Week in Review: October 20-24

This week, we continued our study of matter in science. One of the properties we learned about is density, and students worked in groups to design a boat out of foil that would support the mass of 40 pennies while floating on water.

In math, we studied elapsed time, which is a challenging concept for third graders, but I think they have a pretty good grasp of it now. We will move onto money next week, which students always seem to enjoy!

In language arts, we finished the rough drafts of our personal narratives. Next week, we will publish our final copies, and move onto non-fiction texts and expository writing. We finished reading our beloved Rump during read-aloud time, and I am encouraging each student to take the Bluebonnet quiz over the book. We are so excited that the author of Rump is coming to visit in January, and we can't wait to get our hands on her next book!

As always, I try to incorporate lots of technology in our lessons, and this week students created a character trading card online to depict one of the characters they read about in a recent picture book. 

We also used Google classroom for the second time (a private, online learning community in which I can post and the students can submit assignments electronically). Last week, they annotated a PDF article with their personal thoughts, and this week, we learned about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and answered some basic comprehension questions about the article I posted.

Don't forget that this upcoming Wednesday is an early release day. Students will be dismissed at 12:45pm. We are excited to see our kindergarten buddies again that day!