Tag: 3rd Grade

Can’t Catch Me!

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When a whole grade level approaches you for a breakout, how can you not connect it to a fun holiday theme prior to winter break. I smell a room transformation!

The 3rd grade teachers that I work with were in search of a collaborative breakout activity that would allow their students not only to have fun, but to reinforce the 4Cs at a much needed time. Breakouts, if you haven’t tried one yet, are also a great observation tool for building instructional groups and partners, but to also identify the different types of learners in your class.

The Breakout that we decided on was the gingerbread man theme of, “Can’t Catch Me,” which can be found on the Breakout EDU portal. I wish I could take ownership for this activity, but I can’t. The educator who shared this really put a lot of thought into the process of the clues. We did have to modify it a tad for third grade, but that was mostly because this was also their first breakout and a new learning experience.

While some achieved and caught the gingerbread man, there were others who didn’t. However, everyone won in the end because of the opportunity for reflection. It was so positive to see that an unsuccessful round didn’t discourage 3rd graders from the lesson, in fact, they can’t wait to try more!

Lollipops courtesy of Lindsay Zilly’s (@iCoachLindsay) life-size Candy Land.

Of course, we couldn’t have a gingerbread themed Breakout EDU without a gingerbread house! The baker was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the chefs in training, ready to share the shenanigans that this littler gingerbread man got into around the school!

Templates in Numbers & Book Creator

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If there are two apps that I have completely fallen in love with for templates, it has to be Numbers and Book Creator. While I also love giving students the freedom to create, both of these resources enhance the organizational process for students when a template is needed.

Numbers, I often feel is overlooked for its data stereotype. However, once you erase the tables if they aren’t needed, it provides a wide, blank canvas, that can be transformed into whatever your imagination creates.

For this particular example, I had a 3rd grade teacher who approached me with a goal of having her students research a variety of countries around the world. She wanted to eliminate paper packets and keep the project digital. Knowing her goals through our discussion, I suggested Numbers. The students loved the picture placeholders and the text box placement. We discussed researching ethics and copyrights. The students even used Numbers as their presentation tool when sharing their research with their class.

As I mentioned above, another great resource to build templates in is using Book Creator. One trick that I recently learned as well, is that images from Keynote copy and paste well to Book Creator. It’s a great way to give students another library of shapes to use!

This particular template I’m referencing was for 3rd grade as well. They had been learning about the continents in social studies and planned to jigsaw them in the classroom. During our prelesson conversation, I brought up the idea of a rotation schedule. There happened to be 7, 3rd grade classrooms, so this worked out perfectly. My team was very open to trying this idea, so on the day of an early release, each 3rd grade teacher was responsible for a continent specific activity in their classrooms. The students rotated into each classroom, taking notes and photographs to document their learning. All of this was completed inside of their digital passport.

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