A Rollercoaster of Weather

We are starting the time of year when the weather is unpredictable. Please watch the forecast and send your child with a jacket or sweatshirt when needed. Recesses can get very breezy when the kids are out in the open.

Here are some of the things we did this week: 
 
Math- This week we were ahead of the other 3rd grade classes in math so we took a step back to review place value and how to add 2-digit numbers. The kids are using a lot of "inventive" math, which I know was strongly pushed in 2nd grade. This year, we are working a lot on solving a standard algorithm.  This includes, lining up our numbers vertically, starting in the ones place, then moving to the tens place. Next we will we move on to the hundreds place with 3-digit addition. The next few weeks we spend on 2-digit and 3-digit addition and subtraction. We have quite a few students need help practicing and memorizing their basic facts (single digit addition and subtraction 0-9). This will be very important as we continue to move through our third grade math curriculum. We will continue practicing them at school, but I would like your help with this at home also. I have created a page at the top of links to work on math facts. Basic flashcards can work wonders too though. Ideally, third graders would have these memorized as we go through our year. Otherwise when we get to multiplication and division, lessons can be rather cumbersome. :)      

Reading- This week we read Pop's Bridge by Eve Bunting. 

In this story a boy named Robert tells the story of watching his father and a thousand co-workers build the Golden Gate Bridge over the San Francisco Bay during the 1930s. He refers to the project as "Pop's Bridge" believing his father's role as an ironworker (or as called in the book a Skywalker) is more significant than those of the other workers. Robert and his friend Charlie Shu, whose dad is a painter on the bridge, watch the bridge's progress through binoculars from Fort Point. They also spend their time creating putting together a jigsaw puzzle of the design of the Golden Gate Bridge. An accident happens on the bridge leaving Robert with a new appreciation for all of the construction workers, including Charlie's dad. This helped up discuss the emphasis on team work, and how everyone is important and plays an equal part, no matter what job they complete.

Writing- This week the students wrote a story of "Mrs. Yuska is Missing," when I was absent on Monday. The rest of the week has been spent making T-charts to plan and writing a personal narrative paragraph or story. Here are some of the tools we used to help guide our writing:

T-chart to plan out our writing

What is Narrative Writing?

Going from a big topic to a specific topic

The difference of a Personal Narrative

 
Science and Social Studies- A lot has changed on our plants though out the week. Since plants change daily, we are keeping a log with the number of days since we planted, the date, an illustration, and at least 3 sentences worth of observations. We also take the time to measure our plants daily.

This week we spent a few days discussing the parts of a plant as well as each parts importance.  Look! A lot of our plants bloomed flowers today.

Today we introduced honeybees. The kids each received a freeze-dried honeybee, which they were able to take an up close and personal look at. We glued our honeybees to a toothpick to get ready to use to pollinate our plants and discuss their interdependence. We will continue talking a lot about the parts of a plant and a bee for the next few weeks.

Big ideas for science this week:
1)Plants need soil, water, and light to survive.
2) Plants are made up of roots, stems, leaves, and flowers. (Later we will take a look at the parts of a flower, too)
3) Plants, just like people grow at their own pace. But also like people, plants can have growth spurts.

When we planted our plants, we also planted a "root view" garden. The kids were very excited to see that we were starting to have some growth. We can now see tiny carrot sprouts, no onion sprouts yet, and there is a lot of growing going on underneath of our lima bean seed coat. :)

Today we had electronic time as a reward for filling our Brownie Point Tray. Yes, it is a baking tray covered in paper brownies! :) I was so impressed with the kids. Even though they each had their own piece of technology, which would make it easy to isolate themselves. They were all interactive and stilled played with each other. This is really a great group of kids!

Upcoming dates: 
Rest of September- I should be here and hopefully we will finally have "normal" weeks of school! It has been crazy that we have not had a single week yet of all 5 full days of school. 

Have a great weekend! 
Mrs. Jodie Yuska