01/29/18 Room 303 News

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• What a wonderful turn out we had for Parent/Teacher Conferences.  Thank you for meeting with us to discuss your child's progress in 3rd grade.  We are proud of all of our students!  
• Remember to send snow pants, hats, gloves and boots with your child each day.
• We will be going to our Capitol and the Michigan Historical Museum on Feb.14th!  Students will pass out Valentines on Tuesday, February 13th at the end of the day!  
• If you haven't returned the field trip permission slip and fee, please do so before February 5th!

Math:
This week in math we focused on distinguishing between perimeter and area.  We began this lesson by playing Racing Rectangles.  From this play, students learned that A-= l x w!  
Students also determined the perimeter of a one-foot square.  We first measured one side of the square and learned that 12 inches = one foot.   Then the question was posed..If the length of each side of the square is one foot, what is the perimeter in feet?  The lesson continued to focus on measuring perimeter and area using square units.  We will take the Unit 4 Assessment of Wednesday!  Look for the study guide to come home on Monday!

Social Studies:
Students worked in teams to identify natural, human, and capital resources needed for a pizzeria!  Again, to make learning fun, we use the concept of a pizzeria to teach Michigan Economy.  We will be having our unit assessment next Wednesday.  Look for the study guide to come home on Monday!

Science:

Students used a variety of systems to explore patterns of motion.  They designed a wheel and axle system and tested their designs on mini ramps to observe the pattern of motion, driven by the phenomenon of gravity.  Students tried all kinds of configurations that included different wheel sizes and positions, axle length, and axle position to meet a variety of challenges.  

This Week in Word Study and Grammar:

 Writing:
The students have been busy publishing their informational mini-books on their chosen topics.  I have been excited to see improvements in the student's note-taking abilities and how they are able to turn their notes into complete sentences. We will be working on our introductions and conclusions to our books this week, along with determining which words we should bold and include in our glossary and index.   

We also did a reading/writing activity for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  We read about Martin Luther King Jr. and then completed a "Sentence, Phrase, Word" activity with the passage.  The students did such a nice job pulling out key sentences, words, and phrases that they felt really represented who Dr. King was as a person.  

Reading: 

We have started the "Room 303 Reading Challenge!"  I was noticing while conferring with the students that they were often reading the same kinds of books and often not finishing a book before moving on to a new one.  The purpose of this challenge is to encourage the students to try different genres and to read a variety of books from start to finish.  So, they have to read 9 books from nine different genres and then complete the reading response page after they finish the book.  We talked about the importance of these books being AT their reading level, not too easy and not too hard.  Once they complete one genre, they earn that genre badge and we sing a little song to celebrate them!  Once a student completes the challenge, all nine books, we will have a picnic reading lunch with slurpees!  Happy Reading! :)

1/12/2018 Room 303 News

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• Welcome Back!  We hope you all had a wonderful holiday break and Happy New Year!  Thank you to our many parent volunteers who made our Pancake and Pajama Holiday breakfast such a great success.  The students raved about the delicious pancakes and we all had a great time.
  
  
  
  
  
• Parent Teacher Conferences will be this Thursday, January 18th.  It will be a half day of school.  Dismissal will be at 11:09am.  Conferences will be held from noon-8pm.  We will be sending home a note confirming your time on Tuesday.  We look forward to meeting with all of you.
• Remember to send snow pants, hats, gloves and boots with your child each day. 
  
  
  

Math:
We are really enjoying Unit 4:  Measurement and Geometry.  In this Unit, children are looking more closely at units of measure to measure to the nearest half inch.  They used different tools to measure many objects around the room.  A particular favorite was using a yard stick!  Students have also been exploring geometric attributes of polygons and classifying quadrilaterals into categories based on their attributes through many hands-on activities.  We are truly having a great time learning!  This week we will begin to secure our understanding of perimeter and area by measuring the perimeters of polygons.  

Social Studies:

In Social Studies we will continue to look at Michigan's geography as it relates to our economy.  

Science:
To introduce the Motion and Matter Unit students participated in a Visible Thinking Routine called, Think - Puzzle - Explore.  This routine helps students connect to any prior knowledge of the content, stimulate curiosity for the new learning as well as lay the groundwork for independent inquiry.  The unit began with investigations with magnets, which created a high interest in all our students.  They couldn't wait to begin!  Specially, this unit provides students with physical sciences' core ideas dealing with forces and interactions, matter and its interactions and with engineering design.  Magnetism and gravity are the forces students explore as they look for patterns of motion to predict future motion.  Below are several pictures of students working with magnets and paperclips!  They were absolutely fascinated with magnets as they worked with their science teams through a number of activities.  Check out the floating magnets and paper clip!  Such experiments lead to learning about magnetic poles and magnetic fields as well as the force of gravity!  

This Week in Word Study and Grammar:

 Writing:
We continue to work hard at becoming non-fiction reading and writing experts.  The students have been learning how to take notes and organize their information into Boxes and Bullets.  They are writing about a variety of topics that they already know about. I have also printed other resources for them to take notes on to learn even more about their topic.  They are excited to begin turning their notes into paragraphs!

Reading: 

The students are really enjoying our Informational Reading Unit! We continue to learn about the different text features in non-fiction books.  The students are getting good at pointing them out!  We have also learned about the different text structures of Description, Problem/Solution, Compare/Contrast, Cause/Effect, and Sequence.  They are also getting better at finding these structures in text as well.