May

What a beautiful weekend we had! I hope everyone was able to enjoy some time in the sunshine. We are on the countdown to the end of the year and have a lot of fun things coming up including in school field trips brought to us by the Pacific Science Center, more exploring with the human body, the third grade spring music concert, and more! We also had a wonderful time in our field trip to the Seattle Children’s Theater. A big thank you to our parents who chaperoned the trip, it was a fun day! Here is what we are up to in third grade.

MATH: In unit 7 students will be exploring fractions! Specifically, students will understand the meaning of fractions and see that fractions must be equal parts of the same whole. The class will work to represent fractions in a variety of ways including fraction bars, number lines, and fraction strips. They will also compare fractions with the same numerator or the same denominator. Last, third graders will learn to find equivalent fractions. This tends to be a difficult concept for third graders! A few ideas to help at home: relate fractions to time (quarter after, half past, quarter til), practice fractions with money, or talk about fractions while cooking or baking! Any real life experiences to help students gain a better understanding of the concept are welcome and helpful.

SCIENCE:  Students are continuing to learn about the human body! Last week we began learning about some of the main bones in our bodies, and how they compare to bones in other animals. Students had the opportunity to dissect an actual owl pellet! In our pellets we observed rodent bones including ribs, skulls, femurs, tibia/fibula, pelvis, and more! We even had a student identify a possible frog in her pellet…a first for me to see while teaching this lesson! I am sure some of my kiddos shared their bones with you J. They were excited to bring them home and share what they learned!

Up next: Joints and muscles! Students will explore what it might be like if they did not have the use of their opposable thumb! We will discover the importance of joints and muscles and how they allow us to move and do daily activities. At the end of each investigation students will bring home an I-Check, a formative assessment to check for understanding of the concepts. Keep a look out for these in your child’s backpack so you can see the specifics of the concepts being learned!

READING: Book clubs! The class is really enjoying our new book club structure. Each student is responsible for coming to book clubs prepared with a short summary of their assignment, a question they had while reading, words that stuck with them, and a completed skill of the week. They have been going really well, and as always, I am impressed with the great conversations students have centered around the chapter books. After finishing book club projects and presenting, many of the kids were inspired to choose one of the book club books they hadn’t read as an independent reading book! Students should continue to select just right CHAPTER BOOKS to read at school and at home. Please ask if you need help finding just right books for your third grader.

WRITING: It was really fun to work on free verse, haikus, and other styles of poetry this last month! Our next writing project involves students writing book reviews. These reviews will hang in our hallway and hopefully give others ideas of books to read! They will include story elements, a brief summary (without giving away the ending), a lesson, and recommendation. After reviews, students will be making a class newspaper, The Teasley Times! Each person will take home a newspaper to share with families. Stay tuned for more information later this month J.

DATES TO KNOW:

May 20^th: 3^rd grade Somerset concert! Come join us in the gym at 6:00!

May 22^nd: No School

May 26^th: Memorial Day: No School!

June 1-3: Smarter Balance Math Testing: More information to come.