Pentominoes

Today we just have a lesson on Polyominoes and Pentominoes. I hope that all of you really enjoy the lesson. For your reference, I just want to put up pictures of the square or rectangle that made up of 12 Pentominoes possibilities.

Mother's Day

You may know that next Sunday, May 9, is Mother's Day. Throughout this week, our class will have different activities relating to this day. One of the activities would be create a craft piece for your Mom. I found this website very useful for generating ideas. You can have a look through and think of one or two things you want to make. Have fun and good luck!

Let's have a fun read!

Dear all,

Our class will have literacy circle starting from next week. We are, divided into groups of 3-4 members each, going to read 5 books as pictured.

Each group can choose any title from the above list. And there'll be different roles that assigned to each group member. The reason I choose these books is they all hilarious and funny with lots of nice, colorful illustrations.

I will explain more about this activity when we start next Monday. For now, you just have a look at the book cover and think which one you may pick. I'm sure that every book will give you lots of laugh.

Transformation

Hello my 3rd graders. Seems that we have pretty much lessons on Language Arts. NOw I'm gonna give you some lessons on other subjects, such as Math. The lesson today is about geometric transformation. Sound difficult to you? No, it's not. Because in fact, you already see a lot of transformations in nature or everyday life but you don't know that those are called geometric transformation. The clock turns it hands, Mom flips the pancake, etc.

Here is the brief introduction about three basic transformations of Flip, Slide, and Turn. And let's do some practice with this and this

And, do you know the photo that I put on top of this post, is it a Flip, a Turn, or a Slide? Whoever got this correct will get one point extra in the coming Math test.

Color of the Spring

Great, everybody seemed enjoying your Spring break. I know that many of you were back from Washington D.C, joining Cherry Blossom Festival. To keep the memories fresh about the trip, and especially to celebrate the Spring together, let's color this page. More worksheets about Spring will be given to you soon.

Happy Easter

Easter is already around the corner. There are so many ways to celebrate this holiday. Today, in class, we'll celebrate together by completing this worksheet . Hope that all of you have fun and again, Happy Easter!

Poetry Day

World Poetry Day is on March 21, which is Sunday for the year 2010. That's why we celebrate it today. In class, each of you will read a poem of your favorite. Then we can share and discuss about some poems. If we still have time, we can do another activity which is drawing picture of your poem or create and decorate your poem page. I put here an example of a poem page

Science Fair

Our school had Science Fair last Wednesday. There are a lot of cool projects in three topics of Physical Science, Earth Science & Life Science. Students chose topics last October and turned in this January. All projects made on board with an abstract to go with. The Judge worked from 4 to 5pm and the Fair was from 6 to 7pm. Though it was chilly and raining slightly, still many parents and students came in. Following are some facts about the Fair:

Principal awards:
- Which parachute is best for an egg?
- Do Debbie Meyer green bags really work?
- Fruit batteries
- Weekday vs. weekend: Which one of these has the most effect on the blood glucose of a person with type 1 diabetes?
- What bread molds the fastest?

Most projects, including winning ones, on or relating to food and and fruits. Here just to name a few:
- Fruit batteries
- What brand of white bread molds the fastest?
- Spoiled Rotten!
- Got milk?
- How strong is your sandwich bag?

Interesting/strange ideas:
- Who's mouth is cleaner dogs or humans?
- Attention span of cats

Nice title:
- Battle of the sexes: Memory Edition

Attached photos are some winning projects which can participate in 35th Annual Jersey Shore Science Fair hosted by Stockton College on March 20.

Everything is possible, everything is seeable

I found this website is very useful for any teacher and prospective teacher. There are videos for any topics and subject areas and any grade levels. Anything you can think of,even persuasive writing, is being visualized. Isn't it great?

Spelling Bee

Our school just have annual Spelling Bee Contest last Wednesday. There are winners and losers. For those who couldn't make it until the end, don't be sad. Here I wanna show you a video. Hope that you enjoy it. LOL

TESTING TIME

Hello everyone,

Our class is at the end of the third marking period. Everybody is anticipating their grades. But before you get your real scores, try this small test on root words. There are more quizs in the website. Hope that this will help you less anxious and more excited. Good luck!

TESTING TIME

Hello everyone,

Our class is at the end of the third marking period. And everybody is anticipating their grades. But before you get your real scores, try this small test on root words. There are more quizs in the website. Hope that this will help you less anxious and more excited. Good luck!

Parents- Schools Communication

Today, with speedy technology development, we've known many cool online communication tools that strengthen the relationship between parents and schools. Some of them are PowerSchool, SchoolFusion, Moodle, Edline, Homework Portals, eBoards.

However, non-tech or interpersonal communication is still very important. Below are some strategies that bridge schools and parents:

* First call home or first listening session: "Tell me about your child"
* Home writing journal
* Invite families to come and read (in any language)
* Coffee and donuts one morning a week
* Make use of the elementary school "hand-off"
* Research projects on communities issues
* Organize child care activities

And here is the chart that compare the two ways of communication: tech and non-tech

Free Worksheets

Following are just some of many websites that provide teachers and parents free worksheets to help their kids practice and master language arts. They are in order of preference:

TLS Books : you don’t have to make/create, just click on the link and it’s ready to print out

Soft School : very simple and you can design it by yourself with the choices of font, font sizes, etc

Super Teacher : very comprehensive, no need to sign up

ABC Teach : well structured, with many activities, not only worksheets

Education.com : need Acrobat Reader to download, more comprehensive in all subject areas

Worksheet Library : well organized, comprehensive, but have to sign up

What to do when I'm done?

Many kids say that they don't know what to do when they have free time; especially when there's no homework or homework is done, there's no new movies coming out (hey, have I told you that I'll take you to the movies? :-)), there's no chance to go out for a playdate, so on and so forth. Here are some websites that give you fun games with words. So, come and play. Play and learn, too (learning again, are you kidding?)

http://pbskids.org/games/vocabulary.html

http://www.playkidsgames.com/games/pinball/vocabulary/pinballvocab1.htm

http://www.funbrain.com/words.html

http://www.vocabulary.co.il/games2/hangman/hman.php

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/word_games/word_games_syllables.html

Keep coming back for more updated games and websites!

Interactive Books

Interactive books have text and illustrations similar to traditional picture books, but they incorporate computer technology to enhance children’s learning experience. They feature audio renditions of the entire text as children read along, pronunciations of individual words when children highlight them, and hotspots that children click to produce sound effects and graphic animations where characters talk and settings spring to life. Apart from interactive books on CD-ROM, others are available at following websites:

http://storylineonline.net/

http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/asp/about_tumblebooks.asp

http://www.kennedy-center.org/multimedia/storytimeonline/

Tips for 3rd grade struggling writers

Many 3rd graders are reluctant to begin writing, they do not want to revise their work, and they are hesitant to share anything publicly. Below are some tips to support these struggling writers:

According to Dr. Mel Levine’s book Developmental Variation and Learning Disorders, some of the milestones of developing writers during late second to fourth grade are:
- Incorporate standards of capitalization, punctuation, syntax, and grammar
- Seldom plan what they are going to write before they write it
- Use writing to relate experiences rather than to solve problems or develop ideas
- Begin writing in cursive
- Begin revising their work

Based on that, following are some tips for third-grade students who are struggling writers:

- Start with little and familiar things such as daily events or personal experiences. Ask them to take photos and then write captions.

- Ask them to tell about their favorite books/ stories. Anything about the book, even a short quote or a simple summary of the storyline

- Let the students dictate while you write.

- Record the student’s ideas, details, sentences. Reluctant writers are often great speakers. They can talk through their paragraph details, recording the story as well as practice pronunciation, working with an adult to transcribe, edit and finalize.

- Brainstorm ideas/details on a dry erase board or on brightly colored index cards and arrange around the topic card on a wall, a table or the floor. This will also allow the students to write the details in sentence form on the card and then arrange or rearrange the sequence without having to write and rewrite.

- Allow the students to choose and write with interesting/colorful pens/pencils and paper.

- Computer word processing allows your student to change the format. Let them experiment with fonts, font sizes and color and page background to customize their writing.

- Write along side your child. Do the same assignment. Students may resist writing if it is perceived as too difficult or as busy work. Modeling is an invaluable tool. You can describe your thought processes, word and sentence choices as you work together.

- Adding humor can reduce the stress or severity of an assignment with a reluctant writer. Wear silly hats or dress up. Act out ideas before writing. Allow the students to assume the role of the director while you act out his or her story idea. This may generate more details and some laughs as well!

- Author’s chair: encourage them to share their stories/writing with other, first with their classmates, then with outside audience
Provide positive feedback as negative comments will make them more hesitant

Resources for parents

In today's school setting, many parents are concerned about their children's learning with more and more homeworks and assignments, tests and assessments. The workload is too large that they don't know where to start with. However, if you- as a parent- know your child's learning style and his/her multiple intelligences, your support to their learning will be much more efffecive. Following is one reliable source that you and your child can find out his/her unique learning modality as well as multiple intelligences.

You also can have better understanding about learning styles and multiple intelligences by watching this video

Welcome message

Hi, welcome to my blog. I want to become an elementary teacher because I love little kids and I think I'm a very patient person. My major is English but I want to switch to Science, but it's a different story :-). I create this since I want to share my thinking as well as learn from others' experiences.