The Christian Chronicle

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Monday in third grade: choral reading, plurals, facts/opinions, fractions

First, let me apologize for not posting yesterday, February 18. With conferences and car duty, it just slipped my mind.

We started with a word sort yesterday.

We worked with point of view. We also did some choral and silent reading.

We also reviewed plurals and the rules that go along with them. Facts and opinions were also revisited.

We continued our work with fractions. First we put together three pizzas. Then we used Skittles to do another activity that was enjoyed a great deal!

It was great seeing parents at the conferences last night. I hope to see the rest of you Thursday evening.

Monday, February 17, 2020

Third graders begin learning fractions

We had a marvelous Monday.

We started with an assembly in the cafeteria.

We read silently for a little bit. They need to do this daily. We worked on affixes today. We discussed what they were, and said that they were broken down into two groups, prefixes and suffixes. We have worked on these in the past, but they needed a refresher. We also read The Pain and the Great One by Judy Blume. I love this book! It is a great story and a great example of point of view.

We also reviewed theme, and added information to our reading notebooks.

We did our official introduction to fractions today. I showed them groups and we made fractions out of them, explaining the purpose of each number in a fraction. For example, I had three boys and one girl stand in front of the classroom. I first asked how many children were standing in front. (4) Then I asked how many were girls. (3) Then I asked the number of boys. (1) Then we wrote two sentences. "One out of four students are boys. Three out of four are girls. Then we made our fractions.

There is no spelling this week.

Please remember to return picture money if you are ordering.

Saturday, February 15, 2020

Students do heart-themed learning

We had a very energetic day today!

We started with another multiplication surprise puzzle.

We made sentences using conversation hearts.

We also finished our heart booklets. We had to find our pulse, and count how many times we felt it beat in 30 seconds. Then we did some running around, and checked it again. They loved it!

We did get our spelling tests done.

Our party was great! Have a great weekend!

About Mrs. Christian

This fall, I started my 35th year in the classroom, my 27th year in third grade. I graduated from East Central University in the summer of 1984 and began my teaching career four days later as an all-day kindergarten teacher.

After six years of teaching in my home town of Wetumka, I moved to Enid, then to Moore, and finally to Shawnee.

I had thought I would retire from Moore Public Schools, at some point. But then, life happened. I got married, after thinking I would never go down that road ever again. I commuted the full second semester from Shawnee. The drive was way too hard on this old lady. Fortunately, Mrs. Noble and I found each other. I truly believe Will Rogers will be my last school. I have many years of teaching ahead of me, and am excited to spend them in Shawnee.

I have been fortunate to win a number of awards in my years as a teacher, including being honored twice in Enid as Teacher of the Year at Glenwood School. I also received the Enid Air Force Association's Teacher of the Year for two years, and have been nominated for its state and national awards. I have presented at state and national conferences and have been designated as a Master Teacher by the Oklahoma Energy Resource Board and work as a teacher-trainer for science curricula throughout the state. I also co-authored OERB's second elementary curriculum, and I am the co-author of a new picture book, O is for Oil.

I am a faculty member for one of the nation's most prestigious professional development organizations for teachers, Pathways to Literacy, and I am also active as a trainer of teachers for several statewide organizations.