Dissecting Owl Pellets

The students had a blast dissecting owl pellets this week.   Through their findings, many of the students discovered that their bones belonged to voles, shrews, moles, rats, and various birds.   We would like to thank Mrs. Kuhn, Mrs. Davenport, and Mrs. Corwin for helping us out with our dissections.   Enjoy the pictures from our Science time.

Planet Walk

As a culmination to our solar system science unit, Westgate’s 3rd graders were able to  “walk across our solar system!”  This fun activity helped the students better understand the scale of our solar system and the distance between the planets.  To accomplish this goal, we walked along Dwyer to Campbell, using the number of our steps to simulate the planets’ distances from each other and from the sun.  The students will also be shared some of their planet research at each “planet stop” before returning to Westgate.  Enjoy the pictures below.  

Here's the scale we used:

One step (approximately 1 yard) = 3,600,000 miles
Westgate represents the Sun

·      From the Sun to Mercury, we needed to walk 10 paces.

·      From Mercury to Venus, we needed to walk 9 paces.

·      From Venus to Earth, we needed to walk 7 paces.

·      From Earth to Mars, we needed to walk 14 paces.

·      From Mars to the Asteroid Belt, we needed to walk 47.5 paces.

·      From the Asteroid Belt to Jupiter, we needed to walk 47.5 paces.

·      From Jupiter to Saturn, we needed to walk 112 paces.

·      From Saturn to Uranus, we needed to walk 249 paces.

·      From Uranus to Neptune, we needed to walk 281 paces.

Art Appreciation

We would like to thank Mrs. Georg for coming in last week conduct a wonderful Art Appreciation lesson focusing on the artist Georgia O'Keeffe.   Enjoy the pictures from the event.

Thank You Officer Veenstra!

Today Arlington Heights Officer Veenstra came to our classroom to talk about ways they can be safe if they are approached by a stranger.   He also discussed Internet safety with our class.  Enjoy the pictures from our discussion.  We thank Officer Veenstra for stopping by our classroom today!

Solar Awards Results

Today the students had a blast walking down the red carpet attending the Solar Awards!   Our guest announcer, Mr. McHugh came in to reveal the winning planets of our persuasive speeches.  Enjoy the pictures of our winning planets.

Solars Awards

All of the third grade classes have been participating in a month long Solar System research project.   At the beginning stages, each student was put into a specific planet group based off of their interest.   Using websites and books, each planet group researched information about their planet and posted their notes into Googledocs.   

Afterwards, each planet group chose two Solar Award Categories that they felt their planet could win. The Solar Award Categories are:

• Strangest Atmosphere

• Wildest Temperature/Weather

• Best Name

• Most Earth-like Planet

• Most Interesting Moons

• Scariest Planet

• Most Beautiful Planet

• Most Unique Planet

Once the categories were chosen, each planet group had to write a persuasive paragraph that proved why their planet should win that specific category award. Our class combined with Mrs. Jensen's class to do this portion of the research and paragraph writing.   All paragraphs were submitted to an award selection committee.  

This week, together with the entire third grade, students were divided into specific selection committees that gathered in the Commons.   (Ex.:  The Strangest Atmosphere Committee).   Each committee was responsible for reading the persuasive paragraphs and narrowing down each category to the top three planets that they felt deserved to win that specific category based off of the evidence that was given to them.   

Back in the classroom, the top three persuasive speeches for each category will be read aloud.   After the speeches are read, the students will vote online into a program called Survey Monkey for the planet they believe deserves to win.   All of the third grade votes will be tallied. 

For the last part of the project, the students will walk down the red carpet in LMC for the Solars Award Ceremony on Thursday where the winners will be revealed.   

Enjoy the pictures of our students being busy researching and writing persuasive speeches.

Classroom Snapshot of Events

February and March have proven to be busy times in Room 171!   How is it possible that we only have a few more days until Spring Break?  

As a reminder, because of the school make-up Snow Days, school will be in session this Thursday, March 19th and Friday, March 20th.   Spring Break runs from March 21st through March 29th.  We return back to school on Monday, March 30th.   

PARCC Testing is officially over for the month of March and this week we were able to return back to a normal routine.   Here's a little snapshot of what we've been covering in class:

Literacy:

Throughout the past month we've been working on the reading comprehension strategies of cause and effect, making inferences, comparing and contrasting, and finding evidence in the story to confirm our prediction and answers.  We also learned and practiced reading comprehensive test taking strategies.

Last month your student was individually assessed in the area of comprehension and fluency.  As a result of the assessment, new guided reading groups were formed.   Information regarding your child's new level was sent home with your child's report card last Friday.  Your child's reading level was also adjusted online in Raz-Kids.com.

During Grammar time, the students have been focusing on action verbs that involve present-tense, past-tense, and future-tense concepts.  In addition, we've been studying irregular verbs, verbs of being, linking verbs, and verbs using contractions.  

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 Maria Isabel.  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.

In collaboration with our Solar System Unit, students have been also learning how to write persuasive   paragraphs.   The students have been learning how to compose a persuasive paragraph using the "OREO Method":

O= Stating an opinion of persuasion

R= Providing reasons in our research to support our opinion

E= Citing specific examples to give support to our reasons

O= Forming a conclusion that reinforces our opinion

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.

This week were are 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:

Throughout this past month, students have been exploring the Solar System.   Through experimentation and class lessons, the students have been learning about what causes day and night, the Earth's rotation and revolution, the moon's phases, and constellations.  

Students have also been put into research groups to explore a planet and write a persuasive speech for our upcoming Solar Awards.  More information and pictures of our research findings will be coming to you at a later date as we dive more into the project!    

In addition, once a week, students get to meet with Mrs. Cerniglia and Mrs. Kleist for an hour in the LMC.  The students have been learning how to effectively use search engines to research topics and information.   During personalized learning time, students will learn how to research and discover findings about an essential question they have involving a space topic of their choice.   

A BIG THANK YOU goes out to all of our parent classroom volunteers!

• We would like to thank Mrs. Corwin, Mrs. Kuhn, Mrs. Tiedge, Mrs. Wengronowitz, Mrs. Butler, and Mrs. Davenport for coming in  to help conduct our Reader's Theater groups..  
• I also greatly appreciate Mrs. Leu, Mrs. Owen, Mrs. Kuhn, Mrs. Tiedge, Mrs. Wengronowitz, Mrs. Lesniak, and Mr. Stahr for for coming in to do all of our copying over the past two months.
• Thank you Mrs. Wengronowitz for conducting a wonderful Art Appreciation lesson on Marc Chagall. 
• We loved when Mrs. Davenport came in to teach us all about Chinese New Year!
• A big thanks goes out to Mrs. Corwin for reshelving all of our leveled reading books in our book closet!
• Much gratitude goes out to Mrs. Tiedge, Mrs. Wengronowitz, and Mrs. Butler for hosting a wonderful Pizza Party!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful, restful, and rejuvenating Spring Break with your families!   If you happen to be heading out of town for break, safe travels!   Please make sure that you bring back some sun and warmth for your teacher! :)