Hi families,
In Social Studies, third grade is busily creating numerous projects to celebrate our newly acquired awareness of Japanese culture and traditions. Recently, we have created carp kites, or koinobori, for the Children's Day celebration, which celebrates children's personalities and happiness. The wind sock is carp- shaped as a symbol of courage. Traditionally, a carp streamer is flown for each member of the family. They have also created Japanese lanterns that honor the deceased relative we chose to honor during our Mexican studies, much like Japanese families would in a Bon festival. Finally, students are creating their own unique Kokeshi dolls using the 3D printer. This week, students will work in groups to complete maps of Japan displaying the current regions. In math we have recently: -introduced/reviewed the concept of multiplication using concrete manipulatives -reviewed strategies for the 0, 1, 2, 5, 10, 11 tables -introduced strategies for the 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12 tables We will work towards the numeric (abstract) understanding as students show readiness and demonstrate understanding of the concept taught through arrays, skip counting, unifix cube groups, and grids. For those students who are having difficulty memorizing facts, I may introduce Times Tales as a mnemonic device that aides in the quick memorization of more challenging multiplication fact tables (3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9). In language arts, we read through chapter 4 of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, when Sadako helps her team win a big race on Field Day, but suffers from an unexplained dizzy spell she keeps secret. The dizziness continues as she is training to make the relay team in junior high. Sadako becomes dizzy and falls down in class. She is taken to the hospital and diagnosed with leukemia. This week we will read chapters 5 & 6 and answer corresponding comprehension questions. In chapter 5, Chizuko is Sadako's first visitor in the hospital. She brings a crane made out of golden origami paper and encourages Sadako to fold cranes by telling her the legend of the 1,000 paper cranes. The girls decide that folding cranes may help Sadako get well. Sadako folds her first few cranes. In chapter 6, all of Sadako's friends and family save paper for her to fold cranes with. She meets a boy named Kenji in the hospital who also has leukemia and they become friends but he passes away. At this point, Sadako has folded nearly half of the 1,000 cranes. (Have you ever tried to fold a paper crane? It's tough!) We will learn to fold origami cranes at the conclusion of our book. We have also started research on animals from Japan and are building upon our research skills from the first trimester. Our findings will be presented in a slideshow at our cultural celebration on March 28th. Upcoming objectives in language arts: -Continue to use text and web sources to record information on our research and transfer this information onto Google Slide presentations -Write Haiku poetry using nature photos taken outside as inspiration Upcoming Dates: Wednesday, February 27th: 3rd grade field trip to Boston Children's Museum 8:15-2:00 Friends Academy is excited to invite local educators, administrators, health professionals, parents and their children (ages 11 and up) to join us in an important conversation about anxiety. On Wednesday, February 27 at 6:00 in the Friends Academy Common, we will be showing the movie "Angst." (angstmovie.com) Monday, March 4th: Morning field trip for Lower School to see the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra at the Z All the best! Mrs. Tavares
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Hi families,
This week in Social Studies we watched a movie, Families of Japan, which followed the lives of two Japanese during a typical day. This allowed students a peek into typical Japanese life for a child their age. We've also been building background knowledge for this unit on Japan and the reading of our class chapter book, Sadako, through watching video shorts on Brainpop, such as the events leading to WWII and Pearl Harbor, and reading articles on ReadWorks about Japan, Mt. Fuji, and Sadako Sasaki's life. After a lengthy lead-in, our students were excited and eager to begin reading Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. In writing we have been working on identifying action, linking, and helping verbs within the predicate and then writing their own sentences employing each of these. In math we finished up our unit on time. We have covered the parts of the clock, telling time to 5 and one minute, clock vocabulary, elapsed time, and other ways of measuring time: days, weeks, months, seasons, and years. This upcoming week we will introduce multiplication. We will explore several different ways to think about what multiplying actually means, and will do some fun hands on activities such as finding patterns when skip counting and making arrays/equal groups with manipulatives to help our students start to relax about "times" and "multiplication" and realize that what they are really doing is repeated addition. I require that they say the phrase "groups of" instead of "times" when using the X symbol, and have found that it helps students activate their visualization skills so that they are trying to picture the groups they are making. Memorization of "times tables" can be an effective way to make the facts immediately accessible, so we will spend some time working on our facts before moving on to multi-digit multiplication. They will be getting nightly fact practice in addition to the other elements of their homework. It would be greatly appreciated if you could check in with them nightly about completing all elements of their homework as we adjust into this new routine. Thanks in advance! Upcoming Dates: Wednesday, February 6th: Band of Friends performance at All School Meeting. Friday, February 8th: Friends hosting a Parent Diversity Group gathering in Colin Martin's classroom from 8:15 - 9:00 am. Friday, February 22nd: Friends Fest Here is the link to the registration page: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07efyce2iif820a4d9&llr=df8gwxlab Friends Academy is excited to invite local educators, administrators, health professionals, parents and their children (ages 11 and up) to join us in an important conversation about anxiety. On Wednesday, February 27 at 6:00 in the Friends Academy Common, we will be showing the movie "Angst." (angstmovie.com) All the best! Mrs. Tavares |
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March 2019
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Mrs. Tavares' 3rd Grade | Newsletters |