Cold Days call for Hot Chocolate!

Holiday Program

Thank you for your patience in waiting for the videos to upload!  Click on the link below to see them:

Program: "Do You Hear?"

Program: "There's Someone in the Chimney"

Program: "Three Ships"

Winter Fun

Well, snow has officially made its appearance...right in time for last recess.

The President joined us for last recess. 

Hour of Code

Did you know that our class is filled with computer coders?  Here is proof:

Questions!!!!!!

The students are developing their questioning strategies this week.  One activity that we are doing is asking questions before, during, and after a story.  Today, I showed the students the David Weisner book, Tuesday. They each wrote questions that they had after looking at the front cover and the title page.  Next, we looked at the book (it is an almost-wordless picture book with flying frogs) and wrote questions as we "read".  In order to share the questions, the students "Mingled with Music".  The video below shows them as they walk around the room while the music plays, stops and finds the nearest student, and shares the questions they wrote. The music starts, and off they go again!  I hope you enjoy the video!  They sure enjoyed the activity.

(This link is to the shared google album that I created for our class.)

Third Grade Videos

Dec 7 to Dec 11

Hello families!  Here are out learning goals for the week:

Reading: The students are investigating the question "How do geography and natural resources affect a community?"  They will be reading about this in their textbooks and small readers. They are also identifying the strategy of asking questions to understand something. The Word Study for the week will focus on the endings -ed and -ing.

Vocabulary: tourist, village, trade

Math: Multiplication Strategies

Writing: Dictionary Poems

Remember, the Winter Music Program will be next week on Wednesday, Dec. 16. The 3rd-Graders will be performing their songs at 9:30 a.m.

Thankfulness

We took the time to compile lists of things from A-Z for which we are thankful.  The kiddos each shared three things.

Click on the word "Thankfulness" below to enjoy:

Thankfulness

Nov. 23 to Nov. 24

Welcome to the short week!

Here are the learning goals for our day-and-a-half:

Reading: read the non-fiction story, Thank You, Sarah

Math: skip-count on a number line to show how to multiply

Writing: to help the students think of ideas for writing, they will create a paper heart that shows things that are close to their hearts (Mine My Heart)

I hope everyone has a relaxing break!
Miss Kimpton

11/16 to 11/20

We have had quite the busy week!!!!!!! Your kiddos are bringing home quite a bit of work from the week, and some even have some work to finish.  If so, there is a slip of paper with the items highlighted that need to be completed.

Reading: We finished reading Because of Winn-Dixie this week.  We also finished Unit 2: Science and Play in our reading materials.  To show what they have learned, the students chose a project, worked on it through the week, and presented it to the class today.  There is a slip of paper stapled to the work to show their score.

Reading Group Work: Vocabulary Word Search, "Baby Mammoth Discovered" Daily News

Math: The students finished lessons 3.1 (pgs. 141-142) and 3.2 (pgs. 147-148) in the their Math workbooks.  Both of these lessons gave them practice with counting equal groups and multiplication as repeated addition.

Their spelling words focused on the vowel sound in lawn.  I will send the tests home on Monday.

I hope that you stay warm this weekend!
Miss Kimpton

Week of Nov. 9 to 13

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit with me during the conferences.  I really appreciate the opportunity to sit down with you and talk about your kiddo!

The following are our learning goals for the week:

Reading: We are reviewing compound words, making predictions, and identifying the different types of structures found in books (both the physical structure and the order of events).

Spelling: Vowel Sound in "clown"

Math: The third-graders will officially begin the process of multiplication this week.  They will be identifying various things that come in groups (such as four wheels on a car), creating problems based on these groups, and playing a game called "Circles and Stars".  All of the activities will help them realize that multiplication is repeated addition or counting groups of things.

Writing: We are continuing to investigate the various processes of writing.  Specifically, we will be focusing on creating interesting and varied sentences.

Picture Retake Day is on Thursday, Nov. 12.  If your child is getting retakes, please send the original photos and a new order form to school.

Thank you!
Miss Kimpton

First Week of November!

I am so grateful for the opportunity to meet with each of you during parent-teacher conferences.  Your appointment time was on the half-sheet of purple paper that I sent home last week, and it is written on the report card that you will receive on Tuesday.  I have also put a list of times and initials on the blog if you need to check it.

Our learning goals for the week:

Reading: We are continuing to read Because of Winn-Dixie, and the skills that we will be focusing on this week are making predictions, using contractions for am, is and are, and using similes (making comparisons with "like" and "as". The main genre that we will read this week is realistic fiction.

Vocabulary: shadow and search

Spelling: Unexpected Consonant Patterns (kn, wr, tch)

Math: We will be wrapping up the structured lessons on subtracting on Monday and Tuesday.  Later in the week, the students will start to learn multiplication by investigating groups of items.

Science: During our LEAD 21 Reading time and small groups, each student will be investigating the question "How does science help us understand the natural word?"

Have a safe and happy Halloween!
Miss Kimpton

Oct. 26 to Oct. 30

Welcome to the week!  Here are our learning targets:

Reading: The students are beginning Week 2 of their Science and Play unit.  This week, each small group will be reading a non-fiction story to learn about how technology helps people.  They will be investigating the question: "How does science create news ways for people to have fun?"

Vocabulary: observe, classify, electricity

In our story about Winn-Dixie, the students will be working on remembering details, summarizing, finding compound words, and analyzing idioms (such as "it's raining cats and dogs").

Math: This week, the students are focusing on different strategies to subtract and find differences.  They will also begin the introduction to multiplication.

Writing: We will be working on the quality of writing, such as revising to create better sentences and editing to follow proper punctuation and capitalization rules.

Please remember that next week will have three short days that dismiss at noon: Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  We will be doing parent-teacher conferences during the afternoons.  I am really looking forward to meeting with each of you!

Miss Kimpton

A Week in Review

I can't believe that I am now just updating the blog...with the week basically behind us.  We've been pretty busy here at school!

Here is a look at some of the learning that we did this week:

Reading: We started reading the novel Because of Winn-Dixie, and we are working on the skills of summarizing and recalling and retelling. We also started the LEAD 21 Unit titled "Science and Play". The students have been reading their leveled readers during our small groups to investigate energy, force, friction, and gravity.

Vocabulary Strategy: use antonyms (words that mean the opposite) to understand words

Spelling: short and long vowels

Math: mid-chapter test on adding, start subtracting by estimating differences

Class Counselor: Be drug free and make healthy choices

I'm sorry for the late post!  Have a great weekend.
Miss Kimpton

Painting!

Oct. 12 to 14

This week is short! The students will be:

Reading: The students will be reviewing the various skills that they have learned in this unit.  They will be finding synonyms, writing about changes in their lives, and finishing their reading in their small readers.

Math: We will be practicing adding using place value and regrouping (carrying for those of us that went through school a while ago).  To start this, we are using base 10 blocks to physically maneuver values into ones, tens, and hundreds.  We will then convert this to adding the numbers written vertically and practice regrouping.

Art: We will be finishing our masks this week.  We will use designs and colors to illustrate changes that we have had in our lives.

The students will be dismissed at noon on Wednesday, and they will be no school on Thursday and Friday.

Have a lovely week!
Miss Kimpton

Spelling Sentences

In order to help the students identify the various spelling patterns for the week, they divided into groups to create sentences with specific patterns.

Oct. 5 to Oct. 9

Do you ever get to the middle of the week, and then realize, IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE WEEK!  I am sorry for not posting our learning goals earlier.  The days are flying by a little too quickly.

Reading: We are in Week 3 of  Unit 1: Changes.  This week, our focus question is "What changes can we choose to make?"  We are reading a story called Scaredy Squirrel to examine this question. We will be working on making inferences (thoughts we have based on what we already know plus what the book tells us), using word relationships to determine meanings of words, and using prefixes that mean "not".

Vocabulary: familiar, prepare

Spelling: Long /i/ Words

Math: Use different properties to add numbers (Commutative: change the order of the addends and Associative:  choose the order in which you add the addends), Add using Expanded Form

Writing: Make a numbered list on LEAD 21 about changes you choose, discuss brainstorming activities

We will also be using Typing Club to learn keyboarding skills.

Thank you!

Happy Friday!

We rounded out our week of testing with a little bit of fun this Friday!

In between filling glue bins and smoothing strips of paper, I managed to get one shot of a team working on their masks.  This project is in-depth, but it is worth it!

Waiting for the Skyview Homecoming Parade!

The best third grade EVER!

These smiles just can't help but make you smile.

The excitement was building! 

Dancing in freeze-frame.

Balancing Act

We are working very hard this week, so this morning, the students started their day working at varied math games in order to develop their skills.  They really appreciated the chance to work with a partner and talk about their math.

After the morning warm-up, the students started their NWEA Math tests.  They require a lot of focus and attention, and the students are doing their very best.

Sept. 28 to Oct. 2

The students will be working through their first set of NWEA sets this week.  These are computer-based, standardized tests that will help us determine what each child knows in order to help them learn. There are three different sections: Language, Math, and Reading.  Our goal is to finish one portion per day.  We will be discussing your child's results during parent-teacher conferences. The remaining of the week will look like this:

Reading: Continue Reading Charlotte's Web and wrap up Week 2 of our LEAD 21 Unit regarding the question: "How do things change?"

Spelling: Long o words

Math: Work through various strategies to add two or more numbers.

Art: Continue with our paper mache masks.

Have a lovely week!
Miss Kimpton

Papier Mache Masks

So...you may have been wondering about the papier mache masks that your child has been talking about, or you may have been wondering about the stories of glue.  Well, here are some pictures to give you an idea of the process.   Let's just say that we are learning as we go.  Glue, water, newspaper, balloons. What could go wrong?

Sept. 21 - 24

Hello!  Here are our learning goals for the week:

Reading: We are starting week 2 of our Changes unit by investigating the question "What do we do when things change?".  We are also in the middle of the book Charlotte's Web.  Some of the skills that we are learning are:

1. Determining Author's Purpose
2. Inflected Endings (adding -s and -es to verbs)
3. Using clues in the reading to figure out the meaning of unknown words

Vocabulary: decision, skill

Spelling: Long /a/ and /e/ words spelled with various spelling patterns

Writing: The students will be investigating the different types of writing and the writing process.

Math: The students will be gaining more practice with rounding numbers to the nearest 10 and 100 and then using those skills to estimate answers.

Art: Continue making the papier mache masks.

Have a lovely week!
Miss Kimpton

Sept 14 to 18

Hello!  The following is a list of our learning targets for the week:

Reading:  We will be finishing the first week of our Unit while we continue to focus our skills that I introduced last week.  They are:
             
                Determining important information
                Finding and making synonyms
                Using prefixes that mean "not"

Writing: The third-graders will be identifying different types of writing and then focus on the structure used to write a paragraph.  This is a carry-over from last week.

Spelling:  Our focus this week will be on long vowel sounds created by the "vowel-consonant-e" pattern.

Math:  We are delving into our new Math program as we are learning about finding patterns on the addition table, exploring various properties of addition, and beginning to round numbers to the nearest ten.

Science: Develop strategies to assist in our papier mache mask project.

Art: Papier mache mask project

As always, please stop in, call, or email me if you have any questions.
Thank you!
Miss Kimpton

Sept. 8 to 11

We are hitting the ground running with the third-grade learning this week. The following is a preview of the plan:

Reading: Start Unit 1: Changes as we investigate the question "How do things change?"  The students will be reading from the Theme Reader textbooks as well as individual readers.  We will be setting up the routines for reading groups this week.

Vocabulary Words: choose, responsibility, confused

Word Study: prefixes meaning "not"

Vocabulary Strategy: using synonyms to help with unknown words

Math: We are starting our new Go Math! program.  This week, the students will be reviewing skills they need to be successful in Chapter 1, as well as working through basic adding and subtracting fact families.

Writing: The third-graders will be sorting different story starters into expository (factual) writing and narrative (story) writing.  Later in the week, they will make cards to help them identify the various parts of a paragraph.

Thank you so much for coming to the Open House on Thursday.  I am sorry that the time went so quickly.  The students and I think that there is a time warp in this classroom.  Time flies around here.
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Kimpton

Pictures!

I don't know about you, but I love pictures.  I hope that the following catch some of the learning and excitement that happened this week in our class. Have a lovely Labor Day weekend, and I'll catch up with the third-graders on Tuesday!

The boys in green working to create an alliterative sentence.

The girls brainstorming words that start with the same letter.

Hard at work making lists of words that start with the same letter.

The boys finding a way to take a list of words that start the same and combine them to create a sentence.

How many bears will it hold?

The Challenge: change the clay in such a way to hold and float as many bears as possible.

Success!

This activity was perfect for everyone! They loved the open-endedness of it and the challenge.

Back at the drawing board...creating another design.

Do you see the canoe shape?

Future engineers.