Today is Day 90!

Today is DAY 90! 
You know what that means! We are one half of the way through our third grade year! 

We have been busy these past few weeks.  We enjoyed having a student teacher. Miss Lacroix enjoyed her time in third grade. 

We have been reading a variety of non-fiction texts. We started with Deadliest Animals. On the cover is a fierce lion and the first page shows us his sharp teeth and claws.

He does look deadly!

Wow... those teeth! 

We were impressed and thought it indeed looked deadly. BUT... do you know what animal is the deadliest of them all?  

Yup... here it is. The DEADLY mosquito. 

That's right. The mosquito is the deadliest animal. Each year, 2 to 3 million people die from diseases transmitted by mosquitoes. Then we had a conversation about why the lion was on the cover. How SCARED would you be looking at the mosquito?  

Our non-fiction journey continued with Dolphins. With this book, we really looked at the non-fiction text features that were included in the text. There was:

What did you see?

• an index
• charts
• a glossary
• bold print
• colored text
• diagrams
• pictures
• captions
• text boxes

Finally, we read Titanic. We started off by sharing our schema (prior knowledge/what we already know). Then we predicted what we might find out or learn. We asked questions and then began to read! 

In 1912, Titanic was the biggest ship ever built.
It was called a "floating palace". 

 The students LOVED this book.

Did you know...

• the ship had four elevators, a heated swimming pool, a gym, 2 barber shops, and two libraries?
• some passengers paid about $99,000 of today's money to travel aboard Titanic?
• Titanic was as long as three football fields?
• more than 1,500 passengers and crew died?

We are now starting to read books in small groups and using the same format of tracking our learning. 

Using the FAB FOUR to help us learn! 

Working on reading non-fiction is going along hand in hand with writing non-fiction. Students have started their informational writing in class. We started with our expert lists and then we brainstormed what we could say about our topics. We visited the library to search for resources to help us. We then wrote introductions about our topic.

We reviewed an example to get ideas of how to write our introductions. We also looked at 23 other non-fiction books
 (1 per student) to see how each book started! 

Students are now working on the chapters of their texts. Thank you for helping out with research at home. Having extra information on hand helps our writers KEEP on writing!

We are circling back to what we have seen the EXPERTS do and trying to add some of the text features we have seen into our own work!

Chapter work... with text features!

SCIENCE

So we are learning about forces and motion. We did some experiments with friction and some with gravity. Parachute Guy was fun! We learned about how things fall. Two pieces of paper fall differently depending of the shape of the paper. We learned about AIR FRICTION. We did several trial runs of Parachute Guy's descent. I'm sure some trials continued at home from various heights as well.

From the second floor or Wheelock School, Parachute Guy attempts his most daring jump yet... 

We are now reading and learning about Sir Isaac Newton, the famous English scientist who is said to have "discovered" gravity.

We read about Sir Isaac Newton and highlighted what we thought we important details from the text. We charted those details on the board. BUT THEN, we went further and divided the details into to categories.. INTERESTING or IMPORTANT. We used our knowledge from Titanic to help us. Titanic had 2 barber shops! Interesting or important?  Titanic did not have enough lifeboats for all the passengers since the builders wanted to allow space for first class passengers to stroll on the deck. Interesting or important?  They could easily tell these apart. What about Sir Isaac Newton. He never married. Is that interesting or important?  He developed a form of math called calculus. Interesting or important? We decided what we thought!

We will now start to learn about Sir Isaac Newton's three Laws of Motion. Stay tuned!

MATH 

From area to graphing! We are working on reading, understanding, and making bar graphs and picture graphs. We spent time today talking about the difference between reading a graph and interpreting a graph. Take a look!

Reading a graph:
"Basketballs and jump rope have the same number."
Interpreting a graph:
"There are three times as many soccer balls as bats." 

Interpreting a graph involves more thinking! And that is what we want our students to do!

We are also creating our own graphs.

For this journal problem, students had to use the given data to create a bar graph. The question asks them to graph the coins two brothers have in their piggy banks. They must include a title, a label for both the x and y axis, and a scale greater than one. And just when they thought they were done, I asked them to SOLVE and find out how much money the boys had!

And that's not all... we have also been learning about prefixes and suffixes, new words, elapsed time, main idea, author's purpose, cursive letters, possessive nouns....

Check back later... or be sure to follow us on TWITTER! #180daysofawesome

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone!

Room 102 is starting the year off with lots of learning!  We came back on Tuesday and got right back to work.  We wrote New Year's resolutions. What will it mean for 2017?  Ask your child about his/her promises for the new year? 

Catherine and Jaxon work on their lists. 

Caroline writes her resolutions. 

We also started a new book called Donavan's Word Jar. Donavan is a third grade boy, who like his classmates, likes to collects things. But his collections is a little different. He collects words! Yes, words.  

Donavan Allen collects words. 

We will be spending the next few weeks learning about Donavan's collections and starting a word collection of our own. Do you have any words that you like?  Your 3rd grader will be asking you to share. So, be ready! 

Here are some of our classmates discussing the book. 

We have started a CLASS WORD JAR as well as individual word jars as well. 

AREA! 

We have been working on the areas of polygons for a few weeks. We made our own sports complexes. And, more recently, designed our own robots to work on the area of regular and irregular shapes. We have been working in math stations to practice math fluency, meeting in small groups to review concepts, and working individually or with a partner to answer questions. 

Math Journal Question - find the area! 

Using geoboards to make shapes with an area of 4 square units! 

Check our our area robots! 

More AREA-BOTS! 

December Happenings

Classroom Updates

We have been working really hard in Room 102. What have we been up to, you ask?  We have enjoyed some great read alouds.  

We all fell in love with Mr. Mosely!

We followed Nicholas' journey from Stockbridge to West Tisbury and looked at a Massachusetts map to chart his travels! 

Natalie and Zoe are sixth graders looking to publish a book. 

I love read alouds. I am a strong proponent of children being read to and enjoying good literature. This class LOVES read alouds as well. They are eager to find out what happens next in each story we have read. Some have checked these books out the library to read ahead (the little cheaters!) and others are rereading some of these books on their own. One of my students went to Park Street Books and bought the next book in the Nicholas series.  And that, is really why I love read alouds. It inspires readers!  

Hey there, Little Red Riding Hood...

Our class discussed what we know or remember about the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood. They knew different versions, but we agreed that the skeleton or frame of the story is the same. A young girl is heading to Grandma's. Mom warns her NOT to talk to strangers. In the midst of her journey she encounters a wolf who asks her where she is headed. Lo and behold, the wolf beats her to Granny's, eats Granny up, and disguises himself as Granny. There are some words like "My what big... you have". Then Little Red is eaten too. They are saved by the huntsman in the woods and they all live happily ever after. 

Well, we read some other versions of LRRH as we started calling her. Our first one was Lon Po Po, a Chinese version of the tale by Ed Young. It is very different as there are three young girl who stay at home while mother goes off to visit the grandmother, or in Chinese, their Po Po. Ask your child about the many different versions we read. We charted them and compared the similarities and differences. In many of them the hero or the heroine of the story is the Grandmother or even LRRH herself. 

Reading Strategies
We have been working on a variety of reading strategies. In my mini lessons, I always talk about what "good reader" do. Good readers read in a conversational tone with expression. Good readers stop when they lose meaning. Good readers make predictions. You get my meaning. We have been working with inference, predicting, and main idea.  We read our Scholastic News articles and found the MAIN idea and SUPPORTING DETAILS.  We recently met the FAB FOUR. They are our new friends that are helping us with our reading and thinking. 

Madam the Powerful Predictor

Sammy the Super Summarizer

Quincy the Quizzical Questioner

Clara the Careful Clarifier

Our friends remind us to STOP and THINK about our reading. Madam reminds us to use clues from the text or illustrations to predict what will happen next. Quincy reminds us to ask questions as we read. Clara helps us clarify tricky words or ideas. Sammy reminds us to use our own words to tell about the story using key details from the text. They are coming in handy in our independent reading. 



MATH 

We are moving right along with our multiplication facts and strategies as well. We are currently working on AREA. Students are looking at finding the area of regular shapes and irregular shapes. Last week we designed our own SPORTS COMPLEX and found the area of the space.

Caroline's Sports Complex... called Sports Mania!

This week we are making area robots. 

Each week we also work on reviewing other math concepts. We have worked on telling time, addition and subtraction with regrouping, and word problems. We are also discussing strategies we use when doing mental math. 

WRITING

How will you start your story?

We have finished up our unit on narrative writing. We worked on starting our story with an interesting LEAD.  That might mean starting with dialogue or an action. We talked about slowing down and telling our story BIT by BIT with focus on the most important part, or the heart of our story. Students worked on editing their work alone and with a partner. It is difficult for third graders to take the time to go BACK and really take another look at their work. 

SCIENCE

You may have noticed we didn't give grades for Science in Term I on our report cards.  As you can all well imagine, our unit on the PILGRIMS takes up an enormous part of our curriculum at the start of the year. Moving forward we will integrate SCIENCE and Social Studies for the remainder of the year.  

We read a book called What Are Scientists? 

And we learned that scientists are every day people and they scientists study EVERYTHING!  What like, you ask?

• cats and cuts
• fire and fog
• magnets
• earthquakes
• fire and smog  (etc.)

Some examples of scientists were: 

• pediatricians
• meteorologists
  
• chemists
• mathematicians
• botanists

But what they ALL have in common is THEY ARE CURIOUS and they ask QUESTIONS.  

We just started our unit on Forces and Motion. We had to do an experiment in which students had to get pennies into a cup without touching the pennies. Teams had to work together to come up with a HYPOTHESIS!  Then they tried their techniques.  

Working in a group is a SKILL.
It requires patience, reasoning and good listening. 

We will learn about Sir Isaac Newton and the three Laws of Motion as we continue. 

So, what else? Hmmmm..

• We have read some poems. We loved the one about homework!

  

  
  

• Taylor got new glasses!
  
• Mrs. Stover said we have lovely singing voices. 
  
• Students were giddy about PE this week! 
• Our ART WORK looks amazing in the art room! 
  
• Chase thought he was going to the orthodontist but really he was getting a dog!

• 

  Her name is Hartley. Can you guess why? 

  One morning, we learned was a PALINDROME is and we had a VERY strange coincidence with Caroline C.'s example of TACO CAT. I was like... "What?"  And then later that same day Bren Bataclan gave us a picture called.... yup, TACO CAT! 
  
• We all giggled when Michael Jackson was called to the office the other day! That then led to a conversation about the KING OF POP and how old he was when he died.  (FYI: The Michael Jackson being paged is a custodian in the Medfield Public Schools.) 
  
• Cursive writing is coming along nicely! 
  
• Our new mural upstairs is completed and has a second grade theme of land forms and butterflies. 
  
• I hope everyone has a wonderful vacation. And if you celebrate one of the many holidays this season... enjoy!