Weathering and Erosion

We have been learning about the earth's landforms and what affects their shapes. Our lesson on weathering and erosion needed a little "spicing up". So, students became news reporters on "W-FOX News Channel 12". They were assigned to read the chapter with a partner, then write a script as if they are news reporters, telling the public about erosion and weathering. The students had a great time preparing and presenting their news reports. Below is a link to the videos of each group's reports. :) Enjoy!

Volcanoes and Fact Frenzy!

I'm so excited to announce that our class received this awesome trophy for winning Forsyth Academy's first ever Fact Frenzy! All the students have been practicing their addition facts for the last month to become representatives for our class. This month, our class representatives were: Dylan Lodle, Meadow Kitko, Myrka Mejia, Jada Todd, and Ryan Miller. These five students showed amazing teamwork as they competed to be the first 3rd grade team to finish their 10x10 math fact frenzy board! This team was the first team finished for 3rd grade, earning us lots of Falcon Points for the Kestrels Team! We are so proud of them (and that trophy!)

Fact Frenzy will take place at the end of each month during our Friday assemblies. Each month, all students will have the opportunity to be on the fact frenzy team. Keep studying your facts!!

This week, we also kicked off our Landforms unit in science with some explosive fun! We learned about how magma inside the earth's mantle can seep through cracks in the earth's surface and explode through a volcano! Students had lots of fun as we learned, hands on, how the gas from the inside of the earth travels and then erupts through the top of a volcano!

There she blows!!

September Update

Well, the school year has gotten off to a smooth start! The first week, we spent getting to know each other and the expectations of 3rd grade. Now, we are full swing into the curriculum and are learning at full force!

Some of the most important things we have been discussing are the ways we treat each other and work together. We have been practicing lots of teamwork, working in partners and in teams to meet a common goal.

Students get to know each other on the second day of school, as they introduce themselves through their Bio Bag.

Team Kestrels...
One way we are encouraging teamwork is our Falcon Communities for grades 3-5. Our hallway is split into three different teams that include one 3rd grade, one 4th grade, and one 5th grade class. Each team is named after a type of falcon, representing our school mascot. We are on Team Kestrels! The first week of school, 3rd and 5th graders worked together on a mini-research project to find out more information about the American Kestrel Falcon and some attributes that Kestrels have. Each team has the opportunity each day to earn Falcon Points from teachers and administration by following procedures and going above and beyond expectations. Teams can also earn points at our monthly team building assemblies and fact frenzy academic competitions! This has been a fantastic way to share team spirit, encourage one another, and build relationships across grade levels.

Thinking Math...
We have been reviewing addition and subtraction skills as we are learning to problem solve. Students have worked on creating their own stories to match addition and subtraction number sentences. They have also used a number line as a tool to prove addition and subtraction. We are SUPER excited to begin our introductory study of multiplication! Multiplication is one of the biggest focuses in 3rd grade (and almost like a rite of passage), so students are VERY excited to begin working in this. We will first be learning how multiplication works by modeling multiplication situations with arrays, intersections, and stories.

On Reading Street...
Our Big Question in our reading unit is "Which skills help us make our way in the world?" Through reading stories, writing, and discussing our findings, students will be gaining knowledge on how their own skills can help them reach their goals in life. We have already read and made our first attempt and writing narrative poems. We are now reading a fable and going through the writing process to develop our own fables.

In preparation for writing fables, the class made a list of ideas for life lessons they had learned and how they learned it. This helped creative juices flow to begin creating characters and plot for writing their own fables. After jotting down some ideas, students paired up and orally told their stories to one another. I was very excited to hear some of the details given as Gian and Judah share their beginning fable ideas. See segments of their storytelling below. :) 

The World of Social Studies...
To start the year off, we have been discussing communities and citizenship. Students have been working to identify the different communities they are citizens of and how they can participate in them. As we finish up our intro unit to communities, we will begin thinking of some ways we can put good citizenship into action, with community service opportunities at the forefront of our conversations.

Students had fun playing "Communities Charades"- to reinforce how different communities offer a variety of activities.

Below: Students made Communities Mobiles to show the different communities they are citizens of. These mobiles are displayed on our bulletin board outside the classroom.

Scientifically Speaking...
As we conclude with social studies, we will begin our first unit in science with a study of landforms. Students will be learning about the various landforms that make up the earth's surface. Students will also be learning about how these landforms are formed and why people might want to build their communities around these landforms. We are excited to do several experiments on how nature and people affect the land as well as introduce the first big project in 3rd grade! More information to come soon on the Landforms Project!

Who is this Lady?

This quote pretty much sums up the way that I want to remember my life.

I grew up in the small town of Taylorsville, North Carolina, about an hour west of Winston-Salem. Growing up, I always knew I was supposed to be a teacher. Everyone else around me also knew I was supposed to be a teacher. I would come home from long days at school and "teach" my imaginary class how to do my homework. It was all in preparation for the real world. :) 

Aside from teaching my imaginary students, I grew up loving music. My home was always filled with music, whether it was the gracious sounds of my dad on piano, or my mother singing along, or my older brothers' band practicing next to the living room. I was BOUND to be a performer! I followed in my older brother's footsteps and became infatuated with drums and percussion, continuing to study it (or teach it) in one way or another since I was eleven. I've been in several bands, including two steel drum bands and had opportunities to perform with some amazing musicians. Many people thought that after high school, I would go on to perform or teach music for the rest of my life.

But, I felt called to teach elementary students in the general education classroom. And I love it! I graduated from Appalachian State University and have been teaching at Forsyth Academy ever since! (And I do try to incorporate a little bit of my music background into the regular day...hence the rock star theme.)

I love my job. 

No, it is not the easiest job in the world (by any means), but the rewards that come from seeing a child get something for the first time after struggling so long, or giving a hug on a bad day and receiving a thank you note make up for those "not so easy" moments. I believe my job is first to love a child and then grow their mind through love. For as much fun as we have in my classroom, students will also be challenged and encouraged to struggle. Not for the sake of struggling, but for the opportunity to discover that through perseverance they COULD do it, even though it was tough. I believe that students learn through discovery and will most likely learn in the deepest way when he or she is able to apply and DO what it is the teacher is talking about. 

In my classroom, we talk. A lot. We talk about books. We talk about math. We talk about problems. We talk about solutions. We talk about "whys" and "hows" and "how is could be betters". We discuss it all and I encourage you to do the same with your child. These kids have a voice and AMAZING ideas! It is our job as adults to cultivate an environment of love and encouragement that provides opportunities for kids to amaze us!

I am so looking forward to the amazing things your child is going to do in third grade! It takes all of us-teachers, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors- to mold these little, amazing human beings into the future leaders of the world. I am so excited about what they are going to do! :) 

Here's a fun thing I did this summer-- Ziplining at Carolina Canopy Tours! :) 

New Bunch of Rockers '13-'14

Get Ready for 2013-2014!

Summer is quickly fading away...as I realize I need to be getting back into the classroom to get things ready for my new bunch of rock stars. Although it is bittersweet, I get excited as I open brand-new text books and pin more cute ideas on Pinterest for the new year. It's always great to have a chance to relax, charge ourselves up, and mentally prepare ourselves for another great year.

If you are visiting this blog for the first time, you are most likely a parent or relative of an up and coming Third Grade Rock Star! :) I'm so so excited to have your child in my class! It's going to be a year of great experiences, great growth and great achievements!

Please explore past posts from the last two years to get a feel for our classroom environment and some things that you can expect for third grade. If you pay REALLY close attention to the dates, you'll see that I usually start of the year posting a decent amount, and then have to play catch up when things begin hectic. This year, it is my goal to try to be better about posting on a regular basis! :) (Somebody please hold me to that!) This is simply our own little third grade spot on the Internet, where I can show you pictures, videos and updates about what we are doing in the classroom. It's a great way to share what your third grader is learning and participating in with relatives all over the world.

I want to remind everyone that this weekend is TAX FREE WEEKEND in NC, so it's the best time to get your school supplies, uniforms, and goodies. The third grade supply list is located on our school website at www.forsythacademy.org.

Also, OPEN HOUSE this year is on Monday, August 19 and the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL is Tuesday, August 20! (yikes!)

After this is a post that is a little more about me personally if you want to know more. I look forward to getting to know each of you and your families this year!

Enjoy the rest of your summer!
Ms. Fox

End of the Year Fun!

This last quarter seemed to FLY by! With students conquering their first EOG, field trips and end of the year celebrations, it was an eventful last few months! In this post, I am posting some videos and pictures of the last few weeks of school.

The last two weeks of school we traveled around the world with a Culture Unit! Students had their own passports and we flew to Kenya, Mexico and Egypt! We even enjoyed some presentations from natives of each of these countries!

 Jambo! Mrs. Larned spoke to us about growing up in Kenya, Africa!

Hola! Mrs. Mendoza spoke to us about living in Mexico!

After reading Carole Marsh's The Mystery at Biltmore House, we made Plot Line Roller Coasters to discuss the main parts of the plot!

The last full day of school sure was fun! We made a poster of all the things we have learned each year...

 ....played some Minute to Win It Games....

...and even made our own Harlem Shake Video!

(If that video link above did not work, try this Third Grade Harlem Shake Video

The last day of third grade was spent at our Wet 'N Wild Field Day!

I have so enjoyed this class of third graders! What a crew of Rock Stars!! :) I love you and hope you have an awesome summer break!



February and March-ing On...

Whew!! Third quarter is already over!? How fast did THAT fly!!? It has taken me having a Spring Break to post some pictures of what's been going on.

Reading/ELA: 
Literature Circles are in full force! We have a total of six literature circles going on at the same time every morning. Each group is reading a different chapter book and focusing on listening and speaking skills, while re-enforcing reading skills. It has been a good challenge to learn how to talk about books. Some book titles we are reading are:

The Stories Julian Tells by Ann Cameron
Rent a Third Grader by B.B. Hiller
Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLaughlin
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

The "Bass Players" Literature Circle is reading Rent a Third Grader. 

The "Keyboardists" Literature Circle gets comfy as they read Dear Mr. Henshaw.

As groups finish their books, each student chooses three mini-projects to work on in class that focus on Writing, Language, and Comprehension through Art skills. 

Math:

We are continuing our weekly Multiplication Masters quizzes so that students can practice their facts from 1-12s. We have just finished learning about measuring length, area and perimeter. We also just finished our unit on geometry. 

 Anderson and Carlos work to find items in the room that measure about an inch. This helps students to have relative benchmarks for one inch.

Students continued to use their knowledge of measurement as we gathered data to create a line plot of students' heights. Here, Caleb and Kaila are getting tickled as they measure Caleb's height. :) 

Science:

Our school just celebrated "Crazy Science Day". One day completely dedicated to studying science, complete with visitors from Mad Science, experiments, and all! Third grade focused on introducing the study of plants. 

Students worked in partners to complete a Plant Life Scavenger Hunt. Through this hunt, students learned some fun facts about plants around the world!

Angel and Blake are totally psyched to experience the soap bubbles on their head! Thanks Mad Science!

Social Studies: 

To finish up our unit on government and presidents, students did individual research projects on a US President of their choice. Their goal was to practice taking notes from various sources and compile those notes into a visual. They used their visual to present to information to the rest of the class. Students got extra excited as they learned about their presidents. Some students even chose to dress up like their president or the first lady! 

Being the President Rule #1: Always dress to impress.

 Being the President Rule #2: Provide the people with the information they are looking for.

 Being the President Rule #3: Know your facts.

 Being the President Rule #4: Always choose your team wisely.

Being the President Rule #5: Always smile pretty for the camera! 

Just a few more "precious moments" captured by the camera: 

Arinyah and Jada get comfy as they read independently. :)