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!

Week in Review: March 21-24

This week in language arts, we have worked on alphabetizing, parts of speech, and homophones. We did lots of reading, with a special focus on finding imagery in our novels. We also spent some time reviewing our practice STAAR reading test.

For science, we continued studying animal adaptations and had the opportunity to view a live presentation about red-tail hawks via streaming technology. We also had a visit from KVUE meteorologist Nathan Gogo. He discussed his job and the tools they use to predict the weather, as well as what it takes to become a meteorologist. He was a wonderful speaker, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it. He even took a quick video of our third graders and they showed it on the 5 and 6 o'clock weather segments on Tuesday evening. On Thursday, we began discussing inherited versus learned traits and behaviors. We followed up this discussion with two different sorting activities.

In math, we are revisiting place value and beginning to study financial literacy. Over the next couple of weeks, students will be immersed in learning about income and expenses, credit and loans, creating savings plans, and setting short and long term financial goals. We did lots of  activities from scoots around the room, to matching and sorting activities, to calculator and laptop games.

The highlight of our week was beginning to learn cursive. They seriously CHEERED when I announced what we were starting. For some reason, third graders always get excited to learn this new handwriting skill. For most of them, they end up being better at cursive than at printing, and they love this opportunity.

Just a reminder that there is no school this Friday, and I hope everyone enjoys the three day weekend!