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! 

02/13/18 Room 303 News

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• Our FIELD TRIP to our State Capitol and Michigan Museum is tomorrow- FEBRUARY 14th!  Make sure your child has a brown bag lunch (everything must be disposable) and dressed for winter.  We will be walking from the Capitol to the Museum!
• Remember to send snow pants, hats, gloves and boots with your child each day.
• You may have heard, but I had the unique opportunity to attend this year's Groundhog's Event in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.  As an educator, this was indeed a fun experience to have and share with students for many years to come.
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Math:

Unit 4 Assessments have been graded and sent home with your child. There also seems to be some confusion on what needs to be returned to school.  The ONLY thing I need back is the actual assessment.  You may keep the cover letter and Summary of Skills page.  This week we began Unit 5/Fractions and Multiplication Strategies.  In Unit 5, students relate their part-whole understanding of fractions to visual and symbolic representations including standard notation and begin to explore fraction equivalencies. They also develop multiplication fact strategies by working from their understanding of multiplication and know facts to find unfamiliar products using arrays, area model and properties of multiplication.  


Social Studies:
We have begun a new unit in Social Studies as well...Michigan History!  We began the unit by defining and exploring what it means to be a historian.  Just like Science, we develop an understanding by looking at cause-and-effect relationships.  For example, this week we examined several primary and secondary sources about Waterford, Michigan.  Students looked at old maps, photographs and historical fiction stories to piece together what the history was from this time period.  This lesson is a spring board for the unit's upcoming lessons, wherein we learn about the Native Americans and Pioneers.  Our upcoming field trip will support this learning in so many ways!  

Science:

This week in science, we continued to understand patterns of motion by experimenting with making tops from plastic disks and shafts!  OH WHAT FUN we had!  We discussed cause-and-effect relationships to the goal. i.e., if you want to a top to spin for a long time, you need a fairly heavy mass near the bottom of the shaft and a means for getting the system rotating really fast. Students learned tops exhibit a rotational motion when torque is applied to the axial shaft; variables affect top performance. 

Word Study and Grammar:

 Writing:
We are finalizing the publishing of our non-fiction minibooks.  The students have done a nice job of applying the many writing skills that we have learned- organizing notes into sections with headings, bolding important words and creating a glossary, adding pictures and captions, including topic and closing sentences in each section, and much more!  I am very proud of their hard work in writing.  This week, the students are completing a fun poster of their topic to show how non-fiction topics can be displayed in a lot of different ways.  Next week we will start our next unit on Opinion Writing.



Reading: 

Two students have already earned all 9 BADGES for the "Room 303 Reading Challenge!"  Congrats to Emma and Colin!  We will be celebrating with a pizza lunch and a slurpee.  

Most of the students should be about half way through their badges at this point.  The students have been excited about the Reading Challenge and are doing a great job!

This week we are focusing on non-fiction text and how authors use the different structures to help us make meaning of what we are reading.  These structures we are examining are cause-effect, problem-solution, sequence, compare-contrast, and description.  We are also looking at examples of test taking language used in many informational articles.

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.