Poetry Slam

Note: We are still working on uploading all the video clips. The following poets are available now: Henry, Cole, Chloe, Genesis, Mekkhi, Lara, Autumn, and Tr. Meg.

Today, Third Graders shared their poems during our Poetry Slam. We heard funny and heartfelt poetry, and shared examples of poetic devices we learned during our poetry unit.

Some examples are:

• Alliteration - "Lara licks a lollipop." 
• onomatopoeia - meow
• Rhyming - "You know we always try, to protect it from the dye." 
• Simile - "Summer is like a hot cup of tea." 
• Metaphor - "Baseball is a big white cake with a topping of fans." 
• Personification - "The trees shiver in the wind."

The poetry slam highlighted all the learning we did and our growing comfort with literal and figurative use of words. We welcome you to watch the videos of the children's performances.

Some videos were recorded on a flip camera and some on an iPhone, hence the different sound levels and separate video clips.

Plaza de Amigos

el colmado

Today was Plaza de Amigos. Third graders practiced speaking spanish in a simulated plaza. They were a little nervous at first, but soon welcomed the challenge and enjoyed the festive event. There were five stores: el colmado (supermarket), la clinic (doctor's office), la libreria (the book store), los helados (ice cream store), and las artesanians (souvenir shop). Each child had to ask a question in spanish. The store owners (the older students) responded in spanish. Third graders worked through the lists that Sra. Ayers gave them and collected stickers at each shop. At the end, they received a burrito (little burro) from the artsanians' shop. We were also treated to a delicious lunch provided by many parents. Thank you for all your support! It was a successful day!

los helados

la libreria

la clinica

Sra. Ayers was great help, but only as needed!

las artesanias

Microfarming Update 3/16

Cole brought in worms for the chicks to eat.
At first they were concerned about their new environment and stayed fairly still.

 We continue to journal about the chicks' growth. You can read individual blogs below. We would enjoy reading your comments.

We are in the process of discussing the data we collected from interviewing people at home. So far we learned that we are not familiar with many of the diseases that we gathered. Some of the diseases are: tuberculoses, mumps, measles, and chicken pox. Thanks to the immunizations we receive as children, these disease are much less common than they were a generation ago. We also determined that we stay indoors more than children did a generation ago. One generation back has an average of one hour of television watching per day, and two generations back watched no television at all. These last two facts are worth considering as we look at the next part of understanding nutrition: portions (the amount of food we eat at one time), and energy output (exercise).

Soon they began pecking at the dirt and worms. Look at the additional wing and tail feathers!

You can see their growth in size in this photo.

The wading pool is being used as the base for their brooder, so we just put down the sheet. It was very exciting because they are flying more easily and flew to the edge several times.

A flying attempt.

A pre-adolescent hen.

Today the chicks jumped on top of the water and then they went on top of the box a first I though she would fall but tr. Meg came and put her back in the box.I noticed they always kick the wood in the water and it soak it up and they don't like warm water and they eat 7 1/4 cups thats alot thank for reading my blog

I don't have a title

The chicks are pretty ugly
They eat lots and lots and lots and lots etc.
They ate 7 quarter cups
There getting a comb
They eat a lot of different foods
They like to fly around and play
They are pretty healthy
There soft to touch and fun to play with
Thanks for reading.

zeineb bouras chick book

All the chicks got big and ugly and there feathers are geting really big too.
All the chicks where fiting over one we

the chicks story by; ARMINA

the chicks eat a lot of food and water and the one with the black dot is the leader and one of them jumped on top of the box.

mekkhi says the chicks...

I MEKKHI say the chicks are eating a lot .we(third grade)are keeping a chart

The chicks are getting ugly. Today I found a worm and took one in the classroom. They went crazy for the worm! It was fun to watch them jump on each other. Now they are so close to flying. They jump high! I got pecked today. It did not hurt.

What are the chicks doing?

Today the chicks came to one of us and thought we were their mommy and daddy! When Tr. Jen put worms on the covers, Blacky got the first to eat the worm and the others started chasing after Blacky. And if there are wood chips in the water tank, it would clog the water!

we are making a graph for how much the chicks are eating and drinking because they are growing. I think they are going to eat more next week.

Now the chicks are 18 cm that is so cool.The chicks ate a grub & 2 worms!!

Today the chicks are jumping on top of the water bottle a lot especially black & purple.Yesterday our class started doing a experiment about how much water & food they are eating.Today we looked at the water bottle & food bottle and saw that they ate 7 quarter cups of food & drank 8 quarter cups of water.

dinosaur stage

The chicks are going through their "dinosaur stage".They ate 7 quarter cups and drank 8 quarter cups.They are growing so much!

The chick are growing!
The chicks are growing way more feathers and they're also getting big.
Today Tr. Jen put sticks in their home so they can perch at night.
When we put in the two worms and grub today, they sat for a little bit then started running and stealing the worms and grub from each other. Today we almost lost a chick because it got on the top of the brooder box.

the chicks got bigger and they got more feathers and they lane back to poop when they sleep they look like they're laying eggs and their eyelid goes down to up.

New Math Unit - Volume

In Math this week we learned about volume. We thought about how objects take up space. A line takes up space in two dimensions. An object that we can hold takes up space in three dimensions. To understand those three dimensions, we estimated the volume of objects by making a model of the object using cubic centimeter blocks. After we made several estimations, we actually measured each object's volume by calculating its water displacement. We did this by placing the object into a graduated cylinder with an exact amount of water already in the graduated cylinder. We learned about reading the level of the water by looking at the bottom of the meniscus and being certain to read the meniscus at eye level. We subtracted the first amount of water in the graduated cylinder from the measurement of the water with the object in the graduated cylinder. This gave us the volume of the object.

We also did a math lab looking the the volume of a container. We used four different containers and did three trials to help figure in our human error in reading the graduated cylinders and pouring the water. Then we calculated the average of the three trials. This gave us the volume of each container. 

Next week we will continue looking at the volume of containers by exploring the standard form of liquid measurement: gallon, half gallon, quart, pint, cup, tablespoon, and teaspoon.

A Microfarming Update

Five sleeping chicks!

This week we started to study nutrition and its relationship to us and to farming. Students watched a segment of a documentary called “What’s On Your Plate?” – a documentary created by two inner city New York elementary school girls. The girls in the documentary were determined to understand how the food on farms outside of the city tasted so much better than the food that they could acquire at their local markets. In response to the video, the third graders compiled a list of their own questions about health and nutrition. We wondered about our own health concerns and the concerns of people in the United States as a whole, including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Now, we are looking in detail at the foods we eat every day. Students are dissecting nutrition labels on their foods to determine the ingredients, caloric intake, serving size, and nutritional value. Using our own food labels, we will discuss and create food pyramids to understand how to make healthy food and exercise choices in our own lives.

Look at the feather development early in the week.

We are keeping journals about the chicks. We are recording the new information we are learning about the chicks and the observations we are making. In Technology today we were able to type and post some of our thoughts onto this blog. We're very excited to share these entries with you. Please feel free to comment on them! We will continue to learn about communicating in this way.

Read the captions of the photos below to get more information about what we've been learning about our chicks. 

Their first trip to the large sheet covered wading pool.

A great photo of their wing and tail feather development.

There is a slight parting of the feathers on top of their heads. This is the beginning of their combs forming.

With new feathers come new talents. They are all flying around more.

One chick was often seen sleeping away from the others. We wanted to know if is was the same chick every time, so in Science class we put different colored markers on their heads. Now we are charting their movements by writing every hour the location of each chick (identified by her color) on a chart. We are trying to see if we notice the beginning of a pecking order - the hierarchy of the flock. We'll let you know if the same chick is off by herself. 

The chicks trying out cracker crumbs.

MY chick story

The chicks always get scared when there not in their box.Did you know that they can pee and poop at the same time? That is just gross. At recess me and Manal found some worms for the chicks they loved them. They where chasing each other all around.Well that's the end of my story for the day.byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

CHICKS

We put a worm in with the chicks and they started fighting over that worm.

my name is JOHN, when we put worms in the box one chick got the worm. She flicked it up in the air and it landed on her back and another chick got it!

the chicks

We(3rd grade) put colors on the chicks heads so we could tell them apart. One of the colors was black which I think is the "leader".

THE CHICKS STORY BY ARMINA

The chicks grow really quickly and fight about worms and are so cute .

FROM ARMINA

zeineb bouras chick book

My class got baby chicks and they are so cute. I got to pet them and they are
so soft and fuzzy. They are geting so big that Tr. Jen had to clean their big box.

Tug-a-worm

Worm eating:

Major fighting over the worm.

They played tug-a-worm and ran really fast




Henry


P.S. They pooped 20 TIMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S.AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today the chicks were in a tub and four of the other chicks went back to there box and one chick was still in the tub and was calling the other chicks and ate some seeds from Tr.Jen. The chicks fought over 1 worm and one chick had a worm in its mouth and they chased each other.It was really funny.

chick

so the chicks are 6 inch tall and their heads are 1 inch. The color helps keep track with their names. The chick with a green dot is nice. We named them pudgey, purple, butt sratcher, and stringy. The chicks love worms.

The chicks.

3/11/11 today the chicks ate worms.We put colors on them.Red,green,black,purple,pink.They fought over the worms.It was funny.They were chasing each other all over the box.They may still be chasing the worm.

hi I am MEKKHI I say the chicks are growing new feathers and will not stop moving you should see them!

Hi, my name is Devin,
The last chick that is in the tub would always call for the others.
What is amazing is the way chicks and people communicate through the chicks poop.
The chicks poop tells the farmer how healthy the chick is because the chick couldn't come up to a farmer and say: ''My stomach hurts.''

Do you know about chicks?

My classmates got a chance to pet 5 chicks and they kept running away when we were petting them. The chicks are getting a little tall. We named them: Pink, Black, Red, Purple, And Green. The chicks are fluffy and cute! The chicks are having more feathers than before. And when Tr. Jen put brown rice, they did not eat it.The chicks are getting bigger and they have more feathers.Some of them sleep while others are jumping. Their feet are 13 cm.Before they poop they lean back. They have tiny ear holes. Tr Sharon marked different colors on the chicks forehead. And they were eating seeds.When we're quiet the chicks were chirping! Black got a worm and was running around, And Pink did not get one at all!

Our First Few Days with Chicks and the Micro-farming Unit

So soft and delicate!

After their surprise arrival, the chicks quickly settled down to life in their brooder. They began eating and could often be seen taking naps under the heat of the lamp. We felt that they had recovered well enough from their trip through the mail. We took the chicks out to see how they move around, and get a good look at their pin feathers and the remaining egg teeth (the "tooth"on top of their beaks that is used to crack the egg that they were in).

We will keep you updated on all the changes we observe in our chicks. In Science Tr. Sharon taught the students about the life cycle of an egg and answered questions such as, " Why can't the chicks just drink milk? Don't all babies drink milk?" 

The chicks handled the love of thirteen hands quite well

The chicks have been a very endearing addition to our classroom. As we learn more about micro-farming, specifically right now, the history of farming, we will highlight the history of chickens on a farm. We have focused on six periods of the history of farming. The six periods are: hunters and gatherers, the beginning of planting (about 8,000 years ago), the beginning of farming and markets (about 5,000 years ago), the Age of Discovery (about 1,000 years ago), the Industrial Revolution (about 200-300 years ago), and the modern farm. Each period has an important innovation that caused a big change in the food that humans ate. We talked about how one thing all human beings from any of these periods had in common was they all needed to eat, to get energy, to live. 

Our first lesson about farm life - once the animal begins to eat, it begins to poop.

Today we eat in a very different way than the hunters and gatherers did. As we understand more about farming and the food that we eat. We will look at our own hens. They will begin laying eggs in 4-6 months. Third graders have promised me that they will help gather eggs in the fall and show next year's third graders about the care of hens. This spring we will consider the environmental costs of eating local eggs versus eggs being shipped across the country. We will consider the benefits and environmental costs to having the varied diet that we do today.

A gasp escaped from the crowd as one chick jumped to the top of the wooden barrier.

The chicks can regularly be found huddled together. Animals seem to feel safer in a group.

One thing we know for sure is that the chicks are a crowd pleaser.

Guess what arrived?!

We had a seriously unexpected arrival in our classroom today -- 5 day-old chicks! We were anticipating their arrival on April 4th but apparently the postal service and the chicken farm in Texas had other ideas so they arrived in the midst of writing this morning.

In our state of shock and with help from Tr. Sharon and Mr. Ken plus a run to the pet store in Newtown Square, we managed to gather up all of the proper supplies. The chicks arrived before their supplies did! So, now our chicks are all situated in a box with a heat lamp, food, sugar water, and bedding.

We made sure to make them feel right at home. Cole and Andrew read aloud some poems; Devin treated the chicks to a private reading of Harry Potter and taught them to count to 100; Mekkhi, Lara, and Armina constructed a block building for the chicks to explore.

The chicks are so cute; we cannot wait to touch them! Tomorrow we will meet our new guests properly. We are going to all sit in a circle (verrryyyy quietly and calmly) and put our chicks in the center so that we can pet them and cuddle them. We need to enjoy their baby stage before they go through their dinosaur stage and lose their baby down.

Keep an eye out for more updates on the growth of our chicks!

The chicks being read some poetry.

That's what they came in! That little box with  holes in it.
Devin reading the chicks Harry Potter.

Cole and Andrew reading poetry for the box of chicks. 

We could NOT stay away! We tried our best to teach them to con
t but it was harder than we expected.

All situated in their box. 

The girls investigating the chicks, 

Finally getting fed! 

Lara, Armina, & Mekkhi building a fortress for the chicks.