2015-2016 Room 17 Blog
Students are starting to settle into the routines and procedures of third grade. The first month of school involved adjusting to a new classroom with new classmates. The class discussed the four agreements and the importance of following them in order to develop a positive learning environment.
Language Arts
Students are undertaking the first Language Arts' unit. This unit involves learning about characters' feelings, character traits, how a character changes, and a character's point of view.
Students are listening to stories in whole class lessons and discussing these concepts as well as reading books independently. Then the students are applying what they have learned in whole class lessons to their own texts. Each aspect of the character unit is introduced slowly.
The class has learned that characters have various feelings. Students brainstormed a list of feeling words and, in addition, were introduced to new vocabulary feeling words. Below is a list of words they have discussed.
The students are reading closely to provide evidence to support the kinds of feelings a character has in the story. As students read, they are learning to notice a character's actions and thoughts which prove how the character is feeling. Here is a video of the book, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes, that projects a character's feelings.
Students will transfer their learning about a character's feelings to write a personal narrative about an experience they had in which they had strong feelings.
Here is a sample of a personal narrative entitled,
Keep an Eye on the Sky!
I was in gym class when my teacher suggested we go
outside and play softball. As we made our way out to the
field, my stomach slowly turned into a giant knot of fear.
Softball is just not my game. I have a knack for always
getting hit in the head by the ball. It doesn’t matter
where I’m standing. The ball just seems to find me.
My teammates gave me a glove and put me way out in
left field. I didn’t complain. I just wanted to make sure I
knew when gym class ended so I wouldn’t be left behind.
Nothing happened the first three innings. Well, things
happened but not in my little part of the softball field. I
started daydreaming. The next thing I knew, I heard the
sound of a ball whizzing through the air. I put up my
glove to protect my head, and an amazing thing happened.
I caught the ball in my glove! Not only did I catch the
ball, but I helped my team to win.
I was a hero to my classmates for the rest of the day.
And I learned something. I may not always see the flying
balls that come my way, but I can always take a chance
and try to catch one.
As you can see the writer
describes an
experience that
happened to
him or her.
The writer
describes his or
her feelings about
the situation.
The writer
describes the
events in the
order in which
they happened.
The writer ends
with how their experience impacted others as well as him or her.
Mathematics
Students started our first math unit which involves using a l,000 chart. Students used their understanding of sticker notation to visualize making l,000 with sheets. They realized there are l0 strips in a sheet which is equivalent to l00 and 10 sheets equal l,000. They were able to understand 34 (10s) equal 340.
There are 10 strips in one sheet and 100 stickers in a sheet.
From this point students decided to collect l,000 leaves. Every day the students counted leaves they collected outside. They grouped the leaves into piles of l0. Then they counted by tens to figure out how many hundreds they had. The students were given a l,000 number grid. Each day the students added on their l,000 chart to figure out how far they were from l,000.
As students venture into third grade, their experiences and learning will be revealed on this blog!
