Wednesday, June 15, 2016

End of the Year Festivities

We had an eventful last few days of third grade this year!!

On Monday afternoon, we celebrated one another with "Paper Bag Awards"...honoring the positive qualities in our classmates that we discovered over the course of the year!

  On Monday evening, families celebrated our year of learning as we shared our portfolios and final projects...



On Tuesday, we celebrated our final PBIS celebration for being Resctful of Ourselves, Others, and our Environment with Water Recess!  (We were very happy that the warm weather returned in time, too!)

 And, finally, we shared a special video we made for Mr. Berry as he prepares to leave RES for a new position at the MMMUSD-CESU Offices. 


Mr. Berry's Video

It's been an amazing year together...have a wonderful summer!  

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Westward Expansion Projects in Enrichment

Throughout the year, we collaborate with Mrs. Rankin and Enrichment class to enhance the learning in our classrooms.  Students spent three enrichment classes creating and making something that would share their learning about the Westward Expansion topic of their choice.

We had students cooking, creating green screen videos, making 3D projects from wagons to models of gold rush panning and the Alamo.  I love giving the students freedom to create anything that showcases their learning and to see what they produce.  I also really valued that students wanted to include reports and information that they had collected in their classrooms during their research. I think that creating a project at the end of a learning process can be a great way to give students creative freedom and to help them synthesize the knowledge they have acquired.

Sharing their learning in a project was great, but what gave it additional meaning was the knowledge that they would also share their projects with second graders and in the display case at the front of RES....as well as online in this blog post. As second graders prepare for grade 3....this connection at the end of the year is meaningful for all!

Here is a glimpse into the share with Grade 2:

 

This post originally appeared on Mrs. Rankin's Enrichment at RES blog.

Invention Prototypes

In third grade students had an opportunity in enrichment to design and build some invention prototypes.Their creativity and inventiveness was inspiring!


Here are some examples of the excellent inventions made by third graders during enrichment:




For details on our process check out this blog post:  http://enrichmentatres.blogspot.com/2016/04/engineering-design.html.

This post originally appeared on Mrs. Rankin's Enrichment at RES blog.