Mouse Cookies, Area and Perimeter

I'm a little late posting these but here are some pictures of the students making Mouse Cookies from Mouse and the Motorcycle.

On that same day the students found the perimeter and area of tiles marked off in the third grade hallway. Here are the students working hard!

Crazy Hat Day

Crazy hat day was a lot of fun this year and it brought almost $1,000 to our scholarship fund! Thanks for contributing and making if a fun day!

Mrs. Sosa's Class

Mrs. Ford's crazy kids! :) I love them!

December happenings.....

Well December was a BUSY month! We made Gingerbread houses for math hoping to find the volume of the houses but instead we thought about how weight and balance makes a difference when building the houses. If there were too many candies on top the students quickly found out that their house was not going to be able to withstand the weight. It's amazing how learning comes into play even when doing some really fun activities!

One of the students completed house.

In December we also had our annual wax museum! The students always work so hard to get ready for this and the actual day is filled with a lot of nervousness, but it always turns out fabulous! Mrs. Sosa did an awesome job getting the kids ready and we all had a wonderful time seeing their personalities coming through their costumes! They did a GREAT job!

And last but certainly not least we presented our bobble head projects! These projects incorporated what the students had learned about simple machines. Every bobble head was supposed to be created using a fulcrum and a lever. The students made some amazing creations and had a great time sharing them. I loved hearing those students tell me how they tested several times adding more weight each time to get it balanced. This was exactly what I was going for by having them do this project and they learned that a lot of science is about inquiry!

Reindeer bobble head

Donald Duck bobble head (Great use of recycled materials!)

Bird bobble head

The Zebra bobble head

Red Ribbon Week

Two weeks ago was red ribbon week! We had several theme days and this one was "Put a cap" on drugs! Here are some of the kiddos that participated in the day!

Spooky Bots 2010

Well we had a great day on Friday! We made Spooky bots out of recycled materials. All of the students brought in all kinds of recycled materials from home then used their creative minds to come up with some incredible designs for their robots! Mrs. Sosa and I had a great time seeing all of their creative juices flow! Every robot was so different and they all looked fantastic! Thank you to the mom's who came to help hot glue! Here are a few of the robots and students proud of their creations!

The First Few Weeks.....

We are off to a GREAT start for the 2010-2011 third grade year! We began our classroom economy on the second day of school and Mrs. Sosa, myself, and the kids are all loving it! Each child has a checkbook and can earn or lose money based off of their behaviors and work done in the classroom. Then, at the end of each week each child's checkbook is collected by their homeroom teacher and the students are all given personal checks. At the end of a two week period the children then get to take their checks to the bank to exchange for "cash." The students are then allowed to spend their cash or Star bucks (get it?) in for items at the store. If you ever have any items you would like to donate to the store we would happily accept them! :) Here are some pictures of the grand opening of the bank!

We have also done several fun activities in Math and Science. We did a sewer maggots lab, (ask your kids about it!) a pattern activity during Math where they created patterns out of beads, puff balls, pattern blocks and foam letters, and we did a gas lab. Here are some of the students showing off their lab safety skills before our lab.

Welcome to Third Grade!

Welcome to Third Grade! You are going to have a great year! My name is Mrs. Ford and I will be teaching with Mrs. Sosa. I will be teaching Math and Science which are the two subjects I absolutely love! This will be my second year teaching at CT and my 12th year to teach. It is hard to believe I have been teaching that long because every year is a new adventure and I enjoy what I do!

Zoe the class pet

There are a few things I should share about myself to let you get to know me better. I am married and have one daughter named Lillie who will be in first grade at CT. (I am sure you will be seeing her around.) I also have LOTS of pets and love animals. We have two classroom pets, 2 guinea pigs. (Charlie and Zoe) At home I have one dog named Maddie, a cat name Chloe and a turtle named Shelly. Lillie has two frogs in her room named Alli and Amanda. I also enjoy using the computer and creating things. I love to Scrapbook and go to Starbucks!

One of the main reasons I set up this blog was because I take a lot of pictures and I want your parents to get to see what we are doing in the classroom. I will post the pictures and activities on here and you or your parents can post comments if you would like.

I look forward to meeting you and getting to know you during this 2010-2011 school year!