks.  

After recording our data in two different graphs each day we sort the food items and take them to the main collection site outside of the library.  

Graphics

We learned that one way authors and illustrators teach readers in non-fiction texts is through the use of graphics. After viewing some examples of graphics and identifying the important features, we tried to create our own graphics that would teach others the new information we just learned about soil. Our goal was to include the layers of soil, decomposers, and animals that impact the soil. Some of us even tried to create three-dimensional graphics. Take a look at Carly's graphic: