White House Student Film Festival Contest

Is your child always looking for something to do?  Do they enjoy acting and writing?  We have been working on reading plays and will soon be writing our own scripts.  Today, I stumbled on this- a new contest from whitehouse.gov for students in grades K-12 to create their own 3 minute films.

I know I have many talented students in my class who enjoy project-based learning-
consider helping your child to do this project across this holiday season or on a snowday!!!

White House Student Film Contest

Thanksgiving Week

It is so hard to believe we are almost halfway through Marking Period 2!!!

This week, we took our first timed multiplication quiz.  It came home on Monday afternoon.  About 50% of our class passed this 0-2s quiz. Here are our students working hard and trying their best to complete the 50 problems in the 2 minute time limit:

We will take a timed quiz each week.  As students pass, they move on to the next quiz.  When they memorize the tables through the 12's they will receive a special reward!!!

This week, we are focusing on all of the things we have to be thankful for in our lives.  Everyone agreed we are so thankful for our families, the food and shelter they provide to us and for our friends here at school.  Each child has spent time reflecting on this and writing about it to share with you on Thursday- ask your child to share their paragraph with you and the family at the dinner table on Thurday.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Scholastic Book Announcement and Thursday Fun!

If you are planning to get your child some holiday books, or simply stock up on some reading material for any of your children, Scholastic has incredible deals- including no taxes and free shipping for all of your family's reading needs!

What is even better- you help me to earn points to buy more books for the classroom!

Please place any orders online (using the link at the left of the post) by November 30 and I can gurantee their delivery prior to winter break!  If they are surprises- e-mail me and I will let you know when they come in rather than sending them home with your child!  Use class code GYFMB when you order online.  If you prefer, you can send me the cash or a check to Scholastic Books and I'll place the order for you!!!

Happy Shopping!

Here are some pictures of our class doing a little reader's theatre- for the next two weeks, we are studying plays in reading and soon, we'll be writing scripts of our own! This play, entitled, "The Hidden One" is a Native American Folktale.

How can I help my child at home?

During parent teacher conferences, this is the most common and popular question I get from parents.  This question is am important one and demonstrates how much you care about your child and their education.  It is complex because every child has different strengths, weaknesses and interests.

My #1 piece of advice is to keep them reading- visit the library, check out high-interest books at appropriate levels and keep them motivated to read a minimum of 20 minutes per day.  Academically speaking, every subject is impacted by your child's ability to read and interpret information.
Here is a great site to check the level of a book. On your child's report card, it reports their "Guided Reading" reading level.

Many of our third graders are on grade level in reading, but are still struggling to express themselves through writing- both in response to texts or in other assignments. Here are some tips to help your child in writing. One thing I always suggest is to help your child to keep a journal. This can be a fun and relaxing way to get them away from the screen and get them writing. Here are some writing prompts they could choose from to use in their journaling. One other suggestion that I have is to use Storybird- link is at the right of the page.  This is an amazing website to create, save and share stories!!!

Last year, I posted many resources for parents and their children. Please take some time to look it over and contact me if you have any questions, comments or concerns. Read my post from last year here.

I hope to see you all at Math Night this Thursday!!!! There will be pizza and drinks, math games, and a presentation for parents all about the new math curriculum.

Fall is in the Air!!!

Finally, it is beginning to feel a bit more like Fall here at Page.  Students have settled into classroom routines and understand the expectations of Grade 3.  We have begun our study of multiplication and division- one of our core concepts for the year.  Students are meeting in small groups daily and know how to work independently in a meaningful way.

Today in math I snapped some photographs of some of the independent work students are completing while I work with students in small math groups.  This week, in groups, we are focusing on division word problems.  Independently and with partners, students are reviewing subtraction, solving word problems, completing BCRs and playing multiplication games like "Eggs and Nests".  Some of this work gets reviewed by the whole class, some in small group and some is checked by the teacher.

Some students have not demonstrated mastery of the four topics we focused on prior to multiplication and division.  There topics are: rounding, addition of 3 digit numbers, subtraction of three digit numbers and word problems with multiple steps.  This week, practice packets will be coming home so that those students can continue to practice the concept and reach mastery.  The packets can be done in place of the weekly challenge. Students who bring them in completed will receive a prize from their teacher!!!

Some important reminders:

• Please send in $2 for our Awesome Autumn Festival on Thursday, October 31.
• Community Service Projects are due next Tuesday, October 29.  We will be sharing them in class on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Projects will not be accepted after Thursday.
• Please join the PTA and support our school by participating in our fall fundraiser.  Who doesn't need some fun magazines or new wrapping paper for the holidays?
• Root for my Red Sox this week in the World Series!!! It is worth some serious Extra Credit :)

Calculating Area: Introduction to Multiplication

This week, we introduced multiplication to our students.  When I was in third grade, My teacher wrote the Zero rule and the Ones rule up on the board and we wrote them out in our notebooks to begin to "learn our times ables".  This week, we focused on calculating the area of rectangles. Why did we do this?

We want students to understand the relationship of repeated addition and multiplication right from the start.  Multiplication is a fast way of adding the same number over and over in your head.  When we use tiles to cover rectangles or look at them on the grid as we did with the homework, students can see that the columns and rows of a given number are repeated.  We practiced calculating area throughout the week using centimeter cubes and also inch tiles and writing our equations that go with a given measurement of an area.  We also emphasized the importance of writing area in square units, or inches squared. These rectangles are an example of an array.  Next week, we will continue to draw arrays and other pictures to help us solve multiplication problems and number stories and also continue to use repeated addition.

 

This week's math challenge question related to tiling a square patio with different sizes of tiles.  Students were supposed to create a visual to help them to solve this problem and answer the questions. Today in class, we used a flipchart I created to try and over different patios of different sizes and share out solutions.  Students may submit their papers on Monday to receive a coupon if they hadn't answered all of the questions today in class.

 

 

Nadir and Cheikh demonstrate some different ways to tile a 4 X 4 patio.  Students worked together to discover that no matter the number of different tiles used, a 4 X 4 patio will always need to be covered by tiles that add up to 16 square units.

I was very impressed with student's ideas for their homework Community Service Projects!  We have students doing all kinds of good deeds for neighbors and grandparents, cleaning up our Tamarack Triangle Trail, visiting patients at Children's Hospital and reading to the elderly at a nearby retirement community- just to name a few!  I can't wait for students to share their results at the end of the month!

This afternoon, we had Author's Chair.  We have many great writers in our class who have been working on all different stories.  In Writer's Workshop, we've also begun to do some persuasive writing. Students were allowed to select a piece to share with the class.  Here is a page out of one of Nadir's stories I found particularly funny:

Happy Friday!

Work, work, work!!!

We have been working hard across the past two weeks in Grade 3!!! We have been wrapping up our study of subtracting 3 digit numbers using a variety of strategies and solving challenging word problems.  In science, our study of forces of motion has culminated with groups constructing a basic vehicle and then designing different wheel covers to serve different purposes- ask your child what type of wheel they designed and how they did it.  Groups presented their work to the class. In reading, we have begun to read informational texts and are studying how to identify the main idea. Lastly, in Social Studies, students are beginning their community service project both in school with classmates and their at home, independent project directions went home this week as well.  If you haven't heard about the October homework project- ask your child about it tonight!

Here are some of our students working hard in the classroom:

Nico and Lindsay work together to assemble their basic vehicle.

Students use white boards in small group math to share their subtraction strategies.

Amaara and Talyah work together to complete their spelling center.

Nora and Darren  read directions carefully while building their basic vehicle.

Sharing addition strategies on our awesome Promethean Board!

Completing our seat work during small group math instruction.