A House for a Mouse!

As a class, we are reading Beverly Cleary's, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, and loving it! We've enjoyed reading about the spunky main character, a mouse named Ralph, who rides his motorcycle through many adventures in the novel. As an extension to our literacy unit, the students created houses for Ralph using all recycled materials from their homes. They wrote a letter to Ralph, persuading him to travel from California to The Woodlands to live in their mouse house. We had such fun with this family project!

The kids were excited to see the creativity of their peers and I was amazed at what clever items were used to make Ralph's house a home for him. Way to go guys!

Students were encouraged to work on this project independently, using parents and siblings as "consultants" only. I was so proud of their ingenuity and resourcefulness.

This is a house fit for a king! I was impressed by the ways that the students personalized their houses to show the things they've learned about our main character. Many kids included a garage for Ralph's motorcycle and a kitchen where he could make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for himself. Ralph would be lucky to live in any of their homes!

Each student presented their mouse house and letter to their classmates. They described the unique features of their home as well as interesting recycled materials that were used to create it. I'm always proud to watch the kids speak about their hard work and stand in front of their peers to make a presentation. They are becoming so confident and well-spoken!

The letters to Ralph were my favorite part of the project. The kids were quite persuasive and I was reminded about how wonderful our community in The Woodlands really is! Ralph would make a perfect citizen and we welcome a visit from him anytime!

Our Mouse Houses and letters are on display in our school's library for other students to see. I'm so proud!

Pen Pals

We are excited to become pen pals with Mrs. Eldredge's Third Grade class in White Settlement, Texas! Mrs. Eldredge and I taught next door to one another last year in Crowley, Texas, and we look forward to staying in touch and helping our students get to know each other through letter writing. To begin the pen pal process, we first had to brush up on the format of friendly letters. We learned all about proper greetings and closings, and we worked on indentation and spacing so that our letters would be just right!

Each student composed a letter introducing him/herself to their pen pal. The students wrote about their families, their hobbies and interests, and their favorite sports, foods, and books. I encouraged the students to ask plenty of good questions that would help them get to know their new pals. I was so impressed at the beautiful letters that we shipped off to White Settlement! We are awaiting a response from Mrs. Eldredge's class and we will be sure to post more about our pen pal adventures.

Zoo Field Trip - It was WILD!

Coulson Tough third graders took a trip to the Houston Zoo and had a wonderful time! See below for pictures of all the smiling faces!

Thank you to all of our hard-working chaperones! We literally couldn't have done this trip without your help. Our classes (Mrs. Richardson's and mine) had more than 17 parents attend the trip. Wow!

Mrs. Bauer, Me and Mrs. Littrell

All that fun made us tired! Time to return to school!

A Moon Snail!

One of our students brought in a moon snail to show the class to show to our class. In our novel, Sarah, Plain and Tall, the main character moves from the seaside to the prairie to live with a new family. She brings gifts that remind her of the sea for the two children, Anna and Caleb. To Caleb she gives a moon snail. Since we don't live anywhere near the Maine sea shore, one of our students brought a moon snail to help the class imagine what Sarah brought for the children.

He also brought in research from the internet about this interesting creature. Thanks so much!

"Sarah, Plain and Tall" Charcoal Sketches

As a class we are reading the novel Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLauchlan - and we are LOVING it! In one of the chapters, the main character, Sarah, sketches the prairie using charcoal. I decided to recreate this experience for the students by allowing them to draw using artist's charcoal. We created sketch books and we drew the things that Sarah may have seen on the farm.

Drawing a windmill...
And a sheep...

And the prairie that rolls like the waves of the sea...

The kids worked so hard on their work and they enjoyed practicing different techniques with the charcoal.

Some of the techniques were rather, well, unique, but all of the art turned out beautifully!

Perhaps their favorite part was that it was allowed to be messy! Our hands were filthy afterwards and we looked like chimney sweeps! : )

Even better was the fact that today was our class picture day and the kids were wearing their best fancy clothes - yikes! But it just happened that picture day and chapter 5 coincided perfectly, so we had to be brave and go where most teachers dare not go- messy art work!

Next week we hope to take our charcoal sketchbooks outside to draw our own surroundings here at Coulson Tough.