Room 303 News 05-13-19

Weekly Updates and Reminders

• All costumes (Native American or Pioneer) are due to school by Monday, May 20.  Please let us know if you are not able to get a costume. 
   
• The M-Step testing has ended!  We are so proud of all of our students for working so hard to prepare for this state assessment in class and at home.  Thank you parents for your support with the 3 week practice at home as well!  Here are a few pictures of students working in class together.  
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•  Thank you, thank you, thank you for ALL your M-Step snack donations!  The students were very happy to enjoy a classroom snack during their breaks from testing.  
•  Please return the Spring Picture packet if you are not purchasing.  Thank you! 
• The third graders will be going to Greenfield Village on Monday, May 20.  Watch for a reminder and a "final details" note to come home later this week. 
• Wixom Field Day AND Volunteer Breakfast will be on Friday, May 24th.  It is also a half-day of school.  
• Mark your calendars for Third Grade Pioneer Day!  It is on Thursday, May 30th.  This will be a very fun day celebrating all of our Social Studies learning. We will also be sending out a sign-up genius with some needed materials and food for the day.  
  

MATH

We are still working within Unit 7 and learning how to place fractions on a number line!  

SOCIAL STUDIES

Below are a few pictures of students working together on a shared Google document.  Their learning included specific technology instruction coupled with a cumulative social studies' task.  Students learned that their Google account is an account that will follow them all through their education with Walled Lake Schools.  I taught them the value of Google Docs and how they can work collaboratively with several classmates from different computers as well as different locations.  Students learned how to create a document and then invite classmates to work within the document with them.  They also learned how to insert images, change font styles, and create an overall pleasing document.  The Social Studies task went along with our last assessment, wherein students had to design an advertisement for a business.  The document had to contain images, information such as natural resources, business information, and incentives.  They did a fantastic job!  If you are interested in seeing your child's work...simply have your child log into their Google account! 

        

What an incredible learning opportunity we recently had when our PTA so generously funded The Metro Park Mobile Learning to visit our school!  The two programs presented were The French Fur Trade and The Three Fires.  This was a perfect way to introduce our last Social Studies Unit/The History of Michigan. Thank you PTA!😍

 

 SCIENCE:
Again, THANK YOU families for sending in your fruits and vegetable for us to conduct a seed hunt or "dissect" fruits and vegetables as the students would say!  Students opened fruit to locate the seeds and were surprised to learn that vegetables that contain seeds are actually fruits. Next, they described and compared seed properties. 

This week students examined and sorted a selection of seeds: bean, pea, sunflower, and corn that they will observe over the next week.  They also set up seed sprouters and will record changes over the next week. 

Lastly, students participated in an experiment to find out how much water a Lima bean soaked up in a day.  We compared the mass of the seeds that have been soaked in water overnight to the mass of the dry seeds to determine how much water the seeds soaked up.



 Oh YES!!!!  I know you have probably heard about the crayfish!  As part of the life science unit, we are learning about living things...plants & animals!  Therefore, we have real, live, crayfish!  Crayfish that the students can handle and observe every day! To learn about the crayfish structures and each structure's function, it is important for students to have direct interaction!

  


CABBAGE PLANTS!

I hope your child's cabbage plant is growing well!  This really is a great way to start building your child's college fund in a fun and easy way! Below is the web link if you misplaced the information sheet that came home with your child a few weeks ago.  Basically, have your child take care of the plant, take a picture with your child and their plant in September and send it to me via email or have your child bring in a picture the first week of school in the fall!  I will then submit all pictures/entries to Bonnie Plants in the fall.  For specific information, click below!

https://bonniecabbageprogram.com/

Word Study/Grammar:

This week for grammar we are on Week Thirty-three.  The students are learning all about Compound Words and Comparative Adjectives.

Writing:   

We have been wrapping up our unit on Opinion Writing.  Their last piece they are now publishing is an Opinion Piece about whether they think it would have been more fun to be a Pioneer or a Native American child.   This writing piece will be on display for our Pioneer Day.  They are also writing an Opinion Speech that they will perform on camera in their costume.  This will also be a part of our presentation for Pioneer Day.  

Next for writing, we will be writing an Adaptive Fairy Tale.  This is such a fun and exciting unit.  The students will be working to compare and contrast two different Fairy Tales to see how an adaptive Fairy Tale is written.  For example, we will start by comparing Goldilocks and the Three Bears with Goldilocks and the Three Hares.  After we learn about a variety of different Fairy Tales, we will then begin to brainstorm for writing our own.  The students have a lot of fun with this unit!!!

Reading:

In reading, we are almost done with our read aloud Wish.  Ask your child to tell you all about this great chapter book.  Next we will be moving into our Informational Text Research Clubs.  The students will be learning what it means to research a topic and determine what is the most important information.  Each research club will also be working on a Poster Project where they will highlight the five different text structures relating to their topics.

Room 303 News: 4/17/2019

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

•  Please sign up at the link below if you would like to volunteer to provide snacks and/or drinks for our M-STEP testing dates.
  
  
  

  https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a48aba92fa6f94-mstep3
  The students will be taking the M-STEP on the following dates:
  Tuesday, April 30:  ELA Test (Reading/Writing)
  Wednesday, May 1:  ELA Test (Reading/Writing)
  Thursday, May 2: ELA Test (if needed- makeup day)
  Tuesday, May 7:  Math Test
  Wednesday, May 8:  Math Test
   
• Spring Picture Day is this Thursday, April 18.
• The students have been given M-STEP homework.  Please assist your child in this homework throughout the week.  Homework #2 is due on Monday, April 22. 
• We will be going to Greenfield Village on Monday, May 20.  Parents are welcome to come along and chaperone, but you will need to drive separately. Cost for chaperones is $10.  Please return the field trip forms and money as soon as possible.
• Wixom Field Day will be on Friday, May 24.  It is also a half-day of school that day.  
• Mark your calendars for Third Grade Pioneer Day!  It is on Thursday, May 30.  This will be a very fun day.  Below you will see a tentative schedule of the events for the day.  We will also be sending out a sign-up genius with some needed materials and food for the day. 
  
   

MATH

 We just began Unit 7 which will cover a variety of skills including fractions!  

SOCIAL STUDIES
Students are learning about how entrepreneurs combine natural, human and capital resources to produce goods and services in Michigan. Students also learned how incentives influence economic decisions people make in Michigan.  

 SCIENCE:

 Our last science kit arrived!  It is all about Structures of Life!  This unit will consist of four investigations dealing with big ideas in life science.  

 Word Study/Grammar:

This week for grammar we are on Week Twenty-six.  The students are learning all about base words and endings (-ed and -ing) and Contractions.

Writing:   

The students have finished their Opinion Writing and we have now moved on to Persuasive Writing.  We have talked about the difference between just stating your opinion about something and trying to persuade (or convince) someone to agree with you.  The students have chosen an issue or something they would like to see changed and are writing letters trying to persuade their audience to agree with them.

Reading:

In reading, we have been continuing to focus on Informational Text.  The students have been reading a variety of different non-fiction texts and noticing how the different text features add to our understanding.  They are also learning how to find the main idea of a text and the details.  We have also been looking for different text structures within texts and examined how they help us to better understand the topic as well. 

Room 303 News 03/25/19

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• Join us on Tuesday, March 26th from 2:30-3:30 for our Cultures of Thinking Celebration.  You are not required to stay the entire hour, but just come by and take a look at our our learning in our classroom and throughout our school!  
  
   
• The Wixom Book Fair is all next week.  The students will be able to preview the Book Fair as well as have some time to shop.
• The second trimester ended on Friday, March 15.  Report cards will be posted on Skyward on this Wednesday, March 27.
• Friday, March 29th is our last day of school before SPRING BREAK!  School will resume on Monday, April 8.
• MARCH IS READING MONTH!  Students are to read for AT LEAST 30 minutes each evening and write it on their log.  Please tally their minutes and send these logs to school every Monday for the month of March.  We have been fortunate to have a couple of very special guest readers in our classroom.  Mayor Ziegler of Wixom and State Representative Ryan Berman both read to our class last week.
  
  
  
  

MATH
 Hands-on exploration of shape attributes!  .
SOCIAL STUDIES
Thank you to all our volunteers for their time and energy :) attending our field trip to the Capitol and Michigan Historical Museum!  We had a terrific day of learning and fun!  



SCIENCE
Students took their Motion and Matter Assessment. Look for their grades to come home this week.  

 Word Study/Grammar:

This week for grammar we are on Week Twenty-five.  The students are learning all about R-controlled vowels (-ar and -or), abbreviations, and future tense.

Writing:   

We continue to work on Opinion Writing. The students have been working hard on developing STRONG reasons and examples to support their opinion.  We have also been working on using transition words to move from one idea to the next.  We are using the Opinion Writing Rubric to closely evaluate our own writing and the writing of our peers.
   

We also did a Circle of Viewpoints with the story I Wanna New Room. In this story we examined how the boy using PERSUASION to get what he wanted.

 

 

Reading:

We continue to learn about informational text. We have been learning about important skills that readers need to do BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER reading non-fiction texts.  We have also been learning about how to figure out tricky words in non-fiction.

Two students have finished their Reading Challenge!  We will be celebrating with a pizza and slurpee lunch!  Way to go Lucas and Marissa! :)

Room 303 News 3-12-2019

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• UPCOMING FIELD TRIP permission slips and money DUE.  We will be spending the day on Monday, March 18th in Lansing.
• Our PTA is hosting another Family Skate Night at Bonaventure Skating Rink on Wednesday, March 13th.
• Friday, March 22nd will be a half-day of school.
• Friday, March 29th is our last day of school before SPRING BREAK!  School will resume on Monday, April 8.
• The second trimester ends this Friday, March 15.  Report cards will be posted on Skyward on Wednesday, March 27.
• MARCH IS READING MONTH!  Students are to read for AT LEAST 30 minutes each evening and write it on their log.  Please tally their minutes and send these logs to school every Monday for the month of March.

MATH
Students just took the Unit 5 assessment.  We will review the test on Monday and their results will be sent home.  Unit 6 students will compare different strategies to solving the same problem and reflect on which strategy is more efficient and appropriate.  Students will also learn how to model multi-step number stories with one or more equations and represent the unknown quantities with letters.  Students will also be introduced to the order of operations and learn how parentheses function as grouping symbols that affect the order of operations.
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SOCIAL STUDIES
We had great fun making a huge slice of pizza to enhance our learning about how Michigan's agriculture supplies many of the ingredients needed to make pizza, due in part to our state's unique geography and different types of climate.  Our learning also included how we produce, distribute and consume goods and services.  Look for this ART work outside our classroom!

SCIENCE
This week students determined the mass of a volume of vinegar and baking soda before mixing them.  They observed bubbling and fizzing, evidence that a new material- carbon dioxide gas- formed.  The new material is evidence that a chemical reaction occurred.  Students determined that the mass of the mixture after bubbling stops is less than the mass of the original materials.  This change in mass pushes students to infer that carbon dioxide has mass, which went into the air.


 Word Study/Grammar:

This week for grammar we are on Week Twenty-three.  The students are learning all about the Sound of Y and forming past-tense by adding -ed.

Writing:   

We have started Opinion Writing.  The students have been learning about the difference between a fact and an opinion.  We have also started making a list of our favorites to form our opinion.  We are also talking a lot about the importance of including reasons and examples.

 

Reading:

Last week we started Unit 3 in Reading where we are focusing on Non-fiction reading.  So far this year, our reading units have really been focused on fictional reading and character studies.  We will now be focusing on the very important skills that are needed when reading informational texts. 

We are also examining non-fiction articles, learning how to take notes, and write a summary including only the main ideas and details.  Ask your child to tell you about the article Extinct:  Famous Animals that are No More.We closely examined this article and then completed a written summary as a class.