No spelling words this week. This week is a vocabulary development week. The vocab words are all action verbs relating to fast and slow movements. We are engaging in word activities for the following words: run, jog, strut, dawdle, sprint and hustle. ![]() What do you know about a bar of soap? The class responded... It gets slimy and slippery when wet. The soap foams. It's fun to play with a bar of soap in the tub and squeeze the bar letting it fly out of your hands. Soap smells good. We use soap to wash our bodies. Today in science we began with a fun experiment and used the scientific process to help us think like scientists. We started by making observations and sharing what we already know about a bar of ivory soap. Students shared that water makes a bar of soap foamy, slippery and eventually disappear. Next we posed a question. What will happen to the bar of soap when heat from a microwave is applied? We made a hypothesis. To summarize our class thought the bar of soap would melt, explode, turn to liquid like butter does or slowly disintegrate. The next step was to conduct the experiment: 1. microwave 2. bar of ivory soap 3. parchment or wax paper or a microwavable bowl (Put the bar of soap on the parchment paper in the microwave. Cook 1-2 minutes. Careful may be hot when taking it out of the microwave.) After conducting the experiment we then need to draw conclusions about our hypothesis and what we learned. Surprise! The results were very unexpected. The results were incredible. The class enjoyed feeling the bar of soap after it came out of the microwave. Different responses were that the soap looked like a marshmallow, it feels like tissue paper, it crushed into a powder that looks like powdered sugar... I caution that the powder may cause sneezing or a little coughing. The ivory is very fragrant. Your child is bringing home a little bit of our experiment to try to push their thinking. Some plan to try more experiments like adding water to the sample that they are bringing home -or- adding water and putting it in the freezer -or- redoing the experiment at home. Yes. We did microwave Ivory brand soap. We have a room full of scientists! So curious and excited. The final step of the scientific process is to report the results. I'm sure your child will be excited to report the results to you.
I forgot to mention a great online site our class enjoyed. It is www.gonoodle.com Our class had fun exercising, dancing, singing... There are brief videos that get your child moving to fun music. There are high energy movement videos as well as calming movement videos. Many kids requested that I share this site with families. Enjoy! Today was a wonderful day of fitness! Fun! Fundraising! This morning our third graders ran a total of 192 laps. Wow! (6 laps=1 mile) How many miles did our class run? (Work with your family to answer this question and bring in the answer on Monday for a prize-no calculators please. Share how you found the answer). Our class enjoyed the really really fun music. Nevaeh shared, "This helped us run fast because it was really good music." Olivia and Jordan shared that they thought it was fun to do the Macarena dance while they were enjoying snack and cheering on the next group (5th grade).
In thinking about fitness, we came up with a lot of words such as dancing, running, jumping, gymnastics, swimming, walking, stretching, jogging, basketball, biking, hiking, kayaking... This make Jessica think that all of those words are ways to get exercise. "You need a lot of energy to do those things," replied Kendalynn. Brave and daring Mr. Gualtieri had blue hair today. Mr. Gualtieri and Mr. Woodworth let the entire school try to dunk them with water. Brrrrr. Each student was able to throw a ball at the target. I'm sure you'll hear more stories. At the end of the day we had the Run Run Assembly. What an exciting end to the day. Our class tied for first place in collecting Fundraising Donations. Wow! Thank you to all that organized, donated, came out to cheer our third graders and volunteer to make this day a success. What an incredible day! Today we had fun in math. We were island hopping through the islands of ten. We used chalk to create the islands and connected the islands with a chalk drawn bridge. The islands are 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100. The class helped fill in the numbers in between each of the islands. Next we were able to use our chalk islands/bridges like a number line. If you are standing on number 22, what island are you closer to? Answer: 20. It was fun hopping to the closest island. To support their thinking they could explain that the number 22 is 2 hops from 20, but 8 hops to 30. It was wonderful to be able to stand on the number line to see that they were physically standing closer to island 20.
In spelling we were learning a spelling strategy to use words that we know to help spell other words. The base words were car, train, bike and van. If you can spell train then that helps you to spell strain, brain, main... We learned that this does not apply for all words. After using the rhyming strategy we need to ask if the word looks right. Spelling Test tomorrow: again, because, could, favorite, have, into, off, they, were, with. In reading we continued to read with independence. Some students were able to conference with Mrs. Mack, the reading support teacher. She has been such a great resource. As she gets to know our readers she has been recommending books based upon your child's interests. Several students went book shopping for books to put in his/her reading tubs so that they have a wide variety of books to read during reading workshop. In writing we continued to make observations about strong setting leads. Today we experimented with writing a shared experience moment with a strong setting lead. What was special about this shared experience write was that everyone participated in the same moment. It was very interesting to hear all of the different ways the class wrote the setting lead for the same moment. Fun Run tomorrow! Wear your BLE spirit shirts and get ready to have some fun and run! Today your child went to the computer lab and logged into Reflex Math, on-line math facts program. Your child will be bringing home the username and password tomorrow.
We have received our red shirts for the Fun Run on Friday. Your child will be bringing home his/her shirt tomorrow. Please wear it to school on Friday. In reading we are continuing to read independently for our Unit: Reading with Independence. Your child began recording books on the reading log. This log will be used to help us learn about ourselves as readers and set reading goals. In math we were beginning our understanding of rounding to the nearest ten. We will continue to develop our understanding of what rounding is. A question I asked the class, "Why do we round numbers?" Check in with your child to see if they have started to come up with how rounding can be useful. In writing we used a mentor text to notice good qualities of a personal narrative. We focused on the lead. We noticed that interesting titles grab our attention and make us what to hear more. The title was "Caribbean Adventure". We often write titles such as my vacation but noticed that the word "adventure" brought ideas such as a story of exploration and discovery. Caribbean made the kids want to learn more about that place. The beginning of the story that we used has what we call a setting lead. The beginning includes who and where the story takes place. Noticing traits of a strong lead helps the students realize the importance of descriptive words like "turquoise water" and sea urchins with "pointy black spines". This helps us to visualize the story. Picture Day...
Your child is bringing home picture proofs. Order deadline is September 30th. (Next Tuesday) Running of the Bulldogs... Our Fun Run Fundraiser is this Friday, September 26. Third grade is participating first thing in the morning at 8:50 in the gym. Please join us from 8:50-9:50. At the end of the day we have a school-wide celebration in the gym at 3:10. All and any donations are greatly appreciated. This is Bailey Lake's largest fundraiser for the year. Your child will be receiving a red grade level "spirit shirt" to wear on Friday. T-shirts are compliments of generous sponsors supporting our school. Spelling... Remember to study the for Friday's spelling test: again, because, could, favorite, have, into, off, they, were, with Today in math we continued to work on our place value understanding. We were representing numbers with base ten pieces and this helps us to understand the value of each digit in a number.
In writing we wrote a non-fiction sample. Students thought about a self-selected topic that they know a lot about. Then students wrote an informational text that teaches others interesting and important information/ideas about that topic. Our class met Mrs. Moscovic. She will be teaching social studies to our class. The third grade focus this year is Michigan. In reading we talked about choosing "Just Right" books. I had our class reflect on our feelings about reading. Some truly love it. Others were very honest to share their true thoughts about reading such as it is challenging, too long to sit and read, not my favorite... Our goal is to develop a love of reading for all. At the end of the day we enjoyed an extra recess (a.k.a. Bulldog Time). Yippee. Thank you for all of the donations for the Fun Run/Running of the Bulldogs fundraiser. As of Friday we have brought in a total of $385. More donations came in today. Thank you again for supporting all of the wonderful BLE programs such as Field Trips, Field Day, Reflex Math, Talent Show and so much more! Remember to study the spelling words for Friday's Spelling Test: again, because, could, favorite, have, into, off, they, were, and with. Reflex Math: It is an on-line math facts program. Your child will be coming home this week with information on how to access the Reflex Math site with his/her username and password. ![]() Number Talks- This is an activity that we do to help build our mental math and computation strategies. Today we were adding 47 +33. I recorded the students thinking on this chart. This may seem very confusing. Ask your child to explain the strategy that he or she used. ![]() Here is a chart we created in math. We are working on expanding our understanding of numbers so that we can have mental representations as well as develop vocabulary to explain our thinking when working with numbers. Students were building the number 43 with base ten blocks. This chart is a summary of how we can represent the number 43. Shelby shared that base ten blocks are like counters that help us to count. Then Kendall shared we can use base ten blocks to help us count. Base ten blocks help us to understand the value of each digit in a number. |
AuthorMichelle Simecek Archives
July 2016
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