Welcome to the website for Miss Bellotti's 3rd grade class. 
We are proud to be a part of Samsula Academy,
Volusia County's Premier Charter School.

Please visit our school's website at www.samsulaacademy.org

Latest News Headlines from Miss Bellotti's 3rd Grade

End of the Year Awards

The year has come to an end and to celebrate all of the things we have achieved this year we had a very special class awards ceremony.  Every single one of us has made amazing progress this year and we are so proud of all that we have learned in 3rd grade.  We have become better readers, writers, mathematicians, and scientists, but most importantly of all we are all better friends and more caring and kind people because of our time together in 3rd grade.  We are ready to accomplish great things and we know that we can all make a difference and achieve anything we set our minds to!  There is no limit to what we can achieve!

I Scream...You Scream...We all Scream...FOR ICE CREAM!

On a hot last day of school, our class decided to cool down by making some ice cream from scratch!  We discussed how ice cream is made and then used rock salt to lower the freezing point of our ingredients so our ice cream would go from liquid to solid.  To churn it all up we tossed our bags back and forth with our partners for 15 minutes.  It was a lot of work but the end result was delicious!  If you want to make some ice cream to cool down with your family on a hot summer day you can find the recipe and an explanation of the science behind it at the Steve Spangler Science Website.

Field Day

As a special end of the year activity we had a fantastic field day, all organized by the wonderful Coach Carignan.  We had an awesome day of fun playing games, doing relay races, and showing off our dance moves.  The day ended with a spray down from the fire truck and an outside picnic.  Check out the video below to see all the fun!

We Love our Moms!

Our class is so lucky because we all have our moms as a part of our lives.  We know that we couldn't be here without them and we all love them very much.  To show our moms how much we care, we created books for them called Memories for Mom.  Some of us even made our moms cry tears of joy when they got their books.  We loved letting our moms know how much we appreciate them!

Happy 100th!

Our class finally earned 100 Panther Paws and to celebrate the occasion we went all out and had an ice cream sundae party!  We've earned it!

A glimpse into our day...Center Time!

Center time is one of our favorite parts of the school day.  We love working together and practicing our reading skills with hands-on and minds-on activities.  Check out the pictures below to see what a typical center time looks like in our classroom.  

Earth Day

As the culmination of our study of conservation our class celebrated Earth Day with the classic Dr. Seuss book The Lorax (and of course some dirt cake).  The Lorax and the Once-ler inspired us to do our part to conserve our Earth's natural resources.

   "Unless someone like you, cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.  It's not"

Black Stallion Field Trip

Our class had a wonderful time visiting the Volusia County Fairgrounds for a special horse show performance of The Black Stallion.  We were amazed by what we saw and had a wonderful time experiencing all of the fun together.  Most importantly, Hocus and her friends helped teach us that with books we can go anywhere and see anything!

Science: Extra Credit Seed Collection

As an opportunity for extra credit the students were given the option of creating seed collections.  Sage was the only one who participated and she did a marvelous job!  Check out all the seeds she found in the pictures below.

Science: Germination Experiment

As a part of our plant study we decided to do an experiment to determine which of four seeds will germinate first.  We are comparing turnip seeds, corn seeds, sunflower seeds, and pinto beans and we are excited to finish our experiment and see if our hypotheses were correct or not.  Check back soon to find out the results!

Symphony Field Trip

The third, fourth, and fifth grade students at Samsula Academy were lucky enough to be invited by the Daytona Beach Symphony Society for a field trip to the Peabody Auditorium.  Out of our class, Brittany and John attended the field trip and had a great time listening to the performance of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra.  We especially enjoyed the solo performance of violinist Stephanie Jeong.  

2010 Winter Olympic Games: Closing Ceremonies

After an exciting and educational two weeks our Winter Olympic Games concluded with our Closing Ceremonies.  Thanks to the wonderful efforts of our parents we had the opportunity to taste delicious foods from around the world before extinguishing our Olympic Torch.  Our Closing Ceremony also included the awarding of our Reading Olympics medals!

Gold Medal Winners
John Mott-Greece
Jordan Vaughn-India

Silver Medal Winners
Samantha Morris-Canada
Ethan Stein-Israel
Hunter Badura-Poland
Brittany Hilton-France
Russell Brenner-Brazil
Sage Harper-Italy
Ashleigh Roy-South Africa

Bronze Medal Winner
Danae Runestad-China

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2010 Winter Olympic Games: Opening Ceremonies

In celebration of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games our class will be participating in our own Olympic activities.  On February 12th we kicked off the fun with our Opening Ceremonies complete with the lighting of our classroom Olympic torch and the parade of nations and flag presentation.  

Math: Arrays All Around Us!

As we begin learning about multiplication, we have started noticing that arrays are all around us. They were even at our Valentine's Day celebration!  3 rows and 4 columns of cupcakes equal how many cupcakes in all?

January Book Reports

For the month of January our book report assignment was to make a poster advertising a chapter book that we chose to read.  The results were fantastic!  Check out the pictures below or visit the cafeteria to see the posters we made on display.  You may even want to read one of the advertised books.  

100th Day!

It is hard to believe but we are already 100 days in to 3rd grade and 100 days smarter!  The school year has flown by and we can't believe how far we have come and how much we have learned.  To celebrate the special occasion we each brought in a collection of 100 things.  Then the class had to guess what our collection was by asking questions and using their inferencing skills.  We even got to snack on some of the collections that our classmates brought.

Happy 50th Panther Paw to Us!

After a lot of hard work and good behavior we have made it to 50 Panther Paws!  Here are some pictures from our celebration!

Science: Animal Classification Unit

We think that one of the best ways to learn is with hands on and minds on learning and there was no shortage of that in our last science unit.  We started by sorting models of animals into categories based on their similarities.  Then we made a tree map and discussed the ways that scientists classify animals as vertebrates and invertebrates and the classifications in each of those groups.  We even made models of backbones using pasta wheels, gummy life savers, and pipe cleaners.  Check out our pictures below to see some of the hands on activities that helped us learn about animal classificiaton.

Language Arts: Veteran's Day Letters

To celebrate Veteran's Day each of the students in our class wrote a letter to a Veteran thanking him for his service to our country.  We were surprised and excited when many of the Veterans wrote back to us to thank us for writing to them  It felt great to know that we made a difference just by writing letters!

Language Arts:  We are now Published Authors!

We worked hard for weeks illustrating and writing and we have been waiting in anticipation for this day to come.  We are all now officially published authors and we couldn't be prouder of our accomplishment!  We hope that this is the first of many published works by the students in our class.  

Gingerbread Fun!

In preparation for Christmas our class wrote expository essays explaining how to make gingerbread houses.  Then, thanks to the generous donations from parents, we were able to create our own gingerbread houses.  Watch the slideshow below to see all of our beautifully decorated gingerbread houses.

Reader's Theater
The Baker's Dozen--A St. Nicholas Tale

A glimpse into our school day...D.E.A.R. Time

One of our favorite parts of the school day is D.E.A.R. time.  After lunch every day we Drop Everything And Read for 15 minutes.  We love finding comfy spots around the room and curling up for a few minutes each day to get lost in a good book.  Here is a glimpse into our daily D.E.A.R. time...

Happy Thanksgiving from Our Class!

Math and Science: Budgeting for a Thanksgiving Feast

In preparation for Thanksgiving, our class used newspaper ads to shop for foods for a Thanksgiving feast.  Each group calculated the total cost of a nutritionally balanced Thanksgiving meal for four, all while staying under budget.  We loved applying math and science to one of our favorite holidays!

Here is the Thanksgiving Feast presentation from our winning team!

Turkey Time!

As a family project each student in our class decorated a turkey.  Everyone in each family took part in decorating so our turkeys are a great reflection of who we are and where we come from.  Each turkey is special and unique!

Storybook Parade

This year's storybook parade was a great success!  The students all chose a famous figure in history to research for their Living Biography reports.  Then, on the day of the storybook parade, we dressed in costume and made the famous figures come to life!

Teddy Bear Day

Did you know that the teddy bear was named after Theodore Roosevelt?  This is why we celebrate Teddy Bear Day on his birthday, October 27th.  As part of our celebration we all brought our favorite teddy bears to school along with one of our favorite picture books.  Then we went and read to the kindergarten students in Mr. Gibbs and Miss Titus' class.  Our class also read the story of how the Teddy Bear got it's name and read a biography to learn more about Theodore Roosevelt.  We loved learning more about how our favorite stuffed animals got their names!

Click here if to read the story of how the teddy bear got it's name!

Guest Speaker: UF Dental Student Ashley Younkman

Special guest speaker Ashley Younkman, a second year dental school student at the University of Florida, came in to teach the third grade classes about dental health and hygiene.  She even gave us some special goodies that we could use to take care of our teeth.  

Science: Chocolate Experiment

To get some more practice using the Scientific Method we did another experiment involving Miss Bellotti's favorite--CHOCOLATE!  Each student chose one piece of chocolate from a candy sampler.  Then we used our senses of touch, sight, and smell to predict what was inside our piece of chocolate.  Then came the best part!  We each broke open our chocolates to see if our hypothesis about what was inside was correct.  Who knew science could be so delicious! 

Reader's Theater: The Strongest One

Since plays are written to be performed, our class made this video of one of our weekly stories called The Strongest One.  We hope you enjoy it!

Science: Pumpkin Seed Experiment

To practice the Scientific Method our class did an experiment using pumpkins.  The purpose of our experiment was to determine whether the amount of seeds in a pumpkin differs depending on size.  We hypothesized that a large pumpkin would have more seeds.  Then we did the dirty work and scraped all the seeds out of each pumpkin and counted them.  Guess what?  Our hypothesis was correct!  The larger pumpkin did have more seeds!

Math: Human Line Plot

To help our class understand line plots we made a human line plot.  Our human line plot helped us visualize what a line plot really represents.  Can you see the mode of our line plot?

Social Studies: Communities
What makes Samsula a special community?

As a part of our community study we split into groups and made posters showing why Samsula is a special community.  Check out our photo gallery below to see us hard at work and the results of our teamwork.  Samsula pride is hard to hide!

Me Bags

During our first week of 3rd grade we each brought in Me Bags to introduce ourselves.  These Me Bags had five things that we shared with the class as we learned more about each other.