Fall Festival!

It is hard to believe that marking period 1 is coming to an end.  My apologies for letting the past few weeks get away from me and not posting.  We have been working hard and accomplishing a lot in grade 3!

Last week, students got to choose a community service project to plan and participate in at school.  Students cleaned up litter and planted bulbs that will beautify our school in the spring, wrote letters to our troops stationed in Afghanistan or went to the Media Center and spent the afternoon reading to Kindergarten and First Grade buddies.  Across the past week, student have worked in pairs to create power point presentations in the computer lab about their community service experiences.  They did a fantastic job!  I hope to remove some last names and post a few on here to share with you.  I was really impressed by what they created and I know you will be, too!

We have continued to study the election process, write to share our opinions and memorize our basic multiplication facts and solve more challenging multiplication and division problems. Students should be working at home on their 0,1, and 2s times tables and begin adding in their 5s and 10s shortly.  I recommend using flashcards and adding in 2-3 new facts each week so as not to overwhelm students.  They need to practice these facts for 5-10 minutes per night.

This week we celebrated fall.  We enjoyed the tastes of fall- apple cider, apple tastes tests with carmel dipping sauce, and roasted pumpkin seeds as well as some sweet treats.  Students also brought in their personal community service homework projects and we began to share, which we will wrap up across the next two days.  Students have done fantastic things to help their communities. In science, we are also wrapping up our study of the forces of motion.  Students worked in groups of three today to build a simple vehicle and tomorrow will design different types of tires to meet different types of needs. Students will be testing them together and analyzing their results. Here are some shots of the groups assembling their vehicles:

Coming soon: an optional weekend project on Storybird.  The link is to the lower left. Students will know their passwords and log-ins by Friday. We will begin the project in school and students who finish at home will receive a special prize and the opportunity to share their stories with an audience!

I hope all of you and your families and friends weathered the storm and didn't have too much damage!

Week 7

Last week we worked on many things across all subject areas.

In reading, we read a book called The Backpack Tax that was a realistic fiction story that taught about the three kinds of taxes and what they are used for.  We practiced identifying the main idea and the details within the story.  This was a great text that connects to social studies: Nancy Navarro had talked to us about taxes and how they are spent the week before and we will be beginning our study of Economics in social studies this week.

In math, we continued to practice multiplying using a variety of strategies to get the answer.  This week, we will be focusing on division and fact families with multiplication and division.  Students will begin to take timed quizzes on their basic multiplication facts and track their own progress this week.

Brianna has become quite the author in her spare time at home and brought in her second book to share with the class.

This week, encourage your child to try their hand at publishing their own book.  If they are visual, try out Story Bird. It is a great website where anyone can create their own story and select the art to go with it.
Here is a cool one I found to check out: Patrick's Not-So-Perfect Party. Ms. Sherry is going to start working on her own stories soon as well!

Again, congratulations to Yohannes and Jordan for becoming our class reps.  Here they are soon after our first meeting last week.

The SGA created a voting bulletin board about the election and students will get to vote by the end of this week after getting a little more information.  We have talked a lot over the past few weeks about electing officials and being informed citizens.  Please consider talking to your child about the election and taking them with you when you go o the polls on November 6.

I heard about a lot of great community service project ideas!  Students are bagging and carrying groceries, raking leaves, picking up litter in parks, working at shelters and food banks and holding yard sales to donate the profits!  I can't wait until the end of the month for students to share their experiences!

A Special Visitor

Last Thursday, Grade 3 had a special visitor- Nancy Navarro from the County Council! We have been studying the role of local government in social studies. We have spent a lot of time over the past two weeks studying the members of the county council and what each committee does for our community.

Nancy Navarro came and spoke to all 3 classes about her childhood and how she came to be involved in local politics.  She spoke about how she is proud to be the first Latina involved in local politics here in our county and also about how much she enjoys helping people and working to improve our community. The children asked her thoughtful questions and are working hard this week to write her a nice thank you letter.

Congratulations to Jordan and Yohannes, our Class Representatives for this school year.  I was so proud of everyone's hard work! This is going to be a great year for our Student Government!