Thank you to those of you who have donated items for E-slot and science. With your help, we are able to provide enriching learning experiences. We have already used many donated items, especially during enrichment time. Our first rotations for eslot were a huge success! Students have been working hard in their interest group for the past four Fridays. The kiddos in Caine's Arcade created cardboard box arcade type games. On Friday, the kindergarten students visited the arcade and played all the games. They even received prizes that students brought from home or that the kiddos in the arts and crafts eslot group made. Many of the kindergarten students and 3rd graders who created arcade games made donations to the Imagination Foundation. What a great way to collaborate and raise money for the Imagination Foundaton! Our other E-slot groups also had lots of fun. The cooking group made pancakes, cookies, and grilled cheese sandwiches while learning various cooking skills. Our magic group was busy perfecting magic tricks and performing them for their group while our computer group practiced lots of coding. Also, we had some wonderful clay creations made by our clay group. The next few weeks during enrichment we will be working on STEAM challenges/activities within our own classes. More interest groups will be offered after that. Coming Up Week of October 3-7 Writing: We are still plugging along with our personal narratives, which we should be finishing in the next few days. We'll learn about ways to end a personal narrative and more strategies for revising. Lastly, we'll edit our pieces and then write our final draft. Reading: We'll continue to read fiction books with strong characters and pay attention to what the character says, thinks, and does in order to infer their traits. Also, as we read, we'll form theories about characters and think about what motivates them to act the way they do and how they change throughout a story. At the end of the week, we'll take a district assessment on our fiction unit. The test will consist of a short passage with a few multiple choice questions and some short answer responses. These tests will not be sent home per district policy, but I'll have it available for you to view during conferences. Math: The kiddos are becoming much more proficient when adding and subtracting. We have learned addition/subtraction strategies and tools/models that mathematicians use to compute. We will continue to practice and review on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, students will take their first district common assessment which will include data analysis. Like the reading test, this will not be sent home. Science: Last week we learned how matter can change states. This week our focus will be on mixtures. We'll linvestigate how mixtures can be separated using various tools. Social studies: More citizenship! We'll read a Scholastic News about the upcoming election and continue to learn about the rights and responsibilities of citizens. Upcoming Events Monday, October 10: Parent Conferences-Don't forget to sign up if you haven't already. Thursday, October 13: Family Fitness Night at 6:00 PBL Launch! We officially launched our PBL, (project based learning) this week. I posted environmental photos to tell a story in Google Classroom. Students "read" the story and recorded what they noticed, wondered, and inferred after each section. They were really thinking deeply and everyone was totally engaged! I was impressed with the inferences and connections the kiddos were making. Ask your child to show you their work in Google Classroom. Noticing + wondering + inferring + PBL= Discovering idea Investigating States of Matter We partnered up with Mrs. Lipe's class to observe changes in matter using a digital thermometer. The investigation started with a pot of ice and the thermometer which was connected to the computer. Then we added heat using a burner and noticed the change in temperature very quickly. The thermometer readings and time intervals could be seen on the Smartboard. Notice in the photo below how much the temperature changed! Our ice melted and then we noticed steam rising from the pot. Everyone had a chance to observe the pot closely and under the document camera. We even felt the steam and the heat! All of our scientist had lots to record in their notebooks as the states of matter changed. Place Value Building As a way to review place value, (and to have a little fun on a Friday afternoon), we created place value buildings. The challenge was to build an impressive building in 5 minutes using hundred, ten, and unit place value blocks. At the end of 5 minutes, partners added up their hundreds, tens, and ones and wrote the number in standard form. Photos from Caine's Arcade Enrichment Group
We invited our kindergarten buddy classes to come try out our arcade games. Everyone really enjoyed seeing their arcade in use and passes out prizes. Mrs. Hanlon helped collect monetary donations to the Imagination Foundation. What a fun way to celebrate our innovative cardboard box designs and raise money for a worthy cause. Thanks to those of you who had kiddos in our group help with prizes and materials for the boxes.
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November 2019
Mrs. Swyers3rd Grade Teacher |