Week in Review: September 26-30

It's been another great week in third grade! In language arts, we are done revising and editing our personal narratives and will be writing final copies next week. I have been busy testing the reading level of each student, while the rest of the class works on their independent reading and practicing the new strategies we have learned. We also completed our first reading passage with comprehension questions as a class. I taught them lots of great test-taking strategies that they will use on Monday when we complete the district's unit assessment.

In math, we moved on from addition to subtraction and learned a variety of strategies students can use to solve word problems. We also used an online tool called Thinking Blocks to solve challenging problems with strip diagrams. We will have a unit assessment over addition and subtraction on Tuesday, after completing our review on Monday.

Recording our thinking on paper, while using the Thinking Blocks website for strip diagrams

Using base ten blocks to learn about "constant difference"

Math review around the room

In science, we are learning about changes to matter and have done some fun explorations. Ask your child about the Go Temp lab, or the melting ice cubes. We also tried two new strategies for learning academic vocabulary this week in science, including Touch and Talk and Vocabulary Sort. See photos below for more details.

Using the Go Temp thermometer to record temperature changes to a pot of ice as we add heat

Touch and Talk: students touch a photo while they talk about what they think it represents

Vocabulary Sort: Students matched definitions to terms, then tried to find matching photos. This is a bit trickier than it sounds because many of the photos could actually represent more than one term. They had to choose the BEST one so that each term ended up with only one photo.

In social studies, we are studying the impact important citizens have had on history. Using Pebble Go for research, students will be creating a "Bio-Cube" about the person they chose. We will share these in class so that each students gets a chance to learn about several important figures in history.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Week in Review: September 19-23

This week, we have been working on revising our personal narrative rough drafts. We are learning ways to make stronger word choices and stretch our sentences to make them more descriptive. We read a variety of leads to see how writers really grab their readers' attention, and next week, we will focus on improving the lead of our own narratives.

Using Padlet as an interactive bulletin board to share our thoughts on what makes a lead catch a reader's attention

In reading, I have begun individual student testing and will continue that over the next 2 weeks. It is time consuming, but gives me great insight into your child's reading skills. We have had mini-lessons over summarizing strategies and observing character traits and students have been practicing those skills during their independent reading time, while I am testing.

In math, we spent the first part of the week learning about rounding. Ask your child about our drive on the "rounding highway." I was so involved in the lesson that I failed to take any photos, but it was great fun, and I think they learned a lot! We are also learning a variety of strategies for addition, and will move on to subtraction next week.

Adding on an open number line... and writing on our desks!

We learned about the Constitution in social studies, as this week was Celebrate Freedom Week. Special thanks to Maria's dad for providing each student with their own pocket Constitution. We used those as a model to write class constitutions in small groups on Thursday and Friday. We will finish those up on Monday!

In science, we have wrapped up our unit on the states of matter and will have a unit assessment on Monday. Students completed a review in class on Friday so they are well prepared. We spent two science days on a sink or float investigation. Ask your child about the boat they designed and how many pennies it was able to hold before sinking.

Sink of Float investigation: does an orange float?

How about a peeled orange?

Designing, building and testing foil boats to see how many pennies they can support without sinking

I hope that you all have a great weekend, and please remember that Wednesday September 28 is an early release day. Students will be released at 12pm, which is a change from previous years, so please note the new dismissal time.