A Busy Week!

This week the Esprit Team walked to the Shelburne Craft School to create crafts for the upcoming SCS Holiday Craft Fair.  We rolled pieces of soap into soap balls and created soap dishes to hold them.  We were able to participate in the process of creating soap dishes from beginning to end.  We rolled the clay out using their big rolling machine and then experimented with textures.  We then each created a textured soap dish using a slap of clay and used glaze to paint our soap dishes different colors.  We are very eager to see what our soap dishes look like after they are fired in the kiln.  Many thanks to Sarah Ahrens for making this experience possible for us! The PTO Holiday Craft Fair will be held on December 5th from 9:30-1:30pm.  We will be sending out an email in November looking for volunteers to run our table that day.

This afternoon we participated in Mix It Up Day.  This is an opportunity for cross-grade collaboration and community building at SCS.  Deb's class mixed up with the Winton House middle school students and had fun learning about drums and doing some drumming with their middle school partners.  Mr. Buckingham, our Middle School Instrumental Music teacher provided this experience for us.  A big thank you to Mr. Buckingham.  Miss Niles' class mixed it up with Mr. Brunvand's middle school students.  We challenged each other to a mancala tournament.  It was so much fun to watch middle school students and third graders strategize together!

We finished our Forces and Motion Unit during Science this week with an Engineering component that allowed us to use our learning to problem solve and create rolling carts.  Each group of 5 students was given 30 minutes and a bucket of materials to create a cart that could roll when pushed or pulled.  On the second day of this task, each group was asked to improve upon their cart to see if they could get it to roll farther than the day before.  Group work can be very challenging at this age, but all groups worked hard to share ideas, collaborate, and produce a final product.  Be sure to ask your child about his or her cart.  Did it roll? How many centimeters did it go and what features allowed the cart to travel a far distance?

In both Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop, we started an informational text (non-fiction) unit.  In reading we explored the text features in informational text, such as headings, charts, graphs, maps, labels, diagrams, captions, and glossaries.  After finding these in many non-fiction books in our room, we wrote about the purpose of those features.  As you read informational text with your child at home, see if he or she can identify a text feature and tell you why the author used that feature.  In writing, we looked at different ways to structure our non-fiction writing and learned that this can affect how we think about our topics. For example, the children were asked to take their topic and think about pros and cons, comparing and contrasting, and cause and effect.  Several students are writing about dogs and thought about how they could structure their writing in different ways: pros and cons of having a dog as a pet, comparing and contrasting dogs with cats, or even writing about problems there may be with dogs and how those problems could be solved.  After thinking about these different structures, the children began to write!  We continue to encourage building stamina in our writing:  writing long and strong!  Ask your child this weekend about his or her non-fiction topic.  How is your child going to structure his or her paragraphs?




In math, we continue to focus on multiplication and looking at new ways of seeing multiplication.  We have explored drawing a picture, using repeated addition, using facts you already know, and skip counting as ways to see multiplication.  This week we were introduced to a ratio table.  A ratio table is a model that encourages the children to explore proportional thinking.  For example, if a 1 pound of rabbit food costs $1.50, how much would two or three pounds cost?  We also explored a multiplication table and the relationships between the facts.

Lastly, please remind your child to turn in his or her reading log on Monday.  Children who have met the reading goal will be invited to a literary lunch in the near future.  Happy Weekend!

Puppets In Education

Esprit Third Grade dove into our non-fiction writing unit during Writer's Workshop this week! Even before we wrote about our ideas for a table of contents, we acted as teachers and taught each other about our topics orally.  We found out that writers are like teachers and can borrow ideas that teachers or experts use: staying on a topic, giving details and information, breaking topics into smaller bits, and using descriptive words.   Then we chose topics, created a table of contents for our writing pieces, and learned about different structures writers use.  We tried out various structures (boxes and bullets, pros and cons, cause and effect, same and different, problem and solution) to decide which structure works best with our topics.  Ask your child about his or her topic and the way he or she tried to organize the table of contents.


We continued our learning about patterns of motion during our Science Inquiry Block this week.  We  worked in groups doing an investigation using cups and ramps to see how cups roll down ramps.  Our focus question was, "What rules help predict where a rolling cup will end up?"  and we used our observations during our investigation to answer this question.  Ask your child what he/she discovered about what determines the direction a cup will roll and how weight affects it.

This week we continued to focus on a variety of comprehension strategies during Reader's Workshop.  We listened to several stories and practiced asking questions, visualizing and synthesizing together, then practiced using these comprehension strategies when reading independently.  It's important for children to ask questions as they read because it encourages them to continue to read and want to find out more information.  We like to call them wonders.  When readers visualize they make mental images and create a movie in their minds.  This helps us to better picture and understand the story.  We also worked on synthesizing.  This means that as you read your thinking changes.  You gather more information to help better understand the story. As you read with your children at home, ask them to tell you about what they are visualizing as they read; encourage them to ask questions or generate wonders; and encourage them to tell you about how their thinking changes as they read and gather more information.

Our current Math Unit is an introduction to multiplication.  We have been learning about real life situations when people use multiplication and learning how to multiply using arrays and number lines. As we worked on multiplication problems, we generated strategies that could be helpful when multiplying.  Drawing a picture, using facts you already know, repeated addition (ex. 3+3+3=9) or skip counting (ex. 3, 6, 9) are three strategies we explored.  We will begin using ratio tables and multiplication tables next week and will practice solving story problems using graphs and multiple operations.  This unit is a nice introduction to multiplicative reasoning.

Next week the Esprit team will be walking to the Shelburne Craft School to create a craft to sell at the SCS Holiday Fair.  Miss Niles' class will be walking over on Monday, October 26th and Deb's class will be walking on Wednesday, October 28th.  Both classes will be gone from 9:30-11:30am.  In November the Craft School will join us in our classrooms to help us create another special project.  Many thanks to Sarah Ahrens for making this wonderful experience possible for the Esprit Team.

Lastly, Puppets in Education visited our school this week to share programs about various topics with our K-5 students.  Third graders enjoyed two performances.  The first performance addressed learning disabilities and differences and the second performance was about bullying.  Students had an opportunity to ask questions and share ideas during and after each performance.  Ask your child what he/she learned about bullying and learning differences.  Thanks to Dan Bokan and Shearer Chevrolet for sponsoring these performances.
Have a terrific weekend,
Deb and Jenn

Typing Club

Thanks to Jeff Badillo, our Tech Integrationist, for creating this tutorial!
Click here for a video tutorial on how to access Typing Club

Wheels and Motion

It was another busy week for the Esprit 3rd grade team.  We have continued to read The Year of Billy Miller and participated in "Write About" this week as part of the Global Read Aloud.  It continues to be a wonderful experience having the opportunity to connect to other classrooms around the country and world.
We are continuing to practice our keyboarding skills through the use of Typing Club and all our friends are very excited about this.  A group email including a short video with instructions for getting onto typing club at home was sent home today to all families today.  If you did not receive that email, please contact your classroom teacher.  Our time for practicing in school is limited so any additional practice at home would be terrific.
Both classes are now beginning "Book Buddies" with  Kindergarten classes.  Miss Niles' class is buddying with Mrs. Hazen's class.  Deb's class is buddying with Ms. Elia's class.  This will be a wonderful opportunity for our classes to take on a mentor role with younger students and practice our skills reading aloud to others.
We have continued practicing paragraph writing during Writer's Workshop this week.  Next week we will begin a unit focused on informational writing and will begin to use our new skill of writing paragraphs to write our informational pieces of writing.   Our first focus will be on teaching others something through our writing.
Both classes have also enjoyed another Hands On Nature lesson about Erosion during the past two weeks.  We learned about different kinds of erosion and ways to prevent erosion.  We watched a presentation showing land formations all over our country and discussed how those land formations were created.  We also enjoyed an interesting puppet show presented by our Hands On Nature parents.  Beginning next month students will begin presenting the monthly puppets shows that support topic of learning each month.  Many thanks to our Hands On Nature parents for making Hands On Nature an engaging learning experience for us.
During our Forces and Motion Inquiry time we did an investigation about wheel and axil systems and we explored how we can change the motion of wheels rolling down ramps.  Ask your child about the pattern of motion for their wheel system.
Have a great weekend,
Deb and Jenn

Author Dave Pilkey Visits

Esprit has had another busy week filled with many exciting activities!  Today, we enjoyed a visit from Dav Pilkey.  Dav is the author of the Captain Underpants Series and the Ricky Ricotta Series, as well as many other books.  We all enjoyed a talk with Dav about his life, overcoming dyslexia and his experiences as an author.  It was an exciting surprise to receive capes to wear as we left Dav's presentation!  Any books your children ordered for this visit, from The Flying Pig, will be delivered on Tuesday to SCS.  You can expect them to come home on Tuesday afternoon.

This week was also the kick off for the Global Read Aloud.  We began reading The Year of Billy Miller and participated in a Google Hangout with other 3rd Graders who live in Columbus, Ohio. We spent some time asking questions of each other about our classes, schools and communities.  What can your child tell you about our new friends in Ohio? The next time we connect, we will be talking about The Year of Billy Miller and sharing our ideas and understandings about this book.

Esprit 3rd Grade has been learning about Forces and Motion during our Science Inquiry Block.  This week we did an investigation about magnets.  We learned about magnetic force and investigated if magnetic force only works when a magnet is touching another magnet/object or if the magnetic force can also work at a distance.  Using just magnets, a paper clip, string, tape, and a classroom chair, the children were able to demonstrate power of the magnetic field and make a paperclip float!  Ask your child about this experiment!

This week we also had a visit from our Technology Integrationist Teacher, Jeff Badillo. He showed us how to access Typing Club, a program to help us learn keyboarding skills. Your child can access typing club at home via the link below or through our Esprit google site.  They can login using their Google Account (their google email address and password). Just click on the button that says "Sign in with Google".
Typing Club

Lastly, please note that there is no school on Friday, October 9th and Monday, October 12th.  Next week, we will be holding parent conferences. Please check back to our Google site to check the date/time of your parent conference.  Parent Conference Schedule

Have a wonderful weekend!

Unified Arts Open House and Picture Day Retakes

Please join the Art, Music, Physical Ed., and World Language teachers for our Unified Arts Night. It will be on October 20, from 6:30-7:30 PM.  Please meet in the cafeteria at 6:30 for a brief introduction. Students are encouraged to attend this event with you, and share some of the great things they are learning in their UA classes.

Picture Retake Day is October 13th!

Magnets and Motion!

We ended the week with some excitement as we started our first science unit of the year: Forces and Motion.  During this unit the students will do investigations, collect data in their science notebooks, design models, and make claims based on the following focus questions:

• What happens when magnets interact with other magnets and with paper clips?
• How can we change the motion of wheels rolling down a ramp?
• What are some important features of a cart that will roll from here to there? How can you improve the design of your cart?

Today we experimented with magnetic force through a variety of magnet activities. What did your child notice about the magnets and how it interacted with paperclips and other magnets?

During Reader's Workshop, we have begun working on comprehension strategies. These strategies help support independent thinking and understanding of a text.  This week we practiced the strategy of making connections to books.  We read aloud several picture books through the week and looked to make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.  The children then practiced this strategy independently using their thinkmarks.

In Writer's Workshop, we tackled learning how to write paragraphs! This is something brand new for third graders!  Most of their writing thus far has not been organized into paragraphs.  We talked about that a paragraph is a group of sentences about the same subject.  There is a topic sentence, three sentences with detail, and a closing sentence.  This week the children have use a four-square graphic organizer to help plan their paragraphs before writing.  What did your child write about this week in a paragraph?

We finished Unit 1 in math this week by working on developing strategies for subtracting double-digit numbers.  Many of these strategies were similar to the work we did with addition.  We used number lines to subtract friendly numbers (ex. fives or tens).  We also learned two new Work Places: Target 100 and Anything But Five.  Both encouraged us to use addition and subtractions strategies to play the games.

Just a reminder that there is no school for students on October 9th and October 12th. Please make sure you also sign up for a parent conference on our Esprit Google Site. Thanks