Mrs. Fox's Third Grade: October 2023

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

October 25, 2023

Announcements

Thank you to all the families who donated for the Food Drive last week! Our class had a combined total of 1,183 cans and funds! We met the goal we set for ourselves everyday, and we had many discussions about the impact we had on our community.

On Tuesday, we had another Book Break with author/illustrator Dan Santat! He wrote the book, The Adventures of Beekle. We were also able to do a directed drawing with him and see a sneak peek of his new book.

We had a wonderful field trip to the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture last week! Students were able to learn about the parts of a flower, experience a predator/prey scavenger hunt, and go on a hike. We also tried lots of vegetables and fruit. Our first field trip was definitely a success!

We have another field trip in November to the Missouri Theater. Please return the permission slip as soon as possible so your 3rd grader can attend on November 16th.

This paragraph was written by the class! We are learning about media safety and literacy. One of our activities was writing for this blog. We are going to post a link to a safety guide. This is so when we are playing video games, it can be safer.

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/articles/what-are-some-basic-gaming-and-social-media-rules-for-elementary-schoolers

In the Classroom

In reading this week, we have been using the myth of King Midas. We have practiced comparing/contrasting, finding similes, and learning how the actions of characters influence plot. We will finish this unit next week.

We are continuing our opinion writing work by using the King Midas story. This week, we wrote an opinion piece as a class to answer the prompt, "Who is the most vivid character in the myth?" Next week, students will write their own opinion piece to answer a prompt about a folktale.

We finished Unit 2 in math this week. Students were able to solve all types of story problems and write their own. We will start Unit 3 next week.

We also finished our Government unit this week! Students learned about how a bill becomes a law, how important voting is to our democracy, and the rights and responsibilities of citizens. We will begin Geography next week.

Upcoming Events

No School, Teacher Workdays-October 26, 27

Fall Room Party-October 31

Student Flu Shots-November 3

Conference Week-November 6-9

No School-November 10

Friday, October 13, 2023

October 13, 2023

Announcements

Paxton Keeley's annual Food Drive begins next week! Our class set a goal to collect 25 items of food on Monday.

It is already time to think about the Fall Party on October 31! Use this link to sign up to help.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C084EADA62CA1F5C25-45135175-fall#/

Thank you to everyone who turned in their conference form! You will find your conference date/time next week in the Friday folder. Please let me know as soon as possible if we need to reschedule for any reason.

Our field trip to Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture is next Friday! We will leave Paxton around 9:00 and return before our lunchtime.

There is still time to order books for October from Scholastic! Use this link to order.

https://orders.scholastic.com/GNTZ3

We had another Book Break this week. This time we were able to visit with the author Kate DiCamillo who wrote The Tale of Despereaux.

In the Classroom

In reading this week, students used two fables to practice inferring, analyzing plot, and character traits/motivation.

Students started their next writing unit which will be Opinion writing. We studied a mentor text that answered a prompt about which of our fables had the more important message. We also wrote our own short opinion pieces about the best pet, best thing on the playground, and our favorite season.

In math this week, students studied the parts of multiplication. We learned about factors, products, and arrays. We also looked at how division story problems can be solved using some of our multiplication strategies. On Friday, we did Math Teams to solve a problem. Students were split into groups of 3 and given a space to do their mathematical thinking while working together as a team.