The Lily Pad: To Err is Human to Arrr is Pirate!

Pirates Invade The Lily Pad

On Friday, students in the third grade celebrated Talk Like a Pirate Day. Our day began with Mrs. Wilson joining us for the morning announcements. Students "ARRRRRED" their way through our school announcements. We continued our morning with creating pirate names. We had a Black-Eyed Bart, an Evil Lips Bonny and a Captain Boot Bruce, just to name a few.

Most of our academic times had pirate themes. During our writing block, students wrote pirate poems. They wrote an Acrostic Poem or a Recipe for a Pirate. These poems will be included in their yearly anthology of poems.

We then went to a pirate's favorite special...Arrrrrrrt.

At snack time, Ripley's mom brought in some pirate treats...and it was quite the treat!

During our math block students learned about coordinate geometry and then hide "treasures" on a coordinate grid. Pirates then rolled dice to determine a number pair to look for their partner's hidden treasure. All in all a great time was had by all!

Marquette Mile

On Friday, information was sent home about the Marquette Mile. Below is a copy of the brochure. Please consider volunteering (either walking with us or supervising at various corners along the route.) The brochure has an order form for a Marquette Mile T-shirt. The shirt design is created by a student and each year it is a unique design. The Marquette Mile is a fundraiser for some of our field trips (in third grade it covers the cost for our Urban Adventure) so the purchase of a shirt goes towards this funding. This is a fabulous community event. The date of The Mile is Friday, October 16th.

Changing Mindsets

This year, we will be working on changing our words and changing our mindset. Each day, we will highlight different ways to approach situations that feel daunting and challenging. Below is an example of some ways to change thinking. Last week we focused on changing our thinking from "I give up" to thinking "I'll use some of the strategies I've learned."

Science in the Lily Pad

We always begin the year with simple, engaging, hands-on science experiments to get the students excited about science. Last week we explored some characteristics of milk. Students each had a plate full of Vitamin D milk and then added several drops of food coloring. We observed that the coloring spread but slowly. Then they put some liquid dish soap on the a Q-tip and placed the Q-tip in the center of the milk. Students did not stir the milk but simply held it in the center of the color. The results were amazing. We had beautiful explosions of color.