Room 40 students, remember when we learned about opportunity cost? Check out this link to refresh your memory:   https://msmiedemasclass.edublogs.org/2014/01/08/opportunity-cost/

Ms. Miedema read an excerpt from The Talented Clementine  (pp. 67-68) by Sara Pennypacker:

Economic Choice: The choice you make when you are given alternatives (other options).

Opportunity Cost: The next best choice that is given up when an economic choice is made.

We used this sentence stem to describe what happened: “My economic choice is _________________. My opportunity cost is _____________ because it was the next best choice.

ROOM 40 TBT (Throwback Thursday) CHALLENGE:  In the comment section tell us about a time you had to make an economic choice.  What was your opportunity cost? Use the sentence stem and definitions to help guide you. Good luck!!!

We’ve finished our unit on ancient Greece.  Parents did you see our final product? Our creations went home last week this is what they looked like:

The covers all look the same but the insides are all our own 🙂 If you have time, sit with your student and flip through their book together and discuss what they are learning in school.

We have moved down the Mediterranean Sea to ancient Rome. Look at how close Rome and Greece are on the map:

Can you find Greece and Rome? Rome is now a part of the country Italy. We discussed the interesting shape of Italy….It’s shaped like one of Ms. Miedema’s winter boots, and it’s kicking a rock!

We started the unit with a time traveling adventure into ancient Rome itself.  Here is the video we watched:

Ms. Miedema studied ancient Greece and ancient Rome in college as a history major so was able to narrate the  video for us. Here is a sampling of what we watched and listened for:

We explored how the contributions of ancient Rome have influenced the present world, specifically, in terms of architecture:

We learned that the Roman’s put their most important and special buildings on top of hills throughout the city.  In Washington, DC, our nation’s most significant (word of the week- what does significant mean?!) building is located on Capitol Hill. We even stole the name of the hill! In ancient Rome the Roman Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (best and greatest),  the most important temple in ancient Rome, was located on the Capitoline Hill.

Ms. Miedema went on a bike ride last weekend and ended up near Capitol Hill! For fun, here are some pictures of our beautiful Capitol building and the BIG hill it sits on:

Ms. Miedema huffing and puffing up the giant hill on her bicycle:

Another architectural structure we borrowed from ancient Rome is the obelisk (ancient Rome borrowed this architectural structure from ancient Egypt!).

In ancient Rome, erecting (putting up) an obelisk was such a challenge (no machines or cranes!!) that only the most powerful emperors erected obelisks during their rule. Obelisks became synonymous (what is a synonym? So what do you think synonymous means?) with great power and rule. It’s no coincidence that our new nation, the United States of America, decided to erect an obelisk and name it after our first President, George Washington.   Our Washington Monument stands as a symbol of the power and greatness of our country.

The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC sits on the tidal basin (soon to be filled with cherry blossoms and well worth a visit…) and was modeled after the Pantheon of ancient Rome. The Pantheon was an unusual temple in ancient Rome.  The building had a traditional appearance from the front but a when you stepped inside- the building was ROUND!!! This circular structure was highly untraditional (use your knowledge of prefixes to figure out the meaning of untraditional) in ancient Rome.  It is fitting that this state of the art design be used in a memorial to Thomas Jefferson: a forward thinking statesman, architect, President and writer of the Declaration of Independence.

BUT WAIT!

Don’t confused the Pantheon with the Parthenon!!

They were two different buildings.  Not only did we borrow architectural features from the Romans but we also borrowed from the ancient Greeks.  The Parthenon was built in ancient Greece as a Temple to Athena, the greek goddess of wisdom, law and justice.  Our United States Supreme Court building in Washington, DC- the highest federal court in our justice system- was designed to look like the Parthenon- both home to wisdom, law and justice.

Social studies has been so exciting these past few weeks that Ms. Miedema forgot to post reading updates to the blog!  Here are some recent highlights from our reading block:

We have finished two short units on text features in non-fiction texts (bolded words, italics, headings, * bullet points, captions, index, glossary, and table of contents), and drawing conclusions. Here are the anchor charts we created to help support our learning.

We’ve also been working on  new ways to share ideas during  circle time.  We have circle time at the very beginning of reading- we all sit on the carpet and typically have a mini lesson and a interactive read aloud.  It’s called an interactive read aloud instead of  read aloud because students are actively engaged in the text- sharing ideas, making connections, discussing the text and answering questions. Ms. Miedema pauses a lot during the reading to allow time for this interaction with the text. We have new carpet seats and carpet partners! This makes it really easy for us to pair up and discuss the topic quickly without loosing time trying to find a partner. Here we are deep in conversation about the text during this time:

We’ve also started using a new cooperative learning structure called stand up, hand up, pair up. It’s exactly what it sounds like: when instructed, we stand up, put one hand in the air, and walk around for five seconds until we find a new partner, we sticky high five them and sit back down to have a discussion on the current topic. It’s a fun new way to find another student to share ideas and thoughts with.

Our new reading unit is on problems and solutions. We’ve been having a great time with this unit. So far we’ve read and explored the following books:

The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter 

Here is a summary:

Alia Muhammad Baker is a librarian in Basra, Iraq. For fourteen years, her library has been a meeting place for those who love books. Until now. Now war has come, and Alia fears that the library—along with the thirty thousand books within it—will be destroyed forever.

In a war-stricken country where civilians—especially women—have little power, this true story about a librarian’s struggle to save her community’s priceless collection of books reminds us all how, throughout the world, the love of literature and the respect for knowledge know no boundaries. (Link)

Parents, ask us about what we learned: What was the problem in this story? What was the cause of the problem? What was  the solution to the problem? What was the resolution?  What was the author’s message?

Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco 

Here is a summary:

When Trisha starts school, she can’t wait to learn how to read, but the letters just get jumbled up. She hates being different, and begins to believe her classmates when they call her a dummy. Then, in fifth grade, Mr. Falker changes everything. He sees through her sadness to the gifted artist she really is. And when he discovers that she can’t read, he helps her prove to herself that she can – and will! (Link)

Parents, ask us about what we learned: What was the problem in this story? What was the cause of the problem? What was  the solution to the problem? What was the resolution?  What was the author’s message?

Are you interested in science? Are you interested in learning about the history of our universe? Where do we come from? How old do you think our planet is? Ms. Miedema has started watching the new television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. This is a follow up documentary of  1980’s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.  We’ve learned a lot since the 1980’s- let’s explore it together. This show runs Sundays on FOX at 9:00PM (…pretty late for a school night!  This show can also be purchased on Amazon.com for viewing anytime!)

Here is a preview:

 

It’s true, we’re publishing  a real hard cover book! Our final realistic fiction stories and illustrations will all go into our class book titled “The Marvelous Realistic Fiction Tales from Third Grade”.  In order to meet our publishing date, Ms. Miedema will need to send the final drafts and orders in by Monday (March 24th, 2014). Students took home this order form last week:

If you’re interested in owning our class book, please return forms on Monday!! 

Mr. Whiskers has some new friends! Turns out our personal pets love to be read to and what better place to read to our friends than at school?  Practice makes perfect and our pets are helping us get there 🙂

One lucky winner got to take Mr. Whiskers home this weekend. Here they go!

A big thank you to everyone who clipped and sent in Box Tops to Room 40! The results of the competition are finally in:

1st Place Ms. McFarland’s Class (Winner of a $30 Book Fair gift card)

2nd Place Ms. Miedema’s Class (Winner of a $20 Book Fair gift card) 

3rd Place Ms. Lower’s Class (Winner of a $15 Book Fair gift card)

Congratulations Room 40, family and friends! We couldn’t have won 2nd place without everyone’s support.  Ms. Miedema guesses we will probably be able to purchase about 3-5 new books for our classroom library with our award money!

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This competition wasn’t the only place we saw excellent results in the last few weeks.  Parents: ask us how our class performed on the social studies CRT test we took this month….

Last week we learned about democracy (rule by the people) and we simulated a direct democracy in our classroom. (https://msmiedemasclass.edublogs.org/2014/03/12/democracy-at-cora-kelly/)

Room 40 students: What is the difference between a direct democracy and a representative democracy? (Respond in the comment box!) 

As a class we voted on a variety of topics.  Our two favorites are seen below:

Most of us voted YES to having school uniforms so an announcement went home and the next day we came to school ….in uniforms!!! White shirts with blue jeans 🙂  See below:

Another favorite topic that generated much excitement is the topic of getting a class pet. See below:

Almost everyone voted YES to getting a class pet and, again, almost everyone voted for a BUNNY! So, Ms. Miedema went out a got us a bunny.  After some initial disappointment that the bunny was not a real bunny we have embraced Mr. Whiskers (yes, we voted on the name too!) as the newest member of Room 40.

 Mr. Whiskers comes with a carrying case so that he can travel home with students over the weekend!

As the newest member of our class, Mr. Whiskers has embraced our love of reading.

Today in ancient Greece we learned about democracy: rule by the people.

There are two different types of democracy and today we learned briefly about both: direct democracy and representative democracy but we really explored direct democracy during our activity  (because ancient Greece was a direct democracy). We will get into representative democracy more when we start our unit on ancient Rome (ancient Rome and the United States of America are excellent examples of representative democracy).

In our social studies activity we recreated a direct democracy in our own classroom! We had so much fun voting and some great questions were raised:

“Ms. Miedema, isn’t there a voting age? Are we old enough to be doing this?”

“Why can’t I vote more than once?”

Did you vote today? WE DID!! And most importantly, we ALL voted because we were simulating a direct democracy.

Below is a sampling of topics we voted on:

Ms. Miedema couldn’t believe the results, but it turns out almost ALL of us want school uniforms. We’re turning our vote into action: we’re all going to come to school tomorrow in a “school uniform”!

Look out for this letter coming home tonight with your students:

Dear Parents,

Today in social studies we learned about democracy.  We learned that there are two types of governments: direct democracy (a government in which people vote to make their own rules and laws) and representative democracy (a government in which the people vote for (elect) a smaller group of citizens who make the rules and laws for everyone).

As an activity to support what we had just learned, we recreated a direct democracy in our classroom and were all given the chance to vote on interesting topics. One person, one vote —  we had a blast! One of the topics we voted on was “Should Cora Kelly have uniforms?” Almost everyone in the class voted YES to having uniforms.  As an extension to this activity we are going to put our actions where our vote was.  Tomorrow we will all wear “uniforms” to school! Here is the suggested uniform.  Parents, please note: this is NOT required.

Room 40 Uniform

Blue Jeans

White shirt (or primarily white shirt)

It has been a great day for us- we learned a lot about democracy and the roots of the government of the United States of America (Ancient Greece).

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns you may have.

All the best,

Allison Miedema

Parents: Here are some questions you can ask your student about our social studies lesson today (as a bonus- ask your student to find the prefixes on this slide!)

Our word of the week is significant: important.

Today during writing we reviewed the definition of this word and talked about how it can be used in context.  We were able to use this word a lot of different and unique sentences. It was pretty easy to simply create a sentence in our minds using the word “important” and then replace the word important with significant (most times this worked).   Our assignment in writing today was to use the word significant in a sentence.  We wrote these sentences on sentence strips and Ms. Miedema displayed them out in the hallway for everyone to see!

Parents: ask your student to use this word in a sentence for you tonight!