October
October 29th - November 2nd
Students continued to learn about the three branches of government by completing a flipbook. They are learning about important key players in each section, what they do, where they work, how long their terms are, and other important vocabulary. We are continuing to read The Kid Who Ran for President by Dan Gutman. In last weeks reading we discussed how to make accurate predictions and answer comprehension questions by looking back in the text. We also completed a mini lesson on idioms, after having questions about a chapter title (A Mighty Big Can of Worms). I love learning together in the moment and answering questions we all have together. Students loved the author visit on Monday with Jordan Matter. We have a copy of the book in the classroom that the students have been enjoying every day. His ideas of perseverance and risk taking have been integrated into our morning meeting conversations of ‘friendship’. Students have also been finishing and presenting their persuasive monster essays. It has been so fun to watch them share their ideas with the class!
3rd graders give Book Talks (recommendations) to their peers when they finish independent reading books.
A 3rd grader sharing his monster.
Wouldn't you want to own this purple monster?
3rd graders listening to Jordan Matter. It was wonderful!
October 22nd - October 26th
What a wonderful way to end the week with the celebration of Carnival. The third graders had so much fun enjoying all the activities and braving the Haunted Maze. We worked this week on writing persuasive essays with a monster theme. We worked to “save” the teachers and students from Zombies in an escape room type adventure in math! And we got to winterize the garden with our fourth grade friends. Students also began to think and reflect about our new Morning Meeting theme of ‘Friendship’. We read the book the Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig and talked about what friendship means to us. I was so impressed when third graders started making connections to our previous theme of ‘Belonging’. In reading, the third graders began reading The Kid Who Ran for President by Dan Gutman. This is a wonderful story that ties into our government unit. We will use this story to focus on characterization. We also read articles this week about the upcoming midterm elections. We specifically are looking at how this election creates changes within the House of Representatives and the Senate. The students are asking a lot of good questions. In math we are practicing our multi-digit subtraction skills and really focusing on being able to explain the process of regrouping. We are also looking at subtraction and addition problems through word problems.
Everyone had fun at Carnival!
"In two straight lines..."
Happy Halloween!
There were so many fun activities in the gym!
Trying to decipher the message with the Emoji Decoder
Multi tasking to solve the next clue.
Oh no! Help us third graders!
Working as a team solving math problems.
Working in the garden.
October 15th - October 19th
We started our next integrated unit this week: The US Government! The students will be learning about the three branches of government, different presidents, learning to write and pass a bill within our class government, and keep an eye on the elections this term. They were all very excited to begin their studies and had a lot of questions. In reading, third graders were exposed to different reading strategies (visualizing, asking questions, making connections, inferencing, and synthesizing). We will practice each of these skills in depth this fall as we read fiction and non-fiction. The students also learned how to use a Double Entry Journal. This is a way to record our thinking as we read. A piece of paper is split into two columns. On one side is something new that was learned, or a connection or question, and on the other side of the paper is the response. They did a wonderful job making entries and explaining how it helped them understand the text better. Within our government unit, third graders will learn to write a persuasive essay. This week students were tasked with creating a monster. They need to persuade their classmates to buy their monsters, and will have to give a pitch in the next weeks. I am so excited to see what they come up with. They are very serious in not letting their peers get a sneak peek of the monster before the reveal date. Third and fourth graders also got to help get ready for a favorite night at Roycemore; Pumpkin Carving Night!
Being helpers.
Being leaders.
And having so much fun!
October 8th - October 12th
Even with a short week the 3rd graders were so busy learning! To start, they continued working with the 4th graders and made amazing pumpkin cake with the pumpkin pulp! I loved seeing the groups work together to follow directions carefully and measure ingredients precisely. They made sure that everyone had a turn to participate and all of the students were very proud of the cake, which they got to pass out to the entire Lower School, as well as some staff and Middle School students. Students also got to try baked pumpkin seeds from our pumpkins as well. Besides cooking, students spent some time looking back at the data from their pumpkin investigations last week. They compared the six pumpkins and learned how to analyze data while giving a complete response. 3rd grade students finished up the brain unit this week as well. It ended with a culmination jeopardy game. They had to answer different questions about the different parts of the brain by acting, drawing, or verbalizing to the rest of the class. It was so much fun! On top of all that, in reading we began an introduction into the six main reading strategies to help understanding. These strategies are making connections, asking questions, visualizing, determining importance, making inferences, and synthesizing. As we start a book next week we will be focusing in on making connections. In math, we are continuing to use estimation and rounding to help with number sense. We are working on adding and subtracting multi-digit problems with regrouping. Students also practice explaining their thinking to the class and others. This skill is just as important as solving problems.
Proud of all our hard working!
Look at all the delicious cakes!
Taking turns to make the batter.
Lucky winner! It is time to crack the egg.
Mixed grade level students all baking cake!
What does your brain super hero look like?
We are ready for the Jeopardy challenge.
Acting out how the prefrontal cortex makes decisions.
Running a mile at the meet on Friday.
Ready, set, go! Roycemore cross country meet was so much fun.
"What did you think of the pumpkin seeds?"
October 1st - October 5th
Celebrating 103 years of Roycemore was so much fun with our pep rally last week. It was wonderful to see the entire school together participating in fin activities and cheer. The 3rd graders joined with the 4th grade to do some pumpkin pondering last week as well. We used six Roycemore grown pumpkins to estimate and calculate weight, seed count, circumference, and number of creases. The students shared many ideas to count seeds and make estimations that made sense. Students then watched as the pumpkins went into the oven to prepare for this week's lessons (baking a fun pumpkin treat). It is so fun to bring real world applications to math and science for the students. I got quite a few “Thank yous”, which was so sweet. We are finishing up our brain studies and students created brain hats to wear as we discussed what we have learned. We also spent some time reflecting on how we activate and use our hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex daily. In math, students are continuing to work with place value and have started to examine word problems. We have spent some time thinking about rounding and how estimation can help us attend to precision.
Scooping out the seeds!
Making whole group predictions for the number of seeds and heaviest pumpkin,
Counting the seeds by 2s and making tally marks.
That is a lot of seeds!
Finding the circumference.
It was a long week!
Putting together our brain hats.