We kicked off our week with Halloween! We jumped right in to learning and began some new challenging units of study. Check out below to see what we've been doing...
Phonics/Grammar: We reviewed the role of the subject and the predicate in a sentence. We focused on the predicate and began looking at verbs. We completed several activities which isolated the verb. This work is transferring well over to our writing! Yay! In phonics, we looked closely at the rules for adding -ed to root words.
Writing: We learned about the importance of using nonfiction text features when writing an informational book. I think the children are enjoying my expertise on cockroaches as I model my informational writing skills. We conferenced individually, looking at the pages that have been written so far in our informational books.
Reading: The students learned how to read nonfiction differently than fiction passages. We focused on the importance of a first read (just to gain overall information), a second read (to focus on unknown vocabulary and restating the main ideas of each paragraph in our own words), and a third read (to identify the author's purpose and to think about our own opinions about the passage). We practiced reading in this way on several passages.
Math: We began looking at using the distributive property of multiplication to help us solve more complex problems. We learned how to make area models representing this strategy. For those students who were ready, we moved along to the standard distributive property without the area models. Some of the students are really running with this strategy, solving all kinds of three, four, and five digit multiplication problems! We also took our second timed math test on multiplication facts. Some children were not happy with their scores. We had a long talk about how these tests have absolutely every thing to do with how much time is spent learning these facts every night. It is not an indication of "math smarts", but rather of dedication to practicing on a daily basis.
Content: We learned about the four types of soil; loam, sand, silt, and clay. We worked in small groups to create informational posters.
Class News and Announcements...
Thank you to everyone who sent in The One and Only Ivan. We begin this book Monday!
Our holiday party is scheduled for December 21st at 12:30. Everyone is invited to come to the fun! Becky Abrams will be organizing this for us, so stay tuned for an email from her.
Academic Alerts will be coming out on Nov. 16. You will only receive an alert if your child is in danger of getting a "1" on any area of the report card. All of our standards are posted on the third grade website if you are interested in viewing what we are studying this quarter. Don't forget about this great resource for your child as well. Click on the "Third Grade Website" tab on the kemp faculty page right above our team pictures.
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