Mrs. Fox's Third Grade: March 2023

Saturday, March 25, 2023

March 24, 2023

Announcements

I hope everyone has a safe and relaxing Spring Break!

On Monday, we had the opportunity to visit with an entomologist! Sarah Phipps (Ethan's mom) came to share about her job. We observed invasive and extinct insects, did a scavenger hunt around the class

room, and learned about how to keep our trees safe from Emerald Ash Borers. We also had the opportunity to hold or touch a Madagascar hissing cockroach!

In the Classroom

In science, we are learning about hazardous weather. We did a Mystery Science that involved designing model houses that could withstand high winds.

We participated in a Lego Wedo unit with Mrs. Hanson this week! We were tasked with creating a code that would open and close a floodgate. Monday, we started by asking questions about floods, rivers, and floodgates. We listened to a podcast discussing flooding in our area and took notes on what we heard.

On Tuesday, we analyzed data about the amount of precipitation and river depths for Missouri. We figured out that late Spring/early Summer is when we should be most worried about flooding in our area.

On Wednesday, we started building our model floodgates following the app instructions. We also talked about the purpose of our floodgate so we could design the landscape.

On Thursday, groups finished building their model and wrote a code that would open and close the gate with the push of a button.

Finally, on Friday, we added sensors to our code so the floodgate would open with motion, voice, or tilt activity. Here is a video of one group and their working floodgate.

This week in reading, we used a fiction text to study how characters' actions influence story events. Students also found the central message and compared/contrasted themes with a previous story. In word work this week, we focused on the /ow/ sound made by the ou and ow spelling patterns.

Students analyzed two stories that have the same character. They wrote an opinion piece where they talked about a trait of the character. Students were required to support their opinion with evidence from both stories.

We finished Unit 6 in math last week. The math tests are in the Friday folder this week. Subtraction continues to be a struggle for many students. We are reviewing and practicing here, but it would be helpful to do extra practice at home as well.

Upcoming Events

Spring Break-March 27-31

Early Release at 12:50-April 12

Field Trip to Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture-April 13

Field Trip to Jefferson City Capitol-April 19

Friday, March 10, 2023

March 10, 2023

Announcements

Thank you to everyone who met with Ms. Olson and I for parent teacher conferences! As this was our last scheduled conference, please let me know if you would like to meet again prior to the end of the year.

Reminder there is no school on Wednesday, March 15 for a teacher workday.

On Tuesday, we had the opportunity to see the Traveling Trunk from the Boone County Historical Society! We reviewed what we had learned about pioneer life in Missouri and were able to see many artifacts from that time.

Last week, we were able to study the country of Vietnam! Students learned about the geography, food, and clothing. We were able to make Vietnamese paper lanterns and practiced counting to 10.

In the Classroom

On Friday, we had the opportunity to hear from meteorologist Matt Beckwith! We learned mostly about how to stay safe during severe weather.

Students have also been learning about climate. We made maps and discussed the climate in Missouri.

In reading, students have been using various texts to practice a variety of comprehension skills such as summarizing, main idea/details, and point of view.

In writing this week, students read and analyzed the beginning of a narrative. Students were asked to write the ending of the narrative while keeping with the same point of view, character development, and style of story. We also started studying information texts in order to find the main idea and details.

This week in math, students learned how to decompose larger multiplication facts to solve. For example, I can break 16 x 5 into 10 x 5 plus 6 x 5. We also studied how parentheses work in number models. Finally, we looked at the order of operations.