What's Happening

Math

We have been practicing our multiplication strategies over the past few weeks and learning different ways to think about multiplication. The expectations for Grade 3 are as follows:

relate multiplication of one-digit numbers and division by one-digit divisors to real life situations, using a variety of tools and strategies (e.g., place objects in equal groups, use arrays, write repeated addition or subtraction sentences) (Sample problem: Give a real-life example of when you might need to know that 3 groups of 2 is 3 x 2.);
multiply to 7 x 7 and divide to 49 ÷ 7, using a variety of mental strategies (e.g., doubles, doubles plus another set, skip counting).

As a class, we have been working on showing multiplication in different ways such as: skip counting, equal groups, repeated addition, an array, and a model. An extra challenge was to create your own word problem that would require you to use multiplication.

Please see below some of the activities that we have been working on in class

Language

We have been focusing on lettering writing in class. Writing letters to each other, to people in our community, and to myself, the teacher. Letters should contain different sections including: date, greeting, body of letter (including details, different sentence structures, and different punctuation), a closing, signature, and post script (if chosen). Students have worked on generating different greetings and closings, identifying where different sections belong on a paper, as well as creating interesting and on topic details.

Next, students have focused on using letter writing as a way to convince their audience of something. We discussed different persuasive techniques that help to convince someone to do something or to convince something of something. These techniques include:

Use facts or opinions
Argue the opposite
Emotional language
Exaggerate
Make it personal
Rhetorical questions

We are continuing to work on our own pieces of work during our Writer's Workshop time. Students are creating different forms of text to take through the writing process. Each month, the goal is to have students take at least one piece of writing to the publishing stage where they can share with their peers and become part of the Author's Spotlight in our classroom.

The Writing Process

1) Planning and Brainstorming

2) Rough Draft

3) Revising

4) Editing

5) Publishing

Ask your child what form of text they are currently writing in class.

Social Studies

We have taken a break from Social Studies to focus on our Science Structures unit.

Science

We have started our unit Structures! Throughout the next several weeks, we will be looking at strong stable structures and figure out what makes them strong. Students will get to create structures and apply a force to it. We will be exploring different types of bridges and how they are made in order to be strong.

New Vocabulary:

Structure: a supporting framework built to hold a load
Strength: able to withstand great force or pressure
Stable: that is firmly fixed and that can hold heavy loads, and is not easily moved or changed
Load: weight or force that is applied to a structure
Tension: stretching or being stretched
Compression: squeezes something together with a force or load

Check out these experiments that we have done:

EXPERIMENT 1: "What is strong and what is stable?"

Our first experiment involved investigating how to make a structure stable enough to not be pushed over by a finger, and strong enough to hold a textbook. Students decided:

materials are not made the same
shapes can make a difference in strength
something strong does not mean it is stable
shorter structures are stronger and more stable
spreading out the building allows for more stability
materials that "click" together are more stable

EXPERIMENT 2: "How can we increase stability?"

Our second experiment was to find how to make a structure more stable. We decided that tall and skinny buildings have a tendency to be less stable and more "wobbly", whereas low and wide buildings are more stable. Through our experiment, we found a few different ways to make a building more stable:

Use a base to secure the base (think foundation of a building)
Use thicker and heavier materials
Put a structure into another structure and fill the space between to stop toppling, wiggling, and tipping
Stick the structure to the base using a material that will help lessen movement (cement, caulking, glues, welding, etc)

EXPERIMENT 3: "How can we increase strength?"

Our third experiment was to investigate the strength of a "bridge". Students were given one piece of paper to place between two desks that would be able to hold a small book. Students worked in pairs and tried to develop different ideas to hold up their book. Some were able to be successful through creating cylinders like the previous experiment, some folded their papers in various ways, some students cut their paper and others tried different ways to hold their book. Our findings are as follows:

Layering materials helps to strengthen their material
Spreading the load over different areas helped to carry the weight
TRIANGLES ARE THE STRONGEST SHAPE!

The picture to the left came from collaborating our ideas together during a group discussion. We decided that folding this way was creating a paper fan which was strong to move the wind. Not only were we able to hold one book, but we were able to hold up to 7 books before the weight of the load became too much.

Later in the week, we used many different accordion style papers and layered them up and were able to hold 45 books! WOW!

EXPERIMENT 4: "What are tension and what is compression?"

Our last experiment before March break involved discussion the difference between tension (the stretching of a material) and compression (compacting of a material). We started with stretching our bodies as wide as we could and discussed how it felt, then scrunched our bodies as small as possible and talked about the differences. We then partook in a variety of activities to reflect upon tension and compression. Please see some of the pictures below and ask your child to discuss the difference between tension and compression.

Tension

Compression?

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