November 2018
Forgive me for being negligent in my blog posting, but get ready for all the pictures from November and the beginning of December you can even handle!
At the start of November, we learned about the origin of Veterans Day through a Google Slide with partners and got to share our knowledge by reflecting on our learning through choosing three graphic organizers in response. Below you can see us learning and responding, as well as our STREAM activity in which we
The culmination of all our learning, the Veterans Day assembly, a chance to commemorate the service done for our country by brave men and women. We were thankful to have Olivia’s step-dad join us as well as the chance to get to talk to a real Marine!
We learned about story elements in fiction texts and worked in teams to fill in a graphic organizer on Google Classroom about the story A Bad Case of the Stripes. You all saw the hard copy come home in your child’s yellow folder a few weeks ago. Your child should be able to identify the exposition (beginning), rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution in any fiction story they read. They should also be able to talk about the characters, setting, and the author’s theme.
We donated cans of food and toys for the Henrico Christmas Mother, and as a grade level, we raised just over 160 cans! Way to go, Third Grade!
We spent about a week discussing how the equals sign (=) does not just mean that you do work on one side of the math problem! It means that both sides of the equals sign (=) are equivalent to each other! We spent quite a lot of time trying to trick each other, but I tell you what, I could NOT trick these smarties! Check us out sharing ways we demonstrated equivalencies with each other!
Just before Thanksgiving, we worked on using commas in a series. We wrote sentences about things we would be eating or having over break, then we walked around and complemented each others’ work! Well done, friends!
One of the most exciting things we do in third grade is learning about multiplication and division. What I hope you notice we do not do is worry about memorization; we focus on representing with a variety of models! If you haven’t asked your child to bring home their math notebook yet, do it soon! We have learned how to multiply and divide using repeated addition/subtraction, equal groups, arrays, area models, skip counting, and number lines. We practice our fluency with 0s, 1s, 2s, 10s, and 5s by playing games, which (if we ever get back to school after this snow) your child will bring home in a sleeve to play anytime they’d like! It can even count as homework!
Check out Michael teaching us all (and I do mean us ALL) how to use arrays to divide!
After a two day battle of the wills, Carly is our classroom spelling bee winner, with Sunset as our runner up! We are very proud of them both! Actually, we are proud of everyone for having such a great attitude!
We spent a week reviewing plant and animal life cycles we have been learning about since Kindergarten by having some self-guided lessons on Discovery Education. We then invited in our Innovative Learning Coach Extraordinaire, Mrs. Reid to come help us create Stop Motion Videos about any life cycle we wanted. Check out our Stop Motion Google Site! Click Here -> Plant and Animal Life Cycles
Have you heard that we are getting new computers…whenever we get back to school? That’s right! Our last day with these stinky Dells is whatever day we go back! If we are going to each have our own computers, we better get our keyboarding skills up to par! Your children have taken up the challenge set before them and have really been enjoying Typing Club! They can access it through their Clever account! www.clever.com/in/henrico
We went on our first family field trip to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts where we had the privilege of seeing artifacts from Ancient China, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Mali! While we saw some amazing things, I am sure we left with more questions than we went with. That’s the sign of a great trip!
Carly lit our class Menorah every day to help us celebrate Hanukkah this past week!
While we can get really bummed out when it’s too cold and wet for outdoor recess, indoor recess has come to be one of our new favorite things! Thanks to our families to hooking our classroom up with great new options for us to do other than just get on the computers!
This week was our last garden lesson until the spring time and we made it worth it! We tried a bunch of different greens, dug up radishes, and tried out red and white radishes. Boy, are they spicy! I wonder if Raul the Radish has made it to Monday night?
While our musical is obviously not going to happen this week, I can’t wait for you all to see it next week. It’s so incredibly special. Bring your tissues, folks.
