Mrs. Watson's Weekly: November 2017

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break!
I ATE way too much!

What is new in Room 102? As usual, a LOT!

Reading
Our current read aloud is called Nicholas: A Massachusetts Tale. It is the story of a young mouse who lives in Stockbridge,

Massachusetts. When his family's journal is ruined in heavy rains in the farm house kitchen where his family lives, Nicholas decides to travel to West Tisbury, MA to visit his uncle so he can make a copy of this precious family heirloom. And so... his adventure begins. He sets off on his way across Massachusetts. We have been tracking his progress using our Massachusetts map.

He first traveled to the Quabbin Reservoir where he learned about the history of the drowned towns. Our listeners had questions about this man-made body of water, so last week we read, Letting Swift River Go by Jane Yolen. This wonderful picture book tells the story of the drowning of 4 Massachusetts towns to create a water source for Boston's ever growing need for water. One book led us to another and we added to what we have learned about Massachusetts' history. Just today, we read how Nicholas climbed to the top of Wachusett Mountain to see the his way to the coast. When we left off today, Nicholas and his chipmunk friend, Edward, had hitched a ride to the coast in the back of a fish truck! What will happen next?

Partners used 5 sticky notes to
retell the story of the Quabbin Reservoir
using "first, next, then, after that, and finally."

Today we started a new reading unit looking at different versions of the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood".

We started this morning by talking about what we KNEW about this classic tale. Partners had to work together to ORALLY retell the story to each other. Then we read Lon Po Po by Ed Young. This is a Chinese version of Red Riding Hood. We filled in a Red Riding Hood Story Analysis Chart with this first book. The headings of our chart included: title, characters, setting, "My What ....", similarities/differences, and hero/heroine. We will compare many different versions of the story this week. Students love this unit and reading about the different versions of the story. I LOVE all the reading and talking they are doing about books!

MATH
Fluency...fluency...fluency! It's not just for reading! Third graders need to be able to FLUENTLY multiply and divide within 100. So as we work on problem solving and learning about patterns in multiplication and division, we are also spending some time practicing our facts. I encourage students to do this at home as well. We have been playing a flash cards challenge where students compete to find the product of 2 factors.

We also have triangle flash cards that we can use for practice and to find missing factors. These are a great resource to have at home.

Students can practice while they wait for the bus, after dinner, or any time you need a little quiet! There are also some great websites for practice. Here are a few to try at home.

Splash Math

Greg Tang - Break Apart

Math Playground - Monster Math

Science

Sidney is AMAZED by "talking magnets"

Has your child come home talking about magnets? They have LOVED playing and experimenting with them in class. Some of our friends even brought in their own magnets from home for us to use! We started our Motion and Matter science unit at the start of November and we are learning about the forces of magnetism and gravity. Students started working in a Science Notebook where they keep track of their learning. They have started a glossary and added new words we have encountered such as "magnetic field, repel, attract, and gravity." Experiments ask students to answer a focus question and their natural curiosity takes over!