Cardboard Challenge
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Weekly Update
All-Star of the Week
Lourdes was our Amazing All-Star last week! She enjoyed an extra special week in the classroom and celebrated her birthday on Friday. She read aloud her favorite book on Tuesday, which was a personalized fairy tale. She also shared many fun family pictures with the class along with items from her sharing sack. Lourdes enjoyed lunch with her lunch buddy as well and received many nice compliments from her classmates on Friday.
Valentine's Day Fun
Room 13 worked together in small groups on a Valentine STEM project. Groups were given craft sticks, pipe cleaners, cotton balls, and rubber bands. Each group created a bow for their team and an arrow for each teammate. Then each student had a turn shooting their arrow at a target. Students quickly realized it was trickier to get their arrows to fly than they originally thought. Not too many arrows successfully hit the target using the bows. Students also enjoyed time passing out and reading the Valentine cards they received from one another.
Reading Workshop
We continued our Author Study unit last week. Students completed an Attribute Chart. They looked closely at three different books by their author and recorded the following information: genre, characters and character traits, setting, problem, and theme. Below is a picture of the Attribute Chart completed and modeled by the teacher.
Writing Workshop
Students have continued working on persuasive essays. They have conducted surveys to include as evidence to support their claim. They have also learned to write a mini-story from their lives to support their claim. Finally we worked on writing an introduction to hook our readers, including transition words in our paragraphs, and writing a conclusion to wrap up our essays. Soon we will choose one persuasive essay and work on publishing it.
Math Workshop
We continued practicing three-digit addition and subtraction. Students practiced two methods of subtraction--ungrouping from the left and ungrouping from the right. We also reviewed how addition and subtraction are related. We practiced writing addition word problems related to our subtraction problems. Then we solved the addition problems without actually making calculations. We also practiced using Math Mountains to relate addition and subtraction.
Lourdes was our Amazing All-Star last week! She enjoyed an extra special week in the classroom and celebrated her birthday on Friday. She read aloud her favorite book on Tuesday, which was a personalized fairy tale. She also shared many fun family pictures with the class along with items from her sharing sack. Lourdes enjoyed lunch with her lunch buddy as well and received many nice compliments from her classmates on Friday.
Valentine's Day Fun
Room 13 worked together in small groups on a Valentine STEM project. Groups were given craft sticks, pipe cleaners, cotton balls, and rubber bands. Each group created a bow for their team and an arrow for each teammate. Then each student had a turn shooting their arrow at a target. Students quickly realized it was trickier to get their arrows to fly than they originally thought. Not too many arrows successfully hit the target using the bows. Students also enjoyed time passing out and reading the Valentine cards they received from one another.
Reading Workshop
We continued our Author Study unit last week. Students completed an Attribute Chart. They looked closely at three different books by their author and recorded the following information: genre, characters and character traits, setting, problem, and theme. Below is a picture of the Attribute Chart completed and modeled by the teacher.
Writing Workshop
Students have continued working on persuasive essays. They have conducted surveys to include as evidence to support their claim. They have also learned to write a mini-story from their lives to support their claim. Finally we worked on writing an introduction to hook our readers, including transition words in our paragraphs, and writing a conclusion to wrap up our essays. Soon we will choose one persuasive essay and work on publishing it.
Math Workshop
We continued practicing three-digit addition and subtraction. Students practiced two methods of subtraction--ungrouping from the left and ungrouping from the right. We also reviewed how addition and subtraction are related. We practiced writing addition word problems related to our subtraction problems. Then we solved the addition problems without actually making calculations. We also practiced using Math Mountains to relate addition and subtraction.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Weekly Update
All-Star of the Week
This week we enjoyed Kyndall as she shared many pictures of family and information about her life. On Wednesday she read a favorite book of hers called The Negro Speaks of Rivers written by Langston Hughes. On Thursday we enjoyed hearing a lovely letter about Kyndall from her mom.
Social Studies
Students are finishing up our tour of the Southeast region and will take the final test this Friday. They will also finish working on writing and illustrating each tour stop of the Southeast, and create their scrapbook pages. Our last stop was to New Orleans, Louisiana where we learned about the history of Mardi Gras celebrations. Students enjoyed learning what the purple, green and gold celebratory colors meant, and trying on some beads and masks.
Math
Students continue their work with place value as they practice subtracting large numbers. Not only are they learning the steps to subtract large numbers, but they are understanding how to create proof drawings as evidence of their answers.
Reading Workshop
Students are currently focused on books written by various authors as we are involved in our Author Study Unit. Each student has been assigned an author to learn more about and understand their writing styles more deeply. Students have recently read bios on authors, where they have used highlighters to highlight specific information they were asked to find. This is also a skill that will come in handy for note taking when we do research for our country reports.
Meet Buck Wilder!
Students had the rare chance to meet the mastermind behind the Buck Wilder books, Tim Smith. Mr. Smith was incredibly entertaining as he detailed his interest in the outdoors and adventures of Buck Wilder and friends. He showed us a few hidden details in each of his books that gives students a focus to search for when reading.
Sunday, February 5, 2017
Weekly Update
All-Star of the Week
Jayden was our Awesome All-Star last week! He started off his week with a special lunch with mom on Monday. He also shared several family pictures from trips to Disney as well as a spinning top, i9 soccer trophy, Hershey's tin with playing cards, a Rubik's Cube and two medals. Jayden read aloud Otis as his favorite read aloud. The students enjoyed writing compliments to Jayden on Friday.
Reading Workshop
We wrapped up our mystery unit. Detective Clubs met to discuss the final chapters of their mystery book. Students completed a Detective Case Report, which retold all important information from their mystery (see examples below). Your child will bring home his/her Detective Case File later this week.
Writing Workshop
Students have continued to be immersed in our new writing genre--persuasive essays. They have written flash drafts about various topics they feel strongly about. After choosing a strong example, students completed a persuasive map, which includes a thesis statement or claim and three reasons or evidence. If students could not come up with more than one reason to support their claim, they knew they would need to pick a different claim.
Math Workshop
Students continued focusing on multi-digit addition last week and using "proof drawings" as evidence for their answers. Check out the pictures below of students showing off these methods. Below is also a video that demonstrates the 3 addition methods we teach in 3rd Grade Math Expressions along with some modeling of how to create a "proof drawing." (Go to 2:25 to skip ahead to the "proof drawings.")
Science
We began our new unit, Structures of Life. Last week we investigated several different fruits, including: papaya, kiwano melon, Chinese bitter melon, and apples. We opened the fruits up to take a closer look at the properties of seeds. We counted the number of seeds in each fruit and discussed the following properties: texture, size, and color. We have four more types of fruit to open up Monday morning. We will also learn how to use Keynote on our iPads. We will use this presentation app rather than a paper/pencil notebook for this science unit. You can check out what we're doing throughout the unit by taking a look at your child's science presentation in Keynote on his/her iPad.
Jayden was our Awesome All-Star last week! He started off his week with a special lunch with mom on Monday. He also shared several family pictures from trips to Disney as well as a spinning top, i9 soccer trophy, Hershey's tin with playing cards, a Rubik's Cube and two medals. Jayden read aloud Otis as his favorite read aloud. The students enjoyed writing compliments to Jayden on Friday.
Reading Workshop
We wrapped up our mystery unit. Detective Clubs met to discuss the final chapters of their mystery book. Students completed a Detective Case Report, which retold all important information from their mystery (see examples below). Your child will bring home his/her Detective Case File later this week.
Writing Workshop
Students have continued to be immersed in our new writing genre--persuasive essays. They have written flash drafts about various topics they feel strongly about. After choosing a strong example, students completed a persuasive map, which includes a thesis statement or claim and three reasons or evidence. If students could not come up with more than one reason to support their claim, they knew they would need to pick a different claim.
Math Workshop
Students continued focusing on multi-digit addition last week and using "proof drawings" as evidence for their answers. Check out the pictures below of students showing off these methods. Below is also a video that demonstrates the 3 addition methods we teach in 3rd Grade Math Expressions along with some modeling of how to create a "proof drawing." (Go to 2:25 to skip ahead to the "proof drawings.")
Science
We began our new unit, Structures of Life. Last week we investigated several different fruits, including: papaya, kiwano melon, Chinese bitter melon, and apples. We opened the fruits up to take a closer look at the properties of seeds. We counted the number of seeds in each fruit and discussed the following properties: texture, size, and color. We have four more types of fruit to open up Monday morning. We will also learn how to use Keynote on our iPads. We will use this presentation app rather than a paper/pencil notebook for this science unit. You can check out what we're doing throughout the unit by taking a look at your child's science presentation in Keynote on his/her iPad.
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