We've been wrapping up a lot of units this week as we get ready for winter break! In science, we are almost done with our unit on forces and motion. Students worked in their small groups to design and build a machine to rescue a tiger. They learned a lot about simple machines, and effort and resistance force. We will close out the unit with a review and online Stemscopes lesson on Monday, followed by a district assessment on Tuesday.
In math, we worked on lots of word problems involving multiplication, division, and fractions. Students took the district unit assessment on Thursday, and we started right away on our next unit of geometry (2D and 3D shapes) on Friday. This will continue into next week, as well as after winter break.
In social studies, we learned about timelines and tied that in with our biography unit in language arts. Students read several picture book biographies this week, and created two timelines. One was about the life of famous person they read about, and one was about their own life.
Just a reminder that next week is a short week, with only three days of school for the students! We will have our winter party on Wednesday December 19, and that will be a great way to wrap up the fall semester!
Friday, December 14, 2018
Friday, December 7, 2018
Two Weeks in Review: November 26 - December 7
We have been so busy the last 2 weeks, that I forgot to post an update at the end of November.
In language arts, we have continued reading expository texts and worked on our inferencing skills, and using context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. Students have written another expository piece, a procedural text, also known a "how to." They chose something they are experts at and wrote a step-by-step explanation of how to do that. I have also been busy completing our mid-year reading testing, which is time consuming and done one-on-one with each student. Next week, we will delve into biographies and autobiographies.
Social studies has really tied in with language arts for these last two weeks, as we began building background knowledge for our PBL project. This year, students will be learning about the problem of pollution in our world and we have watched two videos to raise awareness about this problem so far. Students have written responses based on each video, including what they learned and how it made them feel.
Science has been super fun, with lots of hands on learning! During the last week of November, we studied flight and the forces that make flight possible. Students worked in small groups to design and test, and often redesign, gliders that would fly a predetermined distance and carry a heavy load. Now that we are into December, we are learning about simple machines. Students are working in their table groups to build a wheel and axle, a pulley, a lever and an inclined plane. Next week, we will learn about compound machines and students will be challenged to design a machine they can use to rescue an imaginary tiger that is trapped in a moat at a zoo exhibit. We will wrap this unit up with a district assessment before winter break. This week, our entire school participated in "Hour of Code" where students had the opportunity to program Dot robots in the library. They really enjoyed that!
In math, we are working on division skills and especially in learning how it is related to multiplication. So far, we have worked with 5s, 10s, 2s, 4s, and 8s facts. We use a variety of tools to help students actually model problem solving situation so they can truly visualize division as breaking a number into equal groups. We will wrap up division next week and have a district assessment over division and fractions before winter break.
Can you believe there are only 8 school days left in the semester? The last day of school for students is Wednesday December 19, and they come back to school on Tuesday January 8.
In language arts, we have continued reading expository texts and worked on our inferencing skills, and using context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. Students have written another expository piece, a procedural text, also known a "how to." They chose something they are experts at and wrote a step-by-step explanation of how to do that. I have also been busy completing our mid-year reading testing, which is time consuming and done one-on-one with each student. Next week, we will delve into biographies and autobiographies.
Social studies has really tied in with language arts for these last two weeks, as we began building background knowledge for our PBL project. This year, students will be learning about the problem of pollution in our world and we have watched two videos to raise awareness about this problem so far. Students have written responses based on each video, including what they learned and how it made them feel.
Science has been super fun, with lots of hands on learning! During the last week of November, we studied flight and the forces that make flight possible. Students worked in small groups to design and test, and often redesign, gliders that would fly a predetermined distance and carry a heavy load. Now that we are into December, we are learning about simple machines. Students are working in their table groups to build a wheel and axle, a pulley, a lever and an inclined plane. Next week, we will learn about compound machines and students will be challenged to design a machine they can use to rescue an imaginary tiger that is trapped in a moat at a zoo exhibit. We will wrap this unit up with a district assessment before winter break. This week, our entire school participated in "Hour of Code" where students had the opportunity to program Dot robots in the library. They really enjoyed that!
In math, we are working on division skills and especially in learning how it is related to multiplication. So far, we have worked with 5s, 10s, 2s, 4s, and 8s facts. We use a variety of tools to help students actually model problem solving situation so they can truly visualize division as breaking a number into equal groups. We will wrap up division next week and have a district assessment over division and fractions before winter break.
Can you believe there are only 8 school days left in the semester? The last day of school for students is Wednesday December 19, and they come back to school on Tuesday January 8.
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Week in Review: November 12-16
We started the week off by thinking about all the things we have to be thankful for, in light of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Throughout the week, students worked hard to organize their thoughts into well-written expository paragraphs with topic sentences and supporting details. Most students were able to finish this writing piece and bring it home on Friday. If your child did not bring it home, they will wrap it up next week. I hope you enjoy reading them all! There were some very thoughtful responses...as well as some typical third grade responses, and I loved each and every one!
We also enjoyed our trip to the Performing Arts Center to see "The Coloring Book" performed by Westwood High School students. Unfortunately, we were not able to enjoy the park picnic we had planned because of the weather, but we still enjoyed a picnic in our room and an extra long indoor recess!
In science, we wrapped up our unit on landforms and changes to the earth's surface. We did an interesting landslide demonstration early in the week with Ms. Cho's class, and then on Thursday, we took advantage of the beautiful weather to build volcano models outside. We finished the week with a test on Friday.
In math, we continued our unit on fractions, as well as did some review over length measurement. This tied in well with fractions as we learned about 1/2 and 1/4 inches. Basically, a ruler is a number line and a great way to practice reading fractions! We are also reviewing time to the nearest minute, and discussing time intervals. That is something easy to practice at home with your child by asking questions such as, "We will eat in dinner in 20 minutes. What time will that be?" or "You need to turn off the light and go to bed at 8:45. How much longer is that for you to read?"
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. I know I am looking forward to some extra time with my loved ones...I have a brand new nephew to snuggle with that we are especially thankful for this year! I will miss your kiddos and look forward to seeing them on Monday November 26. Happy Thanksgiving!
We also enjoyed our trip to the Performing Arts Center to see "The Coloring Book" performed by Westwood High School students. Unfortunately, we were not able to enjoy the park picnic we had planned because of the weather, but we still enjoyed a picnic in our room and an extra long indoor recess!
In science, we wrapped up our unit on landforms and changes to the earth's surface. We did an interesting landslide demonstration early in the week with Ms. Cho's class, and then on Thursday, we took advantage of the beautiful weather to build volcano models outside. We finished the week with a test on Friday.
In math, we continued our unit on fractions, as well as did some review over length measurement. This tied in well with fractions as we learned about 1/2 and 1/4 inches. Basically, a ruler is a number line and a great way to practice reading fractions! We are also reviewing time to the nearest minute, and discussing time intervals. That is something easy to practice at home with your child by asking questions such as, "We will eat in dinner in 20 minutes. What time will that be?" or "You need to turn off the light and go to bed at 8:45. How much longer is that for you to read?"
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. I know I am looking forward to some extra time with my loved ones...I have a brand new nephew to snuggle with that we are especially thankful for this year! I will miss your kiddos and look forward to seeing them on Monday November 26. Happy Thanksgiving!
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