March News!

                                      

Language Arts


              
   
This week students will learn about making inferences.  Students will start by inferring the meaning of vocabulary words.  They will use context clues and nonfiction text features to make inferences. Students will read an article about the Titanic which is of high interest to most third graders.  The following literacy equation will be taught to support student learning about inference.

                                           BK & TC = I

                                   

This equation involves using one's background knowledge plus textual clues which will result in inferring.  When merging background knowledge with text clues, students draw conclusions about what they read. Students will start with an essential question, "Could the tragedy of the Titanic have been avoided?" Students will learn that some of their knowledge of the Titanic may not be accurate. Then students will gather facts from the article to infer the answer to the question.


Writing

The following are stories published by students from Unit 3.  

Never Lie

By Akshat
 

Have you ever lied?  It was a rainy day and Adam was bored. He told his mom he was bored. “Beep!” It was the phone. Adam hurried off to get it. “Mom, can I go to Brandon’s house?” “Sure,” said his mom. Brandon is 9 and so is Adam. Brandon is athletic. He plays soccer and basketball. Adam is clumsy and curious. Once he arrived at Brandon’s house, he rang the doorbell. Brandon answered. “Guess what?” Brandon said, “I got a new action figure!” “Cool,” said Adam and he went in. They played with Brandon’s toys. When Brandon went to the bathroom Adam suddenly heard a crack. Adam got up to see what it was. He gasped. It was Brandon’s new action figure, his most valuable toy. Adam told Brandon he was going home but didn’t say he was taking the action figure. He went home to fix it with glue but it melted. He told his mom about it. She said, “If you tell Brandon you took it Brandon will still be your friend. But Adam didn’t listen to his mom. The next day Adam went out to play and saw Brandon outside. Brandon said his new toy was missing and asked Adam to help. Adam didn’t want to tell the truth so he helped. Adam and Brandon searched everywhere but couldn’t find it. Soon Adam became tired and said he needed a break. Brandon said, “You have to help until I find it.  Adam went home and got the toy. When he returned he told Brandon the truth. To his surprise Brandon wasn’t upset and they remained friends.

Support your Family

By Rachel

 
Isabelle Jennings thought about school while she ate her dinner. Isabelle had straight, long, blonde hair. She had green eyes and rosy cheeks. On her face were peach lips and long eyelashes. She was eating chicken and rice. Chicken with rice was her favorite meal. Her brother thought the opposite. He hated rice. He was making faces at his food. He was very picky. Isabelle knew why. He was six and she was nine. Isabelle loved spring. Spring was Isabelle’s favorite season because her mother always planted seeds in the garden and the flowers came out so beautifully. Isabelle finished her dinner, but Charlie was still eating so she had to stay seated. That was the family rule. Isabelle always followed the rules. After all, she was very mature for her age. She was also generous and fair. She was always honest and reliable. Her parents were lucky to have her as a daughter. “Charlie and Isabelle, your father and I have some news. Your father lost his job and we are losing money,” Mrs. Jennings said. “What!” Isabelle yelled. “So we’re going to be poor?” Isabelle asked. “No. We aren’t going to be poor, but we aren’t earning enough money. I don’t work because I have to be home when you and Charlie come home from school,” Mrs. Jennings said. “But everything costs money. If we always have to pay for things, we’ll eventually become poor! Right?!” Isabelle asked. “I suppose yes. But that means no money goes to waste. We will only buy something if we need it,” Mrs. Jennings said. “But I wanted that new race car!” Charlie wailed. “Charlie!” Mrs. Jennings exclaimed. “Fine” Charlie said. The next day was Saturday. Isabelle slept in but at 8:30 she got up. At breakfast the Jennings family talked some more. “What are some ways we can make money, now that I’ve lost my job?” Mr. Jennings questioned. “We could make fake money and trick people! We might even trick a vending machine!” Charlie suggested. “No, Charlie! I think that we should open a lemonade stand! We could sell delicious lemonade, and make lots of money. I’m thinking we can charge $1.15 for one glass. I think that is a pretty reasonable price. What do you think?” Isabelle said. “I think that is cheap. We’ll never make money if we charge them $1.15! I’m thinking $200.00!” Charlie yelled. “I think that Isabelle’s idea is a great idea. Now what is our goal?” Mr. Jennings asked. “$300 dollars in 3 weeks,” Isabelle said. “It’s a deal! Let’s start now!” Mr. Jennings shouted. So everybody started making lemonade. After three pitchers were filled, the sale started. A lot of people came. At the end of the day, they had half a pitcher left, and $30 dollars. Every day they earned more money. It was the last day of lemonade selling. They only had $275 dollars and one day left. Isabelle was worried. Everybody in the neighborhood either already got lemonade, or they aren’t interested. The day went by slowly and they earned $10 dollars. Isabelle looked at the total of money that they had earned - $285 dollars. “Don’t give up,” Isabelle told herself. But she had. Three weeks were over, and all they had was $285 dollars. Finally, Isabelle had an idea. She went into her room… and she pulled $15 dollars out from her wallet. Now she looked at the total, $300 dollars. They had met their goal because she had saved them. Isabelle felt heroic. She had never been as proud of herself in her life.

Math

Students will investigate that arrays are one way to express a multiplication equation.  Students will experiment making arrays to identify the characteristics of prime and square numbers. Students will use arrays to find the product.

                                              

They can use traditional multiplication equations to determine the product of two factors or if need be they can skip count.

          

 

More complicated multiplication problems will be introduced and students will use their knowledge of basic multiplication facts to help them determine solutions to higher level problems.

For example   24 x 6 can be broken down into

                          20 x 6 = 120   + 4 x 6 = 24

Therefore,  120 + 24 = 144

The following site can be used by students to help practice multiplication facts:

http://www.factmonster.com/math/flashcards.html



 

Welcome back from vacation!

The class will begin new units in Language Arts, Math, and Social Studies.

Language Arts

Students will begin a study of nonfiction reading. In this unit students will determine the main idea of a text as well as recount key details.  Then students will explain how the details support the main idea. Students will read about explorers and connect their learning of explorers in social studies to their knowledge of reading nonfiction materials.

                              

                                       


Social Studies
Students will identify the reasons why people explore and what qualities are needed to be an explorer. Students will determine how exploration helped the development of the Americas. The Vikings will be the first group of explorers which students will learn about.

                                     


             

Math

Students will begin their study of multiplication by learning multiples of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10. Students will transfer their knowledge of skip counting and doubling to multiplication. After this students will delve into word problems with multiplication.

                                      

The first week of February 2014

"Away in a meadow all covered with snow
The little old groundhog looks for his shadow
The clouds in the sky determine our fate
If winter will leave us all early or late."
-  Don Halley

Language Arts

                                          

After reading the following two folktales, The Seven Chinese Brothers and Anansi The Spider, the students used a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the two stories.  Then students wrote a paragraph comparing the author's message along with examples of how the two stories were alike and different.  This week students will read, Anansi Does The Impossible, and then watch the movie, "How Anansi Obtained the Sky God's Stories." Students will discuss the similarities and differences between these two types of media. Then students will determine which they liked better. 

                                          

                                      

Following this, students will read, Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears and determine what caused this to happen.

 

                                   
                                          
                                  


Here is a You Tube video explaining the story:

Mathematics

 
Students are learning about the attributes of triangles and quadrilaterals in math.  



Students created triangles with straws and discussed all triangles have three sides, three vertices and three angles. Students learned the term "vertex." Then they discovered the area inside the triangle where two sides meet is called an angle.  Students made triangles of different lengths and learned that one type of triangle is called a right triangle. Then students discussed the attributes of polygons in order to determine the difference between shapes that are and are not triangles.

Students are learning the properties of quadrilaterals and the difference between squares,  and rectangles. They first will create these shapes with straws. Then students will discuss the attributes of a quadrilateral, which means the shape has four sides, four angles, and four vertices. The students will notice that squares and rectangles have right angles. Students will compare and contrast the difference in these two shapes.




                                          


                                                  
                                                  

                                      
    




The great minds of the students in this class are working hard to learn concepts and are delving deep into concepts being presented in class.




                                    

Week of January 27, 2014

                        



Language Arts

                                                    

In addition to reading folktales and identifying the message and lesson learned by the characters in the stories, the students will undertake a writing assignment.  Students will write a narrative story which conveys a message or a lesson learned. Students will establish a situation and organize their writing to develop a sequence of events that shows a character's response to a situation in which the character learns a lesson.  Students have read stories and will listen to stories which will be used as mentor texts. The following books are examples of mentor texts.


                                                   



                               



                                  

Mathematics

Now that students have learned about perimeter, students will explore the concept of area.  They will use tiles to find the area of different shapes of rectangles.  Then students will find both area and perimeter of shapes.  Students will also trace their foot and find the area and perimeter of this shape.

                       


                                               

This open-ended lesson will allow students to explore ways to measure their shoeprint after tracing it on paper. Ask your child what method they used to figure it out?  
                                   
Social Studies 

In social studies, students will undertake exploring the six themes of geography. Students will start by learning to read a map and identify the map features.  Students will use their prior knowledge of nonfiction text features taught in the nonfiction language arts unit and transfer that knowledge to reading maps.  Students will learn the importance of titles, legends, photographs, and graphs as they delve into the world of junior geographers.

                                                       

January 20, 2014

Language Arts

 
This week students will continue their study of folktales and move into reading folktales relating to other countries.
Students will read Chinese Folktales.  After the students identify the story elements, students will discuss the message of the story.

                   

This text follows seven look-alike brothers with unique

powers, ranging from astute hearing to superhuman strength,

as they fight the powerful emperor, who exploits the hard

work of the peasants at the Great Wall of China.  The

emperor tries to have the brothers killed, but the brothers'

powers overcome the powerful emperor. This folktale shows

how a family's talent and cooperation beat insurmountable

odds.
 

Below is the story created by students in a YouTube Video:

   

           

Students will also learn the six syllable types.

                 

Math This Week

Students will use four interlocking cubes to form five different shapes.  This will lead to understanding that area is measured in square units.  Students will learn when measuring area the space being measured must be covered with no gaps or overlaps. Finally, students will use squares and triangles to make shapes with an area of four square units.

                                             





                   

Science

Students should be recording their observations of the moon in their moon journals to reinforce learning of the phases of the moon. Students have learned that the moon revolves around the earth and the earth revolves and rotates around the sun.

Students should be reading nightly as well as practicing their basic math facts.

              
 

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.

                           December News

                  
             

 Language Arts

 
The third graders are continuing the nonfiction unit by learning how key details support the main idea.  Students will also practice summarizing a nonfiction text by using the main idea and supporting details. Then students will use this knowledge to write a nonfiction piece. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                         
                                 

Math

Students are using measuring strips to see the pattern in numbers.  Students will use connecting cubes and make strips with markings for up to ten groups of five, ten, three, six, and nine. After skip counting is recorded on the strip to determine the multiples of these various numbers, students will be encouraged to see the relationship in the numbers.  These measuring strips will help students figure out multiplication problems.

Social Studies

The class is studying the Plains Native Americans. They will learn about their way of living, food, homes and animals.  Then they will compare and contrast the Plains Native Americans and the Wampanoag.