January News!

Third graders in Room 17 are beginning the year with new units in language arts, math, and science.

Language Arts

The class will review genre and the characteristics of different genres as they undertake the unit on Folktales, Fairy Tales, and Myths. Understanding the characteristics of genres enables students to comprehend the text better and anticipate the text structure of the story.

Students will start with American Folktales, like Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed. These books will be used as mentor texts to study of American folktales.
 
The American Folktale usually has a hero. The events in the story are grossly exaggerated. The characters exhibit courage, physical strength, cleverness, hardwork, or determination. 
 
                     
Paul Bunyan is about the life of an unusual lumberjack whose outrageous size and strength brought him many adventures which includes finding a blue ox named Babe and experiences with other lumberjacks in South Dakota and California.
 
 
                            
 
This book is about the life of John Chapman, who became known as Johnny Appleseed. This legendary man was famous for his distribution of apple seeds and the trees he planted as he explored the frontier. His main characteristics were his love of nature, kindness to animals and his physical endurance.
 
As students read these stories they will have opportunities to learn there are various versions of the same stories.

A folktale is a story orally handed down from one generation to another. Not only are people characters in some folktales, but animals are portrayed with human traits. Each story has a theme. Folktales differ from fairytales. Fairy tales have an element of magic and good triumphs over evil.

The following YouTube video displays examples of many different types of folktales, fairy tales, myths and legends that can be used with students of all ages.

After reading American folktales, students will read folktales from different countries.  Students will discuss the theme and author's message of the stories they read.  Students will have the opportunity to compare and contrast stories to discuss the similarities and differences in story elements and themes.
 
The following is a link to many different folktales. http://www.americanfolklore.net/sindex.html
 
As part of this unit students will be writing a narrative story about a personal experience in which they learned a lesson.

Mathematics
In math, students will be review the U.S. and metric units to measure length. Following this, the class will find the perimeter of various 2-dimensional shapes.




                     





                                          


Science
 
Third grade students will study and learn the names of the phases of the moon.

In order to relate their understanding of the phases of the moon, students will keep a moon journal for a month recording their observations as well as draw and write what they witness about the changes they noticed.