What a week we've had here in third grade! In addition to completing their academic work, students participated in Read4Fund$ activities throughout the week. In math this week, students continued practicing telling time on an analog clock. We took things a step further by solving elapsed time word problems. One of our whole-group tasks was to solve a problem called "All Aboard" from Graham Fletcher's 3-Act Tasks. The problem asks students to determine how long it will take a train to pass based on a few pieces of evidence. Everyone did a great job collaborating and working to complete the task together. Feel free to click below and try to solve it yourself! In reader’s workshop, our focus has been on developing deeper theories about characters based on the patterns we perceive. As a class, we discussed how theories are often like icebergs; it’s easy to see the top 10% but we need to look deeper to see the remaining 90%. Often, readers develop what we refer to as ‘surface level’ theories based on simple observations. To successfully dive deeper, readers must track patterns and truly know a character’s personality traits. Expert readers move beyond asking ‘what’ and transition into the ‘why’. This is very much a complex way of thinking, and we will keep practicing in the weeks to come. This week, we also learned about the Australian bushfires that took place last year. Third graders researched what bushfires are, how they impact the environment, and what has happened to Australia’s wildlife because of them. Sadly, over a billion animals likely perished due to the fires. Thankfully, wildlife conservation groups and are helping to save what's left of Australia’s iconic animals. Next week, we’ll expand our learning to that of animal endangerment itself. Each third grader will then choose an animal to study as part of an endangered animal research project. Cottonwood's Read4Fund$ fundraiser was a huge success this week! Students were eager to get in some extra reading minutes and loved tracking their progress. Reminder that donations/pledges are due back 2/5 and prize day will be celebrated 2/17. Thanks so much for your support and generosity. Below are some pictures of 3rd graders earning those reading minutes! What a week! As we jumped back into in-person learning, students took some time to catch up with one another. One of our learning targets this week was defining successful collaboration. Students learned that cooperation is a life skill and helped to develop a collaboration rubric for our classroom. To test out out their collaborative skills, students took part in a socially distanced team-building activity that involved popsicle sticks, rubber bands, a plastic spoon and marshmallows... Be sure to ask your student about what they built with their team! Math this week was all about using number lines to compare unit fractions. Third graders worked on ordering fractions from least to greatest on a number line and filling in shapes with a specific fraction in mind. To further master their skills, students collected data on each others' eye colors and plotted the information on a number line. Third graders learned that 3/5 of their classmates have brown eyes, 1/5 have blue, and the remaining 1/5 have hazel or green eyes. This week in Writer's/Reader's Workshop, our focus was on tracking character change in fictional stories (all of which featured themes related to attitude). To start things off, we read The Bad Seed. As a class, we discussed how the main character's attitude and disposition were impacted by events in his past and those around him. We then read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. We compared the main characters from both books, noting how they are similar and different. We then discussed how a willingness to change impacted their overall attitude.
Next, we watched the Pixar Short, Boundin'. The video's theme song features the phrase "Bound and Rebound." In groups, third graders developed and shared strategies that they use to move from a negative attitude to a more positive one. To round out the week, third graders were asked to determine the meaning of the Helen Keller quote featured below. They did a wonderful job finding the underlying theme and had many insightful responses! The focus on maintaining a positive attitude proved to be a great way to transition back into our work as third graders. We will continue to focus on maintaining positivity and what strategies we can use to do just that! |
Author
Mrs. Minatta is a third grade teacher at Cottonwood Creek Elementary. See and read all about what third graders are up to throughout the school year! Archives
March 2021
|