Weekly Wrap-Up

Well, we finally finished our "Duck on a Bike" stories this week. It feels like we have been working on them forever, but we had several interruptions throughout the writing process that slowed us down. Look for those to come home in Thursday folders next week!

In reading, we have been reinforcing several different summarizing strategies such as SWBS (Somebody Wanted But So...) and learning a couple of new ones like Boxes and Bullets and Get the Gist. I really believe these strategies help them with their reading comprehension.

In science, we finished up our Earth Changes posters and each groups presented their poster on earthquakes, volcanoes, or landslides. Students practiced note-taking skills while watching the presentations. Then we moved onto our soil observations, and that will continue into next week. 

Observing soil samples

Observing soil samples after we added water, shook it up, and allowed it time to settle

In math, we spent two brief days on division. At this age, we use manipulatives and drawings to help their understand the correlation between multiplication and division. They are not yet exposed to what we know as long division...that will come next year! 

Using a division work mat and counters to solve a division word problem

On Friday, we had a quick introduction to probability and we will continue that on Monday. After we wrap up probability, we will have a test on Thursday over multiplication. division, graphing and probability. Then we spend the rest of our time from Friday until April 21 to review all of the math concepts taught this year as a refresher before the math STAAR test.

Keeping a tally as they draw tiles from a bag to learn about probability

Have a great weekend! 

Weekly Wrap-Up

I was so proud of my students on Monday! They came back after spring break and just jumped right back into the swing of things!

We have finally been able to get back to our "Duck on a Bike" stories in language arts and we did some revising and editing this week. I hope to have final copies finished up by next week. This week, all third graders in the district took the writing CBA (curriculum based assessment). On Wednesday, they had to read two passages and answer multiple choice questions about revising and editing those passages. They also had to write a personal narrative in response to a prompt on Friday.

In math, we spent the first half of the week continuing our study of graphs.

Then on Thursday, we began 2 digit by 1 digit multiplication. If you see them working on this at home, you may see some strategies you are unfamiliar with, as we do not teach the traditional algorithm at the start. For example, for 13X4, we want students to understand that this can be broken down to 10X4 and 3X4, so we use base 10 blocks to really let them explore that concept hands on!

They are really enjoying our science unit on earth changes. Students are researching volcanoes, earthquakes, or landslides and preparing an informational poster to present to the class in small groups of 3 or 4 students. 

On Friday, we had a guest speaker, an earthquake scientist from UT speak to the third grade about his work. They were fascinated by his presentation! They are looking forward to next week when we analyze the soil samples you have been sending in. Thanks again for that support.

On a sad note, we had to say goodbye to one of our sweet students on Friday. Anjiya is going back to Saudi Arabia with her family for the next few months. The rest of us were quite sneaky this week and all of the students signed a frame for her with a class photo in it, as well as wrote her a note in a little album I put together for her with pictures of her time in our third grade classroom. We will miss Anjiya and hope she will write to us so we can be pen pals!

Have a great weekend, I will see everyone on Monday.

Weekly Wrap Up

We had a great final week before spring break! First thing Monday morning, the kids divided into three teams of seven and each team visited a kindergarten class to tell the little ones about our Economics Fair and why we are raising money. We wrote a script as a class, and each student had their own important part to share. Their presentations included a map, photos, and samples of clean and dirty water to compare. They did a great job!

Most of our time in Language Arts this week was spent finishing our poems and illustrations for the poetry anthology. I did sneak in some learning with dictionary skills, and we had our usual Time for Kids weekly quiz. They are getting better each week at these comprehension skill quizzes.

Thanks to Ms. Ostrominski, we tried a new review technique in math on Monday. Each student had previously completed an 8 question review for our measurement test. I cut and pasted each question onto a large chart paper and taped them to the floor in our common area (we are so lucky to have this great, flexible space!) Then I divided the kids into pairs or groups of three and placed each group at one of the chart papers. They then had 4 minutes to solve the problem / show their work on the chart paper, and cover their work with a sticky note labeled with their name, so others could not see. Every 4 minutes, we rotated to the next problem, until everyone had a chance to show their work for all 8 problems. We trooped back into the classroom and one by one, went through each problem and the variety of ways it could be solved. I heard many comments like, "That's how I did it too!", or "I tried it a different way but got the same answer!" And even better, students were able to recognize their errors! As I would remove a sticky note to reveal a wrong answer, they would comment, "I did XYZ, but now I understand that is wrong because..." Lots of great mathematical language was used! At the end of the day, the general consensus was that this was a fun and helpful way to review. Thanks, Ms. O!!

On Wednesday, we began a new unit on graphing. This one will be short and sweet because by third grade, they have already been exposed to graphs for nearly 4 years now. Graphs are something we always incorporate throughout the year! However, we still had some learning to do. We started with a simple pictograph and created a giant graph on the carpet with paper plate representations for each student, showing our favorite foods. Would you believe that salad was more popular than tacos?!? But no surprise, pizza was the biggest hit! I threw them for a loop when I told them to change the graph to show that one plate represented TWO students. Great problem solving went on in small groups as they discovered they might need to cut a plate in half to represent just one person. On day two of graphs, we learned about creating bar graphs and they used some excellent online tools to create unique graphs based on survey data they collected.

Of course, you know what we did in social studies this week...the Economics Fair! We studied print advertisements to see what kind of attention grabbers advertisers use. The students then used those ideas to create their own signs for their one-of-a-kind business to display at the fair. We reviewed our economic vocabulary terms with some fun games, and took a quiz. Thursday morning passed in a whirlwind of shopping, and as a third grade team, we were able to raise $1,752 for out Water Warriors project. Our class total alone was $270.10!

Ready! Set...

SWAT!!

Trying to get their partner to guess the vocabulary word on his back.

This is what $1752 looks like!

It's hard to believe spring break is here! I'll miss my third graders, but I am also looking forward to some extra time with my own kiddos! John has been counting down the days until spring break, which he calls, "lots of stay home days!" Don't forget to change your clocks this Saturday night...spring forward time! Have a great break!