Four Winds- Rocks and Minerals

Some important December dates: 

December 4th: Report Cards Go Home

December 10th 8:15am Assembly

December 17th 1:00pm Sing-A-Long Assembly

We had a busy first day back from break! Some brave Four Winds volunteers joined us first thing this morning to share an awesome lesson on rocks and minerals. There were three different stations where we got to try identifying fossils and rocks. We also got to make our own "fossil" with some clay! 

Turkey Trouble

On Friday, we got together as a whole third grade team and read the book Turkey Trouble about a turkey who tries to disguise himself so he won't get eaten on Thanksgiving. After reading, we had a chance to try and disguise our very own turkeys! We have some very creative third graders...check out all the different disguises! Have a great break! 

Kindergarten Buddies

This afternoon, we got to spend some time with our Kindergarten buddies! Today roles were reversed and the Kindergartners were the teachers. They taught the third graders how to make turkeys that explained what they were thankful for. As third graders, we talked about how to be a good listener and let your Kindergarten buddy teach you! The third graders always look forward to this time of the week! 

Rocks and Minerals Videoconference

Today we had a videoconference with the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery in Dayton, Ohio about Rocks and Minerals. We had a lovely guide named Robin who walked us through various tests we could do to figure out the mystery minerals we had! Ask your student about the different tests we performed! And of course thanks to Mr. Davidson for supporting all of our technology needs! We are so lucky to have him as a resource! 

We were also invited to be guests in Ms. Trombley's class this afternoon while they practiced their Reader's Theatre. Her class wrote their own Reader's Theatre script about the First Thanksgiving. The third graders were model audience members! These informal opportunities are such a great way to practice various social skills! The second graders told the third graders we should write and produce a production for them to come watch....guess you will have to stay tuned :) 

Bridges Support for Families

Some families have asked for more support and information about the Bridges Math Program. I have attached in this post, the family letters for Unit 2 and Unit 3. We have just started Unit 3 this past week. Unit 2 is a great place to look at some of the strategies for multiplication, that we will be revisiting this year in other units. If you want more information the family website is a great place to start: http://www.mathlearningcenter.org/support/bridges

And as always, feel free to email with questions or if you are looking for more information! Hopefully your child will be a great resource as well! 

In Unit 3, we are focusing on adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers. We are moving them to use different strategies based on what would be most efficient for that set of numbers. We learned a strategy called Give and Take, where you give some to one number and take from another number to make the numbers easier to work with. (39 + 41 can become 40 + 40) 

We will also be encouraging use of an open number line and making "jumps" to add or subtract. This is demonstrated in the letter below. 

Lastly, we have been thinking about how rounding can help us add. A great conversation with your child is how you use rounding in your everyday life to make mental math easier (like grocery shopping or calculating how many miles you travel, etc.) 

Rock Collection and Hat Day

Summit Street School has filled the sun band jar again! Tomorrow is Hat Day! 

We spent our science time today closely examining different rocks in our classroom's rock collection! The third graders were so excited to check out all the different rocks. Many of them were using the charts and posters in our room to try and identify the names of the different rocks. They had to draw pictures and describe the characteristics of five rocks. We talked about looking closely at the colors and shades in the rock, not just using grey or brown colored pencils. We also have been practicing describing the rocks using specific characteristics. 

Updates from this Week

On Monday we said thank you to our student teacher in art! Ms. Raemer has been working with Mrs. Foley since the beginning of the year! Our class had the special opportunity to make a card for her and have the whole school sign it! 

This week we also tried our first Webquest on Rocks and Minerals! We worked with a partner to use the internet on a guided tour of websites about rocks and minerals. 

This month in Number Corner one of the activities is the unit fraction race! For each day of the month we use a spinner to figure out how many pieces we will add and of which size of fraction. We learned that a unit fraction means there is a 1 in the numerator. 

Some interesting observations from today when I asked which fraction was winning: 

Third grader: "Well it depends if you mean which one has the most pieces or longest distance!"

"1/2 is winning if you just look at distance."

"1/8 has the most pieces!"

Love this flexible thinking!!! 

We also have been writing equations using our new knowledge about fractions. We talked about the difference between a mixed number (2 and 1/2) versus an improper fraction (5/2).