Fairy Tales

Housekeeping: We will be ice skating this Friday from 12:30-2:15 (skating from 1:00-2:00). Please make sure to send your child in with a helmet. We would love to have parents join us, but make sure you have filled out the Volunteer Form with the office. 

This Saturday is the Pancake Breakfast! Hope to see you there! 

The Summit Street School PTO is in need of easy reader and chapter books appropriate for students in grades K-3 for the annual Free Book Day (formerly known as “Book Swap”) to be held Friday, April 15th. During Free Book Day, each student at Summit Street School will get to pick out and take home a “new to them” book. This is a wonderful tradition and one that students look forward to year after year. Please help us ensure that each student will have a book by donating easy reader and chapter books. You can send the books to school with your child; there will be collection boxes in the hallway starting Monday 3/28 through Monday 4/11.

If you have any questions, please contact Margaret Gilbert 876-7918.  THANK YOU!

We have started our Fairy Tales unit in literacy. We have been reading many different versions of fairy tale classics like Goldilocks, Little Red Riding Hood, Three Billy Goats Gruff, Cinderella and more! The third graders will have the opportunity to write their own fairy tale adaptation. Today we practiced our storytelling skills by using a blank booklet and telling the story across the different pages. Ask your child to retell one of the fairy tales (making sure to include the characters and setting, problem and solution). You could also ask them what elements do all good fairy tales have! 

Four Winds

We had Four Winds this morning and learned all about the water cycle! We started with a puppet show that took a water drop all the way through the cycle. Then we got to try out different stations. At one station we got to drop water droplets onto a penny to demonstrate water tension. At another we watched how water can travel (up a paper towel, up the stem of a carnation, etc.) At the last station, we observed how condensation and evaporation work as well as how water density can change with temperature. 

Geoboard Polygons

As part of our geometry unit, we explored creating polygons with rubber bands on the geoboards. They were given different "challenges" to solve. 

For example: Create a three sided polygon with at least one acute angle.

Learning Characteristics Form

Hello families!
Please make sure to return Learning Characteristics form (hot pink placement form) to school before March 31st. They help us with the placement process!
Thanks!

Shape Posters

Last Thursday, the third graders presented some shape posters they had been working on. Each team was assigned a different quadrilateral and they had to identify four attributes of that shape. They also had to figure out what made that quadrilateral special (different from the others)! 

Some of the different quadrilaterals we examined: 

parallelograms, rhombuses, squares, trapezoids

Housekeeping

Hello families!

Some housekeeping notes:

Friday March 18th: Progress Reports will be coming home

Monday March 21st: NO SCHOOL (Inservice)

Wednesday April 6th: VYO Strings Concert (1:30pm)

Week of April 10th: Reading SBAC (more information to follow)

Thursday April 14th: Flynn Trip

Ice Skating:
Our class will be ice skating at Essex High School. Times (including travel to and from):
Friday April 1st from 12:30-2:15pm
Thursday April 7th from 8:30-9:55am

If you would like to join us please make sure you have filled out a Volunteer Form with the office.

Fine Arts Night

Last Thursday, our class went over to the high school to practice for Fine Arts Night. While we were there, we got to watch four of the high school choral groups practice in the auditorium. The performance at night was beautiful. Thanks to all the families that came and thanks to Mrs. Valastro, our music teacher, who provides this opportunity and guidance to our third graders! 

We just finished up Unit 5 in Bridges. One of the last sessions had us exploring the area of rectangles using square inch tiles. The third graders had some great mathematical conversations when they were asked to put the "rainbow" rectangles in order from smallest to largest area. We started Unit 6 today which focuses on Geometry. Look for the family letter in Friday Folders this week or check it out online at http://www.mathlearningcenter.org/sites/default/files/documents/family/PAR-BR3-U6.pdf

Four Winds

In math today, we were continuing our discussion of area. We talked about standard units of measurement and got to compare a square inch, square foot and square yard. Ask your student to give you some examples of areas they could measure with each kind of unit. 

We had Four Winds this morning! Thanks to Savienne, Gemma and Braden's moms for helping us learn all about sound! Check out the pictures to see the different experiments we did to discover how sound waves travel.