Wayside Wednesday

My apologies for taking so long to post photos from our very fun Wayside Wednesday book celebration! 

We had a fantastic time seeing each other's costumes, testing our knowledge of the Wayside School books, and pretending to be students on the 30th story of Wayside School!  A big thank you to parents for helping your children put together such imaginative costumes!

Three "Leslies" and a "Paul"

Two "Bebes"

A very green-haired "Stephen!"

The faculty of Wayside - "Louis," "Miss Zarves," "Dr. Pickell," and "Mrs. Drazil"

Six very sleepy "Sharies" - aren't they wonderful students??

"Calvin" and his potato tattoo!

"Eric" - the nice one!

"Hobo Bob," "Todd," and "Mac"

A very grumpy "Kathy,"  two "Myrons" (and his bird, Oddly), and Xavier as "Xavier!"

Bob Jackson's Mineral Lab

Yesterday local geologist Bob Jackson came to our classroom to teach us all about identifying minerals!  He brought the materials needed to test 18 different minerals for hardness, streak color, and cleavage (how the mineral breaks).  Working in teams, students tested and identified the mystery minerals as quickly as they could - and every mineral they correctly identified, they got to keep!  Every student went home with a brand-new mineral collection, along with an identifying sheet.

Mr. Jackson runs Geology Adventures, which gives people the chance to go hunting for crystals, amber, and rocks with this fabulously knowledgeable retired geologist.  If you're interested in learning more about what geologists do, be sure to check out his site!

Fun Website!

Hey geologists!  Ms. DeTolla just told me about this very fun website, full of links to geology games and quizzes.  Check it out!

http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/K12/games.html

Storm Drain Plaques

Thank you to everyone who came out Wednesday afternoon to help glue down plaques for the storm drains!  We had a beautiful, sunny, dry day - which was essential for the glue to set!  We got 50 signs glued down all over our neighborhood.  These signs will remind our community that anything that goes into a storm drain will drain to Puget Sound - and affect the salmon habitat!  What a great way to take responsibility for our community!

Reading Comprehension

Yesterday our class got a special lesson from Miss Leah about how important it is to do lots and lots of thinking as we read. To illustrate this, the kids created a "comprehension salad" as we read a book together. Every time Miss Leah read from the book, we added a red "text" card. Then we stopped to do some thinking - predicting, inferrring, making connections, etc. For every thought we had, we added a green "thinking" card.

When we were done, we looked at the salad we had created. Just like a good salad has lots of lettuce and some tomatoes sprinkled in, we realized that a good reader does lots and lots of thinking for every text he or she reads.

Parents, the next time you read a book with your child (hopefully soon!), remind him or her to be adding lots of thinking to their mental "comprehension salad."

Just like you can't have a good salad that is all tomatoes, you can't have a good reader who never thinks about the text!

Salmon Hatchery

We had a wonderful time on our field trip to the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery this week! The kids looked great in their salmon-print t-shirts, the weather was gray but warm and dry, and the salmon were definitely jumping!


Room 241 posed for a class picture next to Gilda and Finley, two salmon statues in front of the hatchery. These 8-foot bronze statues' size is based on fossils of salmon from the Ice Age. 5-6 million years ago, “saber-tooth salmon” existed, measuring up to 10-feet long and weighing up to 500 pounds!


Anna, Grant, and Luke pose in front of the viewing window for the fish ladder.


One docent teaches the kids about the seven members of the Pacific Salmon family. We already knew about Chum, Sockeye, Chinook, Coho, and Pink, but we also learned about Steelhead and Cutthroat trout!

Another docent shows preserved specimens of eggs, eyed eggs, alevin, and fry.

Scientists on a Log: the kids wait patiently for the rest of the group to join us for our class photo.

What a fun day!!

Join the Clue Hunt!

I know that many of the readers in room 241 are enjoying this fun book series, which centers around two orphaned kids who have inherited a single clue that will lead them on a world-wide hunt for a secret buried deep inside their family's history. I love this series too - lots of action and excitement, with some great messages about friendship, forgiveness, and personal integrity.

Each book in the series comes with a card pack. The 6 cards in each pack feature clues that will help readers unlock the mystery alongside the main characters!

Last year the third grade teachers created an account at www.the39clues.com, where third graders could go to enter these clues and help solve the puzzle. If you would like to use the third grade account to go explore the site, here is the information you will need:

login: gr3grade
password: grizzly

Happy hunting, and remember - the website is fun, but the books are where the real excitement can be found!!