What We've Been Learning...

Math
We began Unit 2 - Multiplication this week. The kids have been so excited about learning multiplication. As we continue through this unit and the rest of the year, the students should be working on memorizing their basic multiplication facts. Strong fact fluency will ensure success in 4th and 5th grade as well. While we are working on fact fluency in class, we are also working on growing our number sense and our ability to manipulate numbers to help solve a problem. For example, how can you use 2x8 to find the answer to 4x8. 

Reading
This week we dove a little deeper into nonfiction reading by working on determining the main idea and supporting details for a nonfiction text. We have been using a strategy called "boxes and bullets" to help us organize our thinking. I am encouraging students to read some nonfiction at home as well, so after your child has finished reading a section of a text, ask them to think about the main idea and draw a "boxes and bullets" diagram.

Writing
Students worked hard to finish writing their rough drafts of their Real Estate Listing writing project. For this project, we pretended to be real-estate agents and wrote a listing for either a spooky house or a cool mansion. Students worked to incorporate descriptive details in their listings. We talked about how to show our reader, instead of tell them.

Science
This week we began talking about the three states of matter - solid, liquid, and gas. The kids participated in an investigation where they had to determine the state of matter of different objects provided to them. Next week we will discuss this further by learning about how matter changes state. To end this unit, our third grade will host a scientist from the Environmental Protection agency. His matter demonstration is super engaging! Keep an eye out for some fun pictures from this!

What We've Been Learning...

Math
We have completed Unit 3! Students took their Unit 3 assessment today (Thursday). The graded assessments will be coming home with the students tomorrow (Friday). Students have been asked to correct any mistakes and return the tests to me by Wednesday, October 23rd.

Our next math unit is an introduction to multiplication. In this unit students will:

• ​solve multiplication story problems
• represent problems involving multiplication using skip counting, number lines, arrays, and ratio tables
• develop efficient strategies for multiplication facts through 10x10

Reading
We finished our first unit of study - fiction. Our next unit is a study of nonfiction texts. This week students participated in a nonfiction text features scavenger hunt where they explored different types of nonfiction texts and studied the different text features (glossary, index, types of print, headings, subheadings, photographs, etc.)  to figure out how each feature helps them to better understand the text. We will continue our work with nonfiction when we return from break.

Writing
Students have been working hard these past two weeks on two different writing projects:
- Should Kids Have Homework?
-Should Kids Have School the Day After Halloween?

For each of these pieces, students read an article and then used ideas in the article to form their own opinions. Students worked hard to plan out their writing pieces, making sure to include strong reasons and details that support their opinions. They worked hard to write an organized paragraph that persuades their readers.

When we return from Fall Break, we will begin working on a fun, descriptive writing piece. I have created a make-believe real-estate company and each student will write a listing to sell either a spooky, haunted house, or a beautiful mansion (their choice). We already began collaborating with the art teacher, Ms. Thompson, on this project. She guided the students through a drawing project where they were able to make the house they will write about come alive! These projects will be hanging up in our classroom during conference week, so be sure to take a look!

Science
We began our first science unit - Matter and Energy. For the past two weeks students have been participating in hands-on science investigations where they explored the concept of energy - what is energy, where does energy come from, how is energy stored, and how does energy get transferred? When we return from break we will begin to explore the different states of matter.