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.