Asa's Third Grade Class: Classroom News!

Hello there! Here is the skinny on our latest third grade learning… (I apologize for the delay in update; I used my regular Sunday writing time to draft a statement encouraging the Scappoose School Board to fund our students at the full 100% ADMW in the new charter contract! Hopefully they will see the light!)

Students conducting nature observations and comparing Wapato Park with their imagined classroom model "Oakwood Park".

Math

This week, students took the post-assessment for our unit on fractions. Over the past several weeks, we have been learning about and working with fractions across a variety of models and contexts. Kids have a good grasp on the classic “pie” and “brownies” models, strong understanding of the part-to-whole relationship, and can point out equivalent fractions. Most recently we’ve been tackling more challenging problems that deal with fractions on a number line, and calculating fractions from a number of given objects (e.g. ¼ of 24). These models haven’t come easy to most kids, so I encourage you to get keep up those fraction conversations at home, or have them play these games:

http://www.brainpop.com/games/battleshipnumberline/

https://www.sheppardsoftware.com/mathgames/fractions/AnimalRescueFractionsNumberLineGame.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/weddell/equivalent.swf

http://www.counton.org/games/map-fractions/falling/

Here is a GREAT website from the BBC for some review as well. Watch the video and look at the interactives with your child:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic/fractions

Our next unit is on Place Value & Computation with Larger Numbers, including some work with money and probability.

In this next unit your child will:

• read, write, and compare whole numbers to 10,000

• recognize and create models (e.g., pictures) for whole numbers to 10,000

• add and subtract 3- and 4- digit numbers using traditional algorithms (alongside models that reinforce those algorithms)

• estimate sums (addition) and differences (subtraction) of 3- and 4- digit numbers

• solve story problems involving adding and subtracting 3- and 4- digit numbers

Writing

We finished publishing our Poetry Anthologies, and they look beautiful! The kids worked hard last week to read through their Writer’s Notebooks and curate the poems they thought would best make an anthology representing them as a poet. We also went into the forest to read poems written by the 1^st graders, and gathered sticks and twigs to use for our poetry book binding.

Currently, we are working on a short research article about an animal that lives in our park “Oakwood Park” (see below for more about Oakwood Park). The kids have been using graphic organizers to record the facts they find about habitat, diet, physical characteristics and behavior. This week we will start developing a rough draft from our notes. Big goals for this writing assignment are: gathering information from at least 2 sources (e.g. field guide, books, internet articles) and putting it into one’s own words, and crafting an introduction, body, and concluding sentence/ending.

In addition to this, we’ve also been writing on our blogs, and responding to another round of pen-pal letters.

Reading

We’ve been doing a good deal of reading for information this week, as students read from field guides, internet sites, and library books to learn about their animal. With a specific research goal in mind (e.g. “I need to find out about this frog’s habitat”) this has been great practice using nonfiction text features like the table of contents, index, bold print headings, etc. to find certain information.

We also continue our daily core practice of silently reading to self from “just-right” texts, and occasionally responding to our readings by writing thoughts, questions, scene sketches, etc. in our Reader’s Notebooks. The Scholastic Book Fair put many shiny, exciting new books into kids’ hands, and a big THANK YOU to parents who bought new books for our classroom library as well – some great new titles are gracing our shelves!!

Our current read-aloud, The One and Only Ivan, has turned out to be the PERFECT book to show kids what inference is! Because the whole book is told from the perspective of a gorilla, he will describe something that he doesn’t necessarily have the vocabulary for. In one example, he observes humans “foraging about, filling bags with things, and exchanging little old green pieces of paper” – for which the kids immediately infer: Oh! He’s describing people going shopping! In addition to learning about point-of-view and inference, this text has also brought up some spirited discussions and debates about the ethical treatment of animals.

Storyline (Social Studies, Science)

After returning from Spring Break, the students received a letter from a land management agency tasking them with turning a parcel of land into a state wildlife park.

Some of the questions addressed by this unit include:

Why do we have wildlife parks?

What does a wildlife park need?

What animals and plants might you find in various habitats in a NW state park?

What causes animals and plants to move?

Who works at a park?

Who uses a park?

How are people and living things affected by an event, problem, or issue at a state park? How are these issues mitigated?

What do people need to know about a park, and how do they acquire that information?

We started off with brainstorming sessions. What is a wildlife park, exactly? What would it need to have? What animals might we find there? So far, the students have come up with some great ideas - all very much informed by the background knowledge and environmental ethic they’ve been developing over at Wapato since October. This past week, students created a name, entrance, signage, and map to the park. We compared our emerging designs with Wapato on our field study last week. Now students are creating and researching the animal species found in their "Oakwood Park".

What is ‘Storyline’? Click here to learn about this teaching methodology…

We also had another special guest lesson from the awesome nature and science educators at Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership. James and Andy visited our classroom last week to teach us more about different types of NW habitats, and model them using a stream table. Next week, we will go canoeing with them out on Scappoose Bay!