All-Star of the Week: Maya Patel

Maya was our amazing all-star this week.  She brought it many things in her sharing sack that the students thought were neat including a replica skyscraper souvenir from Chicago and a crystal that was special to her.  She also read her favorite book The Bear Snores On and read letters from her parents, her uncle and the sweetest letter from her cousin who is like a sister to her. 

 Research Workshop:

This week in research workshop, the students were learning how to use their sub-topic webs to take notes on their assigned country.  Students were learning the difference between important vs. interesting information and how to gather facts from various text features (captions, diagrams, maps, tables, etc.).  Students worked in partnerships, small groups and independently to gather research for all four of their chosen topics.

March is Reading Month:

For a March is Reading Month celebration, the students read to their Kindergarten buddies for Big-Little Day last week.  It's so neat to watch them take on a leadership/mentor role--they always step up to the challenge!

Math:

Quadrilaterals! Quadrilaterals! Quadrilaterals! Last week we looked at identifying and classifying quadrilaterals.  Students were learning about parallelograms, trapezoids, squares, rectangles and rhombuses.  Some math vocabulary was introduced---students should now be familiar with adjacent vs. opposite sides, parallel vs. perpendicular sides and be able to know if sides meet at a right angle or not.

Mark Y showed that shape #12 could be labeled as a quadrilateral and also a parallelogram.

Sean identifying which shapes are trapezoids.

After some journal work, the students downloaded a new app called Geoboard. This app allows students to make various quadrilaterals, label them and discuss their characteristics. 

Social Studies:

In Social studies, we took our Southeast Region test.  Then we learned our new region of study: The Midwest.  Below you can see that we graphed which students have been to the various states within this region.  North Dakota hasn't been visited by anyone but an overwhelming amount of third graders have been to Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. 

Weekly Update

All-Star of the Week:
Jordan was our special All-Star last week.  Students enjoyed the items Jordan shared from his sharing sack, including an Eiffel Tower souvenir, Australian flag, and his soccer medal.  We also enjoyed listening to him read aloud his favorite book.  Jordan enjoyed a special lunch with his dad and received many nice compliments from his classmates on Friday.  Jordan also needed help with a service project and the class was happy to help him out.  Students helped decorate brown paper bags with messages of hope and love for homeless people in Detroit.  The bags will later be filled with food/snacks.

Mach is Reading Month:
In honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday, several students dressed as a character from one of Dr. Seuss's books.  On Friday many students participated in the March is Reading Month festivities by wearing clothing with words.  Keep your March Reading Calendar in a good spot at home to stay up to date on any further activities throughout the rest of March.  Please make sure your child is also reading each night and recording his/her minutes on his/her reading log.  The reading log is due each Friday.  Check out the display in Celebration Hall (created by our fabulous Mrs. Kaspari) to see how many minutes each class has read.

Mystery Readers:
We had our first Mystery Reader visit the classroom on Friday.  The students were surprised to see Mrs. Patel and enjoyed the story she read aloud.  If you would still like to be a mystery reader during the month of March, just send us an email so we can let you know which dates and times are still available.

Research Workshop:
Students were so excited to get the library books they will be using for their research!  They created webs to determine the four main topics they want to research about their country.  Sample topics included food, clothing, housing, holidays and festivals, school, animals, etc.  Using the table of contents and the index in their books, students placed sticky notes on the pages in their books that included information about their topics.  This task was in preparation for the notes they will be taking.  Next students created subtopic webs for each of the chapters in their country draft booklets.  They began taking notes on their subtopic webs as well.  Each day they are learning a new strategy for taking notes.  We focused on taking notes as fact fragments versus writing complete sentences.

Math:
We wrapped up our unit on fractions by solving fraction word problems.  Students are expected to explain their thinking in a complete sentence when solving these problems.  You will see Ryan and Hannah solving problems on the SmartBoard below.  There were still a couple of concepts that were tricky for many students (placing a fraction greater than one on a number line and comparing fractions).  Although we are moving on to our Geometry Unit, we will review these difficult fraction concepts again.

Your child should have brought home a math letter from his/her math journal introducing you to our new unit.  In our first lesson we discussed angles, quadrilaterals, polygons, and concave/convex shapes!  Below are a few pictures of partners working together.  They were given straws and a pipe cleaner to easily manipulate obtuse, acute, and right angles.

Science:
They've finally arrived!  Students were very excited about the arrival of our crayfish.  They were a little disappointed to hear they weren't each getting their own personal crayfish.  So far we have only discussed how to pick up the crayfish.  We had several brave students try this out right away.  We also shared our initial observations through a See, Think, Wonder activity.

We wrapped up the plant portion of our Structures of Life Unit.  Students sorted their bean sprouts to locate a swollen bean, a bean with its seed coat off, a bean with a root, and a bean with steam and leaves.  Finally, we talked about hydroponics.  We read about how plants can grow in water without soil.  We picked our best looking bean sprouts to try to grow further in our own hydroponics system.  Unfortunately the beans in our hydroponics system are not growing like they should be.  Ask your child to show you his/her updated science journal in Keynote on his/her iPad.

Weekly Update

With the snow day and so many absent third graders...last week was an interesting week!

All-Star of the Week:

Levi was our amazing all-star last week.  He shared photographs of himself and his family...with the favorite being the one of he and his dad in his dad's mail truck.  Levi also brought in his favorite book to read to the class and had a smile the whole time he read it! The other big hit was when Levi shared a car he had received when he went to the Detroit Auto Show this year.

Research Workshop:

Last week, the students began their country research. They started the week by learning what research workshop is. Next, they learned how to find books that would help them in their research.  They began to record interesting facts in their composition notebooks and also recorded facts about their country in their draft booklets (population, size, which continent it is on, language spoken, etc.).  Many students became frustrated when they didn't find the information right away.  This was a good struggle for many because they learned that research takes a lot of commitment and perseverance---answers just don't come to us right away!

Adrien recording interesting facts about his country in his composition notebook.

Hannah flagging important facts with a sticky note that would later be recorded in her draft booklet.

Ben reading a sub-topic area of interest in his country book.

Fatima reading her country book at her book nook.

Math:

In math, the students continued their study of fractions.  After checking homework 7.5, we realized the students needed a more concrete way of comparing fractions to determine if a given fraction was greater than, less than or equal to 1/2.  We spent a day cutting out fraction strips and finding ways to fold these strips in eighths, quarters, halves, sixths, thirds and a whole.  Once these were labeled, we compared the fractions to one-half.  For example...the students used their fourths fraction strip and would line it up with their halves fraction strip.  They found that 2/4 = 1/2.  This was repeated for other fraction sets (3/4 is bigger than 2/8 or 1/8 is less than 4/6, etc.).

Students then used their fraction strips to complete a math page where any fraction that was larger than one half was colored yellow, any fraction that was exactly one half was colored green and fractions smaller than one half were colored orange. 

Social Studies:

We continued our study of the Southeast region this week. After visiting the coal mines of Appalachia, an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, Natchez, Mississippi, and Montgomery, Alabama, we made our final stops in both Memphis, Tennessee and New Orleans, Louisiana.  In both Memphis and New Orleans, we learned about some of the most popular musical styles in the southeast.  The students worked on their tour stop writing as they listened to Dixieland Jazz, Delta Blues, Cajun music and Bluegrass.

You can see in the photos below that in the Southeast Region, the students traveled by boat (fisherman hats) rather than by train like in the Northeast.

Here, the students wore Mardi Gras masks as we stopped in New Orleans.

On Monday, March 7th, the students will take their Southeast Region test.  The review with the quizlet link is below.