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!