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! :)