What's Happening in Mrs. Hynek's 3rd Grade Class?: February/March Classroom Snapshot of Events

February and March have proven to be busy times in Room 212! How is it possible that we only have about two weeks left until Spring Break?

Here's a little snapshot of what we've been covering in class:

Having a blast at our Valentine's Day Party!

Sharing our Leader in Me leadership binders with guests visiting our school.

Using Bee Bots to learn about various landforms.

Literacy:

Throughout the past two month we've been learning and exploring about the fiction genre that includes traditional folktales, fables, realistic fiction, biographies, and mysteries. We've been working on the reading comprehension strategies of chronological and sequential text structure, determining basic story elements, comparing and contrasting one text to another text, using our schema, determining importance of events, making inferences, visualizing, finding word meaning, and identifying the mood and tone of a story when we read. Moreover, we have also been learning about comprehensive test taking strategies and comparing and contrasting one text to another text.

Writing:

The students have just completed Unit 2 in our WEX Program entitled "Response to Literature". At the beginning of the unit, together we read a book called Charlotte's Web. Using excerpts from the book, students learned how to find evidence, analyze, and write about character traits of the main characters in our book. We also had fun writing about particular moments in time that the characters in the book had to endure and compared them to our own personal lives and situations. Throughout the lessons, the students continued to concentrate on the concepts of focus, details, and sentence mechanics. Additionally, students have been working on writing both an opinionated and informational paragraph.

We've been learning that every paragraph needs to include a topic sentence, at least three supporting details, and a concluding sentence. We're also learning how to add transition words to each of our supporting sentences to make our paragraph flow together.

Learning how to use the "comments" section on our Googledocs to provide
peer feedback about our informational paragraphs.

Math:

Our class just completed Unit 6 that involved geometry. The students learned about lines, segments, rays, and parallel and intersecting lines. Additionally, we were able to explore various concepts involving triangles, quadrangles, polygons, angles and turns, and symmetry.

We are now starting to dive into Unit 7 that focuses on multiplication and division facts, strategies, and concepts. Using a pre-test, your student has been placed into a differentiated math workshop group for math lessons and activities.

Science:

Last week, we were able to start a new Forces in Action unit. Throughout this unit we will explore and examine forces, gravity, and motion. Students will also have the opportunity to learn, test, and design magnetic forces and devices.