Time for our Authors to Publish their Work!

During writing, your children have been working very hard on their personal narrative writing pieces. We have studied authors and what good narrative writing includes. Each child picked from their list of ideas and small moment stories, one story that they felt most passionate about. We took that story through the writing process. First, they planned out the people, setting, and events. Then, we started at the beginning and wrote each event long. We crafted our beginnings to have a good lead to reel in our readers. At the end, we looked at a variety of books and found that strong endings include action, talk, or feeling. So, we crafted our endings to do just that! We revised to make sure our writing sounded the way we wanted it to. We even wrote with dialogue and details so our readers would be able to feel like they were present in our stories! Now the class has the option of typing their final pieces, or writing it again on final copy paper. Can't wait for you to see our final products!

Grandparent and Special Guest Day!

It was so wonderful to meet everyone's grandparents and special guests. There are so many people who love and care for each and everyone of you! For those of you who were unable to make it, I have a few video clips from each song that the third graders did. I hope you enjoy! 

Thank you to each and every one of you, the special people, in your child's life. It is because of you that your children are here at Dickinson school; and because of you that each and every day they come to school and work a little bit harder than the day before. While I hope that they learn a little bit from me each day, I also learn a lot from each of them! :)

Word Study:

Even though word study is only 20 minutes of our day. It is a very important 20 minutes. Studying words and understanding the way words are formed helps to formulate the knowledge we have to decode words while reading and also write words while composing our writing. Learning the English language is tough! But we have a GROWTH MINDSET about it and are constantly trying to stretch our brain and learn new words in order to become better readers and writers! 

Practice at home is equally as important!

At home to practice students should do ONE QUICK (about 5 minutes)  activity: blind sort, written blind sort, spell words out loud, alphabet magnet OR Scrabble tiles, make TWO sets of cards and play memory, rewrite each word in a sentence, type the words on a computer, go on a word hunt, create word puzzles - ideas are endless! 

***Find whatever way is most successful for your child to learn their words!

**TIPS - focus on the words you believe are challenging your child the most AND

look at how your child’s words are being formed**

Rocks and Minerals

We have begun our study of rocks and minerals. Today was our second day observing the physical characteristics of rocks. We are examining rocks looking at their color, texture, shape, size, weight, and any unique characteristics it may have (such as fossils). We have 12 different rocks to examine. The class is going to take what they know about these rocks and sort them into categories. They will do their best with what they know about each type of rock to attempt to sort them into sedimentary, igneous, or metamorphic. I know that my 3rd grade scientists have it in them to find the clues!

Wequiock Falls, Bay Shore Park, and the Quarry!

What a day is was! We had beautiful weather for our field trip today! This was a great start to our rocks and minerals unit. The class learned a lot about the natural history of our area. Our first stop was Wequiock Falls. Here they were able to go down to the water bed and look for 2 different types of rock. We learned about MOHs scale of hardness and found out that rocks that can be scratched with our fingernail have a hardness of less than 2. We used the mudstone rocks we found to make mud and create some face paint of minerals! Fun fact: The waterfall is always moving! It will move about 3 feet in 50 years! 

Our next stop was to Bayshore Park. Here we were able to do a cliff walk and see the many layers that make up the ground below us. The class learned about erosion and saw a variety of igneous rocks (rocks formed in volcanoes). We also went down to the beach and used magnifying glasses to look up close at igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks. 

Our final stop took us down into an actual rock quarry! The class learned about the quarry and what their role is. They were even able to look through a giant rock pile and find up to 4 rocks to bring home with them! A few students found rocks with fossils and even some fool's gold!

3rd Graders Working Together!

Collaborative Learning in Math Class

Our class worked very hard during our first module of math. We wrapped it up on Thursday with the end of module check ups and performance tasks. During our unit, the class was striving to work towards precision in their work. Remembering to take their time and always do their best work. They checked work with a partner and were able to discuss anything they disagreed on. We worked on place value, multiplying, and wrapped up the module with capacity. 

Today we had a fun activity of making gallon man! The students worked in groups to create gallon man and build him (or her) according to the appropriate measurements. For example, 4 quarts in a gallon, 8 pints, and 16 cups. Our finished products are pretty unique and creative! 

Welcome to Third Grade!

Hello Families!

Our classroom blog is a place where I will post pictures in order to let you see what is going on in our classroom! We also have some helpful links on the side to the Dickinson Third Grade page, our scholastic book order site, and our volunteer website. I hope you find this useful!

We officially have 2 weeks under our belt! Man, our days are flying by! Our stability balls are working out great! We have practiced body basics on the ball and have also spent a lot of time practicing what it looks like to Be Respectful....Be Responsible...Be Safe...and Be Caring.

Your third graders are also learning the importance of creating independent behaviors. We are practicing that in writing, reading, and word study! 

Writing

We are learning some strategies for creating lists in order to quick write and generate ideas when we are stuck!

Reading

In reading we have talked about how to pick good fit books. Check out this link to the iPick rap! 

iPick Rap!

We have also been working on our independent reading behaviors, which you will find on the backside of the Building a Reading Life flyer that went home. We are practicing strategies that good readers use, such as visualizing. It is important to think about what you are reading and be able to make pictures in your mind as you are reading. 

Math

We began reviewing place value and truly understanding the value of numbers. All week we are going to be practicing rounding numbers to the nearest 10 or 100. This is an important concept that many of us still struggle with. Today, we began moving into the concept of multiplication!

Word Study

This week we are beginning our word study groups! Be watching for your child to have a spelling sort in their plastic sleeve in their take home binder! Sorting and understanding word patterns is just as important as spelling them. Please have your child show you how to sort their words. Then, you can lay out the headers and tell them a sort word, and have them point to the correct category! Another great way to practice words at home is to have your child write them. You can have the headers written for them and then say a word and they can write it in the correct category!

Geography

We have been having a lot of fun with Geography! We are naming and locating our 5 oceans and 7 continents. Today we focused on the 3 countries located in North America. We are discussing map skills and even took a trip around the world on Google Earth! 

Check out some fun links:

Continents and Oceans

Continents and Oceans

Geography

Build the Earth!