Academic Updates:
This week we started our European Settlers Unit, with a focus on what it must have been like for not only the settlers to arrive on new land, but also for the Native Americans to encounter these people without knowing who they were or what they wanted. The students watched a video clip about their arrival and the reactions of both sides. They then wrote a diary entry as if they were either a Native American or European Settler, keeping in mind the terminology they might use, how they may feel, and what they may be confused about. The students were so creative and many got really into this activity! During Reading, we continued our Amber Brown is not a Crayon and are about to start the next book in the series, Don’t eat your Chicken Pox Amber Brown. We discussed the importance of noticing character patterns, like how they interact with others. The third graders are encouraged to start reading a series of their own, and to take note of how the main characters change throughout each book. Some students have decided to create their own book series, based on other books they’ve read like Goosebumps! I can’t wait to see what they come up with! We also had many events this week, from The Ned Show and the author visit, to the Wizard of Oz at the end of the week. It’s been a busy few days! The students in 3M were able to make it to the top of their token jar this week as well, so they will have a privilege on Wednesday, April 4th! Keep up the great work everyone! Upcoming events & Reminders:
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Academic Updates: We’ve had another busy week full of learning! This week, we focused on reviewing a couple skills from the last trimester including Main Idea, conjunctions, and most recently capitalization. It is important to occasionally spiral back to make sure we have all mastered specific reading and writing skills. During Literacy we also continued our Guided Reading books about various Nonfiction topics. In the near future, we will switch to reading Fiction stories again during our book group time, as our full class focus is on how characters develop and change over time. We are continuing our first Amber Brown book, and have learned some new strategies for understanding someone’s character traits. For instance, we spoke about how you can really get to know a person by the way he or she react to big events in life. During Social Studies, we continued to learn about inventors, and had discussions around the fact that you don’t have to have “white hair and wrinkles” to be an inventor. In Benjamin Franklin’s case, he was only twelve years old when he created hand and foot paddles for swimming! We had the opportunity to watch a video on how chocolate was made, and were able to find many examples of inventions, (most, we had no idea existed before). Finally, at the end of the week, we made Dream Catchers, to help encourage positive dreams and ideas to come our way! Upcoming events & Reminders:
The students have had opportunities to pick our Morning Meeting Greetings this week, and they chose a couple fun interactive ones! Above are pictures of our "Snowball (or flower- now that we're into Spring) Greeting" and our "Shoe Greeting!"
Academic Updates:
Wow, what a wintery week we’ve had! The students have done a nice job working to get caught up from Tuesday’s snow day and Wednesday’s delayed opening. I hope you all enjoyed the extra time together and had a chance to enjoy the snow! During ELA this week, we had our first official opinion writing assignment. The question was: If you had the choice, would you rather have April break, or a longer Summer vacation. We had some fantastic discussions around this, and the third graders practiced using their new type of graphic organizer the “OREO” where the students state their Opinion, Reason, and give an Example, before concluding with an Opinion statement again. We actually took it to the next level, and used a “double stuffed OREO” where the students were expected to write two reasons with examples to support their opinions. Their writing is coming along well. We also started a new read aloud to go along with our next Reading unit where we will be studying book series and noticing how the characters develop and change. We are reading Amber Brown is Not a Crayon by Paula Danziger. This week we also did some Saint Patrick’s day reading comprehension practice, to help us get ready for SBAC at the end of the year. We are starting to practice a few test taking strategies. Inventions are something we continue to learn about as well. This week we created “Leprechaun traps” to catch those pesky little guys! Upcoming events & Reminders:
Academic Updates: This week we started our next Social Studies Unit on Inventors and inventions. The students saw a video clip about examples of students around the country who have noticed a problem in their life and decided to invent something to fix it, including “sun muffs,” a “hamster helmet,” and even a “trash can catapult.” We read about inventors who, had they not made the choices they did or try to problem solve, we would not have had some delicious and fun inventions in our lives like popsicles and trampolines. We will continue this unit with review of grammar skills, including capitalization, punctuation, and paragraph spacing. We will also use our new fluency skills and practice “chunking” phrases while we read our new nonfiction books during Guided Reading time. The students are very excited to read their chapter books to you during our Parent- Teacher- Student conferences,. They had some practice this week reading to a few teacher visitors that the students requested. We ended this week with a Dr. Seuss day celebration including reading with our upper grade friends, a book scavenger hunt in the Media Center, and a few visitors! Next week will be the start of our next trimester. We have had some discussions around what our goals will be for the final trimester of the 3rd grade year. 3M also gets to start off the trimester with a privilege. On Monday, March 5th, the students have a stuffed animal day and a choice time! Keep up the great work everyone! Upcoming events & Reminders:
Dr. seuss day activities and visitors!INFORMATION CHAPTER BOOK PRESENTATIONS! |
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June 2018
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