This morning we talked about verbs...action words! You can check out the song posted below about verbs...very catchy.

Afterward, we read a play called "Strong Verb VS Weak Verb". It was hilarious. I'm sure you'll want a role once you return.

During math, we reviewed reading and writing decimals and then moved on to creating a line graph of the Length of Day data we've been collecting. We looked at the data on page 27 of our journals and plotted the times on the graph found on page 125. We will help you once you return because we will add to that graph every week.


This afternoon we designed and colored our quilt pieces for Grandparents' Day (you can do that tomorrow). We also read in our Dan Gutman books. Your job was Passage Picker and the form will be here for you in the morning.

In the computer lab, Mrs. Driscoll introduced the class to a new website where they built eco-friendly homes and businesses. It was an amazing activity! The class was excited about it. You can find a direct link by clicking the picture below.


We sure missed you and hope you are feeling better!

If you think you know your verbs now, scroll down to the verb games located on the third grade grammar page!

During convo we had a special visit from Reverend Billy Kyles, one of the last two men to spend time with Dr. Martin Luther King before he was assassinated. It was a moving presentation I feel lucky to have heard.

His message to the children was powerful: there's no telling who or what you can be!

This morning we completed a review sheet on millimeters and centimeters. It was helpful! It's basic message: there are 10 millimeters in a centimeter. We also added the sunrise and sunset times into our math journal on page 27:

7:19am - 6:00 pm

On page 43 in the math journal, we added the high and low for January 20. Click here to find what you need.

After keyboarding with Mrs. Driscoll, we took the spelling test and reviewed decimals together. We also played "Decimal Number Top It"....and Anna beat me over and over again!

This afternoon we prepared for our Explorers presentation. Three of the teams were able to share with the class about their explorers. So far, everyone has identified the correct trunk! I think many students were amazed at the bad luck experienced by Cabeza de Vaca and Panfilo de Narvaez. You can learn more about de Vaca here, as well as other famous explorers. (I liked clicking "Voyage Routes".)

We ended the day by learning about three books written by Dan Gutman. The class will be completing an author story about him beginning next week. I'm sure you'll love it!

Mrs. Hershman also met with the girls from our class to prepare costumes for our Grandparents' Day performance. I'm sure she'll get in touch with you when you come back.

Take care, get better, and come back!
:)Mrs. Neal

This morning, we identified the monsters! I placed on the board all seven monsters we created, along with each set of adjectives to see if the students could connect them. It was a lot of fun! I will post the monsters in the window later this week.


I shared this book with the class today and talked about how the author made the dog and cat's personalities sound unique...and perfect for the animals they are. Afterward, we talked about other characters who might have a rivalry. There was a long list! Brother/sister, Goldilocks/3 Bears, Spider/Fly, Ketchup/Mustard, Book/Movie, etc.

Tomorrow, we'll be planning a short story about two characters of your choice to mimic the way I am The Dog, I am the Cat was written.


During math, we discussed how a decimeter (a long) is 1/10th of a meter and a centimeter (a cube) is 1/100th of a centimeter. It was kind of tricky, but I stuck a meter stick onto the white board and tried to line up a group of 'longs' and 'cubes' across the top of it! Obviously, lining up the longs were easier as the cubes kept falling off.

It is a tricky lesson to explain, but we did figure out that a long is 0.1 the length of the meter stick and a cube is 0.01 of a meter stick. I will help you complete journal page 119 when you return.

This afternoon, Mrs. McCracken helped us navigate our way through...

The students LOVED it! They found out all sorts of interesting information.

We looked at the rubric for our Explorers project, too. I wanted to be sure all students knew what to do to get a high score. Yours will be here waiting for you.

We ended the day in Mrs. Driscoll's class where we learned more about Microsoft Word. We were making flow charts and using SmartArt like pros!

We've missed you and hope you come back to school tomorrow!
:)Mrs. Neal

Friday is a day of review and testing...phew! After our usual spelling and wordly wise tests today, we headed to Mrs. Driscoll's computer lab for keyboarding practice. Not long after snack, we practiced our timed multiplication facts, too. Remember to continue reviewing through games or flashcards.

Later in the morning, we added color to our adjective monsters and assigned them each eight specific adjectives. On Tuesday, we'll try to match adjectives to monsters.

In the afternoon, teams started to investigate the explorer trunks more carefully. Your teammates looked at each artifact inside the trunk and explained exactly why the artifact was important to your explorer. Your teammates will help you when you return.

We finished the day by learning about how the earth's crust is formed of layers. I made a model of it using jello, bananas, cool whip, and graham crackers. After we took turns changing the earth's surface...we got to eat it. :)

I'm sorry you missed the fun! It was a messy, but interesting lesson!

Hope to see you on Tuesday!
:)Mrs. Neal

This morning we reviewed what adjectives are and started a fun art project. Teams of three worked together to draw and illustrate a silly monster. Tomorrow, we will color them. Once colored, teams will develop a list of 10 specific adjectives that describe the monster (colorful, striped, two-headed, etc). I will post the monsters in the room while I read the 10 adjectives from each group randomly. Classmates will try to figure out which adjectives match each monster. You can review adjectives at this site.

During math, I introduced e-x-p-a-n-d-e-d n-o-t-a-t-i-o-n. If you look at a number...you can expand it:

34,562 is the same as...
30,000 + 4,000 + 500 + 60 + 2

We also had fun building large numbers using flats, longs, and cubes on this site. Students built large numbers by dragging tens, ones, and hundreds onto the board. Afterward, a partner tried to first estimate the total number of blocks you had placed on the screen. Finally, your partner counted the blocks by collecting ten cubes and making them into a long and collecting ten longs and making them into a flat. Sound confusing? You can read more specific directions by clicking the icon below.




We also reviewed perimeter by estimating the distance around four pattern blocks. (The answers were hard to discover...and surprising!) You can find the directions in your math journal on page 112.

During rotation, we continued to read and take notes on our famous Florida Explorers and continued to work on the assignment with base ten blocks mentioned above.

We hope you are feeling better and are able to come back to school tomorrow!
:)Mrs. Neal

Today we continued to work on our animal stories. Many children offered to be peer editors and gave suggestions. Remember, the goal is improve your beginning and ending, while keeping your story's events in a logical order. We should be finishing up those stories this week.

We also added a few homonyms to our spelling dictionaries: right, write, to, too, two

For Math, we calculated how old we are...in minutes! First we reviewed how many days are in a year, how many hours are in a day, and how many minutes are in an hour. With that information, we completed a journal page that asked us to calculate...

Your age: 8 or 9
How many days old were you on your most recent birthday?
How many hours is that?
How many minutes?

We talked about leap year and figured out how many children were alive February 29, 2000 (not many). Most students were only around for the extra day of the year in 2004 and 2008.

We played the Place Value Game and the girls smoked the boys!

During rotation, we continued to read in our explorer booklets. We took notes on what we learned and shared with our teammates.

This afternoon, we reviewed weathering (mechanical and chemical) and I introduced the children to Agent Erosion. His job: Pick Up, Move, & Deposit. There were three major agents: wind, water, and ice. Check out the power point below. There are many hyperlinks embedded, including two Tim and Moby cartoons.

Please be sure to check the link to the right of this post for your most up-to-date homework sheet. I hope you are feeling better and are able to return to school tomorrow!
:)Mrs. Neal

If you are looking for a little extra practice with Wordly Wise this week (lesson 7), log on to Kubbu by clicking the picture above. While there you can practice with virtual flashcards and matching activities. The site is also available on the third grade page. When logging in, remember:

Teacher Name: nealkel
Password: Your permapassword (used for KerPoof)

There are other games available here as well.

Have fun!

We've been talking a little about weathering (mechanical and chemical) and today performed a small experiment to replicate what acid rain can do to rocks. I thought I'd post the animation we briefly looked at here for the children if they wanted to see it again.

There is another interesting animation called The Tale of Lucy Lake located at the link found by clicking the picture below.


We've recently been discussing adjectives, too. The children liked the online games, of course, and Mrs. Kennedy has so kindly posted them on the third grade page. Just scroll down to "Parts of Speech" and you'll find plenty of adjective games.

I also found this site on accident over the weekend. It is a collection of stories, read aloud by various celebrities. I had fun listening!

As we start our studies of a few Spanish explorers who visited Florida, I thought I'd share a site or two about explorers in general.

Mr. Nussbaum has collected numerous sites for children that include information about explorers, including pirates! Though this site is a little advanced, most of our explorers are represented here, at The Mariners' Museum. You can find the routes they took, images, and a summary of accomplishments (and failures).

Enjoy the weekend and stay warm!
:)Mrs. Neal

Happy New Year!

Today's been a full day! I introduced the newest vocabulary words in Wordly Wise. You can review their meanings below.

Lesson 7

We also entered five new spelling words into our Spelling Dictionaries:
knew, new, won, wear, where

During math, we first reviewed the multiplication facts. This was prettier before I uploaded it to Slideshare, but perhaps it can still be helpful when practicing your math facts.

The math lesson focused on reading large numbers (into the ten thousands). There is a tutorial here that might help, and you can also use this site or this one for a review. There is a fun game here from Toon University you might enjoy.

I also like the games Guess My Number, Place a Number, and Place a Number II.

After lunch, we shared a few blogs that hadn't been shared yet. We also talked about our next Social Studies project: Explorers. The students named a few famous explorers they remembered such as...



After we discussed why explorers might have been interested in traveling to unknown areas of the world, we watched a video about Christopher Columbus from History's Mysteries. It was a lot of fun!

This afternoon we talked about our Reading Counts goals for the year and calculated how many points everyone would need to earn each month in order to reach those goals. It helped everyone set appropriate goals for January.

At the end of the day we visited the library for a bit of silent reading and discussed the results of our lima bean/plaster experiment from last month. Evidently plants DO have the power to make rock crack and crumble! There will be more about that later, but you can check out some examples of weathering here in the meantime.