Sharpen the Saw

Third grade has been working hard on the 7 habits this year.  We have read books about the habits, found examples in movies and books, written goals, and, most importantly, worked at applying the habits to our lives.  Lately we have been working on habit 7--Sharpen the Saw.  We talked about how important it is to have balance in our lives.  As part of our work on this habit, we are going to create a class display of photographs of our class sharpening our saws, and we need your help.  Over the next week or two, look for a time when your child is doing something for this habit, snap a picture, and e-mail it to me or Mrs. Hreno.  We'll print it and add it to our class display.  Look at the poster below for more information about this habit.

 You could get a picture of your child eating a healthy snack or meal.  You might catch them getting exercise at basketball practice or playing in the backyard.  A picture could be sent of a family game night or your child practicing the piano.  The possibilities are endless!  Don't worry if you can't send a picture.  If we are missing any students, we will take a picture of them here at school practicing the habit so that each child can be part of our display.  This will be a fun habit to practice this week--we can't wait to see our display come together!

2017-Full of Learning!

It was a great week in third grade! All third graders began their second round of NWEA testing. We started with the math portion and will continue this upcoming week with the reading portion.

In math, we wrapped up our fractions unit and will begin Unit 5-Place Value in Large Numbers and Decimals.  Remember, multiplication/division facts, telling time to the nearest minute, and addition and subtraction (especially with regrouping) of three digit numbers are great skills to be practicing along with what we’re learning in math.

 In social studies, we started our economy unit. This is always a fun one! This week, students learned what all goes in to buying and selling things. See if your child can tell you….

·        How a market and economy relate to one another

·        Examples of goods and services

·        What it means when something is scarce

·        Costs and benefits of things we buy

In writing, we’ve ended our persuasive writing unit and are learning how to ramp up our narrative writing! One way to do this is by learning how to weave different types of figurative language such as similes, hyperboles, and personification into their writing.  We’ll read picture books that include examples of the figurative language we’re focusing on, practice writing and identifying sentences that reflect it, work on incorporating the figurative language into a whole class piece we’re working on, and then eventually include it in our own writing. Some students are already noticing that they’ve used figurative language throughout their writer’s notebook but just didn’t realize it had a fancy name! ;) Stay tuned for a closer look at what our figurative language practice looks like

Our third graders continue to blossom in reading! We’re working hard on identifying the theme of the text-the lesson or message that the author wants you to learn from the story. This is a tricky third grade skill because the theme is almost always inferred. When reading with your child at home, ask them the following questions to help them identify the theme.

•     What did the characters learn? 
•   How did the characters grow or change?
• Why did the characters act this way?    

It’s hard to believe we have entered our third quarter of third grade! Miss White and I can’t wait to see the continued growth our third graders will make in the new year! J

The Science of Sound

We have been so busy in science learning all about the physics of sound.  Our experiments and explorations were grouped into three different investigations.

Drop Chambers

During Investigation 1 we learned about sound discrimination, or the ability to tell sounds apart.  The students really enjoyed playing Drop Chamber Challenge. Ask your student how we tested our sound discrimination with this fun game.  We also used sound discrimination to create a code, and then we challenged our partners to decode our message.  During this investigation we also learned that sounds come from a source that is vibrating.  The students enjoyed learning about this using long gongs and tuning forks.  Have your child tell you what happened when they held the tuning fork up to the ping pong ball or dipped it in the water.

Using long gongs and tuning forks to 'see' sound vibrations

Exploring how length affects pitch

During Investigation 2 we explored pitch.  Check out the fun pictures from our exploration with some different instruments.  Have your scientist tell you what we learned from this experience.  They should be able to tell you that shorter items vibrate quickly and have a higher pitch.  Longer items vibrate slower and have a lower pitch.  During another exploration we tested to see how tension affects pitch.  We learned that increasing the tension leads to a higher pitch sound.

Exploring how tension affects pitch

Testing if sound travels through water or air better

During Investigation 3 we experimented with sounds traveling through different mediums. We first tested to see if sound travels through water.  Our class made a hypothesis that sound would travel through water, but not as well as it travels through air.  Ask your scientist how we tested this hypothesis and what our surprising conclusion was (sound travels better through water!).  We also experimented to find out if sounds travel though solids.  In addition to learning about sound, the students also got to practice going through the scientific method during the Investigation 3 experiments.  They were pretty sad when they learned that we have completed all of our sound experiments, but they were excited to start our experiments on light.

Testing our hypothesis

Can you hear me now?

Investigating if sound travels through solids

Volunteer Opportunity!

Happy Friday all! The flyer below came home this week allowing you the opportunity to come volunteer during our writer's workshop time. If you are interested in helping out, please have your child return the RSVP portion of the flyer. Miss White, Mrs. Nilo, and I are looking forward to any and all volunteers as we help our growing writers! If you are interested, it is perfectly fine to pick and choose which Thursday(s) you would like to participate in. Please do not feel obligated to participate every Thursday if it does not work with your schedule. We're grateful for any time and help you offer to our students!

We  can't wait to get started! Have a wonderful weekend! :)

Thankful.

"The heart that gives thanks is a happy one, for we cannot feel thankful and unhappy at the same time.  The more we say thanks, the more we find to be thankful for. And the more we find to be thankful for, the happier we become.  We don't give thanks because we're happy.  We are happy because we give thanks." Douglas Wood in The Secret of Saying Thanks

It was a short week in third grade, but it was packed with gratitude.  Gearing up for our Thanksgiving break, we enjoyed great conversations, activities, and books about being thankful this Thanksgiving. One of our favorite activities involved the students compiling a list of 17 things they couldn't imagine their lives without.  They then put these ideas into beautiful signs. Check out the pictures below and see all the wonderful things these 3rd graders are thankful for this year. 

 

Mrs. Hreno and I also have a lot to be thankful for this year.  We are thankful for the students that arrive with bright smiles each day, and we are thankful for all the smiles they bring us.  We are thankful for the curious minds that ask so many great questions and the caring hearts that are always willing to help.  We are thankful for the success the students have achieved this year and the persistence they show when the success is not so quick to come.  We are thankful for your children. And we are thankful for you for sharing them with us this year. 

We hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving.

Another week down!

We wrapped up another successful, busy week in third grade!

In third grade math, we've begun our multiplication and division unit!  Students were excited to learn the different strategies they can use to help them solve multiplication facts.We practiced solving multiplication problems a number of ways. See if your child can represent a multiplication fact using each strategy-equal groups, repeated addition, building arrays, and skip counting. Students also learned how multiplication and division ties together by building arrays, creating equal groups/equal shares,  and using multiplication/division diagrams  to solve number stories. They're quickly realizing that if they know their multiplication facts, division will come MUCH easier for them. Please continue to practice multiplication facts at home!

Social Studies this week was spent wrapping up our immigration and diversity unit. Students have spent the past two weeks exploring cultural diversity by learning about  foods, languages, holidays, and traditions from other cultures. They also learned how children around the world are alike and different from them. We'll begin our light and sound unit in science next week!

We've switched gears in writing from writing narratives to writing opinion speeches. Students have brainstormed tons of  ideas that would make for a great persuasive piece. Students are learning how to include a BIG, BOLD thesis statement that grabs their audiences attention. They've also practiced brainstorming valid reasons for their opinion and the importance of having evidence to support each reason! We then put these ideas into paragraphs and edit as we go to make sure our  piece makes sense!

In reading, students have been working hard on making inferences as they read!
Students learned that making inferences requires them to think deeply about the text as they read. We use clues from the book along with what we already know to help us figure out what's happening! This is an important comprehension skill that is always being reinforced in third grade!

Lastly, we were especially excited to share in our wonderful CE Veteran's Day program honoring our veterans. We enjoyed hearing stories from the students who have family and friends that  have served or are serving our country! A HUGE thanks to everyone who helped make this day so special!

We look forward to another fun-filled week in third grade. Enjoy this beautiful weekend!

Immigration Simulation Game

To kick off our unit on immigration and cultures, we played an immigration simulation game.  In each round of this game, the students participated in an activity and experienced some unusual rules that they could connect with what we read about immigration that day.  Have your child tell you about the game and how they connected the ideas in the game to the ideas in our textbook.

Here are some questions that can spur a conversation about our immigration game.

Round 1:

• What did you do on this day?  Have your child explain what is happening in the pictures.
• Why are there so many people in the little rectangle?  What did you connect it to?
• What are those pictures students are holding up?  Why do some students look sad?
• What were the unfair rules in the game?

• Why do some immigrants choose to immigrate to a new country?  

Round 1

Round 1 Connections

Round 2:

• What did you do on this day?
• Why are kids crab walking? What did you connect it to?
• What is happening with the eye chart? What did you connect it to?
• What were some challenges immigrants faced when immigrating?

Round 2

Round 2

Round 2 Connections

Round 3

• What did you do on this day?
• How was this day's drawing contest different than round 1?

• What did you learn about an immigrant's life after immigrating?  What are some pros and cons of immigrating?

Round 3

Round 3 Connections

Round 4

• What did you do on this day?
• Why are students measuring the floor? What did you connect it to?
• What are the students holding up in the class picture?  How did you get it?

• How do people become citizens of our country?

Round 4

Round 4

Round 4 Connections

As a bonus assignment, some students talked with their families to find out from where their family immigrated.  Some shared stories of recent immigrations, while others shared about their great, great, great grandparents.  If you haven't yet shared your family's story with your child, I am sure they would enjoy hearing about it.