Spanish Students Share Picture Books

Last Tuesday, Mrs. Bower's (Dexter's mom) 7th grade Spanish students from Mesa M.S. came and shared their Spanish picture books with us.  They used the Storybird platform to create books electronically. The 3rd graders really enjoyed the books and the bigger kids teaching them. Our class was speaking Spanish for the rest of the afternoon! Check out all the books at https://docs.google.com/a/dcsdk12.org/document/d/1OQ7A1vs9kA-JKEwc8hXpy-bDJyrGoHfOYM45Ed9FZuM/edit.

Halloween Party

   The Halloween party was tons of fun. We ate, played a game, made a craft, and had some very creative costumes. Thanks to everyone who sent things in and volunteered their time. A special thanks to Angie for planning and organizing it!

Field Day Pics

Field Day was perfect--the weather, the kids, the fun! Here are some pics of our morning.

                                      

CogAt Testing

This week has been a busy testing week for us. We have spent part of Tuesday and Wednesday mornings taking the Cognitive Abilities Test, and Friday morning, we finished the last MAPs (Measure of Academic Progress) test. To learn more about the CogAT testing read Mrs. Ursetta's letter to parents which was posted on the CRE Home page.

Often, it is hard to tell if a student is a bright child or truly a gifted learner. I find this chart to be helpful:

Unattributed: Citing Sources: http://http://presentlygifted.org/2012/08/26/bright-student-or-gifted-learner/:  August 26, 2012 

We've launched! Launched what you ask? Why our first project based learning unit of course.
To grab everyone's attention, we started with a scavenger hunt in the habitat. Working in collaborative groups and armed with a list of plants and animals we might find, we set off searching. (It was amazing what there was to see when we took our time to really look and use all our powers of observation.)

This week, we will discuss our findings and, then, find out our "Driving Question". The driving question gives us direction as we delve further into the unit.

Here is a fun link to a video explaining what project based learning: http://www.bie.org/videos/video/project_based_learning_explained

Guest "Expert"

Last Monday, during our PBL (Project Based Learning) time, we had our first guest "expert" come and speak. Bethany Sullivan (yes, she's my daughter) has 24 credit hours in outdoor education and is certified in Leave No Trace. She taught 3rd grade the seven principles of Leave No Trace. These  principles are:

1. Know Before You Go
2. Choose the Right Path
3. Trash Your Trash
4. Leave What You Find
5. Be Careful with Fire
6. Respect Wildlife
7. Be Kind to Others 

On Tuesday, we discussed which of these principles would have the most impact on us and our Habitat and wrote them in our PBL notebooks.

Our First Week

This was originally posted on CRE's web page under Teacher Sites

August 16th

This week has been learning the norms and procedures of 3rd grade. We spent time learning our Morning Routines and developing a ROCKSS matrix of our own. We also spent part of Thursday and Friday morning in a team building/problem solving activity called Flip the Tarp. The objective of this activity is to turn the tarp over while the entire class is standing on it without anyone stepping off! On Thursday, we were not able to accomplish our goal, but we learned two things:  we needed to work together and we needed a bigger tarp. Armed with a bigger tarp on Friday, we set out with determination. With cooperation, communication, and some trial and error we were successful!