Truss Bridge Creations

Tyler wanted to share his Truss bridge with everyone this week. We have been creating Truss bridges for our end of unit project in science- Building and Testing. Students learn different building techniques (see Mia's post of her Stable Animal) which lead us to build bridges for our Grade 3 Bridge Building Competition.

Tyler's team created this bridge over two week. They first created their bridge deck, then added the trusses and finally the cover. Each bridge must span 30 cm and hold at least 1 kg of weight. We test all the bridges in grade 3 together and the bridge which holds the most wins. We have tons of fun breaking them- I mean testing them!

During the bridge building we also incorporate social studies and math. Students must buy popsicle sticks and rent the glue they are using, through their companies, to construct the bridges. Sometimes the market increases and it costs more, depending on supply and demand. Also, some groups find themselves not having enough money to complete their bridges and must to "The bank" to borrow money and create payment plans.

Kids are having tons of fun and we will test in two weeks when the other grade 3 classes are done. I will post pictures of that as well!

Here is Tyler's Bridge.

Building Stable Animals

Amelia had the most fun this year creating her animal in science this week. We are currently on our building and testing units in science (I blend both together because they hit on similar ideas) and we are investigating the concept of stability.

For these projects, I had the students break into companies that they will work in for the unit. They have named their companies and have also created banks and cards for their business. Their businesses are given certain tasks to do each week based on my demonstrations that I do at the beginning of the week. They must use prior knowledge and lessons that they learned from our labs to create different structures.

This week we investigated different stable shapes and how humans are stable. Based on the information taught, students had to create an animal that was stable out of recyclable materials. Students could buy or rent materials from the class (money came out of profits from other projects) or could bring in materials needed from home.

They had to create a plan and a materials list. If (when I test tomorrow) their structure is deemed stable and safe, their group could earn up to $40 dollars for this project. I assess in my assessment book, giving a limited, acceptable or proficient as well.

Amelia's company "Compression Crew" created a puppy for us. Enjoy the pictures!

Grade 3 Van Gogh!

We created these wonderful Van Gogh creations the other week and the kids loved them. Very easy to do. I put the link in an earlier post of where I got the idea (off of Pinterest) and wanted to post the final project.

First we had students look at Starry Night by Van Gogh and pick out elements they will have in their picture. We focused around the moon, stars and swirls.

Next we had students draw with white, black, grey and yellow crayons on large pieces of paper to create the night sky.

Finally we used different colours of blue and washed the paper with paint in order to create the darkened sky. Of course the paint does not cover the wax and you can see the crayon through it.

Here's the final products, they turned out GREAT!

Jasmine's Proudest Moment

Jasmine chose to include her research for the postcard project that we did awhile ago. Students were really excited about this project and I am so glad that they loved doing it. I will have to use it again and maybe find a way to incorporate it into more literacy projects that they will complete. 

The bottom picture is of the sheet the students were given to do research from the text book. Students were then asked to pick only 1 region and write a sentence for each box. That is how the postcard was created. Above, in the first picture, was Jasmine's rough copy before she did the good copy on the computer.

This example really demonstrates how much work Jasmine puts into every day tasks and I am so proud of her because she does work so very hard at everything she does.

Keep up the amazing work Jaz!

Best Work- Proud Moment

Luke's proudest moment of Grade 3 was his December Reading Log. He is proud of the log because he actually read all of the nights. This earned him 32 dollars for his bank and to buy classroom coupons.

Luke puts this reading log into his reading portfolio. His reading portfolio is a collection of all the reading adventures and activities he has accomplished so far this year. It showcases Luke's growth as a reader. He is also proud of the book recommendation he completed in January, getting the highest mark in the class. 7/7.
I usually do these in different colours, depending on the month (i.e. pink for February) but my school is cutting back on coloured paper so I printed these off before I bought them. I think it makes the portfolio look a little livelier.

Keep up the great work Luke!

Comic Strip

Bennett, who designed our lettering for the title of our blog, as created the comic strip below.  More comics and art projects to come. On Friday we will be trying to create our own Van Gogh- idea from Pinterest.

http://www.parents.com/fun/arts-crafts/painting/recreate-mastpiece-paintings/?rb=Y#page=2

We will let you know how they turn out!

Classroom Adventures

Austin wanted to highlight his Postcard project that we did for social studies.

1. Students had to research a specific region of a country we are studying.
2. They then had tell me about the region (the climate, environment and landscape) in a postcard like they were visiting the country.
3. Finally the students went to travellerspont.com and they picked a picture to create a postcard and send it via email to myself, then their parents to share!

It was a fun project to do and they loved sending the postcard. I gave them a mark out of five for incorporating the materials that was on their research sheets (climate, land, bodies of water, using land and water, caring for the environment) plus a mark if their picture on the postcard was connected with their region.
The students also did a self assessment of how well they worked with their research groups!

Thanks Austin for sharing :)