Literature Genre Study

As we studied about the different genres of literature, the kids and I realized that our classroom library could be much better organized by genre. The kids decided that they would be responsible for sorting the books and maintaining the organization so a great book would be easy to find!

It was a brave undertaking, but the kids did an awesome job. They were very dedicated to their project and demonstrated that they had really learned a lot during our genre study.
Now the challenge is just keeping the library organized! Stay tuned...

Our Class

What a great group! We have 15 boys, 7 girls, and one teacher! :)

We are fortunate to be the only third grade class at Hargrave that has retained all of its original members since August! We are blessed to work together every day.

Plan - Do - Study - Act (PDSA)

Our campus has implemented the Plan - Do- Study - Act method as way to help students set goals and use data to track their progress. We set both long-range goals and weekly goals that we work towards as a class.

First, we make a plan together. Usually our weekly plans relate to a concept we are learning in either math or reading. Our long term goals relate to our TAKS benchmarks and test scores.

Then, we decide what we will do in order to achieve our goals. Together we create a plan for both the teacher and the students. It is fascinating to listen to the kids' ideas... especially about how I can help them as a teacher!

After we have worked toward our goal, we evaluate how our strategies worked. Did we meet our goals? Are we getting closer? Collecting and reviewing data helps us decide how we are doing. In my opinion, the greatest part of the PDSA plan is allowing students to own their progress through data. Displaying measureable results in a graph or chart form makes it easy for students to see how they are doing. I love to see kids excited as we make strides toward reaching our classroom goals.

The last part of the PDSA plan is when we decide if we have met our goal in the given time period. If the answer is "yes", we celebrate! If not, we review our strategies and possibly revise our plan. It is a cycle that keeps students setting goals for their own learning and recognizing the progress they have made.

Reading Buddies

We LOVE reading with our 1st grade buddies from Mrs. Pennington's class!
We read together every Friday morning. The kids (and the teachers!) look forward to our time together. We like to share our favorite books, write back and forth in our Buddy Journals, and author class books together. We are learning a lot from each other!

Simple Machines - Ramps!

The students worked in groups to create a ramp that would cause a marble to roll the furthest possible distance. They used objects around the room to create ramps and then they measured the distance the marble rolled as they made the ramp more steep. We had a ball!