It’s been a fantastic week in 3rd grade! Students did a great job transitioning back into the school routine after Fall Break. It sounds like everyone had a fun and relaxing time! This week in Reader’s Workshop, our focus was on analyzing cause & effect relationships in stories. To start things off, we watched the Pixar short, For the Birds. While watching, third graders worked to determine how these cause/effect relationships impacted the characters in the story. This brought on discussions regarding character change and plot. We will continue learning more about these concepts into next week! We began a new math unit this week: Multi-Digit Addition and Subtraction. The unit centers on rounding strategies and solving 2- and 3- digit addition/subtraction problems. This week, we learned all about rounding to the nearest 10 and 100. Specifically, we focused on why/how we use rounding in everyday life, and how we could use it to help solve complex problems. We will continue with this work next week, and also tackle strategies to use when solving multi-step word problems. In math, we are also ramping up our practice of multiplication facts. A station during our math block gives third graders an opportunity to practice their fact fluency in a number of different formats. I highly encourage third graders to practice their facts (0-12) at home whenever possible, as getting a handle on them now will be immensely helpful in the future! Third graders can access and practice their facts via resources uploaded onto our classroom website under the ‘student resources’ tab. This week also marked the start of a new written response strategy, RACE responses. In short, a RACE response is typically a paragraph in length and is a strategy implemented when a question asks for "evidence from the text." RACE responses are used in the upper grades, as well as on standardized tests. Students will continue practicing these responses in the classroom for the next couple of weeks, and eventually be assigned responses for homework through the remainder of the school year. Business:
It’s been an awesome week in 3rd grade! As our classroom community continues to grow and learn, this week felt like a great time to take a step back and talk about what collaboration truly means and looks like. As a class, we talked about how collaboration can look different, often depending on the activity/day. However, one thing that remains constant is that to be an effective collaborator, one must be willing to listen and work with others. Third graders developed a rubric to live by that details what collaboration looks like, and we will continue using it throughout the school year! This week in third grade, students also jumped into a new writing project with a focus on descriptive and persuasive writing. The project asks third graders to take on the role of a real estate agent. Students must choose to either write a listing for an old, possibly haunted house or a new, top-of-the-line mansion. Listings must be descriptive enough to entice possible buyers! As a class, we talked about the power of adjectives, and the difference between mild vs. spicy descriptive words. Third graders were challenged to develop listings with descriptions that help potential buyers visualize the property and want to buy it. Check out the project explanation below. Reader’s workshop this week centered on one central theme, perseverance. As a class, we used two model texts (Ada Twist: Scientist and After the Fall). While reading the books, third graders were challenged to consider the author’s purpose, particularly what lesson was behind each story. During workshop time, third grade students also read about two noteworthy individuals, Shaquem Griffin and Grace Hopper. The two serve as perfect examples of both perseverance and hard work. Be sure to ask your student about it this weekend! Business:
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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
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