What a great time students had sharing the morning with their grandparents and other special guests on Tuesday! Our guests spent time doing some morning math work, listening to students read aloud favorite picture books in the library, eating breakfast in the LGI, and listening to students read aloud their country reports and informational books while they ate. Back in the classroom, students interviewed their guests to learn more about what life was like when they were in third grade. Students loved learning more about their guests and realized how much times have changed. Check out TONS of great photos from our special day in the slideshow below. (Double click on the slideshow below to view larger versions of the photos and download individual pictures. If you can't see the slideshow, click HERE to view the album)
You can also check out this School Life article about the Special Person Day. It includes more great photos!
Reading Workshop
We have started our Poetry Unit in Room 13. Students were immersed in poetry last week. Each student selected four poetry books to keep in his/her book box. Each student also has a poetry anthology of poems we will use during our lessons throughout the unit to keep in his/her book box. Many poems were read aloud by the teacher and students as well! On the first day of the unit students took time to look through their poetry books and complete a See, Think, Wonder (take a look below). Next students learned how to use the "Four Finger Poetry Preview" to help them build their comprehension of a poem. This strategy helps student notice the title of the poem and poet. Then students read the first and last lines of the poem. They also notice any rhyming words and repeated words. Although poetry can certainly be read for enjoyment, students learned we also read poetry for meaning. We practiced reading poems, paying close attention to words and phrases, which helped us understand the meaning of the poem, which also helped students understand the main idea of the poem.
Math
We finished up the first part of Unit 6 learning how to sort, analyze, and classify quadrilaterals. Students did great on the first unit quiz. Below is a picture of a helpful chart which describes the quadrilaterals we learned about in class. A family letter from your child's Math Expressions math journal came home to introduce you to the second half of Unit 6--Area & Perimeter. Students learned the area of a figure is the number of square units in the figure and the perimeter of a figure is the distance around it. Students practiced finding the area of various rectangles by tiling the rectangles with 1 inch square units (we used Cheez-its). Finally students learned how to find the area of a large rectangle by splitting it into two smaller rectangles. This is a tricky concept until students get the hang of writing one equation (using both addition and multiplication) to find the area (see an example below). Students used the app Educreations on their iPads in math this week to practice drawing quadrilaterals and to find the area of different rectangles.
Science
On Thursday afternoon a naturalist from the Troy Nature Society visited our third grade students. A BIG THANK YOU to our Hill PTO for covering the cost of the presentation, which was $3.50 per student. First the naturalist shared several pictures of owls and talked to students about the different owls living in Michigan. Next students had the opportunity to dissect their own owl pellet. The naturalist walked around to help students identify the various bones students were finding inside their pellet. Room 13 scientists had a lot of fun discovering the many things found inside their pellet.
Our very own owl expert, Adam, read aloud his Amazing Owl expert report to our class as well. Students also listened to a book called Adopted by an Owl: The True Story of Jackson the Owl and watched a short YouTube video of the real owl. Check out the video and pictures below!
All Star of the Week
Charles was our fantastic All Star last week! He enjoyed sharing his pictures of his family and items in his sharing sack as well as reading aloud his favorite book to the class. Students loved hearing his amazing story of how he started walking at the age of 7 months! They also loved watching a video of Charlie at age four being startled while coming out of the bathroom. We watched his adorable reaction a few times. Students loved seeing the videos of Charlie playing football as well...he is quite a fast runner! Charles enjoyed a special lunch out with his sister on Thursday.
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