Weekly Wrap Up

In economics, we have been learning about goods and services in our community, budgets (students created a budget for economic fair project to determine how much profit they will make), and assembly lines. They enjoyed seeing the old I Love Lucy clip with Lucy at the chocolate factory assembly line, haha! We are looking forward to the Economics Fair next Thursday morning.

Hard at work on our Economics Fair class poster!

In language arts, we have read several folktales and fables and the kids are getting great at summarizing stories, making inferences, and recognizing cause and effect situations. These are all importing reading comprehension skills, and by Friday they worked in small groups (or individually if they chose to) to read a story on their own and complete a chart summarizing the story, and listing examples of cause/effect, inferences and sensory language.

We are continuing work on our fiction stories modeled after David Shannon's book Duck on a Bike. 

In a small group, we worked on transitions between paragraphs and including dialogue in our stories.

Discussing transitions...

Revising our stories to include smooth transitions between paragraphs.

We have also been busy working on our poem anthology and can't wait to see the final results! Remember, order forms went home in Thursday folders and are due back by Wednesday...whether or not you choose to buy one, please fill out the form.

In math, we are continuing to work on area and perimeter. On Tuesday, we did their favorite kind of math...stations! We will have a test over all measurement on Wednesday of next week and then move onto graphing.

Station 1: Conquer the Island, a competitive game where students try to cover the most area to win!

Station 2: Perimeter Sorting

Station 3: Laptops to play a variety of area and perimeter games (always listed on this blog on the websites page, so they can play at home too!)

Station 4: 36 Tiles. Students were given 36 color tiles and asked to make as many rectangles as they could with those tiles. They then had to calculate the area and perimeter of each rectangle. They very quickly realized that the area would always be 36 square inches, but the perimeter would change.

So that is our week in review, whew! I am looking forward to Saturday and the beautiful weather we are supposed to have. My husband is out of town, and Emily has plans all weekend, so tomorrow it is just John and I on our own, a rare treat! We are going to take a picnic to Zilker Park and ride the train! I hope you all have a fantastic weekend, and I look forward to seeing my students on Monday. 

Weekly Wrap Up

This week we began reading some myths and legends. The students really seem to be enjoying these stories that have been passed down for generations and generations and explain how different cultures believe that certain things in nature came to be. For example, ask your child how panda bears came to be...that was a favorite legend! As we read each story, we are working on skills such as summarizing, inferencing, identifying cause and effect and recognizing sensory language.

We have also begun a new writing project based on David Shannon's book Duck On a Bike. Students have each chosen an animal, a setting, and a unique mode of transportation and will create a fun fictional story about the adventures that animal has on their ride.

In math, we are continuing our unit on measurement. We began the week with the Measurement Olympics which was a lot of fun and gave them a lot of practice in estimating lengths, as well as measuring lengths. Now we are learning about perimeter and area. We just touched on area on Friday, so there will be more of that next week!

Andres completing the long jump!

Ester doing the one foot hop

Justin about to compete in the high jump

Sofia and Olivia at the backward step station

Caroline and Aishwarya beginning to measure the distance of their discus throw.

Beginning to explore area...

Using centimeter cubes to find area

Another way to use the cubes...

Exploring perimeter and area

We have transitioned from science to social studies to study economics as we begin to prepare for our Economics Fair in March. Third graders are learning about our country's free enterprise system, concepts of supply and demand, and the interdependence between producers and consumers.

If you ask the kids, I am sure they will say Wednesday was the best day of the week, with our field trip to the LCRA Redbud Center. Students rotated among four stations: water cycle, watershed, Colorado River, and water conservation. It was great reinforcement to all of their research for their Water Warriors project, and the volunteers at the Redbud Center were impressed with their knowledge.

Only two more weeks until spring break! During this time we will study further in social studies, culminating in our Economics Fair. We will wrap up measurement and move into graphs in math. And in language arts, we will work on our summarizing and inferencing skills with lots of engaging children's literature, and finish writing our crazy animal stories! I am sure the next two weeks will just fly by like the rest of this year has! 

Weekly Wrap Up

Be sure to check out Water Warriors' latest efforts in our partnership with H2O for Life. We now have a website where you can donate money to the cause. We are trying to raise over $4000 to fund a project for a primary school in Kenya to provide them with safe drinking water.

In language arts, we continued the station rotations that we began last week. The class was divided into four groups and over the course of several days, each student worked at the following stations: Synonyms / Antonyms, Poetry Reading, Poetry Writing, and Benchmark Review with Mrs. Lipe.

Working with Mrs. Lipe to review our reading assessment.

Poetry Writing Station

Sorting synonyms and antonyms

More synonym / antonym practice

Poetry Reading Station

In math this week, students were tested over fractions on Monday (tests went home in Thursday folders). We then began a unit on measurement by discussing inch, foot and yard. The following day, we compared these measurements to the metric system of centimeters and meters. Students worked in groups of 3 to create their own meter-stick to measure a variety of objects, which they ordered from longest to shortest. On Monday, we will participate in a "Measurement Olympics" which should be a lot of fun!

We wrapped up out unit on the solar system in science with a test on Friday. Next week, we will begin an economics unit for social studies.

Despite all of hard work this week, we were still able to find some time for outdoor recess. It seems like a long time since we were able to get outside! Several of the girls were so excited to find this large sheet of ice. We're not used to this kind of weather in Texas! :)

Friday was the Valentine's Day party and a great time was had by all. Thanks to all the parents who donated items, money, or their time to make the party a success! Enjoy your weekend and remember, we DO have school on Monday as a bad weather make-up day.

SHORT Weekly Wrap Up

What can I say about this week except, "Where did it go?" With a reading benchmark on Monday for the first half of the day, a substitute on Tuesday while I was out for team planning, early release on Wednesday, late start on Thursday, and now school cancelled for Friday, I feel like I have hardly seen my sweet third graders all week!

We did have four solid days of math instruction and learned about fractions on a number line. Just like last week, I taught the lesson in a small group while the other students worked at various stations reviewing previously taught skills. 

On Thursday in science, we joined Mrs. Swyers' class out in the common area for a brief explanation of the layers of the sun, and then students used clay to create individual models of the sun. We needed them to dry overnight before we add sun spots and solar flares...so they will be ready for us on Monday for sure! It is so wonderful to be at Elsa England and have this space available for collaborating with other teachers, and plenty of room to spread out and make a mess! I would much rather have clay over the tile floor than over the carpet in our classroom. Special thanks to the Deatherage, Kartchner, and Murray families for making our clay!









I am going to hold off on submitting the Scholastic book order until Monday because a couple of students mentioned today wanting to bring in order tomorrow. We will have our spelling test and fractions test on Monday.

I hope you all enjoy your three day weekend, please stay safe and warm and I will see everyone bright and early on Monday morning!