May News

 Happy May!! We’re in the home stretch!!

What are we learning?

• Testing:  3rd graders will be taking their final MAP tests in May.  We will be testing on  Monday & Tuesday, May 12 & 13.  Please ensure that your child has a good night’s rest, a hearty breakfast, and a charged Chromebook.  Thank you!

Math:  We have begun our final module of the school year, Geometry and Measurement Word Problems. This module starts with students using drawn models and letters for the unknown to solve two step word problems.  Then we will move on to analyzing shapes’ attributes and solving problems with perimeter and area.

Reading:  Students have been reading & listening to a variety of fables and working to identify the elements of a fable, determine the morals & try to relate them to their own lives. Then we’ll continue with folktales from cultures around the world, followed by several pourquoi tales, which are stories that explain why things are the way they are.  For example one tale will attempt to explain: Why do mosquitoes buzz in people’s ears?  After, we will move on to an analysis of fractured fairy tales, and finally, poetry.

Language Arts:  Students are busy learning and practicing cursive writing, working with apostrophes, multiple meaning words & writing different types of poetry.  We will also work on noticing and practicing strategies that authors use to not only make their stories engaging, but how text layout and illustrations help authors affect a story.

Science: Students are wrapping up the Inheritance & Traits unit where we acted as wildlife biologists to answer the big question: How do organisms get their traits?  Students found that “Wolf 44” has certain traits because of inherited traits and because of his environment. We will finish the year with our Weather and Climate unit, where students will act as meteorologists, studying weather patterns to determine the best location to place an orangutan reserve.

April News

 Happy April & Happy Start of 4th Quarter!!

Testing:  3rd graders will be IAR testing starting this week.  April 2, 3, & 4 will be the Mathematics Assessments and April 7, 8, & 10 will be the English Language Arts Assessments. Please ensure that your child comes to school with their Chromebook fully charged.  Thank you for your help!

Math:  As IAR testing wraps up, we will be starting our sixth module on collecting and displaying data.  Students will be generating and organizing data to create & analyze bar graphs, picture graphs, and line plots. Practicing multiplication facts will also help for this module.  Thank you for your support!

Reading:  Students are starting the month with a text set focusing on stories that showcase the importance of determination.  Afterward, we will move on to the reading skill of determining the author’s viewpoint.  The books in this text set are nonfiction and are about various environmental topics including oil spills, gasoline, renewable energy, and endangered animals.  Students will be listening to and analyzing the texts to determine the author’s feelings about the topics, and work to form their own opinions, as well.  

Language Arts:  Students will start off the month by drafting and finalizing their opinion writing piece on their chosen subject. I can’t wait to see what the final products look like!  

Science:  We are continuing our unit on Inheritance and Traits with the unit question: How do organisms get their traits?  To answer the big question, students will be answering smaller, chapter questions. We are starting Chapter 2 after break where we will be completing activities to answer: Why is Wolf 44’s color similar to one pack but different from the other? Then, in Chapter 3, we will determine Why isn’t Wolf 44 like the Bison Valley Pack in hunting style and size? Next, in chapter 4, we will discuss How can scientists investigate questions about traits? After all of this, students should know how organisms get their traits. 

Cursive is starting!  We will continue to learn letters throughout the month, with hopefully writing our stories & sentences using cursive in May.

March News!

 Happy March!!

Teacher humor…

Q: Why didn’t the teacher wear sunglasses over spring break?

A: None of her bright students were around.

Math:  We are continuing our fractions module with locating fractions on number lines and comparing fractions with like & unlike denominators using number lines.  Students will also recognize that equivalent fractions are at the same point on the number line, and will also be expressing whole numbers as fractions.  We will wrap up the Module right before spring break.  Practicing multiplication facts will also help for this module.  Thank you for your support!

Reading:  Students are beginning the month by wrapping up a mini-unit determining the Topic, Main Idea, and supporting details of various texts.  Then, we’ll wrap up our text set involving stories on facing challenges.  Students have done well with identifying the challenge and will work on finding evidence to support how the characters showed determination, and how they can relate the stories’ messages to their own lives.  We'll also discuss how characters are not necessarily all "good" or "bad", rather they learn and grow through their experiences. We will also be starting to work on reading longer passages, first as a full class and then independently while answering multiple choice questions and working on extended responses.

Language Arts:  Students delved into the biography genre and are continuing to learn about several different types of people – from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Roberto Clemente and many inspiring people in between.  As students listen to the accomplishments and struggles of these people, they have been practicing describing them with different attributes and backing up their thoughts/opinions with details from the text.  This practice will lead us to the final writing piece of the unit, an opinion piece on a person that students wanted to learn more about.

Social Studies: We wrapped up our Native Americans unit on the last day of February.  March begins our next science unit.

Science:  Our next science unit is on Inheritance and Traits. In this unit students will be acting as wildlife biologists to answer the big question: How do organisms get their traits?  Students will be analyzing two wolf packs and trying to figure out why “Wolf 44” has certain traits. Through various activities, students will be learning about variation and trait acquisition.  

Happy February!!

 Happy February!

Teacher humor…There’s a fine line between a numerator and a denominator… But only a fraction would understand. :)

Math: February begins with us breaking up…into fractions, that is!  Students are beginning our lengthy fifth module in early February.  To start, we will be partitioning wholes into equal parts, identifying unit fractions, representing parts of a whole as a fraction using number bonds, comparing fractions, and much more!  Practicing multiplication facts will also help for this module.  Thank you for your support!

Reading: Students are starting the month with our tenth text set in which all the books are related to the theme Honoring Traditions.  These are wonderful diverse stories and students will be focusing on summarizing texts.  This can be a challenging skill as stories get longer, and we will work toward identifying the main components of a good summary – as in what information should be included and in what order. Also, February book reports are due on March 4.

Writing Workshop: We will begin February by wrapping up our final drafts of our nonfiction picture books!  Students have been working diligently on these books which include nonfiction text features such as maps, illustrations, glossaries, and more. Afterward, we will move on to our biography & opinion writing unit.

Social Studies: We have begun our unit on Native Americans. Students will learn about 5 regions of Native Americans: the Arctic/far North, Northwest Coast, Southwest, Plains, and Eastern Woodlands.  Though there are similarities between the people in these regions, there are also many differences.  Students will be learning about their way of life, the types of homes they made & lived in, what they ate and how they got food (there was no Trader Joe's!), the materials they used to make clothing, how they got from place to place, what they did for fun, and more!

Meet our newest class member!

 

Happy January!!

 Welcome Back!

It’s great to have everyone back!  It’s been fun hearing students share stories from their winter vacations.  Here are a few updates on what is happening this month…

• In math class, we are beginning our fourth module this week!  Students will discover that area is the number of square units it takes to cover a shape. They’ll notice that shapes that look different can have the same area, and that given the choice, most of us would rather have a piece of our favorite candy that is 5 square inches versus one that is 5 square centimeters.  We will continue exploring area in the coming weeks.

• In writing, we began by reflecting on last year and writing some goals/resolutions for the New Year.  Ask your child what goals he/she is working toward!  After also writing stories from winter break, we will begin taking notes in preparation for our nonfiction books.  That will lead to drafting and publishing our nonfiction picture books!

• In reading, we will begin by wrapping up our text set on humorous stories & work on identifying story plot elements.  Then, we’ll start a genre study on realistic fiction books. 

• We are continuing our Balancing Forces unit in science with our final focus question: Why does the train change from floating to falling?  In this final chapter students will learn about how magnetic forces change in strength based on the distance between objects and will explore if this is also true for gravity.

• It is almost winter benchmarking time!  Students will be taking Reading & Math MAP tests as well as Fastbridge testing to monitor progress in the next couple of weeks.

Goodbye Shadow...

 Our class betta, Shadow, passed away the week before winter break.  We have a new fish in our class, and students will vote on a name this week.