Just a quick update because grad school is kicking my butt right now!
Today we did marshmellow multiplication when learning 3 as a factor! I opened the lesson by watching School House Rock (my favorite :) ) and then we practiced multiplication word problems with marshmellows and fruit loops. We looked at the word problems and determined what part of the problem was their 'groups' and how many was in each group. The marshmellows represented our groups and the fruitloops represented how many was in each group. For example, in a word problem if we decided the multiplication sentence was 4x3, we used 4 marshmellows and put 3 fruitloops on top of each one. We used a toothpick to hold our fruit loops and marshmellows together. After this, the students wrote their multiplication sentence on a whiteboard so we knew they understood each problem. They LOVED it and of course couldn't wait to chow down :)
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| One of my student's representation of 3x4 :) |
In social studies we've been doing a candy bar election for the past 2 weeks. We started off with the primaries by having students split into groups and each group had a different candy. In one party there were candy pieces (junior mints, sour patch kids, starburst, pretzel M&Ms, and skittles) and the other party was candy bars (snickers, twix, milky way, 100 grand, and another one I forgot ;) ). After giving reasons why their party should vote for their candy, the votes determined that twix and starbursts were the primary candidates. Because we combine both 3rd grade honors classes, my class represented the starbursts and the other class was twix. Students then made campaign posters, speeches, and answered press questions created by the other party. We hung up the posters in every other 3rd grade classroom and allowed all of 3rd grade to vote. Today was voting day and students made voter registration cards (they wrote their names, birthday, classroom number, and drew a picture of themselves...very cute!) and put in their ballot. As they casted their votes, they handed their registration cards to students in charge of the polls and their names were checked off a list. After voting, they received "I voted" stickers :) After votes were counted, the winner was...TWIX! Students then graphed the results (32 twix to 24 starbursts) and answered questions about it. Very cute and educational activity!
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| 3rd Grade Ballot Box |
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| My class voting while the other class checks their registration and marks their name off the 'official' list. |
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| Their "I Voted" stickers :) |
Ok well that's just a quick update, but hopefully you enjoyed it! I'm really loving this year and am learning so much. It's always great to have an experience where you want to take the things you've learned and apply them to your own classroom :)
