It's beginning to look a lot like......

Last week, our parent volunteers helped students leave their mark on our class tree. After the handprints were dry, I assembled the tree, added lights, and surprised them with personalized snowflakes ornaments hanging from the lights. Students get to start their day with a beautifully "hand" made lit tree!

Adding to the festive decorations is a shining compass rose on the ceiling. We continue to work on Cardinal (N, S, W, E) and Intermediate (NW, SW, NE, SE) directions. The snow flakes and shimmer just make it more fun!

Writing through the seasons!

In science we are learning about the weather and in writing we are writing about it and the seasons with poetry! Our first poem style was the cinquain. After brainstorming nouns, adjectives, and gerunds for each season students wrote about Fall. The class then honed their keyboarding and collaborating skills on the Chromebooks when they typed up their poems and shared them via GoogleDocs with me. Finally, students took their publication to the illustration stage. We used leaf shapes and colored pastel chalk to add beauty to our poems!

As you can see, together their poems make an impressive and beautiful display!

Our next poetry style was acrostic. Students wrote acrostic poems for Winter. Look for pictures soon!
Currently, students are in the process of creating diamante antonym poems with the seasons as their topic. Students brainstormed word banks for related nouns, adjectives, and verbs (not just gerunds). Many students have already taken their first diamante poems to the publishing stage. By next week, all students should have them in the illustration stage. We will illustrate with winter themed shapes and colored chalk pastels.

Math decorations-learning is fun!

Third grade has had a lot of fun decorating with their math knowledge! Students used poinsettia shapes to show off some of the ways they can demonstrate their understanding of multiplication. Ways used included: simple multiplication equation, arrays, groups of, repeated addition, addition tapes, and number bonds. They make a beautiful addition to our pillars of success vine! Two classes chose to use the poinsettias and one chose to use holly leaves-what a cheery way to show math knowledge!

Math Happenings......

Students worked in pairs to show groups of as part of our multiplication learning.

What a fun way to work on math and get ready for the holiday season!

It has been a tremendously busy two months. Each day goes by so quickly with so much to learn and do. Before conferences students went through the writing, editing, rewriting, and publishing process when they wrote about their families. The difference in the before and after writings were amazing-many students surprised themselves. These will head home soon!

Upcoming events...

Crater Fun Run!

Thursday October 9th our class will run/walk/skip at 1:40. Our class color is BLUE! Come cheer your child, join in the run, or see if volunteers are needed to make this blockbuster event "run" smoother. 

http://www.newberg.k12.or.us/antoniacrater/crater-fun-run

Field Trip!

November 4th is our field trip to Franz Bakery. We can take several parent volunteers. Look for information coming home soon.

Volunteers in the Classroom

Volunteers are always appreciated and can be a great help. Opportunities include behind the scenes work and working with students one-on-one. Email me or call to reserve your time.

Thank you for entrusting me with your children. I am just loving learning alongside them.

          Welcome to October!

September flew by quite fast! On to October and many exciting events.

Speaking of time flying...we continue to work on telling time skills. Students continue to work on telling digital and analog time. We are also building skills in telling how much time has passed between activities or until the next activity. This is a great skill to build at home. Last week’s homework included a T.V. Guide worksheet and keeping a log similar to this at home will help students become more aware of how time is kept and practice in tracking its passage. In reading we’ve left Boom Town behind and moved on to imagining what it would be like If You Made a Million. This continues to tie into our work in math building on addition/subtraction skills and fluency with money terms and amounts. Have your child practice adding amounts by keeping track of purchases while shopping or practice naming the coins or practice fluency by counting your pocket change. The more experience with counting money, the more fluent your child will become adding and subtracting it.

We have had the opportunity to try out the new Chromebook mobile lab. Most students were able to sign on and start work on All the Right Type. Your child’s experience with this program and with MobyMax will be enhanced by being able to hear the sound effects. Our three classroom computers have their own headphones, but we do not have any for the Chromebooks. Students may bring earbuds or small headphones (I got mine from the Dollar Tree) to use with our computers. This would be a great way to avoid head lice-this is not required, but I do recommend it. Students may practice keyboarding at home, but a parent should be with them to make sure they are using the correct fingering.

Coming up:

Fun Run: October 9th. The third grade is scheduled from 1:50-2:10.
No School: October 10th, State In-service day.

Book order: Our September book order will be here anytime. The Scholastic Book club flyer for October will be coming home soon and the last day to order is October 17th.

Volunteer opportunities are available, let me know if you are interested in helping out.

Have a wonderful month!

Mrs. Soumokil

soumokilm@newberg.k12.or.us

wherewearewildabout3rdgrade.blogspot.com