Our Final Days of 3rd Grade

Hello Everyone!

Our final days of third grade came and went in a flash!  What a year it’s been!  I want to thank all of you for your support this year --your kind words, your generous gifts, your help with supporting your child's success, and for sharing in the experience and excitement of third grade.  It has been an absolute pleasure working with your children. I will miss them and wish them all well in fourth grade.

                MORE PORTLAND BRIDGES

On Monday, we finished up our fabulous Portland Bridge Model presentations. This project was definitely a highlight of the year and an appropriate way to close our 3rd grade studies. 

Here are the final fab 5!

            Hazel with her St. Johns Bridge

Brooks with his Tilikum Crossing Bridge

                Lily with her St. Johns Bridge

         Jackson with his Tilikum Crossing Bridge

  Mairi with her Tilikum Crossing Bridge

FIELD DAY

We lucked out with a morning field day session on Tuesday, so we didn't have to contend with the afternoon heat.  This made for a very pleasant day!

ART

During our last week of 3rd grade we spent time doing art each day!

On Monday, I introduced the students to a whimsical art project which involved making small paintings on the pages of a book.  We'll just call this series...booklover's art.

Our first painting of the booklover's series was a watercolor flower with a tempra paint border, like the one below.

On Tuesday, we completed a second painting in the series, of an owl in a tree, resembling the one below.

On Wednesday,  the students were allowed to go in any direction they wanted, and were given the freedom to play around and experiment.  Some suggestions were as follows...

Choose words or phrases on the page to highlight, while painting an image that relates to the words.

Since we were using the pages from my Harry Potter Book that was falling apart, I suggested that one option could be to draw and paint a character from the story.

                                                

                   (sample character, not from Harry Potter)

Finally, I encouraged students to continue with the tree and flower themes which allow them to play around with the positive and negative space on the page, using the words for visual texture on the tree or in the background.        

         

Be sure to look through your child's art portfolio that came home, to see what their unique booklover's painting turned out to be!

This art project has so much potential.  I strongly encourage you and your child to take one of your old books from home, and create more booklover's art this summer.  This whimsical art form has endless possibilities.

BITTER SWEET

This concludes our year together, and it's always a bitter sweet time of year.  I have grown very fond of your children, and all of you.  Thank you so much for tuning in for weekly updates, I wish you all a fun and safe summer!  See you around the playground next year.

All the best,


Stephanie Cranley