Happy New Year! I trust everyone had a relaxing break and enjoyed the extra snow day. I confess I've been more than a little jealous of my big brother who lives in Indiana with is family. They seem to have gotten way more than their fair share of snow this week.
With more than two weeks off, we hit the ground well-rested and ready to run. Here's what we did this week:
MATH: We started memorizing our 7 and 8 times tables. We practiced a few different strategies to help us calculate the multiplication facts that we have yet to learn. We solved area, array, and repeated group multiplication problems. We compared different quantities using multiples and fractions. Historically speaking, comparison problems have been a tricky concept for third graders to wrap their minds around. We experienced this earlier in the year when we used addition and subtraction to solve comparison problems. We are experiencing it again as we work to express comparisons in terms of multiples and fractions.
How you can help: Continue to reinforce memorization of the times tables at home. Also, take three minutes to watch the homework tutorial starring Professor #24 below.
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| Click here for the video. |
SCIENCE: We started our new science unit on the Human Body. To introduce the subject, we spent a few moments outside jumping rope with partners. One child jumped while the partner carefully observed which body parts moved. The more closely we observed, the more we realized just how many parts of the human body work together to complete this simple action.
Our first investigation centers around the human skeleton. This week we broke up into four groups. Each group was responsible for counting/estimating the number of bones in an assigned body part. One group counted the bones in the arms, a second group counted the bones in the legs, a third group worked on the skull, and the last group worked on the torso. We'll be comparing our estimated counts to posters depicting the human skeleton next week.
LlTERACY: We read Yonder Mountain; A Cherokee Legend by Robert H. Bushyhead. We made comparisons and contrasts between characters as our comprehension strategy. We used Venn diagrams to organize our thinking.
We also learned about homophones (words that sound alike, but are usually spelled differently and have different meanings,) and homographs (words that are spelled alike, but have different sounds and meanings.) We studied contractions in spelling, and practiced subject-verb agreement in writing.
MISC: Permission slips went home yesterday for our very field trip of the year. On Feb 7, third graders will be heading to the theater to see Pacific Northwest Ballet's Sleeping Beauty. Thank you to all of you who have already returned your slips. A special thank you to all of you who donated an extra dollar or more to be used to provide tickets for those students for whom the ticket price might prove a financial hardship. Click here if you need another permission slip. Keep checking our class blog for upcoming details.
Also, scholastic book orders went home this week. They are due this Wednesday, or consider ordering online using the link at the top of this page.
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