How Mr. McDougall Spent His Saturday

I went to a Digital Photography Workshop at the Guggenheim Museum.  It was to bring notice to an amazing photographer named Pedro E. Guerrero, who was the official photographer for Frank Lloyd Wright (VERY FAMOUS ARCHITECT). He was just 22 when he met Mr. Wright, but his talent was obvious.

See students, on my day off, I went to SCHOOL to LEARN!  Learning never stops! #PedroPBS #GuggenheimMuseum #ProjectLuz

Our Instructor - Professional Photographer Sol

The Collage my partner and I created (my picture has the yellow leaves)

I learned how to adjust my camera to make light images dance!

practicing with light and shadow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pedro Guerrero was the official photographer for Frank Lloyd Wright.  If you want to know more about him, or watch the American Masters Documentary about his life and career, go to this link.  Pedro E. Guerrero: A Photographer's Journey. 

Selfie Friday!

The first of our DonorsChose.Org books have arrived!

DonorsChose.Org books

DonorsChose.Org books

Windy Friday

• 1st Period 
• Ms. Galan for Science
• 2nd Period
• We were invited to attend a performance/assembly today in the auditorium. The topic was about eating right, getting enough rest, and not stressing over test anxiety.  Kids learned they need 11 hours of sleep to recharge their brain.  They also learned they need to drink at least 5 glasses of water a day to keep their brain functioning well.  Each child was given a nice bookmark to help them remember what they learned today.
• 3rd Period - Math 
• The students had a short math block today due to the assembly.  We did a timed quiz on 2's and 3's multiplication facts.  At this point, they should have their 0's, 1's. 2's and 3's memorized.  The should not be working on their 4's and 5's.  We will test them on 4's next week and 5's the week after.  We then proceeded to do number talks and problem of the day.  We got about 5 minutes into GoMath Lesson 4.6 before Ms. Avalos told the students we would finish the lesson on Monday.
• 4th - Literacy Block
• We did lesson 1B.14 today in ReadyGen.  We finished reading our book "Let's Classify Organisms" and then worked on comparing and contrasting plant and animal cells.  We used the section on plants to show how you find facts to support the main idea of a section.
• 5th - Lunch / Long Recess
• 6th - Literacy Block
• We lost about 15 minutes of our literacy block to our extended fun Friday recess. When we got back we did our lesson in writing about the next phase in the writing process, drafting.  We are not quite ready to start drafting, but we were ready to start note-taking.   I passed out graphic organizers to help them keep related information together.  After going over how to do it, they had about 25/30 minutes to start re-reading their articles and putting facts into the three categories they want to talk about.  For example, one category might be "what they look like".  Another might be "what they eat".  Other examples might be "how they hunt" or "where you can find them".  They had to look at their information and decide what they wanted to SHARE in their news article they will write for their PBA next week.  
• 7th - Wrap Up
• We passed out homework, let them continue to work on their SchoolIn turkey coloring contest entries, and Ms. Avalos read to them from our class novel "Emma on the Air!"   We are almost finished with both the coloring project and the book!  We cleaned up the room and got ready to go home.

Homework:

1. Writing - Continue putting facts/details into three graphic organizers for drafting next week!
2. Math - Practice your 4's and 5's multiplication facts
3. Writing - Fill out your "Thankful Card" for our door display for the holiday.
4. Read - Independent Reading for 20-30 minutes each night!

Chatty Thursday

I don't know if it was the day off yesterday, or the fact that it is grey and raining out... but the students were a little too talkative today.  Only with focus and hard work will they be ready for the challenges that face them on the state tests in April.  We can't afford to have days like this!

• 1st / 2nd Literacy Block
• First we started the day writing down our I can statements and then practicing vocabulary with our Word Ladder.  We then moved into reading pages 10-15 of our new text "Let's Classify Organisms".  We are still working on using text features and the text to understand main idea and key ideas that support it.   After working with the text, I broke the students into their groups to start doing research on their animal for their Performance Based Assessment we are staring.  They had 25 minutes to read their articles, use highlighters, and get an understanding about their animal.  Tonight for homework they have to finish reading their articles so tomorrow they can decide on what 3 aspects of their animal they want to focus on for writing.  
• In writing we talked about the process of planning and pre-writing.   We went over the steps and looked at the organizers we will be using to put our information in an organized manner and be ready for drafting.   We talked about having to read all the articles first to be able to pick the aspects to focus on, then when you are done, pick the three most important or interesting aspects and then go back through the articles, this time to move the information to the right planning document.
• 3rd/4th Math Block
• First we started with a 2 minute timed multiplication test.  The only student to get all 30 problems correct in 2 minutes was Marlena!  She will get to use the ipad during future fact checks since she showed she knows em!  Way to go Marlena!
• Mrs. Avalos did number talks today, still working on using mental math to subtract.  
• After that, Mrs. Avalos went over the problem of the day and had students think about different ways to solve it.  
• Students then broke into independent work which was the mid-chapter review. 
• When they finished they turned in their work and were allowed to take AR tests for books they read, check out new books from the library, or work on reading their articles for their PBA in literacy.
• 5th - Lunch
• 6th - PE
• 7th - Housekeeping
• We passed out and went over homework.   We then passed out and went over the book order forms for November.  They are due back by 11/17/2015.  The more you read, the better you become.  Finally, Mr. Johnny read from the class novel "Emma on the Air!" as students colored quietly for a Thanksgiving Coloring Contest from Schoolin.  We can win a class prize and also individual prizes.  Fingers Crossed!!

Homework:

• Reading:  Read and highlight all your articles for your Animal PBA
• Math:  Assessment Task (3 - Half Sheets)
• Math:  Study 2's and 3's Multiplication Facts
• Spelling:  Practice Sheet (Test Tomorrow)

Jazz Concert Dance Off Videos

Jazz Concert Pictures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a Great Day!

And they are back!  I don't know what happened Monday, but MY class showed back up today.  They were well behaved, asking and answering questions... this was the third grade class that makes me excited to be their teacher!!!

• 1st and 2nd Period - Literacy Block
• Today we started with our favorite way to learn new words - WORD LADDERS!  The kids had to read clues to figure out how to manipulate words to make new ones.  They love doing it and at the end of the session, we have 10 new words and definitions we can use in our reading and writing.  After that we passed out our new nonfiction text "Let's Classify Organisms". This book is a level Q so we discussed the importance of participation and paying attention during read aloud.  We also talked about how important it was to ask questions to make sure they understand the tasks and text.
• Our focus today stayed with understanding out text structure helps with understanding.  We did what good readers do and examined the parts of the book before we started reading:  Cover, back, Table of Contents, etc...  We discussed our ideas of what we would be learning and what we were looking forward to learning. Then I read pages 4-9 to start our study.  We stopped and did table discussions along the way, making sure that everyone was involved and understood what we were doing.  I did an acting skit where I pulled people up and we had to figure out how I grouped them.. how I classified each group.  They really seemed to understand the concept after finishing.  
• We finally moved to the writing process and the first part is planning.   We discussed what the Performance Based Assessment was asking them to do.  They will have to do research on a living thing and write a news article about them.  We have practiced all the skills, so I gave the the top 10 list of endangered animals, and as a group we narrowed it to our most interesting 5.  I will allow them to pick one of those five animals to do their study on.  The finalist were: leopard, lemur, gorilla, sea turtle, and the tiger.  I will let them sign up for their group and I will give them kid friendly articles for them to read and take notes from.  

• 3rd - Math 
• Today we did more number talks seeing how much they could pull in from yesterday.  We are still working on mental subtraction, so they are slowly getting more ways to do numbers in their heads.   Finally we moved to the problem of the day, also with subtraction.  They are slowly getting better at the process, but still having trouble slowing down, reading, and understanding word problems.  (READ MORE!!)  We looked at the interactive lesson GoMath! 4.5 on multiplying by 7.  We were just starting the independent practice when we had to go to the American Jazz performance in the auditorium.
• 4th - Jazz Concert
• LET ME TELL YOU!!! My little ones can DANCE!  Mr. McDougall started it off by pulling little Ms. Chantal up to dance.. .and before I knew it...  all the kids were up and dancing.  I can't wait to download the pictures and video from the phone and post them.  SO MUCH FUN! 
• 5th - Lunch
• 6th - Science with Ms. Galan
• 7th - Math Wrap Up
• We had to finish the math lesson, then we read some more of our class novel "Emma on the Air!"

Homework:

• Math:  Lesson 4.5 Homework Practice pp. 219-220
• Math:  Working with Distributive Property Handout
• Spelling:  Practice Sheet
• Reading:  Finish IR book and take AR test on Thursday

Pictures from today's concert to come!!

Movie Night at PS8

Parents and Students Invited!

Friday, November 13th

6:00 - 8:00 PM

Just $4

PS8 Auditorium

Doors Open at 5:30

Advance Tickets Available November 10, 12th, and 13th!

Snacks will be available for purchase

Way to Talkative Monday

Well parents, today was not the day I was hoping for.  We have really been starting to move forward and today it was like starting over from scratch.  The students were sluggish, not participating, and were having a hard to processing or answering questions at all.  Don't know what happened between Friday and Today.. but it was as if they were different students.  Hopefully tomorrow we REBOUND back to my smart third graders!!!

• 1st and 2nd - We started the day with number talks. Today's focus was on subtracting using mental math, finding friendly numbers, and then using what you already know to solve mental math problems.  We then moved to our Problem of the Day to see if they could remember the wording to create a multiplication sentence.  After that we moved into lesson 4.4 on using the distributive property in multiplication.  
• 6 x 8 can be thought of as 6 x (4 + 4)  since 6x4 is easier than 6x8.
• So then it becomes 6x4 + 6x4  (still 6 x 8 really)
• 24 + 24 = 48
• We wanted the students to see that if they don't know the bigger facts, they can break them down (distribute) them into smaller chunks to get the right answer.  4 x 25 is the same as 4x10 + 4 x 10 + 4 x5   or 4 x (10+10+5) 40 + 40 + 20 or 100!   We worked through the unlock the problems using the interactive lesson online.  Then students did the try this on their own.  Homework is the practice section. 

• 3rd and 4th - We started 3rd period off taking our Week 7 Spelling Pretest.  The words this week focus on the A sound with AI and AY as the focus.  The kids did ok, but need to do a lot of studying this week.  We then went into Readygen Lesson 1B.11 on using the text structure to understand main idea and key details.  They had to look at the books and using the structure, find meaning.  We did a read aloud from National Geographic Kids SPIDERS (#146076) together.  We discussed all the key text features and how they give meaning to the text and help you understand the topic.  We took the AR test and then moved into independent work which was using a 4 column chart to find examples of "Capital Letters", "Boldface Words", "Captions" and "Bullets" in the class text - "At the Root of It".  After modeling on pages 3-5, students were sent off to independently work through the rest of the text, take any AR tests they needed to take, and then independently read.   They did not work very fast today, so the lesson took a long time to accomplish.
• 5th - Lunch (No recess today - too talkative, not working hard)
• 6th - Dance with Mr. Nunez
• 7th - For the first 15 minutes, Ms. Avalos read from the class novel "Emma on the Air!"   Then we started Chapter 1 of our Science Book about plants.  We read part of the chapter, again focusing on the text elements and how they help us understand the text.

Homework:

• Math - Lesson 4.4 Practice  pp. 213-214

• Reading - Quick Read Week 3 Day 3

• Spelling - 2 x each

Spelling List - Week 7

Ida Siegal - "Emma on the Air!" Author talks to the 3rd grade at PS08