Hope you had a wonderful holiday! I enjoyed spending time with my family and having some time to relax, (and shop). I feel recharged and ready to get back into the swing of things. I'm looking forward to seeing the kiddos tomorrow. We have 3 1/2 weeks until the winter break, and oh so much to do!
Coming up this week... Writing: We'll write one more expository piece this week as we conclude our unit. Also, we'll write a response to a video about the harmful effects of plastic. For spelling, we will work on contractions. Reading: This week our focus will be on nonfiction text structures including cause and effect, compare & contrast, and problem & solution. We'll also work on making inferences while reading nonfiction texts, an important yet sometimes difficult skill. Math: We'll wrap up our unit on fractions Monday and Tuesday before starting a new unit on connecting multiplication with division and division fact strategies. The fraction concepts will be assessed with division after this next unit, however we will have a short quiz on Tuesday. I'll continue to build in some spiral review of fraction concepts before the district assessment. Also, we'll review addition and subtraction during this unit as part of our spiral review for this unit. In the upcoming division unit, students will begin to build their understanding that multiplication and division are related operations. Students will apply computation strategies as they solve story problems and will represent relationships in problems as well as explain strategies used to solve problems. Below is a link to an Origo video highlighting the think multiplication strategy. Think Multiplication Division Strategy Here are a few other multiplication/division resources you might want to check out. These are both linked in the RRISD curriculum which is available to the public.
Science: On Monday, we'll conduct an investigation on landslides for our unit on Earth's forces. Then, we'll complete a virtual investigation to wrap up the unit. I plan to give the district unit assessment on Wednesday before beginning our next unit on forces and motion. To start off our unit, we'll dive into a Project Lead the Way module about flight and gliders which correlates with our science TEKS on force & motion. Social studies: We'll continue to learn how heroes shape our communities. Upcoming Events Wednesday, November 28: PTA Members Meeting Tuesday, December 4: Picture Retakes Wednesday, December 19: Winter Party for 3rd grade @1:30
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Author's Purpose Readers worked with a group to read and discuss the author's purpose of several books on the same topic. We learned that books can be about the same topic, but have a very different purpose. For example, one group was reading books about spiders. They discovered the purpose of one book was to explain how spiders spin webs whereas another book focused on the life cycle of a spider. Using Cuisenaire Rods to Explore Fractions on a Numberline Our Field Trip Everyone REALLY enjoyed the performance of The Coloring Book. The Westwood HS students did a fabulous job! Be sure to ask your child about the story and the message the characters learned. Investigating Earthquakes We made a model of an earthquake to see what happens during a quake. The goal was to shake the model using different amounts of force or pressure to determine the effects of the quake. Reading Nonfiction-Stopping and Jotting We have been reading lots of nonfiction. Today we learned that readers stop and jot about their learning. Some things readers jot, (in their own words of course) are; interesting facts, new learning, surprising information, confusing parts, and reactions to the text. For this stop and jot, we focused mostly on interesting/surprising facts and new learning so that we could teach others about our topic. Fractions in a Set I challenged my mathematicians to find 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, and 1/6 of a dozen plastic eggs. Students worked together to show the fractions of the set. They were creative in their use of the pencils to show groups. Exploring Fractions on a Numberline Exploring Tectonic Plates In this investigation, we made a model to simulate plates moving and sliding. The crackers represent plates and the frosting represents magma. We even pushed the "plates" together to gain an understanding of how mountains form. Edible science is so much fun! Thankful Writings These young writers worked hard on writing about what they are thankful for and the final products looked great! These are sure to be a keepsake! Using Flipgrid to Create Videos about Books Readers chose a nonfiction text to read and share their learning with the class. They recorded interesting information and big ideas from the text as they read with the intent to teach others about their topic. Everyone was very excited to create a video to showcase their learning. We'll share videos with the class after the break. Measuring Objects to the Nearest 1/4 Inch To further develop an understanding of fractions on a number line, we used rulers to find items around the room that were between whole numbers. Enrichment Time-STEM The past three weeks students have been going to an interest group during Eslot based on surveys. Groups include cooking, clay, arts & crafts, technology, lego robotics, and STEM challenges. Here are a few photos from the STEM group making catapults/launchers. Investigating Volcanoes I LOVE building volcanoes outside, and so did the kiddos. Each grouped found a good spot to build and started digging. I am always amazed at how quickly they can build a volcano when they all work together. It takes a bit of time, but it's worth it! The completed volcanoes turned out great! We ended up not having time to erupt the volcanoes since it was too close to dismissal time, so we had to go out Tuesday morning. Despite the drizzly weather, it was so exciting to see the volcanoes erupt. You can check out a video clip of an eruption on my Twitter page, (@debswyers). Exploring Fractions These mathematicians have been busy exploring fractions in a set, length models, and area models using a variety of tools. The pictures in this slideshow are from various lessons throughout the week. Counting Collections Another successful experience counting collections of various items! This week we were lucky to have a visitor during our counting. Brian Bushart, the Elementary Math Curriculum Coordinator from the district, participated in our counting collections to get a glimpse of what it looks like in upper grades. He was very impressed with how engaged the students were and the strategies they used to organize and count. As students worked, he interacted with partners and asked questions to probe their thinking. He even closed the lesson by comparing two strategies that were used to count. The kiddos really enjoyed having him as a guest and already asked if he could come back! I can't believe it is only one week until Thanksgiving break! Where did the time go? It will be another busy week, especially since we have the field trip on Tuesday. See below for details about the upcoming week.
Writing: This week is the perfect time to stop and reflect on being thankful. I think it's valuable for children, (and adults) to think about what is truly important in their lives as it is easy to get caught up by material things in todays world. We'll spend most of the week writing about what we are thankful for as part of our expository unit. We'll create a special poster with illustrations to go with our writing. These are sure to become a treasured keepsake! Reading: We'll continue to read nonfiction/expository texts throughout the week. Our lessons will focus on making inferences, (this is usually difficult with nonfiction), author's purpose, and inferring word meaning using context clues. Math: More fractions! Our focus will be fractions on a number line and common fractions as the sum of unit fractions, (example: understanding 3 one fourth parts is the same as 3/4). This includes jumps on a number line such as shown on in the example below. Check out these super short videos to learn more about fraction on a number line from our adopted math series.Science: Last week we were lucky to get outside on a nice day to build and erupt volcano models. Be sure to look at the photos on my website. The volcano models were great! This week, we'll investigate earthquakes and tectonic plates as we continue to learn how earth's surface and structures on earth change. Social studies: We'll learn about cultural heritage and how heros shape communities. Upcoming Events November 13: 3rd Grade Field Trip November 15: Spirit Night at Blaze Pizza Writing: We'll begin an expository writing piece this week. We'll learn how to write an introduction, paragraphs with a main idea and supporting details, and a conclusion, (we probably won't get to the conclusion this week).
Spelling: It is hard to fit spelling into our busy day, but we are practicing specific spelling patterns a few times a week. Instead of a traditional spelling test, every two weeks we will have a spelling quiz or sort based on the spelling pattern. Students will get a new list every two weeks. We are currently working on words that end with y to gain an understanding of when to drop the y before adding an ending. These words were sent home in Thursday folders so the kiddos can practice them at home. Reading: Our focus as we read nonfiction/expository this week will be identifying the main idea and supporting details. We'll learn several strategies for determining the main idea of a paragraph, section, or entire article. Additionally, we'll learn about author's purpose and determining importance, (finding important information instead of just one main idea). Math: Last week we reviewed fraction concepts from second grade and began our unit on fractions. During this unit, students will use fraction notation to represent fractional amounts of length and area models. We'll focus on unit fractions and how they can be put together to make other fractions. For example, 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 is the same as 3/4. We'll explore three different fraction models; area models, set models, and length models (including a number line model). You can find out more about each model from the video link below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvAs8r2LPA4 Here is another video about fractions on a number line: Exploring the Number Line Model of Fractions Science: We are sure to have loads of fun investigating rapid changes to Earth's surface this week. We'll go outside and build a volcano to explore how Earth's surface and structures on earth change. Also, we'll investigate earthquakes. Here are the essential questions for this unit:
Upcoming Events November 5: Reflections Deadline (all entries should be turned in) November 9: Veterans Assembly November 15: Spirit Night at Blaze Pizza November 19-23: Thanksgiving Break Doubling and Halving with Arrays (Eights Facts) Building Solar Ovens We finally had some nice weather and time to build our solar ovens to explore heat energy. Everyone worked hard making their oven. They turned out great, and of course we were sooo eager to try them out. Locating Text Features We browsed through lots of nonfiction texts looking for text features and determining how each feature would help the reader. Making S'mores with Heat Energy Our ovens were a success! We had to tie them to the chairs because it was windy, (I had a disaster last year with the wind toppling boxes and destroying s'mores). It worked-the boxes didn't budge. Heat energy warmed the s'mores so that the chocolate melted and the marshmallow was squishy. I think you can tell from the smiles in the photos that this was a great investigation! Third Grade Choir Performance I loved the performance and the festive outfits! The kiddos did a great job and I was thrilled to see that almost everyone from our class was there. Thank you supporting our music program! Building a Skeleton Be sure to ask your child about our skeleton clues game! We enjoyed figuring out clues to help find a fun fall treat-skeleton bone cookies! Exploring Fractions We sorted and matched fraction models, proved that squares had 1/4 shaded, and folded squares to create eighths. Making Turkey Glyphs with Kinder Buddies |
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November 2019
Mrs. Swyers3rd Grade Teacher |