Hurricane Houses and the 100th Day!

We started our week in a literal whirlwind....testing our hurricane houses!  After designing and creating the houses, we tested their strength with hurricane winds.  Each pair faced off with our hurricane (a leaf blower) to see if could withstand stronger and stronger winds as the leaf blower moved closer.  We were amazed at how many structures actually stayed together!  We have some great engineers on Team Esprit!  How did your child's structure fair?  What would he or she change?

 
Our next excitement for the week was celebrating the 100th day of school!  It's amazing that we have already reached this milestone!  Of course, we had a visit from Zero the Hero who talked about the importance of the number zero and how it brings value to numbers.  We also made a special trail mix with hundreds of fun treats!  What did your child think of the Hiyaku (Japanese for 100)?  We also had a special 100th day challenge in math; we had to write 100 words; and we even drew what we would look like at 100 years old?!?!  It was definitely a great day!

 If that wasn't enough, on Friday we celebrated Vermont Writes Day.  The children could choose from five topics and were excited to know that children all over Vermont were writing about the same topics today. Click HERE to read about the prompts for this year.  We were so impressed with their creativity!  What did your child write about today?

In math, we solved more measurement story problems; however, we also learned a card game called Target 1,000. The goal is to make two three-digit numbers that, when added, get closest to 1,000. Next week, we will be working with fractions and making fair shares.

 Lastly, in Reader's Workshop we are continuing with our nonfiction unit, but we have turned our attention to biographies.  For the next couple of weeks, the children will be reading biographies and completing book projects to share their learning about the subjects of their books.  Miss Niles' class learned how to complete a book project using the app Puppet Edu.  The children had a good time exploring this app and were able to make a presentation easily taking pictures and recording their voices.

Have a wonderful weekend!  Just a reminder that we will be celebrating Valentine's Day on Tuesday. Please make sure if your child is making Valentines, that he or she has one for every child in the class.  Thank you!

Fantastic February!

February is an exciting and busy month in third grade!  We will be celebrating the 100th day, Valentine's Day, Differences Awareness Day, Vermont Writes Day, and visiting the Scholastic Book Fair!  Please check the upcoming events section of this blog to know the dates of these events.  We have also sent out specific notices regarding some of these events:  Valentine's Day, 100th day, and the Book Fair. Please let us know if you did not receive this information.

This week in theme we continued with our weather unit by discussing and learning about natural disasters, specifically hurricanes.  We read some books and watched some videos that showed how hurricanes form and the destruction that the winds and rain can cause.  Then the children were given an engineering task. With a partner, they had to create a structure (with four walls, 2 windows, a door, and a roof) that could withstand "hurricane winds" (wind from a leaf blower!).  They could use paper, index cards, tape, pattern blocks, string, and plastic wrap to build the structure.  Be sure to ask your child about his or her structure! We will be testing these structures on Monday!  Whose structure will withstand the winds???

In writer's workshop, we talked about writing conclusions for our nonfiction books.  A good conclusion tells the reader why the topic matters and encourages the reader to take interest in the topic.  We have now learned about all of the components of a strong nonfiction book:  table of contents, introduction, chapters with details, text features, and a conclusion. The children will spend the rest of the month drafting their nonfiction books, revising, and editing.  We look forward to seeing their end results!

In reader's workshop, we discussed that readers of nonfiction read to learn and that it is important to stop and think while reading nonfiction.  We used thinkmarks (bookmarks with spaces for writing) as a place to jot our thinking about a nonfiction book.  On a thinkmark, there is space to jot down new information, draw a picture that go with the topic, write down new words that are learned, the main idea and details, and any wonderings.  Ask your child what nonfiction books he or she has read this week and ask what he or she wrote on a thinkmark.  Did your child have any new learning?

In math, we continued measuring this week!  We first measured liquid volume and made estimations as to how much liquid certain containers can hold.  We were surprised that some of our estimations were so close to the actual measurement!  We then did a measurement scavenger hunt for items of a certain length or a certain mass. The children had to search through the room to find objects that were less than 20 cm long and objects that are greater than 75cm.  They also had to find objects that have a mass that is less than 50 grams and objects that have a mass between 100-200 grams.  Be sure to ask your child about his scavenger hunt!

Have a great weekend!

We had a visitor!

As I am sure you are now aware, we had a visitor to SCS on Thursday, Tom Messner, the meteorologist on News Channel 5 in Plattsburgh.  Since we are studying weather, he joined us to talk about his job as a meteorologist and how he forecasts the weather.  The children had a great time learning some of the behind the scenes secrets of his job!  We continued with our exploration of weather this week by learning about the characteristics of the different climate zones: polar, desert, tropical, temperate, and continental.  After reading some nonfiction articles about these climate zones, the children worked in groups to generate the characteristics of the weather in that climate.  Which climate would your child like to travel to? They will use this information to do a project next week!

In math, we worked on telling time this week. The goal in third grade is to be able to tell time to the minute on an analog clock.  We practiced identifying times on a clock and practiced drawing the hands on a clock to show times.  We also worked with timelines and were introduced to the idea of elapsed time.  Next week, we will work on measuring mass and liquid volume.

Our nonfiction books in writer's workshop are coming along! This week we learned about elaborating and adding more details to the chapters.  One way this can be done is by using partner sentence. A partner sentence describes, explains, or gives and example of the sentence that comes before it.  We also learned how to write an introduction, grabbing the audience's attention and explaining what they will learn when reading the nonfiction book.

Miss Niles' class learned how to use Google Slides when Jeff Badillo, our technology educator visited this week.  Google Slides is a way to present information.  They are each working on a Google slideshow to accompany their nonfiction books.  Ask your child to show you his or her Google slide show so far!

We apologize for any confusion regarding Progress Reports.  The "send home" date has been changed and you will not receive your child's progress report until next Friday, February 3rd.  Have a great weekend!

Fiber Art: Weaving with Bradie

Jacob's mom came to Miss Niles' class on Friday to continue with our Fiber Art series.  This time she taught the children about the history of weaving and they began their own weaving using a paper plate as their loom. It was such a mindful and calming activity!

Winter Ways

This month in Hands on Nature the focus was on "Winter Ways": how animals and plants react and change with winter weather. Throughout the lesson we learned about how some animals migrate, hibernate, stay active, or become dormant.  Can your child give you an example of an animal that migrates and one that hibernates?

In math, we finished Unit 3 by learning the standard algorithm for subtraction (also called the regrouping method.  Although students are not expected to master this algorithm until fourth grade, we introduced this as one way the children can subtract multi-digit numbers.  We compared this to other strategies we have used (decomposing, number lines) and determined which strategies work best for certain problems.  Next week, we will start a new math unit.  In this math unit, we will explore time, measurement (volume), and fractions.

During theme, we began studying weather.  We first focused on weather vocabulary and weather tools, such as temperature and thermometer.  Each day for the next two weeks we will be making temperature observations and collecting data about the high temperature from three locations around the world:  Shelburne, Vermont, Castries, Saint Lucia, and Cairo, Egypt.  After collecting the data, we graph this data and make some observations about temperature in different climates.  Next week, we will be learning about the different climate zones in the world.

In Writer's Workshop, we continued to work on writing chapters for our non fiction books.  This week we learned about writing different types of chapters: descriptive chapters, sequence chapters, and comparison chapters.  The children learned how to use several graphic organizers and then write from the graphic organizers.  In Reader's Workshop, we continued reading more non fiction and find the main idea and details of the text.  This week we learned that readers of non fiction will become experts and are able to teach about an what they read.  If your child is reading non fiction at home, see if he or she can teach about that topic!

In Miss Niles' class, Jeff Badillo, our technology educator, has joined us once a week to teach us about Google Docs.  With Jeff, the students learned how to log in to their Google accounts, how to create a new writing document, and how to share it with others.  This week the children had the opportunity to do some creative writing on the laptops and shared their work with me to review.  Your children can access this at home so feel free to ask them to show you how to get into their Google Docs!

Have a great weekend!

Fantastic Ice Show!

We had great time on our field trip to Leddy Park Ice Arena today to see Le Patin Libre.  The ice skaters were amazing with their talent and creativity.  Be sure to ask your child about the show.  What was his or her favorite part?  Can your child tell you about the movements and the music?

This week in math the children continued to work with place value: hundreds, tens, and ones.  They used their place value knowledge as they learned how to do the standard algorithm for adding multi-digit numbers.  You might be wondering...what is the standard algorithm?  This is the traditional way many of us learned how to add numbers in elementary school.  We found that this way of adding numbers is much more efficient than calculating sums on a number line.  Can your child model for you how to add three-digit numbers using this new strategy?

In Reader's and Writer's Workshop we are involved in an informational text study. This week in writing the children took their expert topics and created a table of contents for their books.  Then they began to write the chapters of their books, teaching the audience about their topics.  In reading, we continued to read many nonfiction books and tried to find the main idea of a chapter and the details that support the main idea. We organized our thinking as we read using a graphic organizer called boxes and bullets.

We continued with cursive handwriting this week!  It has been fun to watch as the children become more comfortable writing cursive letters.  Has your child shown you how to form any letters yet?

Lastly, we have had a few issues with children not turning in their reading logs at the end of the month.  Your child's homework is to read and record his or her reading minutes during the month.  If he or she does not turn in the reading calendar, then he or she will not be invited to lunch bunch.  The actual calendar needs to be turned in within in three days of the first of the month. Thank you for supporting your child with this reading homework.

Have a great long weekend!  Remember there is no school on Monday!

Happy New Year!

Welcome back and Happy 2017!  We hope that you had a wonderful holiday season and enjoyed the time with your family!  The children were very excited to see each other on Tuesday morning and were ready to jump into school routines!

We welcomed 2017 by making new year's resolutions or goals for this year.  We reflected upon the year 2016 and the children wrote down some of their highlights from last year.  Then they made a goal for this year.  Ask your child about his or her resolution!

We had a fantastic field trip to the Flynn Theatre on Tuesday!  Cirque Mother Africa was a circus, gymnastics, and musical performance.  The children were dancing in their seats to the rhythmic music and African drumming!  Be sure to ask your child about all the amazing performances!  You can always check out Cirque Mother Africa on YouTube as well.  They have several videos from other performances.  Please note, we are going on another field trip on Friday, January 13th.  It is a show sponsored by the Flynn Theatre called Le Patin Libre; however, this show will not be at the Flynn Theatre.  It is hip-hop, lyrical, and modern dance done on ice skates!!!  We will be watching this performance at the Leddy Park Ice Arena in Burlington.  Since we will be sitting in an ice rink for an hour, please make sure your child is dressed warmly that day!

The start of the new year also brought the start of a new writing unit and a new reading unit.  During both reader's workshop and writer's workshop, we will be focusing on non-fiction and informational writing.  This week in writer's workshop, we talked about how many informational text writers write about topics they care about or know a lot about.  We call these people experts in those topics.  The children all brainstormed a list of topics about which they know a lot and then divided those topics into subtopics which will eventually become the chapters of their non-fiction books.  Ask your child about his or her expert topics!  We also read many non-fiction books this week and began to notice the features of non-fiction books and worked on finding the main idea and details of informational text.  We look forward to a lot of new learning during our non-fiction units!

Have a wonderful weekend!