Happy Halloween!

Frankenlearners

      We are in the midst of a storm of learning (sorry I just can't help myself). The students are perfecting their paragraphs, dictionary skills, adding with regrouping, character trait identification, personal narrative writing and scientific observations. It amazes me how fast each day goes by and how much we are able to explore together. 

       All jokes aside, with the impending weather please take a moment to review your son/daughter's plan for an early dismissal. My meeting originally scheduled for tomorrow has been canceled, so I will be in the classroom. 

      In math this week we will work on subtraction with regrouping. Overall the class did a wonderful job on addition with regrouping. The most important suggestion I can make for helping at home is to practice those facts. We have been taking the timed addition/subtraction tests for a month now. 

      In reading workshop we will complete our character trait study of Charlotte's Web. The students have grown as readers. We had a lengthy discussion last week about the change we saw in Wilbur throughout the course of the book. I was very impressed with the depth of their understanding. 

      Our personal narratives are very close to completion. We will then begin a new unit on writing realistic fiction. If you are looking for a new book to read at home you may want to try this genre. Andrew Clements writes some great realistic fiction books! 

      We will continue to work on paragraph writing, dictionary skills and complete our Pollination unit in science. 

Pollinating our Plants

Ms. Hyland was our Mystery Reader. It was spooktacular!

Boo!

Working Hard!

     

Stay safe this week and Happy Halloween!

Busy, busy, busy

The days are flying by and we are very busy in third grade!

 Last week we enjoyed a visit from the Elsmere Fire Department.

We met with our First Grade Buddies.

We enjoyed a visit from our Mystery Reader, Mrs. Hotaling.

We also began creating a pumpkin that will be donated to a senior citizen community. Can you guess what it will become?

      This upcoming week will be just as jam-packed! In reading, we will expand our work with character traits. The class will be inferring traits, using the dialog and action of the characters. In addition we will be discussing how making connections to a text can enhance our comprehension. We will revise our personal narratives in writing this week. We will focus on finding the heart of our story and adding key details to make our work more interesting. math this week will be all about adding larger numbers with regrouping. Please continue to practice facts at home! If nature cooperates, we will be pollinating this week in science. The students have done a nice job with their observations. Our work with paragraphing will continue this week. The students have made great progress and they are excited to write this week's Friday Letter using paragraphs! We will also begin a new unit of study on the dictionary. This week we will focus on how the dictionary is organized.

     Have a great week!

What a week!

We had a wonderful week! The students worked hard and we were able to accomplish a lot in just four days. I am very proud of the effort each student showed throughout the week.

Next week...

   In reading, we will continue our work with Charlotte's Web. The students have made some exceptionally advanced observations of our main characters. Not only are they able to identify an accurate character trait, the students are also able to back-up their thinking with proof from the text. This week we will also begin book groups. The students will be working on character traits in their groups. 

   This week we began working with an excellent online resource for reading, called Raz-Kids. It  is a website that offers fiction and non-fiction reading materials with comprehension quizzes to accompany each book. The students can read and take quizzes to earn points, which they can use to build a rocket. Our class has enjoyed their work with this website and I am finding it to be very motivating. I have put a link to the website on the sidebar. My teacher username is lmooneyb. If your child would like to use the reading they do on Raz-Kids for their 20 mins each night that is fine with me. Have them record the title of the books they read on their reading log. 

   In writing, we will continue to work on our personal narratives. The students will begin the week by drafting their first piece. Our focus is to use their storytelling skills to write their narratives, not simply retell their memories. We will also continue our work with paragraphing this week. 

   In math, we will finish our unit on rounding and estimation. The students will take a chapter test on Thursday. One suggestion for conversation at home:  talk about whether numbers/answers are reasonable. We will be talking about this a lot this week. Do our answers make sense? Are they reasonable? Also, keep practicing those math facts. We will begin addition with regrouping on Friday.

   We have begun discussing the election in class. Our focus will be on the two main candidates. So far we have read an article about each convention and identified each presidential candidate and his running mate. Any conversation you have at home regarding the election would greatly enhance our classroom discussion! 

   What incredible young scientists we have in class! The students are busy observing their plants and measuring their growth. Friday we learned about the different types of leaves we will see develop on the plants as they grow. Ask your child which type of leaves their plants have! Next week we will spend a great deal of time discussing photosynthesis and the role bees play in the life cycle of plants.

   Enjoy this beautiful fall weekend with your family!

   

Hello October

    I hope you have enjoyed a restful weekend. This is our sixth week of school and I am looking forward to some exciting and challenging work.
    We will continue our character study using Charlotte's Web. We have had some very interesting conversations surrounding this book. Ask you child what we do to "prove" a character trait. When your child is reading his/her book at home this week ask about their main character.
    In writing, we will continue our personal narrative unit. The students have selected their final writing topic. We will be developing these ideas together using a timeline to organize our stories before we draft. We will also begin a unit about paragraphing. This is an essential skill for all of our work in third grade and beyond. Please be on the lookout for some practice paragraphs coming home soon.
   In math this week we will continue our work with rounding numbers. We will be estimating sums and differences. If you are helping your child at home with their homework, we are using the following rhyme to help us remember the steps for rounding:

Find the place

Go next door

5 or higher "Add 1 more"

4 or less "STAYS THE SAME"

  Science will be very exciting this week. Our seeds have sprouted (ask your child the vocabulary word for this step in the life cycle of a plant) and we will be observing our plants, measuring their growth and thinning our plants. 

   We have completed our study of comparative and superlative adjectives and the quiz went home on Friday. This week we will be working on synonyms and antonyms. 

Last week...

   We welcomed Mrs. Mazula in as our Mystery Reader. 

  We enjoyed a presentation by Mr. Baker from the Regional Food Bank.

   We watched our seeds germinate.