Week in Review: May 1-5

This week in language arts, we did some reviewing for STAAR with a context clues game, Scholastic News, and online practice with iStation. For some fun, students wrote a poem modeled after a sample poem of their choice, and best of all...we began cursive this week! For some reason, learning cursive is the highlight of every third grader's year. They are always so excited when I tell them we are going to start.  I took it easy on them on Friday and game them lots of free reading time to just relax and enjoy a good book!

Context clues dominoes game

Writing poetry around the room

Math was more review! I have been pulling small groups each day to work on skills that I know particular students need reinforcement on, but we have been doing some whole group work as well. I've tried to keep it interesting for them with dry erase board practice, drawing number lines on their desks, and scoot games in the common area. Friday was a relaxing day with no official "test prep", but the fun math games we played were definitely reinforcing skills we have learned this year.

Math game stations on Friday

In science we are learning about life cycles of animals and plants. We have read about various life cycles and illustrated diagrams of them in our science notebooks. We were able to watch the ladybug life cycle firsthand over the last couple of weeks, and released them into our grade level garden on Monday.

Reading about life cycles

In social studies, we had a guest speaker from Keep Austin Fed talk to us about food waste. It was very eye opening to learn that 40% of food produced in the US is wasted. As part of our study on change over time in communities, we also read about some important activists in history such as Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King, Jr.

I hope you all have a wonderful, relaxing weekend. Remember to make sure your third grader has a  good night of sleep Sunday night and a good breakfast on Monday morning!