5.31.11

Happy last day of May, everyone!!!  Is it a GORGEOUS day or what?!?  I am sorry about not posting on Thursday or Friday of last week..."Blogger" has been a bit spastic lately and I could not get it to work!  I feel so disconnected when I don't get to post!

Today was our field trip to Gatti-Town.  I have to admit, I believe we were the BEST behaved class there!  Everywhere we go, I get more and more proud of our babies...they're so tremendous!!!  We had such a GREAT time and everyone won some really cool prizes, indulged in delicious pizza, and enjoyed quality time with friends. 

Upon our return, we worked on our "country" projects where students are researching a country in which they'd like to vacation and are creating a poster about it containing TONS of information and compiling facts into a poster with the following tasks...

capital city

population

size/ area (square mileage)

climate

dominant languages spoken

a drawing of the flag

traditional cuisine

10 adjectives to describe the place

popular attractions, culture, and tradition

3 reasons you would want to go there

a persuasive paragraph to parents or guardians, convincing them to take you there

pictures to represent popular things associated with place.

I did this with my 4th graders last year, and these 3rd graders are blowing their projects completely out of the water!  They're really doing a super magnificent job!

Here are some pictures from our day today!
xoxo,
Mrs. Thomas

P.S. Remember, your $2.50 for the Living Arts and Science presentation on Thursday is due ASAP!!!!  Also, do not forget that our 3rd grade awards are at 10:15 on Friday morning.  If you wish to continue celebrating with your student after the awards at home, you certainly may!

5.25.11

Happy Wonderful Wednesday, Friends!!! 
TONIGHT IS BUSINESS NIGHT!!!  Please plan on arriving before 6 to help set up your stations and the vent will last until 7PM.  All proceeds benefit Jarrett's Joy Cart!!  I hope everyone can attend!

Today, we...

typed on our personal narratives on the mini-laptops

played ECONOMICS games on the mini-laptops (to continue playing, visit: www.gamequarium.com/economics.html)

voted on awards for our Class Awards and 3rd grade end-of-the-year program in the gym at 10 a.m. next Friday (June 3rd).

finalized our products and supplies for this evening
worked on our pages for our class yearbook

Again, we hope to see you tonight!!
Only 6 more days of school left (that's a :) for summer...and a :( because I will miss you all sooooo much!)
xoxo,
Mrs. Thomas

purple "Duck Tape" glasses, compliments of Caroline!

the artist...
WORD!

5.24.11

We had a super special visitor today...T.G. Shuck from Channel 27 Newsfirst (WKYT) was here to talk to us about weather!  He is so wonderful and we learned so much about all the elements of weather and how storms form.  It was really cool to hear about all the components of his job and exactly how he does what we does.  Be sure and watch WKYT TONIGHT at 5PM to see a video of US (the 3rd grade) that TG took and will put on the news.  He said it should be after the extended weather forecast so don't miss it!

HE took OUR picture!

taking our video :)

talking about weather!

what a special visitor!

...AND, today is our "Peanut's" (Zach's) birthday!!!  Happy 10th birthday, Peanut!  We love you!  And thank you so much for the awesome cupcakes!  They were so good...we've never seen so much icing in our lives!  Yummmm-oooo!!!!

Peanut and his army cake



troops on the battle front :)

Happy Birthday to youuuuuu

look at alllllllll that goodness :)

PM activities:
We got to watch Garden Springs PAC's production of Pinocchio, starring Jemima Gervis (Tabitha's sister) and many other awesome GSE students that we know and love!  GREAT JOB guys...you were wonderful and we are so proud!

Hannah from my homeroom last year!

Jared...a 5th grader from my homeroom last year!

Andrew from my homeroom last year too..Aiden's big brother!!!

a proud sister...
Caroline and Savannah

view from the audience

performing on stage

another very proud sister...
Tabi with her sister Jemima, the star of the show!!

Have a terrific Tuesday night and DO NOT FORGET that tomorrow is BUSINESS NIGHT from 6-7PM in the cafeteria!  We need as many students here as possible to run their product stations!  All proceeds will benefit Jarrett's Joy Cart (visit: http://www.thejoycart.com/ for more information). 
xoxo,
Mrs. Thomas

Other reminders:
**we DO have school on Friday (weather make-up day)
**NO school on Monday 30th...HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!
**our Field Trip to Gatti-Town is Tuesday, May 31st.
**Your $2 for our in-school Living Arts and Science Center field trip is due ASAP
**3rd grade AWARDS assembly is NEXT Friday, June 3rd at 10a.m. (**if you wish to spend the rest of the day with your student after the awards, you certainly may!)
**our LAST DAY of school is Friday, June 3rd!  (I'll be sending home a summer activity folder for each student for those rainy days or days in which you may be feeling a little "bored".  There are waaaaay cool Science experiments like making "goo" or a cloud!  Also, there are several reading lists and activities, math practice for 4th grade and other activities to try!  I will put a stamped envelope already addressed to me in the folders as well so you have NO excuse to not write me a letter!  Plus, if you write me one, I'll write you one back...how fun, huh?!?)

BULLDOG BITES - Week of: May 23, 2011

This Week at Garden Springs:

May 23 - MONDAY (Day 5):
3rd MAP Testing Window Continues (3/7-5/25)
1:10p: OSCAR Presents

May 24 - TUESDAY (Day 6):
PAC Presents:Pinocchio 1:10p: Daytime Performance
5:00-6:00p: Fazoli’s Dinner
6:30-7:15p:Evening Performance
May 25 - WEDNESDAY (Day 1):
Spirit Day (wear your GSE t-shirt or sweat-shirt)
3rd MAP Testing Window Ends (3/7-5/25)
9:30a: Kindergarten Program
1:10p: Make-up date for OSCAR Presents (if necessary)
Principal’s Letter goes home
3RD GRADE BUSINESS NIGHT (6PM in Cafeteria)

May 26 - THURSDAY (Day 2):

May 27 - FRIDAY (Day 3):
SCHOOL IN SESSION —Weather make-up day (Dec. 17)

5.20.11 - FUN DAY!!!

TO MY EXTRAORDINARY, SENSATIONAL, and oh so very WONDERFUL 3RD GRADERS:

I hope you had a blast on your FUN DAY/ KITE DAY!!!  I so wish I could have been there with you, but you were in my every thought!  I can't wait to see you on Monday and hear allllllllll about it!

I love you!

xoxo,

Mrs. Thomas

P.S., GUESS WHAT?!?  Some of the posts that got deleted last week when "Blogger" went on the "fritz" for a bit have now shown back up in my Blogger Dashboard so I was able to re-post them!!!  Thus, some dates seem out of order (like Wednesday and Thursday from last week are ahead of Monday's and Thursday's posts from this week!), so sorry for the disorganization present on the blog today (it won't be that way next week), and enjoy catching up on reading from "lost" posts that have been recovered!  

5.11.11: an "egg"cellent day!

Some may color me crazy, but I engaged us in a super involved activity today to explore the effects of gravity and how we work against it...we made parachutes for eggs!!  Ahhhhh!!!!

After some math practice with telling time (on analog clocks!) and actually figuring out how many seconds there are in a day (86,400), week (604,800), and year (31,536,00), and then how many minutes and hours there are in a year (525,600 minutes & 8,760 hours), we got started on our Science activity/ experiment that took the remainder of the morning.

We are learning about force & motion on Earth and before we can learn about simple machines, we must understand that gravity is the greatest force as it is what keeps us and everything else grounded.  The Earth pulls all objects on its surface towards the center.  Our weight is actually our gravitational pull towards our planet.  Thus, we must study how things are able to fly or how things are able to survive after being in air (sky divers, planes, birds, etc.).  Science is all about discovery learning and this activity was no exception to that.  After discussing the focus of the activity, the students were set free in their groups to figure out how to get an egg to land safely on the ground, without breaking, after dropping it from many feet off the ground.  They were to make an egg parachute!  3 of the 6 groups were able to successfully master it by recess!  Below you can see pictures from the process and some of the videos of the trials.  Students worked completely through discovery, without any direction from me, as they had to figure out what went wrong and/ or right with each trial.  It really was exhilarating to see the students figure out the situation on their own...they're smart little cookies!

HOMEWORK: Visit these websites tonight to view powerpoints about Force and Motion and play games addressing the skills!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/physical_processes/forces_action/play.shtml

http://science.pppst.com/motion.html

http://www.gamequarium.com/forcesandmotion.html

http://classroom.jc-schools.net/sci-units/force.htm

http://www.learningscience.org/psc2bmotionforces.htm

I hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday evening!  I'm so proud of everyone today!

xoxo,

Mrs. Thomas

almost finished!  the leaves ALL have information and facts about baby owls!

PS, check this out!  Micah's reward for her most recent fill up of stars on her "Earn & Reward" card was to make a bulletin board about anything of her choice.  She had Caroline helping her as they created the cutest and most wonderful board about baby owls!  It is absolutely fantastic!

"Whoooooooo Baby"!

Micah and her Daddy :)