03/18/18 Room 303 News

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• Unfortunately it seems as though winter is still here...please remember to send snow pants, hats, gloves and boots with your child each day.
• THURSDAY, MARCH 29th is our final day of school before Spring Break.  There is no school on Friday, Good Friday, March 30th.  School will resume on Monday, April 9th.
• MARCH IS READING MONTH!  Just like all year, students should be reading for at least 30 minutes every single night.  They should be logging their minutes in their "March is Reading Month" reading log.  These logs are due every Monday so we can turn our class total into Mrs. Banks.  If the whole school reaches 150,000 minutes, Mr. Bender will become a kid for the day! So far, I think as a school we are at about 75,000 minutes.  Keep Reading! :)
  
  

• Thank you to all the families that sent in a snack for our Friendship Mixture to make our learning oh so fun and good too! The students really enjoyed it!  
  

Math:
This past week students have been working on trade first subtraction also known as subtraction with borrowing or regrouping.  I will begin meeting with small groups to secure this very important mathematical skill this coming week.  Students also LOVED playing Baseball Multiplication which is a game to build fact fluency.  If your child has been talking about this game, please log on to their ConnectEd account (the username and password is taped to the inside of their planner) to read the complete rules and play at home too!  It really is a lot of fun learning!


Social Studies:
The Metro Parks are back!  On Monday, our 3rd grade students will watch an hour presentation on the French Voyageurs and the the Fur Trade.  
From the Metro Parks website:  
Join a French Voyageur to learn about the trade and interactions between the French and the Native American here in Michigan. Through artifacts and replicas, students will experience life at a 1700s era trading post. Michigan history, geography and economics come alive in one program.


Science:
Students completed our Motion and Matter Assessment.  It was a great unit of learning and we really weren't ready to finalize our learning of this unit.  However, our new science kits will be arriving this week!  Our next unit of study is called, Structures of Life!    

Word Study and Grammar:

Reading: 

Three more students earned all 9 BADGES for the "Room 303 Reading Challenge!"  Congrats to Alana, Abby, and Archita!  Also, congrats to Emma for completing Reading Challenge #2!  So proud of all the hard work these students are doing in reading. 

For reading this week, we continue to work in our Research Clubs.  The students are learning how to have conversations about what they are learning, how to organize the information, and how to ask questions and form their own thoughts and ideas.  They are really enjoying learning about the animals in their Research Clubs and are having some great conversations.

Writing:
This week we are working on our Persuasive Writing letters.   The students have selected topics about something they would like to change either at home, in the classroom, in the school, in the community, or in the world.  They are then learning how to write a strong persuasive letter including an introduction, reasons, a counter-argument, and a conclusion.  I've been really impressed with the writing I have seen so far!

3/8/2018 Room 303 News

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• Unfortunately it seems as though winter is still here...please remember to send snow pants, hats, gloves and boots with your child each day.
• There will be a half day of school next Thursday, March 15.  School will be dismissed at 12:09pm.
• MARCH IS READING MONTH!  Just like all year, students should be reading for at least 30 minutes every single night.  They should be logging their minutes in their "March is Reading Month" reading log.  These logs are due every Monday so we can turn our class total into Mrs. Banks.  If the whole school reaches 150,000 minutes, Mr. Bender will become a kid for the day! 
  

• As part of our Science Learning of mixtures, we will be having a Friendship Mixture Snack.  Please send in one full, sandwich bag of your child's favorite dry snack...such as Chex cereal, Goldfish crackers, raisins, chocolate chips, mini graham crackers, pretzel sticks, Cheerios, Cheez-Its, etc. by WEDNESDAY, March 14th!  We will enjoy this Friendship Mixture on Thursday!  I will also send home a reminder note on Monday!  

Math:

Unit 5 Assessment was given today, look for your child's grade sometime early next week.  In Unit 6, students will compare different approaches to solving the same problem and reflect on which strategies are more efficient and appropriate.  We will continue to take inventory of known multiplication facts and facts that are not yet mastered.  Approximately 1/2 of our class already knows their multiplication facts and will continue to learn how to multiply one digit numbers by 2 digit numbers.  A 4th grade teacher visited our classroom today and spoke to the students about the importance of mastering their multiplication facts.  She even shared examples of some 4th grade math that involved the quick use of multiplication facts.  I cannot stress this enough...your child needs to study their facts each evening and have them mastered by the end of 3rd grade!  Unit 6 will also focus on multi-step number stories with one or more equations and represent the unknown quantities with letters.  Lastly, students will be introduced to the order of operations and learn how parentheses function as grouping symbols that affect the order of operations.  

Social Studies:

Students are enjoying learning about Michigan History!  Our wonderful PTA funded an in-school field trip wherein the Metro Parks visited our school and taught the students about Michigan's early Native Americans, The Three Fires.  Students learned how the three tribes' cultures were similar, therefore creating a unique relationship.  Students also had an opportunity to do some hands-on activities using early tools such as a pump drill.  

Science:

Learning through hands-on investigations is so beneficial!  I am so proud of the students during these investigations because they are engaged, focused on the task and cooperative during group work.  This week students learned about the phenomenon of conservation of mass.  They determined the mass of materials prior to mixing and again after mixing.  In one mixture, salt dissolved resulting in a solution; however students confirmed that the mass of the solution was equal to the starting masses of the water and salt.  Students also observed the mixing of vinegar and baking soda which resulted in a chemical reaction.  Students were surprised to learn that the mass of the ending mixture was less than the mass of the original materials.  We learned that mixing a solid and a liquid that creates a chemical reaction will create a gas and some of the mass will escape!

Word Study and Grammar:

Reading: 

We have had five more students earn all 9 BADGES for the "Room 303 Reading Challenge!"  Congrats to Kamali, Abdou, Jonathan, Jacob, and Bryce.  We enjoyed a delicious pizza lunch and a slurpee yesterday to celebrate! 

This week we have started Research Clubs in reading. The students are working in five different groups and are researching five different animals- Elephants, Giraffes, Dolphins, Frogs, and Penguins.  They are learning important research skills, such as browsing/skimming for information, using text features to help navigate through the text, note-taking, and much more!  The students are enjoying working in their Research Clubs!

Writing: 

We have also been busy in writing.  The students have been learning a new form of writing- Opinion Writing.  We have been talking a lot about the difference between a fact and an opinion.  It is so important with Opinion Writing that the students work hard to develop their REASONS and EXAMPLES behind what they believe. This week we have learned about strong introductions that clearly state the opinion, powerful reasons and examples, and a solid conclusion that really drives home the point.  I have been really impressed with the students writing.  Next, we will begin to learn about Persuasive Writing where the students will take on a topic (usually something they want to change)  and work to persuade.  Once we complete these, the students will be giving a speech to the class!