Welcome to 3D!

The Grade 3's have experienced their first week of school. The students are starting to find their way around the classroom and will continue to practice their daily routines. Each student understands that they serve an important role in the classroom. These super smart third graders came up with a set of classroom rules that they believe are extremely important in order to have a happy and welcoming environment to learn in. 3D parents should be super proud of their third grader because they are kind, helpful, and brighten up our classroom in their own special way.

LITERACY

We started off the week by reading the Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig. The invisible boy, Brian feels that nobody ever seems to notice him or think to include him in their group, game, or birthday party, until, a new student joins his class. When Justin, the new boy arrives, Brian is the first to make him feel welcome. This story shows how small acts of kindness can help children feel included and allow them to flourish.
The book inspired our "Making Words" mystery word: TEAMWORK. Students are given a set of scrambled letters and asked to create 2,3,4,5, 6 letter words using only the letters provided (ie. A E O K M R T W). Once the students come up with a few of these words independently they pair up with a peer and try to come up with some more words together. Finally, we come together as a class and the students share the words they have created and try to figure out what the mystery word is (they needed some hints). 

MATHEMATICS

This week the students began their Patterns Unit. To start it off, we reviewed the strategy of Counting On. The students played a quick game of Addition War to practice the skill of counting on. With this skill we were able to move forward and determine the difference between two numbers. 

SCIENCE

This year the students will be faced with various questions and will use those questions to be the driving force into becoming innovative problem solvers and creative thinkers while exploring the world around them. The students had an exciting start to the year by being faced with not one but two challenges! 

The first being called Save Sam.
"Sam has been boating on the lake but he frequently forgets to put on his life preserver. He never learned to swim and disaster has struck. Sam's boat has capsized! He was able to crawl on top of his boat but as luck would have it, his life preserver is under his boat. Sam needs your help to not only reach the life preserver but to put it on so he won't drown."
The students were paired up and received two paper clips. They were allowed to touch the boat, life preserver and Sam with only the paper clips. At not time were they allowed to 'injure' Sam and if they dropped Sam, he drowned and they would have to start over. The students were responsible for creating a design of their plan before they were allowed to save Sam. 






















Next, students took part in an Apple Experiment. In this experiment, the third graders learned about the importance of 'fair testing'. I cut an apple into equal quarters and I placed these quarters into 4 different liquids: water, vinegar, milk and lemon juice. The students were asked to make a reasonable prediction (hypothesis) about which apple would be the least brown. The students ranked the apples in the four liquids from least brown to most brown. The results are in! The apple in the lemon juice was the least brown then milk then water and lastly the apple in the vinegar was the most brown.
Our first unit is Rocks and Minerals. As a class, each student shared a sentence or two about what they already know about rocks and/or minerals. Next, they had the opportunity to look at a variety of rocks and minerals. This activity increased their curiosity about rocks and minerals and the students wrote down one or more questions that they had about rocks and minerals. 



















Highlights of the Week

Name Bookmarks! 





Garth Prince Performance


Free Choice Friday




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