Coming up Week of October 24-28We have finished the first grading period! I'm not sure where all the time went, but this week will be the 10th week of school. Can you believe it? I'm am working on completing all the grades for the first nine weeks, so be sure to check home access in the next few days. We have a busy week ahead of us. Tuesday we have a lesson about bullying from the guidance counselor, Friday we have an author visit and, Thursday is Every Artist Live day. Students will use their artistic ability and creativity as they participate in several art activities in the morning. Here is a glimpse of our learning for the week: Writing: This week students will continue to write poems and notice poetic devices that poets use. Later in the week we will write a poem from an object in nature. Students may bring an object from nature to observe and then write about. Reading: We have been reading lots of different forms of poetry and noting the characteristics. We'll continue to read a variety of poems while making inferences, drawing conclusions, and identifying the theme. Additionally, we'll discuss how the poet's words appeal to the senses Math: We have been noticing and wondering a lot in math and have discovered that we can use doubling and halving to help find the product of fives, tens, twos, fours, and eights facts. We have also learned other strategies for multiplying including skip counting, repeated addition, and drawing equal groups or arrays. This week we will continue to practice multiplication using various tools and strategies. We'll add strip diagrams to our list of tools to use to help organize our thinking and we'll learn how to use area models to represent multiplication. There will be a unit test on Thursday or Friday. As always, we will review for the test in class. Science: Friday we made our solar ovens! Everyone is anxious to use them, so if the weather cooperates, we will cook our s'mores on Monday or Tuesday. We still have a few more investigations on light and sound to complete this week as we learn more about energy. We'll also explore a few websites about how electrical energy use impacts the environment. Social Studies: Our focus will be on bullying as part of National Bullying Prevention month. We'll also discuss and learn about empathy, our school-wide character trait for October. Upcoming Events: Monday October 24th-PTA Reflections Due Monday-Friday: October 24-28 Red Ribbon and Bully Free Week (see below for details) Wednesday October 26-Early Release @ 12:00 Thursday October 27-Author Visit Red Ribbon Activities for the Week October 24th– 28th We at England Elementary will show our support for a drug free and bully free America by participating in the following dress-up days. Monday will be Wear Crazy Socks Day. “Sock it to drugs and bullying.” Tuesday will be Wild Hair Day. “I’m wild about being drug free and bully free.” Wednesday will be Wear Mismatched Clothing Day. “I won’t let drugs or bullying mix me up.” Thursday will be Wear an England School Shirt Day. “Our school chooses a healthy environment.” Friday will be Dress Like a Superhero Day. “I have the power to be drug free.” Highlights from Oct. 17-21Exploring Light, Sound, Heat/Thermal and Mechanical Energy 3 Act Task in Math I showed the class a video showing the bucket of candy being poured out. After viewing, the students thought of questions that could be answered. They decided that they wanted to find out how many pieces of candy were in the bucket. Each student estimated the amount of candy including an estimate that was too low and too high. Then they drew a number line and placed their estimates on the number line. Next, they had to determine the information they needed to solve the problem. I gave them the arrays of the different types on candy in the bucket. Then they solved the problem independently. When I revealed the answer, most of the class cheered. Imagine, cheering during math time! That was music to my ears! Classroom Visitors During math, we had the elementary math curriculum coodinator, Brian Bushart, and elementary math curriculum specialist, Regina Payne, visit our class. They worked with students as they noticed and wondered about various groups of arrays, listeneded to students justify their thinking, and helped a few kiddos create tables to notice patterns. Then Mr. Bushart led a math game which the class LOVED. They begged to play it again, so I played against them after lunch. The class won both games-and, no, it wasn't rigged. Playing a Math Game to Practice Doubling Investigating Sound Students poured different amounts of water into glasses to see if the glass made different sounds when tapped by a pencil. We noticed we could make low, high, and medium pitched sounds because the water changed the amount of vibrations. Then I challenged students to try to play a song using the glasses. Many of the groups discovered they could play Hot Cross Buns or Mary Had A Little Lamb. Enrichment (E-slot) Students chose to either participate in a building challenge or use LittleBits, (electronic building blocks). I was impressed at how quickly the kiddos learned how to connect the Littlebits to create sounds, lights, movement, etc. Designing and Building Solar Ovens in Science
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November 2019
Mrs. Swyers3rd Grade Teacher |