Weekly Update-March 25

Announcements

I hope everyone has a wonderful and relaxing Spring Break!

Weekly Journals and Friday Folders were not completed this week. They will both resume after Spring Break.

We still have many openings left for our booth at the Comet Carnival. Please consider volunteering 20 minutes the night of the carnival to help our class.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0f49afad23a75-comet12

Thank you to everyone who donated 2 liter bottles for our science project! We have enough for our class, but please consider sending bottles in after Spring Break in case other third grade classes are short.

We have received the MAP schedule for third grade. Our class will be testing:

May 6th

May 9th

May 10th

May 12th 

May 13th 

We will only be testing in the mornings, but students are allowed to keep working as long as necessary if it is not timed. Please refrain from scheduling vacations or appointments on these days. If appointments are necessary, we would appreciate them being scheduled in the afternoons if possible. Students will have to do make up testing if they are not here those mornings. More information will be coming out after Spring Break about what you can do to prepare for the MAP test as well as what we will be doing here. Please let me know if you have any questions. 

In the Classroom

In our Fractions unit this week, students learned about fractions of a set. They also studied benchmark fractions like 1/2, 1/4, and 1/3. We discussed how people use these fractions to estimate amounts in everyday life. For example: We are about halfway through the book. 

For our Ecosystems unit, students made a food chain using specific vocabulary words like producer and consumer. We also did an activity to experience what it is like to be a predator in the wild! Each student was told which predator they were, what their prey was, and how much they needed to survive. Pictures of different prey were around the room, and they were asked to stalk and capture it. (Walk around quietly and place a sticky note on it.) Once an animal had three sticky notes on it, they prey was officially dead. Sadly, some of our predators did not survive. We discussed how some prey was camouflaged, hidden, or out of reach making it hard for us to capture it. 

This activity led to a discussion about animal adaptations including migration and hibernation. 

In reading this week, students each had jobs to complete daily in their guided reading groups. These jobs included predictor, questioner, visualizer, connector, summarizer, and word finder. Ask your third grader what their favorite job was!

We finished typing our opinion pieces this week. Students shared their pieces with each other to do partner peer reviews. They also shared them with me to do a teacher revision. We will finish publishing these pieces after Spring Break.

Our Sick Day was a huge success! Here are some pictures of our class relaxing during Word Work, Science, Reading, and the end of the day.

Upcoming Events

March 28-April 1-Spring Break

April 12-PTA General Meeting at 6:30

April 15-Field Trip to the Food Bank

April 21-Weather Presentation in media center

April 27-Early Dismissal at 12:50

April 29-Comet Carnival 5:00-8:00

May 5-Comet Culture Night 6:00-8:00, Ms. Daniel's last day

May 6-13-MAP testing for 3rd grade

Weekly Update-March 18

Announcements

We still have many openings left for our booth at the Comet Carnival. Please consider volunteering 20 minutes the night of the carnival to help our class.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0f49afad23a75-comet12

We are still in need of about 5 more clear, 2 liter bottles for our science project after Spring Break. Thank you to those of you who have already sent some in!

In the Classroom

Students have been busily learning about fractions this week. Our focus was on splitting brownies into equal shares. We experimented with different amounts of brownies and a different amount of people to share between. We also made fraction cards to use as a resource as we continue to explore fair shares. 

We completed our Mystery Skype this week! We Skyped with a class located in Plainfield, New Hampshire. Students did an excellent job of working together to figure out their state. We then tried to guess their city which proved to be much more difficult.Our blogger, Nivedita, took great pictures. 

We also started our Ecosystem unit this week. We went outside to observe the ecosystem around our school and talked about the four major components. Students learned the difference between living and non-living things, and we also studied habitats. On Wednesday, we took a virtual field trip to a few zoos to see different animals in their habitats. We were able to see most of the animals moving around and being active. 

We even got to see the penguin feeding time at the San Diego Zoo!

These links are on the class blog if you want to continue observing the animals from home! I encouraged the students to try observing them at various times of the day. 

In writing this week, students chose their topic for their opinion piece. We started typing these pieces Thursday and will continue to publish them next week. 

Upcoming Events

March 25-Crazy Hair Day

March 28-April 1-Spring Break

April 12-PTA General Meeting at 6:30

April 15-Field Trip to the Food Bank

April 27-Early Dismissal at 12:50

April 29-Comet Carnival 5:00-8:00

May 5-Comet Culture Night 6:00-8:00

Weekly Update-March 11

Announcements

Here is the link to sign up for our Comet Carnival booth, face painting. Please consider volunteering 20 minutes the night of the carnival to help our class.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0f49afad23a75-comet12

Our class will be completing a science project that requires empty, clear 2 liter bottles. We have decided to move this project back to after Spring Break. Please send in any bottles you might have. We are also in need of black dry erase markers. It does not matter if they are thick or thin. Thank you in advance!

In the Classroom

We finished our Division unit last week and have moved on to Fractions. Students have learned how to divide something into equal pieces, as well as name those pieces. We also learned about unit fractions and numerators and denominators. 

In geography this week, students learned about the border states of Missouri as well as major cities and rivers in our state. We  studied the continents and practiced for our Mystery Skype. Mystery Skype is where two classes try to guess each other's location using yes or no questions. We used Skype to see the other class. We did a practice game with Mrs. Bowen's class on Thursday and our blogger, Geeth, took some pictures. He also took a short video. Our real Mystery Skype will be next week. We will be connecting with another 3rd grade classroom somewhere in the United States.

On Friday of last week, we had a guest speaker, Mr. Bowen, come talk to the third grade about maps. He works for the city and explained how he uses geography every day in his job. 

In reading, we continued practicing how to use text evidence in our reading responses. This week, we focused on fiction books. 

In our writing unit this week, students continued their study of opinion pieces. We learned how to address our audience in order to make our opinion stronger, how to form a confident thesis statement, and how to write about counterpoints. 

Upcoming Events

March 25-Crazy Hair Day

March 28-April 1-Spring Break

April 12-PTA General Meeting at 6:30

April 15-Field Trip to the Food Bank

April 27-Early Dismissal at 12:50

April 29-Comet Carnival 5:00-8:00

May 5-Comet Culture Night 6:00-8:00

Weekly Update-March 4

Announcements

It is time to start signing up for the Comet Carnival! The Carnival is on Friday, April 29th from 5:00-8:00. Our class is in charge of the face painting booth. Thankfully, we are not in charge of doing the actual face painting. : )  We will take tickets, check for wristbands, and keep the line moving for the face painters. Please consider signing up for a 20 minute shift to help our class. 

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0f49afad23a75-comet12

You should have received the order form for Spring pictures on Wednesday. Please note the process for Spring Pictures has changed from what it has been in the past. They will no longer be taking everyone's picture. Only those students who return their order forms will have their pictures taken.

We will be taking a field trip to the Central Missouri Food Bank on April 15th. If you would like to chaperon for this field trip, please fill out the form in the Friday folder.

We are in need of black dry erase markers. It does not matter if they are thick or thin. Thank you in advance!

 In the Classroom 

In math this week, we continued our exploration of division concepts. One strategy we studied for dividing is making an array. We practiced this with cubes on Monday. 

Students took an assessment over these concepts on Friday. Our next unit will be on Fractions.

Ms. Daniels has been working with students on Geography. They practiced making their own map with a detailed key. 

We also looked at various types of regions. Students learned that regions can be used to describe an entire country or something as small as a house. Students explored the different regions of Columbia on Thursday and learned how everyone needs things from every region to make a community work. 

In reading this week, our focus was on finding text evidence to support our reading responses. Each student met with a small group to practice this skill. We used these sentences starters to provide specific proof from the story for our answers. 

Our blogger for the week, Samantha, also took some pictures of students doing their independent reading and meeting in our small groups. 

We began our Opinion unit in writing this week. We learned why sharing your opinion is so important and how our writing can make changes. We also began brainstorming ideas for what we changed in our lives and people and things we want to recognize. 

Upcoming Events

March 10-Spring Pictures

March 25-Crazy Hair Day

March 28-April 1-Spring Break

April 12-PTA General Meeting at 6:30

April 15-Field Trip to the Food Bank

April 27-Early Dismissal at 12:50

April 29-Comet Carnival 5:00-8:00

May 5-Comet Culture Night 6:00-8:00