Classroom News!

Hi there!  

Here is what we’ve been working on in the third grade these past 10 days:

Mathematics

Count things by 1's? Not us! We are well into our multiplication unit. The students are excited to be learning new, efficient strategies for calculating repeated addition of things that come in equal groups. We started the unit by brainstorming lists of all the things that come in groups of 2, 3, 4, 5 up through 12.  Students made posters of multiples and growing patterns; exploring multiplication fact families and seeing multiplication as repeated addition, equal groups of objects, and skip counting. They learned new games, “Loops and Groups”, and “Roll-a-Rectangle”, in which they practiced finding the product of two numbers between 1 and 10.  Students practiced using arrays to model multiplication word problems, and then recorded their own videos to demonstrate their understanding.

click here to watch an example!

click here to watch another example!

 

Finally, students worked together to create a gigantic multiplication and division table, where every possible product resulting from factors 0-10 was illustrated with a rectangular array and arranged in a table. The children had a discussion around the multiplication table, noticing some different patterns: zero property, some “rules of thumb” for calculating 1’s and 10’s facts, and much more. We’ll continue to add to that discussion as Jamie and I push their thinking.  

Writing

Students have been finishing up their nonfiction expert articles, and are learning to use an expository organizational structure to write an article with 3 or more paragraphs that includes:

• a well-developed topic using factual information with supporting

details and simple transitions to link ideas

• an introductory paragraph with a lead and a clear focus or indicating statement about what the topic is

• a concluding sentence or paragraph that uses a transitional phrase and

connects to the introductory paragraph

This last week we’ve been revising to improve the flow of our pieces.  This week we’ll be using an editing checklist for grade level conventions including:

• Ending punctuation

• Capitalization

• Commas in a series

• Checking for spelling errors

We’re also blogging!  Inspired by classmate Gabrielle’s blog, the students have created their own using KidBlog (a safe, teacher-moderated, interactive student blogging platform).  On Friday we practiced logging in and making our first introductory post.   

Click here to visit our KidBlog!

Reading

We finished reading I Have a Dream: The Story of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. , and also read and discussed a few other shorter picture books about Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement, including: Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down,  I Have a Dream (the award-winning picture book from Kadir Nelson featuring actual audio CD of Dr. King’s Dream speech, which the kids listened to with reverence!),  and Martin’s Big Words.

Click here to see what students have been thinking and writing about as they comment in real time during our online book discussion of the MLK biography!  

We continue our daily core practices of sustained, silent independent reading time, as well as practicing reading out loud to partners to work on oral fluency.     In addition to reading nonfiction that supports our inquiry into rocks and minerals, kids have been exploring the children’s news website Tween Tribune Jr., where they can read high-interest articles and practice sharing their ideas and comments in an online forum:

This coming week, I will be meeting with students one-on-one for a second round of Developmental Reading Assessments (DRA) to check in on their progress since the fall.

Science

Goodbye! Goodbye!  We’ll miss you, salmon fry!   We had a successful release of our salmon fry into the Multnomah Channel.  Thank you, parent chaperones!

In Rocks, Minerals, and Geology, students learned about the three main types of rock, how they cycle through the environment in the Rock Cycle, and properties that geologists look for to identify rocks as igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic. We also explored specimens of new “mystery” minerals, and through the process of inquiry students figured out that rocks are comprised of minerals! This week we will be learning a series of geologist’s tests each day, so that next week students will be able to assess a given specimen and use their findings to identify what it is.  Exciting!

Upcoming Events:

• This Tuesday, January 28 - Free intro workshops for Parenting with Positive Discipline and Yoga for Kids – 6-7pm at SIA  (click here for more information)

• Thursday February 6 – Monthly a.m. Field Study at Wapato Park

• Friday February 14 – Field Trip to Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals (click here to sign up for chaperoning)

• Friday February 28 – Field Trip to Beacon Rock (click here to sign up for chaperoning)