As of now, I do not have anyone able to organize a holiday party on the 20th for our class. We may end up having a low-key afternoon with holiday crafts and snacks. If someone is able to plan a party, please let me know by this Wednesday. Otherwise, I will be sending out a Sign-Up Genius for a few snacks. Thank you!
We wrapped up a tough topic/unit in math last week focusing on finding area of both regular and irregular shapes. We also revisited the distributive property in this topic. Our tests are becoming more time consuming for students to take as the concepts become more advanced and multi-step. Previously, students took a 2nd test after our test on the iPad, if they scored below 80%. Now, after reviewing the iPad test together, students may redo the problems missed by completing those same numbers/same concepts on the 2nd test. This helps shorten our time on testing by only having students work on the kinds of problems they missed, instead of the entire test again. If you have any questions, please let me know. Tests will go home Monday.
In writing, we continued to brainstorm topics for our opinion speeches and write “fast drafts” in our writer’s notebook. We are learning how to write our opinion statement boldly and how to talk to our audience directly.
In our reading, we learned to revise our main idea as we learn more within a section, taught others as we became experts, and set goals for improving our nonfiction skills. We had a great time cutting out NF text features on “surgery day” as well!
In our social studies, we are learning about the first Europeans (French) to arrive in Michigan and the reasons that they came. Ask your child about what was learned!
Friday, we took part in The Hour of Code. It is a global movement by Computer Science Education Week and Code.org reaching tens of millions of students in 180+ countries through a one-hour introduction to computer science and computer programming. It was amazing how quickly the 3rd graders picked up on how to complete the coding activities. They may continue to explore coding on any device by visiting hourofcode.com
Here are a few photos of our coding expertise: 🙂
 
