Apples!

A note from our fabulous PTO: Friendly reminder: Please return your Save Around Coupon Book envelope with payments/orders, or with the book if you are not purchasing, by Monday October 3rd. Funds raised support PTO projects such as the Four Winds Science Enrichment Program, Books for Students, Movie Nights, Fun Run, International Dinner, and Teacher & Staff Appreciation events. Thanks!

We got to help our Kindergarten buddies with some of their apple projects! First, we helped them make some apple sun catchers! While we were working on this, Mrs. Hamilton had us help her peel some apples to make applesauce with! 

This afternoon, we got to enjoy our hard work and eat some delicious applesauce (and some popsicles left over from our BBQ on Friday)! 

Surveys

As part of Number Corner this month, we are working on our survey skills! Today we practiced coming up with our own survey question and asking our classmates to collect data! Ask your child what their question was and what the results were! 

Third graders are working on being able to label the different parts of a graph: title, category label and scale label. We are also figuring out how to fill in a graph when the scale changes. For example: when the scale is something different than counting by 1s 

Buddies and Natural Playground Opening

On Friday we got to read with our Kindergarten buddies! We always love this time together! 

We also got to celebrate the official opening of the Natural Playground! The third graders were very excited by the large pair of scissors they used to cut open the ribbon. We are so thankful to everyone that helped contribute to this project!

Forces and Interactions

We are in the midst of our first science unit: Forces and Interactions. We have developed some working definitions for force, push and pull. We were also trying to figure out if the weight of an object or the strength of the force impacts distance traveled. To work with this hypothesis, we did a ball flicking experiment using a ping pong ball and a golf ball. This activity provided a great opportunity to talk about having a "fair test" and gathering data. Not to mention some great measurement practice! 

Whole School Celebration

We had our first school wide celebration today! Mrs. Gruendling announced this afternoon that we had earned extra recess for our safe, kind and responsible behavior! 

We got to try out the new playground elements! The climbing wall was a big hit! 

Remember Friday is our End of Summer BBQ and pick up is at 2:45 to help with the paving traffic! 

Measurement Scavenger Hunt and Housekeeping

Hello families! We are already on our 4th week of school! How can it be?

A couple of housekeeping items:
-On Friday, we will be celebrating the opening on the natural playground and having our End of Summer BBQ. We would love for you to join us! We have lunch at 11:10am and the natural playground presentation will be at 12:00pm.

Holy Family will be paving their parking lot on Friday. Friday September 23rd, Summit will be dismissing school at 2:45pm to stagger dismissal times with Fleming School. We will be supervising children until our normal dismissal time but you are encouraged to pick up your child early to help alleviate some of the traffic.

We filled our sun band jar (extra full) and are celebrating with "Stuffies Day" tomorrow!

I will be calling or sending emails to families in the next couple of days to do a quick beginning of year check in! I like to see how things are going and if there is anything that is helpful for me to know!

In math today, we went on a measurement scavenger hunt! We talked about using the measuring tape as a strategic math tool and being careful to line the zero on the measuring tape up with the start of the object we are measuring. We were looking for items that were a certain number of centimeters long.

We are lucky this year to have Ms. Murtha, our math and literacy interventionist, who also joins our class for math! She is helping a group measure the Smartboard! 

Third Week of Third Grade

*Special Note: Our class is still looking for some volunteers to take the lead on Four Winds for our class this year. If you are interested please let me know! We would love to have someone (or a team of people) who can lead the activities this year! 

It has been an exciting week in third grade! On Monday we got to pick reading spots around the room in celebration of building our reading stamina to 20 minutes! We have lots of special spots to enjoy during Reader's Workshop. 

We also had our first Four Winds lesson! Thanks to Jenna's mom and her friend for helping us learn about insect life cycles. We listened to a puppet show about a grasshopper and a butterfly going through metamorphosis. 

Then we got to go outside and play two different games. We practiced the different noises that insects make as well as how they can communicate with each other. 

Lastly, we got to go on an insect safari to look for some creatures!