I'm Back in Team Bond

I am so glad that I am back in Team Bond!  This is my 3rd year being assigned to watch them and report.  Each year I look forward to joining Mrs. Bond and checking out what her students are up to! The kids noticed me today, but what they don't know is that I actually arrived on Tuesday night!  I was able to watch the kids from inside a box on their bookshelf.  My first thought when I arrived was...Mrs. Bond doesn't have many kids.  She only has like 12 desks in her room.  She has never had a class that small! When the kids arrived, I figured out that she has 3 tables that kids sit at too now.  She really does have 23 kids in her class.  Weird though...15 boys and 8 girls.  It's crazy that there are twice as many boys as girls. I wonder if it is like that in all the third grade classrooms?
        In the morning they worked on cards with Michigan lighthouses in the winter.  It was crazy to see how the ice forms on the lighthouses.  Mrs. Bond said it looked like a scene from Frozen. They also did a neat thing in the afternoon called Energy Playground.  Kids played but they were able to explore things that used energy. There were sounds galore all over.  From buzzing motors,  to carols from musical cards, and a high pitched noise machine, the kids had fun making noise.  (I have found this to be the case in most 3rd grade classrooms I visit!) A few kids were on laptops working on coding a lit tree.  I heard a bit about it and it has something to do with the trees in Washington, DC.  I am not sure how kids can code trees for Washington, DC, but it looked pretty cool!
     

      Today I moved to the outside of the box (I took a picture from my view point), and sure enough, the kids noticed me during their read aloud in the morning.  Mrs. Bond was so excited when one of the kids pointed to me.  She let them know my background.  I am not a Santa Elf...I am a Learning Elf.  Instead of reporting to the big guy in the North Pole, I report to the head people in schools...principals, superintendents, professors, etc. Mrs. Bond had to go to a meeting this morning, so a guest teacher came.  I think her name was Mrs. Abbot. She seemed very nice.  I felt a bit bad that she struggled with the projector, as the image was blurry, but she was a good problem solver.  The wipe board works just the same!
        In the afternoon students had fun measuring their body.  They measured their arms, their necks, their wrists, and a bunch of other things.  Some of them still need to work on stating at the 0, as they came up with some weird measurements.  One girl thought a boys waist-to-floor measurement was 7 inches.  (That's more like my size!) Silly her...she was using the wrong end of the meter stick.  After math the kids left and went to art.  Then they came back in for just a bit because yesterday was one of the girl's birthdays, and she chose to have an extra recess for a thing called 15 Minutes of Fame.  This must be something new.  I will have to keep my ear open for more examples of it.
       I hope I will get to stay for a bit more in Team Bond.  I did notice there were some kids that still need to work on their listening.  It is such a shame when Mrs. Bond is talking to them about their assignments, and they can't even tell her what they are supposed to be doing.  I also noticed that some kids were being bucket dippers. Perhaps it was just a bad day for them.  (I did notice there is a full moon tonight!) I look forward to watching the kids learn more and enjoy their time with Mrs. Bond in third grade.

Elfnapped!

On Wednesday, there were a bunch of kids staying after school for a program called Destination Imagination.  It was wonderful to see the kids work in teams and use their creativity.  They left for a while to go research in the computer lab.  It sounds like they have a lot to do to prepare for a competition in March. I started to wonder what happened in the other third grade classes, so I decided to check out another third grade class at Glengary the next day.  It completely confused Team Bond, as I heard they searched high and low for me.  Team Bonkowski, which is the class next door to Mrs. Bond's class, welcomed me in.  Just for comfort, I did bring my wreath that the girls made for me, as well as the letter Mrs. Timlin wrote to me.  I found a sweater bag to put the note in, as I have noticed Team Bond adding notes to their mitten and sweater bags on the Winter Bucketfiller Board.  Mrs. Bond had a few more on her desk.  I hope she didn't mind.

While I was in Mrs. Bonkowski's class, I noticed there was another teacher.  I have seen him come into Team Bond here and there.  His name is Mr. Thomas, and he is an intern teacher from MSU.  Team Bonkowski created beautiful snowflakes while I was there. I always love seeing kids get creative!

I decided to hang out for another day in Team Bonkowski, but Team Bond had other plans for me.  I guess they wanted me there for their party, so while the kids were out of Mrs. Bonkowski's room, a girl and a boy came and got me.  I was a bit worried, as they had this purple thing that looked like a hippo and they used it to grab my hat and put me in a green cylinder.  Luckily it was filled with cushy blue felt, and it was actually quite comfortable.  Mrs. Bond remembered that I lots of kids had wrote persuasive letters to me about sitting on the book spindle.  They said that it would be like an amusement park ride when it spun, but that I would also get a great view of the classroom and be around books!  I do remember some kids thinking that the Greater Gator bucket would also be a good place, even though there is a couple stuffed gators near by.  I think I may choose that location tomorrow, as I would love to read what the kids have done to earn the Greater Gators.  Mrs. Timlin talked about that in the letter she sent me.  I wonder if any of the kids have earned one for being trustworthy...the word of the week?

The kids had a great holiday party.  They made ornaments that were stuffed with slips of paper that highlighted specials things about them at this age.  I think they will like reading these when they are older.  They also played fun games.  They had to stack cups fast, hit balloons with paper plates, and even stack nuts (the fastener kind) using only a candy cane.  After the party another teacher came in.  Mrs. Bond had to take her daughter to the doctors.  The children seemed to do well.  They learned more about area.  They also read about energy conversions, although some of the struggled with the questions at the end.  Finally, they worked on Kwanzaa Hearts.  They had to put them in their desk to finish tomorrow.

Well, one last day before holiday break!  I am sure that there will be a lot of excitement in the air! It sure has been fun watching the learning in their exciting educational environment!

Wow! A Story Written Just for Me!

I really, really love this class!  I get notes from them, they tell me things when they are walking by, and they are always keeping me in mind!  Like today, when one of the dad's came in to talk to the class about electric cars, they counted me as a student.  They were talking about how Ford employs over 200,000 people and Mr. Tinskey asked how many kids were in the class.  They said 25, but then someone said I was included, so 26.  How cute is that!  I sure did enjoy learning about electric cars and energy.  Electric cars don't make a sound like normal cars do, so they are actual finding ways to add sound to the car so people can hear them, especially people that are blind. It was very cool having him in the class, and I had the best view.  He brought in a Tesla Coil that actually was able to make a light bulb light up without plugging it into anything!
It was so nice of him to share his time with the class.  Speaking of sharing, I got an email from his daughter the other day.  She created a story just for me, as I told her that I love to read. I decided to share it with you too!  I hope you enjoy Maddie's story...I sure did!

Since you said you liked to read, I wrote you a story.....

The Learning Elf's Wonderful Place To Stay

Once upon a time,  on a cold crisp day, a learning elf named Elfran Etavonni was looking for a place to stay. The winds were high and Elfran did not no where to stay. He searched high and low for a warm place to spend the night. He came across a street called Macini street. He thought he might look to see if there was anything just ANYTHING to stay in for the night. But when he turned the corner onto Macini street he was in for a big surprise. Huge rainbows of gold and red painted the sky. The houses, more like castles where made of pure gold that caught the rays of the sun.....The sun???? It was WARM on Macini street. WARM!!! Elfran Etavonni strolled across the diamond road. Seeing people with wings and knights with real       e shining armor. Everyone greeted him nicely with huge grins with every tooth perfectly white. A princess even invited him into the palace for a nice dinner. Elfran Etavonni gladly excepted the invitation. His stomach was growling fiercely. The princess escorted him into the beautiful golden palace. On the table that was big enough for a whole school  to sit on was a huge salad that was 6 feet tall with tomatoes, onions, olives, carrots, and a magical veggie that was called Aka Oka. Also there was a huge chicken that was 7 feet wide and 4 feet tall. For drinks there was fruit smoothies. Made with honey, strawberrys, bananas, mangos, peaches, and of coarse, SUGER!!! Elfran Etavonni's mouth drooled as he looked at the HUGE feast. My names Samantha said the princess. My name is Elfran Etavonni said the learning elf. The princess and the elf dug into the meal. Elfran Etavonni ate only a part of a chicken leg and a few veggies and spinach. The princess ate 5 pieces of chicken and 2 bowls of salad. The reason the learning elf ate only a little bit, was because he was miniature. Elfran Etavonni yawned. Oh are you tired Mr. Elfran? Asked the princess. Yes I am. Said Elfran. The princess took Elfran to a room labeled quests. Inside there were small beds made of pure gold and cloudy mattresses and huge beds made with pure gold and cloudy mattresses to. The princess took  Elfran to the tiniest bed. It was big enough for a doll. Oh this is perfect! Said Elfron! Good! Said the princess. Then I shall leave you alone until morning. Elfran curled up in the bed and put the extra fluffy blanket on top of him and dozed right of into dream land. Dreaming of home.

The end!!!

Cheers to Great Learning!

Etavonni

The Michigan River Boats and Notes!

I was able to sneak on Mrs. Bond's computer while she was out of the class.  I think she was meeting with a mom, as I noticed a woman come in right before the kids left the room.  I already have been given lots of notes by the kids.  What a warm welcome to Team Bond!

Look at some of the notes that I got! 

Like I said before, the boats turned out great.  I am looking at a table with some on them from my view in the boat. 

 I wonder what they learned about Michigan rivers and the Great Lakes?  If Team Bond would like to email me, my email address is learningelf@gmail.com.  I will try to sneak on a computer and answer you back! 

Cheers to Learning, 

Etavonni

Good-bye for Now Team Bond

 The students noticed that I hung out with my new friends in frames, the giraffe and the cow a bit too long. To be honest with you, I was quite content relaxing and keeping an eye on all of the wonderful learning.  Plus, I figured this was a great place to stay that was germ free.  I don't think many third graders have touched up here.  There have been many kids staying home from school because they are sick.  Mrs. Bond had to remind the kids to cough into their elbow.

I also wanted to hang around Team Bond so that I could hear the rest of The Secret Zoo by Bryan Chick.  It was quite an intense ending to Book 1. The Action Scouts had to battle the Sasquatches in The Dark Lands. Mrs. Bond allowed the kids to turn off the lights to make it a bit spookier.  It worked!  I really wanted to be cuddled next to Maxi like I was last week. All in all, the book was awesome!  Since there were some kids out, Mrs. Bond used her iPad to record her reading using a program called Evernote.  I thought that was pretty cool...as I know the kids that were absent would not want to miss the ending!  I wonder if she will email them the recording or will they have to listen to it on her iPad?

Well, since I have had a lot of time in Mrs. Bond's classroom, I decided to get a new perspective on third grade by visiting Mrs. Hamlin's class.  There is one boy that is in Mrs. Bond's bus line that is always talking about his Elf on the Shelf.  He had fun spotting me each day in bus line, so I thought I would give his classroom a visit.  Mrs. Hamlin had been out sick on Monday and Tuesday, and I could tell she still wasn't feeling 100%.  Hopefully she feels better tomorrow.

The students learned about decimals today in math. They learned about the tenths and the hundredths place. While I was listening, I noticed Mrs. Hamlin used these green blocks to show the kids what a tenth looks like and what a hundredth looks like.  A "long" which is a row of 10 cubes stuck together was a tenth.  The little cubes by themselves represented hundredths.  That helped me understand it better.   I really was interested in this app that kids were playing on the iPad.  It was called Stack the States.  Kids had to answer questions about the states and then they would try to catch some of the states.  It was pretty cool.  Just like in Team Bond, Team Hamlin was also working on gifts for the holidays.  Today I noticed some kids wrapping their gifts.  I bet their families are REALLY going to like what they made!  Speaking of families, there was another adult in the room helping out.  I think she was one of the student's mom.  That sure is nice that family members donate their time to help out at school! 

The kids are having another one of those BA things.  This time it is for Science.  They learned all about Matter and Energy, so they were reviewing for it today.  They had to remember all of the forms of energy they learned about.  Let's see if I can remember...light, heat, electricty, sound...and I think there are a couple more.  Perhaps I will be able to think about them more tomorrow.

At the end of the day Mrs. Hamlin read a book.  It was all about Santa getting a new suit.  The kids seemed to enjoy the book.  The kids go to different classrooms for bus line, so I got to see some of the kids from Team Bond. I could tell they were happy to see me!  Well, that's it for now!  Only 2 more days until the kids go on break! 

Day 2 in Team Bond

Today I got a lot of attention.  The kids were staring at me a lot, as I moved to the filing cabinet. I noticed that the kids were writing in cursive, so I decided to practice my handwriting and made a name tag.  

The kids are getting excited for the holidays, and Mrs. Bond was getting crafts ready for kids to make.  She showed the class 2 projects they were going to work on for the morning, but I will keep that hush, hush, as they will be giving these to family members.  I watched Mrs. Bond demonstrate the crafts, and I wished I could make them too!

They also talked about opinions and generated questions that would be good to ask to get the opinions of others.  They are going to be doing interviews at home soon.  One good question I liked was, "What day of the week do you like the best?"  I bet there would be a lot of interesting answers to that!  

They had a special visitor come in to help.  They called her Mrs. Richard.  She spent most of her time out of the room, but then she read a really cool book about a man named Henry Ford.  It was a creative story about how Henry Ford met Santa.  Mrs. Richard said that the elves making toys in an assembly line helped Henry Ford make cars the same way.  

Then they had that BA test that I was talking about.  The students worked very hard on their tests.  When they were done they worked on multiplication menorahs.  A menorah is the candle holder used to celebrate Hanukkah. Mrs. Bond had to leave for a doctor's appointment.  She had an issue with her ear...and she couldn't hear very well.  Hopefully the doctors can help her. 

There was a new lady that came in the classroom.  I saw her come in this morning then she was gone.  I guess she liked it here because she came back and stayed until the end of the day.  I bet she’s part of the team.  The kids all called her Mrs. Share.  I guess she likes to share a lot.  Cool Name!

I learned about energy transfer.  The new lady from Team Bond read from a very interesting book.  I liked the part about sound waves.  Did you even know that there are waves that travel through the air that you can’t see? The teacher said that waves were coming out of her mouth right to the students’ ears.  There are so many kinds of energy.  I was impressed to see how many of the students knew about these different kinds of energy.  Then the class used their creativity to create an example of an energy source and the transfer of energy it provided.

The Mrs. Share had the students stop their work to go to Media.  I wish I could have gone with them.    I really love books.  I heard some of the students asking if they were going to use the computers.  They seemed really excited about it.  In the room I made some new friends on the shelf where I was sitting while they were gone.

When everyone returned, they finished drawing examples of energy transfer.  The students glued some notes into their science spirals.  A boy named Johnny tried to help Mrs. Share find Mrs. Bond’s spiral.  He even checked under all of the tables, but no luck.  The students reviewed all the types of energy they had studied.
I could tell the day was coming to an end.  The students were trying to finish things up.  Some were writing an opinion paragraph, some were doing cursive, and one was over near the door writing on little pieces of paper and sticking them to the wall.  It was curious though, one girl in the pink top and a braid kept lying on the floor.  I’m wonder if this is a new learning technique I’ve never heard of before.  I’ll keep observing this to see if I can figure it out.

Then two blond girls, both with a purple top on, were staring at me.  I mean really staring at me.  I started to get a bit nervous, but I held my head high and let them look.  I guess they have never seen a learning elf before.  They had to go back to their seats as the teacher was winding up the day.

When the students were getting themselves organized to go home a boy showed up in front of me.  He has short blond hair and was wearing a gray jacket.  He was staring at me too.  But he did more than stare; he was trying to talk to me.  He was speaking so quietly and the room was kind of loud that I couldn't understand him.  I would be really cool if he could write me a note.  I like the two notes that Andrew and Alyse wrote.

Well, the children have gone home for the night.  I made friends with the moose who was sitting next to me.  He told me that the reason the room gets so cold at night is that the heat is turned down.  I was very cold last night.  The moose said I could sit with him to stay warm.

I really like it here in Team Bond.  I may just have to stay a while longer.

My Arrival in Team Bond

I flew in this afternoon, and only a few children noticed.  I knew I should have waited until the evening, but I was too excited to start learning about third grade.  Luckily, they were not distracted by my presence.  Mrs. Bond, their teacher, was surprised to see me sitting on top of the Everyday Math box.  (I picked this view because it allowed me to see the entire room.)  There are many elves traveling around during this season.  Most of them are reporting back to a special man with a beard that's white, but I am special.  I am a Learning Elf.  Etavonni the Learning Elf!  Each year at this time, I go around to third grade classrooms and see what children are learning about.  Then, I send my reports to educational leaders...people like principals, superintendents, professors, and even some governors.  This year I thought I would try something new, so I have created my very first blog.  It was about time, as more people should know about the cool things going on in classrooms...not just the education leaders!

So...back to my visit in Mrs. Bond's 3rd Grade.  Well, they are located in Commerce Township, MI.  They are a part of the Walled Lake Consolidated School District in Michigan.  I found them when I was on twitter last week @TeamBond2012.  They were tweeting about having fun in their Energy Playground. They also tweeted that they played a game in PE called Cell Tag and learned about organisms.  I thought both of those things sounded super cool, so I put them on my list of classrooms to visit!  

I got to the classroom while they were in lunch, and when they got back from lunch, the students continued reading silently.  They did a pretty good job of being quiet and keeping interested in their books.  Mrs. Bond did have to remind some boys that were behind me to stay focused.  Then the students had to write their books in a book log.  I liked how they had to do a subtraction problem to find out how many pages they had read.  After that, they reviewed for their BA test.  I was curious what a BA test was, and luckily one of the students asked towards the end of the day, and I found out that BA stands for Benchmark Assessment.  Some of the students left with a grandpa that volunteers and the rest of the students practiced area and perimeter using the MOBI, which was kinda like a clipboard that you can write on, but the writing was able to be seen on the wall.  It was neat!  Then the students played a game called Multiplication Top-It.    In Science, the students are studying energy, and they were able to watch a video all about how energy can be transferred.  One boy was surprised to hear that food was a type of energy.  He only thought electricity was energy.  One girl remembered learned about kinetic energy, which another young lady reminded her that it meant moving energy.  All in all, the video was great.  Tomorrow Mrs. Bond said the kids would be creating energy cartoons...I wonder how those will turn out?

Students were able to go outside for an hour for Student Activity Time.  This is a time where third grade teachers get together.  The room was very quiet, so I took a quick nap.  I was exhausted after my long flight.   When they got back, the students worked on word study. Most of the kids had to work on homophones.  I noticed that many children struggled with the word tide.  They did not know how to use it in a sentence, but that makes sense since they don't live by an ocean.  They do have the Great Lakes, but the Great Lakes don't have tides.  Another word that some had a hard time with was hymn.  I don't think people talk a lot about hymns, they must just call them church songs?????  

At the end of the day there was a lot of activity.  Kids filled out their assignment notebooks, children emptied their mailboxes, students got new jobs for the week, and the children had to clean the floor.  I did notice there were a lot of things left on the floor.  Good thing one of the classroom job is Floor Patrol, as the young man did a good job of reminding people to pick up.  

All in all, I enjoyed my first afternoon in Team Bond.  I am looking forward to learning a lot while I am here! Apparently the kids are working on The Secret Zoo projects at home.  I am not sure what that means, but it sounds kinda cool!  Anything to do with secret zoos has my attention!  I guess they have to bring them in by Wednesday!  I can't wait!  I will have to make sure I pick an awesome place on Wednesday to get a nice view of the presentations!  

Thanks for reading my very first blog entry!  Look for more to come!  

Cheers to Learning!

Etavonni  the Learning Elf