Weekly Update: February 28, 2020

Happy Friday 3B Parents!

The class and I had a great week back from vacation! Everyone was well-rested and ready to get to work!

Important Upcoming Events:

·         Next week, March 2^nd-March 6^th----Reading Week (see below for details)

·         Friday, March 6^th---Chapter 3 Social Studies Test

·         Friday, March 13^th----No School (Faculty PD Day)

·         Friday, March 20^th ----Report Cards/MAP Scores go home

 Here is our schedule for Reading Week:

·         Tuesday-Crazy Socks Day and Drop Everything And Read (DEAR) Day! The third graders will have a special day. We are going to focus the entire day on reading! Students will be meeting in book clubs, reading to self, reading to buddies, listening to reading on the Kindle, and using Epic on the computer. Students are allowed to bring in a pillow, blanket, slippers to cozy up for a day full of reading. They should bring in enough books to last for the day! 

o   We are also hoping to have some secret pop-in readers throughout the day. If anyone is interested in coming in and being a guest reader for a short story (around 8-10 minutes) please send me an email with a couple of times that work best for you. We are hoping for 4 guest readers. Unfortunately, we cannot schedule more than that so it will be first come, first serve!  Times that won’t work for us include: 11:10pm-12pm, and 1:00-1:45pm.

·         Friday is dress as your favorite book character day.  Come to school as your favorite character! 

Math: We began Topic 8 this week. Students circulated through math rotations as I used my small group time to reinforce and strengthen division skills. This will be our last topic on multiplication/division before moving on to fractions.

Reading: Students continued learning how to find the main idea/supportive details in a fiction story. We read Enemy Pie and discussed the main idea. Students discovered that the theme was to never judge someone before getting to know them. With the theme in mind students identified the events in the story that supported the theme.

Next, week we will read an informational text called, I Wonder Why Penguins Can’t Fly. Lessons will focus on discovering the main idea in a non-fiction text.

Grammar- This week students learned about pronouns. We will continue this next week.

Religion: This week lessons focused on the beginning of lent. We enjoyed a wonderful Ash Wednesday service and had multiple discussions about our Lenten sacrifices. One thing we decided on as a class was to spend time in personal prayer every day. To help, students are learning how to focus their prayer using The 5 Finger Prayer model.

Art Docent: This week students enjoyed a wonderful presentation about the Impressionist artists: Monet and Renoir. After the presentation, students completed their very own Impressionist garden scene.

*Please see the handout attached to email for more information!

Science: Students received a letter from the mayor of a fictional town who needed the help of environmental engineers. Plants and animals in the town were mysteriously getting sick and dying even though everything seemed to be operating as normal. Students learned about pH levels and how soil and water that is too acidic or too basic can cause harm to the environment. Students tested the pH of soil and water samples sent to the school from “Mayor Higgens” from different parts of the town. They compared their pH levels to that measured 3 years ago and decided if a dramatic change in the pH had occurred.  Students then decided if they thought this location was polluted based on their data results.

Weekly Update: February 14, 2020

Happy February Vacation 3B Parents!

I know many of you will be traveling so I wish you all a wonderful and safe trip!

The class enjoyed an amazing enrichment assembly earlier this week with a visit from Scott Cannon. His message to the kids delivered through music, miming, and skits was that when they are angry to turn their anger into energy. They learned to think before they speak because what they say could last a lifetime. He talked about his experience with being bullied as a kid and taught them how what you say can cause someone hurt for a lifetime or change a person’s life for the better.

The class also had a wonderful Valentine’s Day party today! Thank you again for to our amazing parent volunteers! Check out some pictures below!

Math: We have finished working through Topic 7. Students seem to be doing well with learning their division facts. It is clear that the students have been making studying their multiplication facts a priority. Students are now consistently passing their tests and making their way up through the facts. It is wonderful to see and we are hoping they will continue on this trend. 

Reading: This week lessons focused on determining the central message of a story and how to distinguish between major events and minor events. We read the book The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses and discussed the central message. Students learned that the central message is the main point or lesson the author wants to make to the reader that could be applied to their own life. The class decided that the central message in this

particular book was to: Always encourage people to continue to do what they love! 

Later, we sorted various story events based on how significant they were to the central message of the book. 

After reading, students recorded how the character responded to the major events of the story. Her responses were useful in determining the central message of the story. 

Weekly Update: February 7, 2020

Happy Friday 3B Parents!

Important Upcoming Events:

• Thursday, February, 13th---Topic 7 Math Test
• Friday, February 14^th---Valentine’s Day Party
• February 17^th-February 21^st---School Vacation

Math: We are almost finished working through Topic 7. Students have been introduced to division. As we dive deeper into this concept students are naturally beginning to confuse division with the rest of the operations. To help their understanding students have learned key words that help them know which operation to use when working through a word problem. They will be having a math test next Thursday. 

You can help: Try giving your child different types of word problems to see if they can decipher which operation to use. Look below for examples and important key words to include.

Addition-putting equal or unequal groups together to find the whole. 

Key Words: in all, altogether, total

Mrs. Ferullo has 4 red pens and 5 green pens. How many pens does she have altogether?

Multiplication- putting only equal groups together to find the whole/total. These word problems tell us how many groups and how many are in each group. 

Key Words: product, each, multiply, times, twice as many, multiple, per, in all, altogether

Mrs. Ferullo has 4 clusters of desks; there are 5 desks in each cluster. How many desks in all?

Subtraction-   Taking something away, comparing numbers (who has more, how many/much more), or finding a missing number.

 Key Words- difference, how many left, how many more?

Mrs. Ferullo has 35 pencils. She gives 17 away. How many pencils are left?

Division- Sharing equally. In these word problems, we already know the whole and have to find either how many groups or how many in each group.

 Key Words: quotient, divided by, each group, how many groups, how many in each, shared, split, separated, equally.

Finding Groups:

Mrs. Ferullo has 21 students. She has 3 desks in each cluster. How many clusters does she have?

Finding How Many in Each Group:

Mrs. Ferullo has 21 students. She puts an equal number of desks in each cluster. If she has 7 clusters, how many desks are in each cluster?

Reading: This week lessons continued to focus on cause and effect. Students learned that cause is why something happens and effect is what actually happens because of the cause. We read Alexander's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. We then discussed the different causes and effects that occurred in the book and listed them on an anchor chart. 

Next, we read Strega Nona. We then discussed how one big cause, can have multiple effects. 

In the book Strega Nona told Big Anthony to never touch her Magic Pasta Pot. We find out that when Big Anthony disobeys Strega Nona and touches the pot, many different things happen!

Writing: Students are working very hard on their personal narrative stories! Students will soon be ready to revise, edit, and lastly publish! This week we focused on using sensory details in our writing. Students used their "mini office" writing resource to help them replace basic words with vivid verbs and descriptive adjectives and adverbs. They are getting very good at including what they saw, heard, smelt, and felt while they were living through their moment. I am very impressed with the writing I am seeing from this group!

Grammar: Students gained a greater understanding of adverbs this week and are seeing the benefits of using them to be more descriptive in their writing.