All-Star of the Week: Sarah
Sarah was our amazing all-star last week. She brought in her sharing sack filled with many things that were important to her--one of her favorite being her Xo which is a personal computer device that she can bring along with her anywhere she goes. She also shared photos of the many trips she has been on. The two that her peers were the most interested to hear about what her trips to Uruguay to visit her family and also the times when she went to Chicago and the Sleeping Bear Dunes.
Research Workshop:
The students were busy last week as they learned how to give credit to the sources that they gathered all of their information from by writing a Bibliography. Next, they received their final draft booklets and began filling out their Table of Contents page. From there, the students worked very hard on writing their paragraphs in their neatest handwriting as they work on publishing their country books.
Students also wrote their "Did You Know" facts on an index card to start memorizing for our International Festival performance on April 14th.
IDR Time:
At IDR time the students have been immersed in books at their interest level. As they come across a book that they have enjoyed, they stop at our bulletin board (pictured below) in our classroom library to recommend a book to a peer. We hope that your child will have recommendations from their friends that they can use when they start to pick out their summer reading wish-lists and will help you in getting your 3rd grade reader hooked on a new series, topic or author!
Math:
Last week in math, the students were learning about perimeter and area. They learned how to make tick marks to determine a shape's perimeter and how to use cubic units to determine its area. Students also used their knowledge of multiplication/division to determine both perimeter and area given various story problems or drawings. Below are photos of students sharing their various problem-solving strategies through "math talk."
Sean is showing how he came up with an area of 15 sq.cm in the rectangle to his left.
David is showing how he used his knowledge of easier multiplication facts to determine the area of the rectangle. (3X3) + (3X4) = 3X7 = 21 sq. in.
Mackenzie was showing a way that you could check your work to see if your answer was correct.
(9 yellow squares + 12 green squares = 21). Then she made sure that if you had 21 total squares and took away the 12 green ones, that 9 yellow would be left.
Here Samantha is showing different ways that a shape's area could be equal. Her equations match her picture proof (rectangle drawings).
Hannah tiled a rectangle to determine its area.
Mackenzie tiling her rectangle to determine its area.
Alice tiling a rectangle to determine its area.
AJ is showing her peers how to start with the multiplication facts you know first to determine the area of the large rectangle. She knew 3X4 = 12. She then added that 12 to the 9 yellow squares to get an area of 21 sq. in.
Levi is matching the picture proof (rectangle drawing) in problem #9 to his equation of (4X4) + (4X4) = (4X8) = 32 sq. in.
The students will be reviewing quadrilaterals and how to find perimeter/area. The Unit 6 Math test will be on Thursday, March 31st.
Brain Break Time:
Sometimes our afternoons can feel long and we just need to get our wiggles out. A 5-minute brain break to allow us to wiggle/move/talk can be just the ticket to getting focused learning back on track!
Social Studies:
Yee-haw cowboys! We stopped in Dodge City, Kansas last week and learned that this stop in our Midwest Region tour is famous for wheat and you guessed it...cowboys!
Audrey is fact-finding in her social studies textbook as she works on her binder and scrapbook page.
Anybody recognize this cowboy? He's focused and working hard...two things a cowboy had to be when driving cattle to Dodge City. These cattle drives took weeks to months to complete!
Sarah is moving on to the next stop...South Dakota. Here, the students learned that two huge monuments are carved into the Black Hill of South Dakota. Mount Rushmore was one the students all recognized. Many even knew the four presidents faces who are on the memorial: Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. They also learned about the fight between the colonists and the people there, led by Crazy Horse--a Sioux Indian Chief.
As the tour continued...we reached Michigan's Soo Locks and then Detroit. We stopped here to participate in a mock Model T car assembly line. The students learned that Detroit is known as the "Motor City" because it is the home of Henry Ford who started the first automobile factory. Samantha, the manager of the factory, split up the class into four teams. Each team had 6 factory workers. Worker #1 was in charge of putting the car's frame on, worker #2 added the roof of the car, worker #3 put on the doors, worker #4 added the front and rear tires, worker #5 installed the steering wheel and worker #6 was the inspector and checked for quality control. Sean was our timer and was ensuring that employees were working efficiently while on the clock.
The students learned that the first team to go was focused too much on quality. This led to the slowest assembly time for a car. If no improvements were made, mass production would not be an option causing the cars to be too expensive/too costly to make. Groups 2 and 3 improved and nearly cut the time it took to make a car in half while not compromising the quality of the car. The last group was going for gold and completed their car assembly in just over a minute. However, the roof was half on, the frame was falling off and they realized...that if employees are only focused on efficiency, that the quality of the product went down. The students then discussed what might happen if they mass produced a product with low quality---consumers wouldn't buy the product, the company wouldn't make money and ultimately, employees could lose their jobs because the company might go out of business.
The social studies test for the Midwest Region will be on Tuesday, March 29th. The quizlet link is below along with the paper study guide
Quilzet link to study: https://quizlet.com/129108173/midwest-region-flash-cards/
Mystery Readers:
The class is LOVING our mystery readers. Here are our mystery guests from last week....
Daniella with her mom
Jordan with his dad
Hannah with her mom
Maia C with her mom.
Sean with his grandma.
