Sunday, September 28, 2014

Our Egg Drop "Egg"stravaganza!

Last week, on September 19th, we participated in an egg drop event with other schools in Regina. Students were asked to create vessels to protect eggs that were dropped from various heights. The egg drop project was shared between classes through Twitter by using the hashtag #rpseggdrop, which allowed students and teachers to share their learning experiences. We tweeted what our brainstorming, progress, and finished product looked like so that other classrooms could connect with us!

The grade 3's did an amazing job creating their egg vessels with their groups. The class was put into 4 groups, and each group worked on their vessels throughout the week. They were only given limited materials, such as straws, Popsicle sticks, grocery bags,and balloons, and were required to create a name for their finished product. They learned that it takes patience, teamwork, and creativity to do a project like this! They did a great job at learning from their mistakes and never giving up.


 
















 
















On the day of the egg drop, CBC News contacted our school and asked if they could tape our class doing the egg drop. The grade 3's were very excited to share their experience with an even larger audience! CBC heard about the project through numerous Regina Public classrooms tweeting about it. This was a great way for the class to see the power that social media can have. 

At 12:45 on Friday, the grade 3's brought their egg vessels to the playground and started preparing for the official drop! We were happy to have Miss Lawson live tweeting the event and Mrs. Nenson-Catley and Mr. Phillips watch the drops as well. We dropped all four egg vessels from the senior play structure and all four eggs... SURVIVED! 





The Regina Public Schools Egg Drop was an "egg"celent inquiry project that allowed the students to practice their skills in building, creating, and collaborating. It was great for the students to use Twitter as a tool to connect with other classrooms and learn more about their egg drop experiences as well. We had an "egg"ceptional experience and can't wait to take part in the egg drop again! 

 




Monday, September 15, 2014

International Dot Day

Today was International Dot Day around the world, and grade 3 at Dr. George Ferguson decided it was important to celebrate it!

Dot Day was inspired by the book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. The story is about a "caring teacher who dares a doubting student to trust in her own abilities by being brave enough to “make her mark”. What begins with a small dot on a piece of paper becomes a breakthrough in confidence and courage." (thedotclub.org)

It was time for our grade 3 class to discover our own creativity and to be reminded how much potential we each have.

We started off the day by reading The Dot and discussing the themes and important messages the story gives us. We then started planning out our art project called Dot Art, which is a picture made up of only dots. We brainstormed what we wanted our pictures to look like, and drew rough sketches.

Later in the day, we started creating our Dot Art by using wooden sticks dipped in paint to create a picture made up of tiny dots. While we were working on our Dot Art,we finished off International Dot Day with the video of the The Dot on Youtube.

We had a great time celebrating our creativity and potential today in grade 3 with International Dot Day, and can't wait to take part next year! Check out the pictures below to get a glimpse into our day.








Saturday, September 6, 2014

Week 1 Adventures


          We have had a busy, but great first week of school in grade 3! We spent the first couple of days getting to know each other by playing games like “question ball” and “get to know you bingo” where we answered questions about ourselves.  We also learned everyone’s birthdays by making a “birthday graph”. We wrote our birthdays on Post It notes, and then organized the dates with a graph on the board.


Our theme right now in grade 3 is “Adventure”. To kick things off, everyone wrote about what adventures they are most excited about this year. We brainstormed ideas as a class, wrote our ideas on a treasure map, and displayed them on our bulletin board. If you stop by the school, please come take a look!


               
            Another thing we started in grade 3 is using our classroom Twitter account. We have really enjoyed creating our tweets as a class, and even sending tweets to Mrs. Lawson and Mrs. Smith’s classroom, as well as Mrs. Sakatch’s class. We have made a class “Twitter Wall” to practice making tweets. This week, each of us wrote what we like about grade 3 so far. Please check out our classroom Twitter account and “follow” us. We would love for you to reply to our tweets and interact with the class! There is a link to our Twitter page on the side, as well as right here. 

                This week we also made our classroom rules and acted out scenarios on how to be a positive team player. We also started our Daily 5 reading program and talked about what “Read to Self” looks like!



          Thanks for reading about our first week of school. It would be great if you could reply to the post so that the class can hear about your thoughts! Our first week in grade 3 has been filled with new adventures. We are very excited to see what great adventures next week brings!