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!

Week in Review: November 5-9

This week in language arts, we wrapped our first expository compositions about which animal makes the best pets. Students are learning how to come up with a central idea, and then develop details to support that idea. Look for those papers to come home in Thursday folders this week! We are learning about different structures of expository writing, such as description and problem / solution. Next week, we will discuss other structures including cause /effect.

In science, we are continuing to learn about changes to earth's surface, and will have a test over this unit on Thursday or Friday of this upcoming week. We did a fun investigation about earthquakes with Ms. Cho's class on Thursday. Be sure to ask your child what they learned about tectonic plates from graham crackers and frosting!

We are working on fractions in math. Students have learned about set models, area models, and length models, including fractions on a number line.   You can provide support at home with conversations about fractions such as:

• How hungry are you? Would you rather one-eighth of a pizza, or one-fourth of a pizza?
• What fraction of eggs are missing this one dozen carton?
• If I need three-fourths of a cup of flour for this recipe, how many times will I need to fill up the 1/4 measuring cup?

Please know that fractions are a tough concept for many third graders, and we will continue working with them until Thanksgiving, with a quiz on Friday.We will also come back to fractions in January or February, so this is not the only time they will be exposed to them.

And finally, in social studies, we are continuing our study of heroes in our community. This week, we focused on Ruby Bridges and Daniel Boone.

I hope everyone had a great weekend, and is looking forward to the extended Thanksgiving break. Remember, no school at all during the week of November 19-23!

Week in Review: October 29 - November 2

This week, we finally had a sunny enough day to test out our solar ovens for science. They were a hit, as I'm sure you heard about on Monday. Our current unit in science is landforms and changes to the earth, including volcanoes, earthquakes and landslides. We focused on landforms this week, and will move onto the natural disasters next week.

In math, we wrapped up our first multiplication unit with a test on Tuesday, and then did some fun Halloween math activities on Wednesday. We are now in unit 4 over fractions. Students are learning about area fractions (like 1/2 of a rectangle), fractions on a number line, and fractions in a set (like 1/4 of the 20 apples are red).

In language arts, we are reading non-fiction texts and focusing on finding main ideas and supporting details. This coincides well with our expository writing unit. Students are in the middle of writing an expository essay about the type of animal they believe makes the best pet. We also enjoyed an author visit from Donna Bowman this Friday morning, author of Bluebonnet Nominee Step Right Up.

And finally, in social studies we are focusing on how various heroes shape our communities. We have done a lot of talking about what makes someone a hero.

I hope everyone has a great weekend! I will be out of school on Monday and Tuesday for a district training, and look forward to seeing my students on Wednesday.