Dear Third Grade Families,
The students had a wonderful first two days spending time with friends, sharing what they did over the break, and preparing for our next block. It was great to hear about everyone’s adventures, time spent with family and friends, and the delicious meals they ate. Everyone came back well-rested and ready to work and learn.
The first full week back at school brought us to our first block of the year - Measurement, Multiplication, and Division. During this block, the focus will be on learning about the different ways that we measure volume and liquid. The students will learn about tablespoons, teaspoons, cups, pints, liters, gallons, and scales. They will also work on simple conversion problems. We’ll start by discovering the relationship between different measurements to keep this concrete and active (not abstract). For example, the students worked on estimating and measuring how many drops of water are in a tablespoon and in a teaspoon. We then moved up to estimating how many teaspoons and tablespoons are in ¼, ½, and 1 cup. After writing their estimations down, the class moved on to measuring using pipettes, teaspoons, tablespoons, and cups. They wrote out the recipe for vegetable soup (thank you for sending in the ingredients!) and worked in groups on cutting, prepping, and measuring to make the soup. It was delicious and a huge success! The students were proud of their work and of being able to use mental math to convert measurements. Measurement in cooking is a fantastic foundation for fourth-grade fractions study.
The students continued their reading groups, finishing up the book Charlotte’s Web. They eagerly look forward to this every week. There has been steady improvement in reading fluency and comprehension. For writing, the class works on Main Lesson books and journals twice a week. The focus in mathematics remains on multiplication memorization through bean bag games, songs, and drawings. Instant recall of math tables is the key to success when working with higher-level math processes. This semester, we will also move to longer addition and subtraction problems as well as two-digit multiplication and division.
Announcements and Reminders:
Please remember winter coats and two water bottles are required daily.
Please join us on Wednesday evening from 6:00 - 7:00 pm for an overview of the Spring semester. Additionally, we will brainstorm together for an idea for our class auction project!
Upcoming Events:
1/16 Early Childhood Curriculum Night (via Zoom) 6:00 p.m.
First Grade Risers Informational meeting - TBD
1/17 Grades Curriculum Night (on campus) 6:00 p.m.
2/3 Community Work Day 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
2/3 All School Meeting 12:30 p.m.
With Gratitude,
Paulyna
