Room 13 All-Stars: Weekly Update

With the snow day and so many absent third graders...last week was an interesting week!

All-Star of the Week:

Levi was our amazing all-star last week. He shared photographs of himself and his family...with the favorite being the one of he and his dad in his dad's mail truck. Levi also brought in his favorite book to read to the class and had a smile the whole time he read it! The other big hit was when Levi shared a car he had received when he went to the Detroit Auto Show this year.

Research Workshop:

Last week, the students began their country research. They started the week by learning what research workshop is. Next, they learned how to find books that would help them in their research. They began to record interesting facts in their composition notebooks and also recorded facts about their country in their draft booklets (population, size, which continent it is on, language spoken, etc.). Many students became frustrated when they didn't find the information right away. This was a good struggle for many because they learned that research takes a lot of commitment and perseverance---answers just don't come to us right away!

Adrien recording interesting facts about his country in his composition notebook.

Hannah flagging important facts with a sticky note that would later be recorded in her draft booklet.

Ben reading a sub-topic area of interest in his country book.

Fatima reading her country book at her book nook.

Math:

In math, the students continued their study of fractions. After checking homework 7.5, we realized the students needed a more concrete way of comparing fractions to determine if a given fraction was greater than, less than or equal to 1/2. We spent a day cutting out fraction strips and finding ways to fold these strips in eighths, quarters, halves, sixths, thirds and a whole. Once these were labeled, we compared the fractions to one-half. For example...the students used their fourths fraction strip and would line it up with their halves fraction strip. They found that 2/4 = 1/2. This was repeated for other fraction sets (3/4 is bigger than 2/8 or 1/8 is less than 4/6, etc.).

Students then used their fraction strips to complete a math page where any fraction that was larger than one half was colored yellow, any fraction that was exactly one half was colored green and fractions smaller than one half were colored orange.

Social Studies:

We continued our study of the Southeast region this week. After visiting the coal mines of Appalachia, an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, Natchez, Mississippi, and Montgomery, Alabama, we made our final stops in both Memphis, Tennessee and New Orleans, Louisiana. In both Memphis and New Orleans, we learned about some of the most popular musical styles in the southeast. The students worked on their tour stop writing as they listened to Dixieland Jazz, Delta Blues, Cajun music and Bluegrass.

You can see in the photos below that in the Southeast Region, the students traveled by boat (fisherman hats) rather than by train like in the Northeast.