Building Roofs to Prevent Weather Disasters

Students planned, designed, and are building roofs that need to withstand 140 mph of wind from a leaf blower. Look below to see some of our engineers!

 

Slow Foods

Today we learned about winter squash. We also learned about an urban farm here in our very own city of Columbia!

Slow Foods

Making garlic butter with fresh garlic from the garden

Storm Chasers

Thank you to MU storm chasers who taught us about tornadoes today!

Investigating the Reason for the Seasons

Modeling Expectations

This week we have been talking about following expectations in various places around the school. One student stated that it is very important to set an example for others, including other classrooms in our school. Thank you to our students who are doing their best to model expectations!

A Visit from the Red Cross: Preparing for Disaster

Today the Red Cross came to our classroom to talk to us about ways that we can prepare for a disaster.  We learned some strategies for what to do if there is a fire in our houses or school.  We each got a pillowcase to help us in case of a disaster.  Make sure to ask us what we learned about today!

Out of this World Organization

It's very important to stay organized at school and home so you can easily find your things.  Look below for updates on desks "being caught looking great!"

Learning About Math Notebooks

Today we started to learn how a mathematician uses a math notebook.  Look below for one group's "noticings" about a math notebook they investigated.

Way to go mathematicians!

Welcome Kolkebeck's Chemists, Third Grade Class of 2015!!!

Welcome to the very first post of the 2014-2015 school year!

You can find so much information on our blog-- from our schedule, to upcoming events, to what we will be learning in school, AND LINKS TO HOMEWORK!!!  My goal is to update our blog at least once per week.

The first week in school, we spent a lot of time learning the expectations of how to be Safe, Respectful Learners.  We practiced our expectations at the carpet, our desks, at recess and in the hall (see below).

 

 Our classroom rules this year are:

1.  Follow directions quickly

2.  Raise your hand for permission to speak

3. Raise your hand for permission to leave your desk

4. Use kind words and actions

5.  Help everyone learn

Try to discuss some of these rules with your child at home.  Why are they important?  What does it look like to follow these rules?

Presenting our STEM Showcase: Ecosystems and Fossils

Bottle Ecosystems

Check out our ecosystems- created by Benton Scientists

STEM TIME!!!

This week, students earned their STEM time with Dr. McCullar by earning STEM stars for stellar behavior in art, music, P.E., and lunch.  They were engineers and made parachutes.  Check out photo of engineers testing their designs below!

How a Bill Becomes a Law

Last week our class learned how a BILL becomes a LAW.  Students had to write a bill in their communities, and then those bills had to be approved first by the House, then Senate, and finally the president (Ms. Kropp).

Members of the House of Representatives passing a bill about respect

Slow Foods Program Today

SLOW FOODS TODAY!

Today we had Slow Foods- YUM!  We learned about honeybees from a local beekeeper.  Then we made our own salad dressing using honey, oil, vinegar, and some other 
YUM-TASTIC ingredients.  Your student should have brought home a small glass jar with 3 different salad dressing recipes to make at home.

New and Exciting Things are Happening

There have been some new and wonderful things happening in Mrs. Kolkebeck's classroom these past couple weeks. We now have a student teacher from Mizzou in the classroom who will be working with the children and begin teaching some subjects throughout the next couple months and assisting in all of the classroom activities. She is very excited to be working with us this semester and is looking forward to meeting all the parents of our brilliant chemists.

About Ms. Kropp
She is from St. Louis and has an Associates Arts in Teaching degree and is currently working on finishing up her bachelors degree in Elementary education at the University of Missoui. She loves being here at Benton and working with all the wonderful children here. She also loves cats.

Students have been investigating force and motion in science through research and experiments. More is to come on this!

We have been working hard on mastering our skills in multiplication and division and started a new math program called ST Math.

ST math is a new program that the district has began to implement district wide. This program is different from other math programs, such as Fast Math. ST Math stands for spacial temporal math, meaning that the program walks the students through different math skills while strictly using spacial temporal reasoning. Therefor, there are no directions given to the students through words only through images. We are excited to implement this program in our classroom because it challenges students to think differently about math as well as allowing students to display their knowledge and skills of mathematics in new ways. Our hopes are that this program will deepen our students' understanding in math. This program is available to use at home. If you and your student are interested in extra practice with ST Math we have sent home a flyer with information on how to log on to ST Math at home. If you did not receive the flyer please let us know and we would be happy to provide you that information!

This week we also had the pleasure of Slow Foods! Slow foods is a program were the students are able to learn about where our food comes from and are able to learn how to cook with the food of the month. This month we had a local chicken farmer come in and speak to the 3rd grade classes. They shared some very interesting information about where eggs come from and what work goes into harvesting eggs. They even brought in live chickens! We also cooked delicious scrambled eggs using eggs from the local farmer. It was a pretty tasty adventure!

Terrific Kids

Congratulations to our January Terrific Kids!

 

 

STAR Readers!

Way to Go Readers (Thursday, January 30th)!!!

Congratulations to:

Members of the #500 Reading Club: #17, #19

Members of the #400 Reading Club: #18

Students whose scores increased from last week (awesome): #1, #2, #3, , #5, #6, #9, #12, #16, #21

Way to Go Readers (Friday, January 10th)!!!

Congratulations to:

Members of the #500 Reading Club: #17, #19

Members of the #400 Reading Club: #13, #18

Students whose scores increased from last week (awesome): #10, #11, #12, #5, #8, #13, #18, #4, #3, #20