Exploring the Solar System

For 3rd Grade

Today we are going to explore the solar system!

First, have your students look at this google site to learn about each planet in our solar system. (I only mentioned a little about each planet because of our activity – this is just a warm up/refresher of each planet to help students choose which planet they want for activity).

Next, have students read this book I made about the planet Jupiter.

The students are going to create their own book now! Students can choose any planet mentioned on the google site. The students should do 8-10 pages, including pictures and words. It should be written in 1st person as the planet, as seen in my Jupiter book.

Featured Image

Water Cycle

By Jack Taylor & Jenna Rappaport

Grade: 3

Introduction to a unit on the water cycle.

Goal: for students to understand condensation, precipitation, and evaporation. This site helps students by providing defintions, examples, and visuals.

Featured Image: Clipart

Exploring National Parks

Grade: 3rd

As a class, read National Parks of the USA together. This books explores all the National Parks in the United States with information about the animals, plants, and history of each park.

After reading the book, students will pick a park (pins on GoogleEarth) to find more information about.

They will research the animal’s habitats at each park and their interrelationship with nature. (I chose 32 National Parks, about the size of a classroom so every student does 1)

Research topics: Animals that live there, their habitat, their diet, their characteristics, threats challenges they face, adaptations they have made to that habitat, etc.

Google Earth

Featured Image: Max Pixel

Establishing Classroom Community

Grade: 3rd

I chose to make a video on Adobe to show first week of school for classroom expectations.

It can help students to see visuals to understand what they should do.

Class will watch together and then at the end students will share what expectations they would like to add to create a collaborative classroom community.

Direct link to Video:

Featured Image: Jernej Furman on Flickr

Exploring Weather Around The World

Featured image and Jamboard picture:

3-ESS2-2. Obtain and combine information to describe climates in different regions of the world. Analyzing data in 3–5 builds on K–2 experiences and progresses to introducing quantitative approaches to collecting data and conducting multiple trials of qualitative observations. When possible and feasible, digital tools should be used. Represent data in tables and various graphical displays (bar graphs and pictographs) to reveal patterns that indicate relationships. (3-ESS2-1)

“Hello 3rd Graders!

Here in Portland, we experience many different types of weather. We have high temperatures in the summer and low temperatures in the winter.

Not every place, though, has the same weather as us.

Below you will see a screenshot of today’s Jamboard. Labeled is countries around the world.

You with a partner are going to pick a country (there is a slide for each country) and find the average weather of each month.

A country can have a large range of weather depending on its size (think of Portland’s cold weather compared to Florida’s hot weather) so you will research two cities on either side of the country to compare (cities are specified on country’s slide)

You will then represent the 2 cities in a graphical display of your choice (table, bar graph, pictograph, etc)”

Sample of final product – My example below of Finland’s weather:

(My graph done on my iPad)

How tech resources and tools support reaching instructional goal: The state standard is to analyze data of weather from different regions and using technology gives the students the tool to find the data to analyze.

I am from a place of gratitude

I am from the mountain, trees, grapes vines, and strawberry patches

I am from waking up from roosters, sheep, dogs, and the smell of coffee

I am from a family that is full of love and silliness

I am from family sunday dinners and thursday night survivor

I am from weekend getaways to our cabin in the woods, jeep and truck rides on bumpy dirt roads

I am from a town that burned down then together as a community we rebuilt with foundation of love, support, and strength

I am from a kind brother who inspired me

I am from weddings venues and flowers

I am from a place of gratitude for all of these great things in my life

https://express.adobe.com/page-embed.jsI am from a place of gratitude

I chose Adobe Express because I thought it offered more options and was easy to use. I like the way it displays my images and glides through my presentation.

*All photos included on Adobe Express are my own*

Plant’s Life Cycle

3rd grade science – formative assessment after learning about the life cycle.

Standard: 3-LS1-1.: Develop models to describe that organisms have unique and diverse life cycles but all have in common birth, growth, reproduction, and death.  

Hello 3rd graders!

Let’s start today as we normally do with a check-in! Last class, we learned about the life cycle of a flower. We are going to rate how confident we feel about our knowledge on a flower’s cycle on google drawing.

(If majority of class feels confident, proceed to formal assessment down below. If majority of class does not feel confident, do review first)

To demonstrate your knowledge, you are going to draw a model of the flower’s life cycle on google drawings. Fill in where the arrows are of what happens at each stage of the plant’s life cycle.

Great job 3rd graders!!

Glows & Grows

Grade: 3rd, ELA

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.3.3.A:
Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.

Good morning 3rd graders!

We are going to do a check-in on Jamboard to see how everyone is doing this morning. Put a post-it note on the box of how you’re feeling either saying why you feel that way or being more specific on the feeling you currently have.

Example of the Jamboard:

After seeing how as a class we are feeling, let’s remember to be kind to make everyone’s day happy

Last class, we wrote our fictional stories.
Today we are going to read a partner’s and give them some glows and grows!

Remember we are all learning, let’s be nice to one another and help each other grow!

Does your peer’s paper have:

  1. Phrases to signal event order (introduction of characters, setting, climax, closure)
  2. Dialogue (speaking)
  3. Descriptions of actions, thoughts, and feelings

Example of the Jamboard:

Featured Image: Jonathan Kim on Flickr

Jamboard 1 sun picture: OpenClipart

Jamboard 2: glow: noun project Adam Beasley + plants: noun project ilkebrs

Love/Hate Relationship with Technology

Featured Image: Animated Heaven, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

My experience with technology has been a love/hate relationship for a long time.

Technology can be a burden at times through the way we utilize it. Growing up, Instagram became popular beginning of middle school. An already awkward, hard time just became even harder.

Comparing myself vs those on my phone screen became a constant habit. It can be damaging to see photos of people who appear happier than you with lives better than you and still remain content with your own life.

It became too much of a habit to mindlessly go on my phone and go on Instagram. I would scroll for hours even though it didn’t bring me any joy. Once I could recognize that I was wasting too much of my time staring a screen, looking into the filtered lives of others, I wanted to fix it.

Kars Alfrink on Flickr

Trying to break a habit, I set a timer on my phone for the app with a passcode my friend set that I do not know. Since then, I have been much more conscious of my time spent on my screen which has improved my life greatly. Technology can be great, but there is a lot of potential to go down a dark hole that consumes more of our time than it ever should. With that being said, there is love and appreciation I have for technology for helping me many times.

I have very little directional awareness and the thought of not being able to use GoogleMaps to figure out in two seconds where I am going sounds horrifying.

I appreciate technology to keep me closer to loved ones. Having my dad in Arizona, my mom in California, and my partner in the military all around the world, it helps keep me close to all.

As a future educator, I am relieved I have technology to assist me to be the best teacher I can be. If a student has a question I am not sure about, I have the power of Google to help me answer. Lesson ideas, videos to show real-life examples, calculators, and many other helpful tools.

For my future, I plan to balance how I use technology to utilize it to my benefit but not let it be time and emotionally-draining.

Looking Closer at Oregon’s Geography

Context: 3rd grade, geography

Goal: For students to understand Oregon’s geography more in depth. 3.8: Use geographical tools (maps, satellite images, photographs, Google Earth, and other representations) to identify multiple ways to divide Oregon into areas (such as tribal, river systems, interstate highways, county, physical, industry, agricultural).

Hello 3rd graders! Use this interactive map below to show the rivers and mountains in Oregon.

Right: https://picryl.com/media/map-of-oregon-rivers-and-lakes-1ee481 Left: https://nypl.getarchive.net/media/map-of-oregon-territory-probably-prepared-for-the-tenth-census-of-the-united-af7c07

Which River looks the longest?

2nd picture: Kmusser, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 3rd picture: Steven Pavlov https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Senapa

Looking at the map above picture again, answer this question:

2nd Picture: Tony Fischer https://flic.kr/p/5C4B1m 3rd Picture: Shannon https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

1st: Robert Ashworth, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, 2nd: Michael McCullough https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, 3rd: Bonnie Moreland https://www.flickr.com/photos/icetsarina/48374782311

Next class we will learn more about Oregon’s beautiful geography through exploring Google Earth: https://earth.google.com/web/@45.36949114,-121.70322197,2997.55911547a,4184.37327762d,35y,39.19864856h,44.77928334t,0r

Featured Image: https://picryl.com/media/indexed-map-of-oregon-showing-the-railroads-in-the-state-and-the-express-company