Specials Schedule:

Monday- Music

Tuesday- Art and Spanish

Wednesday- Library

Thursday- Spanish

Friday- PE

Classroom Updates:

December 9th

Hello 3P Families!

I hope this last update of 2021 finds everyone well.

Math- Today, your children took their Unit 3 math assessment. This tested the kids on three digit addition and subtraction, interpreting and creating scaled bar graphs, and using arrays to add or subtract a group and solve extended multiplication facts.

Science- We have begun our animal research- your children are having such a great time! We have kids researching everything from Basilisk Lizards to Sloth Bears. We have had two research days devoted to finding information from library books. Today, we will start using internet sources to supplement any information that they couldn't find. Today will likely be the last research day, meaning that tomorrow we will begin putting our research into paragraphs.

Writing- In writing, we have been preparing for our upcoming writing project by observing and finding patterns within words and letter sounds. Taking a closer look at our spelling will be helpful when kids start to type their full animal writing piece.

Reading- We are in the middle of a three-book rotation, meaning that our class has students reading three different books. When book groups meet with me, children who are working independently will do "word work" exercises, use Readwords or Lexia, practice comprehension and inferences with small reading passages, have the opportunity to write poetry, and work on book talks.

SEL- We have been talking as a class about how to play recess games fairly, even when we feel like other students are being unfair. This is a difficult skill, as it is harder to put into action than it is to explain in words. I feel that your children area making much progress with this skill, and I think that they think so, too.

Starting in the new year, I will be sending out classroom updates differently. Stay tuned, and have a wonderful new year!

November 22nd,

Your students have been very busy in 3P!

Math- We are practicing new addition and subtraction strategies for three digit numbers- we call these the partial sums strategy and the counting-up strategy, respectively. These strategies both aim to make the concepts of addition and subtraction clearer to young learners.

Reading- We have started our first individual reading groups! In three groups, we are reading The Year of the Panda by Miriam Schlein, Who Stole the Wizard of Oz? by Avi, and Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things by Lenore Look. Reading groups create opportunities for independent work and partner work without as much adult support, which is a deliberate choice. Students will do word work activities, use Lexia, read short passages, and read and write poetry when they are not meeting with their book group.

Writing- We are continuing to work on letter-writing and using evidence to support our ideas. Writing about our new books is a great way to facilitate this growth. Your students will begin a larger writing project next week.

Science- After learning about all five vertebrate groups broadly, students broke into five groups to research specific vertebrate groups and create a poster to present to the class with information that they learned. They had a great time and did a wonderful job working together!

November 8th

Hello all! It was so great to speak with you last week at conferences. Here's what's going on in our classroom:

Math- We are about to take our Unit 2 math assessment. This unit included basic and extended facts with addition and subtraction, one and two-step number stories, arrays and multiplication models, and representing division. We made Halloween-themed pictures of two-step math problems- they're hanging in the hallway now!

Reading- We are going to finish reading The Hundred Dresses this week. Your students have been doing a wonderful job writing about their reading and explaining their own comprehension of the story. We are also reading books about animals that are fiction but include nonfiction information, which is a new type of text for us. Currently, we are reading books that fit this theme that are all written by author Janell Cannon. The discussions we are having help us when we look at nonfiction texts about animals.

Writing- We are writing letters about our reading and writing letters to share information with friends and teachers. This mode of conversation/presentation of information is something your students are seeing often in our classroom.

Science- We are looking deeper at the differences between vertebrate and invertebrate groups. Videos, pictures, nonfiction texts, and fictional texts are all sources of information. After talking more specifically about each vertebrate group, we will look closer at habitats and the adaptations that help animals to survive in their habitats.

SEL- Our most recent SEL conversations have explored how we can use self-control when we are feeling frustrated. When we feel frustrated, we need to, first, choose a breathing exercise and give it a try (for example, lazy 8 breathing), and then decide the size of the problem in order to choose a course of action. Your children are working so hard to practice these skills!

October 20th

Hello from 3P!

Below you can see pictures of our classroom and our classwork from this week and last week. In Math, we began looking at number stories. We identified models that can be used to help us solve them. Soon, we will start multi-step number stories. In Writing, we started crafting an informational paragraph together as a whole class. This will help us when we write individual informational paragraphs using our spider and bat research. To support our writing, we have been reading a variety of nonfiction texts and identifying helpful text features. In Social Studies, we had a visit from the Concord Museum over Zoom where we learned about artifacts and how they help us learn about the past. We have been reading more about Wampanoag peoples and their settlements in Musketaquid. Tomorrow, we will make models of wetus and the settlements they were located in.

October 8th

We had a busy week in 3P!

In Social Studies, we read about Indigenous tribes of Massachusetts starting in the early 1600s. We are focusing on how Native peoples were able to meet their basic needs with just resources found in nature. Today, we had a discussion about Indigenous People's Day and read parts of "We Are Still Here" by Traci Sorrell.

In Math, we focused mainly on masses and using pan balances and on multiplication and division with arrays. Your children filled graph paper with colorful arrays to practice making multiplication sentences with rows and columns.

In Reading, we finished up our first novel, "My Name is Maria Isabel" by Alma Flor Ada. We also read a set of texts featuring generations of families in different cultures and talked about the power and purpose of storytelling within families. Yesterday, we created a diagram to represnet how the stories we read are similar and different and talked about how we interact with generations in our own families.

In Writing, we began to talk about the features of nonfiction/informational text. This was supported by our Social Studies reading. Next week, we will begin a writing project that involves researching and organizing information. Kids are typically very excited about this festive project- October is the perfect time to research spiders and bats! We also spent time reading and writing poetry, as we have done every week.

September 29th

Your students are hard at work in our classroom! Here's a look at what we have been learning about:

Math- Currently, we are talking about how to represent multiplication and division problems. We are drawing equal groups, creating arrays, and using repeated addition/subtraction to help us. Modeling with index cards and counters or with shapes on Google Classroom is helping us to visualize multiplication and division.

Reading- We have begun reading our first class novel, My Name is Maria Isabel. Your students are using supplementary texts to create deeper connections and understanding of the story. Two of these books are Under the Lemon Moon and The Name Jar.

Writing- We are focusing on reading comprehension strategies and, specifically, how to use writing to demonstrate our comprehension. Our most recent comprehension strategy is summarizing.

Social Studies- Social Studies in third grade begins with a look at what history is and why we study it. Then, we start to examine the geography of New England and, specifically, Concord. This leads into learning about the Wampanoag tribe.

SEL- We are having many conversations about what it means to be a friend and what it means to be a helpful classmate. As the year continues, we will keep having discussions and acting-out situations that help students form an idea of who they want to be as a friend and what kinds of qualities they look for in a friend.