Happy Weekend!

We had another great week on Team Esprit!

Please continue to check our blog and your child's Friday Folder, as there seems to be something new to add to our end-year-activities each week!  During the weeks of May 16th and May 23rd, your child will be taking the SBAC test. This is a standardized test that assesses the third grade Common Core standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics.  Ms. Deb's class will be testing on May 16, 18, 23, and 25 in the morning and Miss Niles' class will be testing on May 17, 19, 24, and 26 in the morning.  We have completed several training tests and practice tests so that the children could become familiar with the format and have stressed we just want the children to do their best.  We know that it is a lot of testing for third graders oand we are trying to make this the least stressful situation we can.  If you have any questions, please let us know.

We finished our Ecosystem/Ecology unit this week in science.  We learned about the concept of succession. Succession refers to the changes that occur in an ecosystem that impacts the animals and plants.  Through reading several articles we learned that when there is destruction (wild fire, cutting down trees, flooding)  in an ecosystem the plants and animals come back in a pattern:  grasses, flowers, weeds; shrubs; and then trees.  We also completed an activity in which we sorted pictures of plants and animals into their specific succession stages.  Next week, we will begin a social studies unit about Shelburne and the topic of economy.

In math, we continued to explore finding the perimeter and area of rectangular shapes.  We discovered that it is possible to build different rectangles with a perimeter of 20 units, but each with a different area.  Similarly, we found that is is possible to build different arrays with an area of 24 units, but each one has a different perimeter.  Through our explorations this week, we worked toward finding more efficient strategies for finding the area of rectangle.  This included using the area formula of Area= Length X Width.  We also started an investigation of shapes and fractions using the geoboards.  Next week, we will begin our last math unit for the year: Extending Multiplication and Fractions.

We hope that you can attend our Author's Share on May 26th!  We continue to work hard to finish our fairy tales.  Our focus this week was on adding descriptive language, adding magic to the fairy tale, and revising our work.  We cannot wait to share these stories with you!

Lastly, we did a little Mother's Day crafting!  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!