3rd Grade Welcomes a New Student

Welcome to Haasini, who has now joined our 3rd grade class!  We are very glad to have her!

Here are some of the reflections from 3rd grade GT this week:

Aditi One way that Billibonk has changed over time is that he used to blame bad luck but now he is learning that why’s = wise.
Dylan The birds might think differently about building nests with herbs now that they’ve seen ants getting into their nests.
Olivia I see a connection between the videos we watched and when we did Billibonk because Frankl helped Billibonk and they are different.

Ask your child about the fun, collaborative math activity we did this week, as well as our search for experts to interview!

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3rd Grade Continues Work on Fast Eating Solutions

Unfortunately, we did not get any usable pics this week:(  However, the 3rd graders were able to get some pretty decent Tinkercad designs finished this week for their 3d printed food bowls.  Hopefully we will be able to share some of those with you next week.  They also began a new book, Billibonk and the Big Itch, and completed Level 1 of Hands-On-Equations.

Aditi Some people might feel different about the word ‘’but’’ because you can use it for fixed and growth mindset ex. but I want to fixed that would work but i think so and so= growth.
Max One way hands on equations changed over time is that it changed from one strategy to 3 strategies.
Dylan If I could sum up today’s learning in 6 words, I would say.We did algebra and did tinkercad
Olivia If I had to sum up the day in 6 words I would say we did math,products and 3D printing.
Harrison One pattern I noticed today was Billion when he scratched his back on the tree and the others did it too.

billibonkitch

3rd Grade Practices “Reverse” Brainstorming

We read some more of Billibonk and the Thorn Patch this week, actually finishing the book.  It is so full of good thinking lessons that the students are still trying to verbalize all that they’ve learned.  In addition, the students learned a new brainstorming technique called, “Reverse Brainstorming.” With this thinking tool, you try to think of ways to solve the opposite of your original problem.  In this case, we were looking for ideas to keep people from eating to0 fast – so the students reverse brainstormed ways to make people eat faster!  They also drew scenes from Billibonk, which will be rough drafts for a project we are doing next week.  Here are some of their thoughts about GT this week:

Aditi Learning about how things we can’t see reminded me about how dangerous little things can be it also fascinated me.I can make a hypothesis about how  dragonflies wings can move the way they do is by a thing inside them that is bendable.
Max Today’s lesson about Billibonk makes me wonder what would happen if the other animals got into cycle of pranking.The thing I think might happen is the jungle will one day get destroyed by all the animals destroying each other home because they live in parts of the jungle.
Dylan I think that Billibonk is important because it teaches us lesson about new ways to think.Bilibonk might start improving how the elephants think about their problems.It could help us by making us think about how we can think about and figure out how to solve our problems.
Olivia From what I learned today about brainstorming,I can infer that people that learn it will have a better idea of how to fix problems in the real world right now.Like eating too  fast or slow.   
Harrison Some changes I would recommend for the elephants would be being friends with the mice because now that the elephants teach the mice a lesson the elephants can be friends with the mice now.   

 

3rd Grade Reflects on Lesson Learned from Billibonk and the Thorn Patch

Here are the students’ comments from GT this week.  Apparently, although we did other things, the Billibonk book we are reading dominated their thoughts!

 

Aditi Based on what I know about from Billybonk I would recommend that they just say sorry instead of playing more tricks on each other because it would help their relationship  
Max Learning about Billibonk reminded me of when I tricked a know it all because he was starting  to be annoying  by bragging and saying he can do anything. When I tricked him he stopped braging about how smart he  is.
Dylan From what I learned today I can infer that we keep learning about Billibonk.Because it teaches us lessons like to never be a know it all.
Olivia I think that not being a know it all is important because everyone will try to trick you to show you you’re not a know it all or try to trick you to show you.
Harrison Today’s lesson about Billibonk makes me wonder what would what would happen if the mice will tell the truth.

3rd Grade Imagines Themselves as Leprechauns

Thanks to Cristian, our 3rd grade blogger, and Alexa, our photographer, for this week’s post!

Today in class we finished Billibonk. and it taught us not to solve the problem first thing. We also did some research on our project, recycling. We went to all these different websites on recycling. Also, we had indoor recess, so we played on an iPad game called Osmo. We even minimized ourselves to leprechauns and shared with class what we would do if we were leprechauns. Last of all, we did another Hands- On- Equation worksheet.

3rd Grade Chooses a School Problem to Investigate

We have new bloggers and photographers this week!  Our 3rd grade blogger is Cristian and Alexa is our photographer.

Today in G.T. we did Hands on Equations by doing algebra problems on a paper with partners. We also did C.A.F which stands for Consider All Factors, this means don’t leave any important things out when deciding on something. Everybody in class talked together about what things we can do to help our school. We decided the most important thing  the school should focus on was that not enough people are recycling. We also read “Billibonk And The Big Itch” and it was also about C.A.F/Consider All Factors.  We then played  a game called “Crossing The Bridge”. The game consists of the numbers 1, 2, 7 and 10 which stands for how many minutes it takes to cross the bridge with 1 or 2 people at a time.  This game allows us to use our math skills to figure out the least amount of minutes it takes to cross the bridge.

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3rd Grade Works on P.M.I.

Today’s post is by Alexa and our photographer was Luke.  I was super proud of the 3rd graders today when they conquered their first algebra word problems with practically no explanation from me!  Great job, everyone!

Today in GT we did P.M.I. because when we did the Fun Run we raised money for school stuff and so they could build a track. We also thought of things that we thought were wrong with the school because next week we are going to try to think of ways we could fix the problem. We also read a book called Billibonk as we were on an app called Paper that we did sketch notes on. Finally we did something called Hands On Equations with word problems.

3rd Grade Learns About P.M.I.

Today’s blog post is brought to you by Alexa. The photos were taken by Luke.

Today in GT we did P.M.I., which stands for Plus,Minus, and Interesting. We did P.M.I. for a story we read called Billibonk and the Big Itch. P.M.I. is a good thing for when you are trying to decide whether or not you should do something by thinking about the good and bad things about it. We also went on an app called Hopscotch. Hopscotch is an app where you can make things. We watched a video about how to make a heart on Hopscotch and then we made a heart with it. Also when we read the book Billibonk we practiced on drawing sketches about the book.

 

3rd Grade Learns about Escalation for Systems Thinking

Here is our first student-written blog post for 3rd grade this year!  Cristian is our student author and Cassidy is our photographer.

Today in class we learned about the reinforcing loop.We also did a google slide show about Leanardo Da Vinci.We even did a math worksheet about Hands-On-Equations (subtraction in set up).We also read a book called Billybonk And The Thorn Patch.Last but certainly not least we learned about escalation.

3rd Grade Learns More About DaVinci

Despite the short day yesterday the 3rd Grade GT students got a lot accomplished. They learned more about systems thinking by reading and discussing Billibonk and the Thorn Patch.  They also learned a second “legal move” in Hands-On-Equations.  Then they did a jigsaw activity (although we didn’t call it that!) in which each student read part of a magazine about Leonardo da Vinci and reported the main facts to the rest of the class.  They took great notes, and we will hopefully be able to use the Chromebooks next time to synthesize what they have learned.