Week in Review: April 11 - 15

This week in science, we have been studying adaptations that plants make in different biomes. Students worked in groups of 3 to research a specific environment, and then created a poster to show the adaptations plants make in order to thrive in their environment. They will have the opportunity to share their posters next week.

In math, we have begun learning about factors and strategies for multiplying two digit numbers by one digit numbers.

In language arts, students finished their final copies of an expository writing piece. I should have them graded and sent home in next week's Thursday folders. We also spent some time writing creative poetry tied to our Wildlife Warrior project. They also had their final meeting with the book clubs and wrote reflections for me on how they felt the book club process went.

Friday was Global Youth Service Day, so we spent  the day working as a grade level to prepare for an assembly that we are leading next Friday. We will be educating the school about the problem of Habitat Loss and what they can do about it.

Week in Review: April 4-8

This week we finished our expository composition rough drafts, we will publish our final copies early next week. We also continued working in book groups, focusing on cause and effect and summarizing. On Thursday, we used our language arts time to set up a new program called iStation Reading on our Chromebooks. This is an online reading tool that can be used to reinforce specific skills. The students did lessons this week on summarizing and vocabulary this week, with a focus on synonyms, antonyms, and homophones.

In math, we wrapped up our place value review and financial literacy unit with a district assessment on Thursday. We will begin 2 digit by 1 digit multiplication next week!

Early finishers in math play review games.

A new money / financial literacy math game.

In science, we are continuing to study the life cycles of animals and plants. We even have our own ladybug larva so we can observe firsthand how they change throughout their life cycle. We've also got tadpoles on the way!

We began a new unit of study in social studies about how communities change over time. This week, we have learned about how transportation and communication have evolved over the last couple of centuries.

It's hard to believe, but we only have 4 full weeks of school before the STAAR test. Even harder to believe is that there are only 8 weeks of school left in the year. Time flies when you're having fun in third grade!

Week in Review: March 28 - April 1

In language arts this week, students began writing a new expository piece. They had several prompts to choose from so they are each writing about something they have interest in. We got our planning / pre-writing done this week and will begin rough drafts on Monday. Students also got to choose a novel to begin reading this week as we formed book clubs. We will be reviewing lots of reading skills over the next couple of weeks through mini-lessons and working in their book clubs.

In math, we are reviewing place value, and discussing financial literacy.

Quick warm-up on Friday, identifying fractions in a set. 

In science, we finished traits and behaviors and are now studying the life cycles of several different animals / insects.

Scavenger hunt to find classmates with particular inherited traits and learned behaviors.

We will have math and science tests next week as we conclude these units.

So this actually happened at recess on Thursday....pretty exciting stuff! Mr. Snake was kindly relocated far away from the playground!

I had a little fun with the kids on Friday, April Fool's Day. Their morning work was a word search...with no words hidden in it! Then at snack time, I shared some "brownies" that I made for them. And finally, I gave them a pop quiz after lunch. But if they read all of the directions carefully like I asked them to do, they soon saw that they really did not have to take the quiz...they could just turn it over and draw on the back of the paper. It was all in good fun, and I think they had a few good laughs! I hope everyone has a great weekend!