Wow! What a pack-full month of learning we've had in third grade! Our first trimester has quickly come to an end. Hopefully your child brought home their report card to you on Friday.
I look forward to seeing all of you at conferences next week. Please be sure to write down and bring any questions or concerns that you have regarding your child's progress with you at conference time. Be sure to click on this link to view our conference schedule.
I would like to wish you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving! How thankful I am to be able to spend your child's third grade experience with them. It has been such a blessing being able to watch them grow and mature. It certainly has been a fun year together! Please enjoy the time together over the next week and have a safe and fantastic break with your family!
Here's what has been happening in our classroom:
Reading:
Throughout Unit 2 of Treasures, the students have been working on the comprehension strategies of summarizing and utilizing our context clues to determine the meaning of a word or paragraph. Additionally, we have been reading stories that distinguish between fantasy and reality events and fact and opinion persuasive articles. Throughout vocabulary time, the students have been working with antonyms, multiple-meaning words, and words with plural endings. Your child can click on the following links for additional activities with some of the stories we read together:
The students have been doing a great job during guided reading time too. In our novel groups, we have been working on using the comprehension strategies that we have learned to answer questions in our novel group packets. We've also had some great literature circle discussions too. All of the novel groups have read one chapter book together and now we are now onto reading our second book for the year.
Last week students brought home for you their first book bag reading of the year. This is a book that corresponds with the comprehension strategies that go along with our Treasures series and serves as a reinforcement. All of the students have read the book with a partner during our Daily 5 "Read to Someone" time. Their homework assignment is to reread the story at home and afterwards have an adult ask them comprehension questions about what they have read. The adult is encouraged to utilize the comprehension questions that are listed in the back of the book or they can use the "Bloom's Taxonomy" questions that are inside of their child's bag.
As a reminder, it is important for your child to still continue to read at least 20 minutes a night independently or with an adult at home.
Over the past month the students have been working with distinguishing between common and proper nouns, the rules of making a noun plural, and the rules of making a noun possessive.
During Daily 5 time, the students had fun practicing these skills with the following web pages. Click on these links to view and play the web site games at home:
Writing:
During Writer's Express (WEX) time, our class continues to work hard learning about the important elements to include in a personal narrative. Together, our mini-lessons have been focusing on writing our paragraphs in a more logical and organized manner. In addition, we are continuing to make sure that our work focuses on a single moment in time. Our lessons have also been stressing the importance of utilizing strong verbs, good sensory detail, and proper sentence mechanics in our writing.
During conference time, parents will be able to view all of our stories in our WEX binder. Parents will also get to read our first published personal narrative.
Math:
The students just completed Unit 3 dealing with Units of Measurements. Together, the students reviewed how to measure to the nearest inch, 1/2 inch, centimeter, and 1/2 centimeter using a ruler and tape measure with various objects. We also worked with all of the other basic standards of measurement involving yards, meters, miles, and kilometers. The students had fun learning how to determine both the area and perimeter of objects and spaces. Our unit concluded with learning how to find the diameter and circumference of circular objects.
Social Studies:
The students have been very busy working on their first UbD Project of the year. UbD stands for "Understanding by Design". In September, the third grade teachers spent a few days designing a UbD Project that focuses on studying about our Midwest Unit. Within the unit, each student was put into a group of 5-6 students and randomly assigned a Midwest state to research together.
Through their research, students must answer the essential question of "Why would people choose to live in your Midwest state?". Their research started off with students learning how to research information about their state in books and selected online websites. The students then learned how to record the physical features, major economic activities, natural resources, and historical and contemporary attractions about their state in an online program called Googledocs. (This is a web-based office suite that allows the students to create and edit their notes onlines while collaborating in real-time with their group members.) From their research, each group designed and wrote a newscast to state their findings about their state. Each newscast was video recorded and will be downloaded into an iMovie. Currently, each group is learning how to edit and add special features to their newscasts.
Our entire Midwest Project will be displayed to the parents during our Third Grade Curriculum Snapshot on Dec. 9th. We hope you received an invitation to this event the other day via backpack mail. If not, please refer to this link for more information. We can't wait to show off our hard work to you!
A BIG THANK YOU goes to all of our parent classroom volunteers
We would like to thank Mrs. Filippelli, Mrs. Silvestri, Mrs. Orlyk, Mrs. Gainulin, Mrs. Moran, Mr. Kakavetsis, Mrs. Bolithon, Mrs. Grant O'Hara, and Mrs. Jones for coming in to assist with our Reader's Theater groups for the months of October and November!I also greatly appreciate Mrs. Doctor, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Moran, Mrs. Collins, and Mrs. Bolithon for coming in to do all of our copying. We greatly appreciate your time!
We would also like to thank Mrs. Bolithon and Mrs. Moran for coming in on Friday for a spectacular Art Appreciation lesson about mosaics. The students had a blast making their own mosaics that will be displayed after Thanksgiving break.
