Back in School

 The TISA 3rd grade has been doing some excellent work in class and at home, combining Math, Science, Social Studies, and Art to create some truly impressive work.

We used our mathematical knowledge of polygons to make tangrams, which are a Chinese puzzle that you can make out of 7 simple polygon shapes. 

Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper into creative shapes. In Art class, Ms. Cassandra has been teaching us how to fold paper cranes. 

Matryoskha dolls are a Russian kind of wooden artwork, where one large doll contains many smaller ones. We used our paper folding skills to create a paper version of the Matryoskha doll. 

In Science, we have been learning about the forces that make things balance. The students got to see counterweight in action, using these cutouts and some clothespins. 

We learned the clay-making technique of coiling to create some beautiful bowls, cups and dishes. 

In learning about how things balance and the forces that make things fall, we made Twirly Birds in Science class and wrote about why they spin when they drop to the ground. 

In Math, we have been learning how to read data. Here the students asked their classmates about some of their favorite things, and represented their data using bar graphs. 

In learning about other cultures, some of the 3rd graders came up with very thoughtful observations about how Japan is different from the United States. 

Students in school have given some marvelous book presentations lately. Each week, a different pair of students tells the class about a book that they have enjoyed, and presents a show & tell. 

Everyone has been doing a great job of learning Spanish. People are already speaking in Spanish sentences! And they can identify animals of lots of different colors.