Dear Third Grade Families, What a week of change! First with the weather — can you believe how warm it has gotten, especially compared to last weekend? Then, more importantly, with the mixing of half groups! Third Graders rose to the occasion, and have smoothly transitioned into their new half groups. Academically this week, we have been diligent investigators in Social Studies and math by learning more about the Montgomery Bus Boycott and bar modeling (respectively). In Social Studies, we concluded our study of Rosa Parks and the Bus Boycott. After listening to a read aloud of Rosa, by Nikki... Read More
A Snowy First Day Back – Happy New Year!
Dear Third Grade Families, Happy New Year! What a whirlwind of a first week back! We hope that everyone stayed safe during Thursday’s “Bomb Cyclone” winter storm. Over our few days back in school, we started a new math unit as well as a mini social studies unit on the Civil Rights movement. In math, we have moved onto word problems, for addition and subtraction. Word problems integrate literacy with math and are connections, for students, between school and the real world. To visualize the concepts in a word problem, students can use the bar model method as a strategy... Read More
A Happy New Year Sendoff!
Dear Third Grade Families, What a busy and exciting week it’s been! After much rehearsing, third graders performed beautifully during the Hebrew Hanukkah play! We also celebrated the ending of Hanukkah with a final all school candle lighting. In Social Studies, after hearing about Captain Henry Hudson for two weeks, the Third Graders finally learned what happened to him at the end of the fourth journey! Throughout the process of investigating Henry Hudson, we learned about his perseverance and dedication to finding a quicker route to Asia. No matter the obstacles he faced, Hudson’s positive attitude in his search for... Read More
Happy Hanukkah!!
Dear Third Grade Families, Can you believe it’s already Hanukkah? The year has really flown by! We are coming to the end of our subtraction study. Students practiced solving a variety of problems, including story problems and missing number problems. We used base-ten blocks to represent four digit numbers and for solving subtraction number sentences. In Reading, we are working on making meaningful predictions. When making predictions about what will happen next for Opal and Winn-Dixie, the main characters in in our read aloud, Because of Winn-Dixie, students predicted that: Winn-Dixie is really Opal’s mom’s dog, and that he will... Read More
December Already?
Dear Third Grade Families, Can you believe it’s already the middle of December? How fast this year has sped by! In Social Studies, we began thinking about how life changed for native tribes when Europeans came over. We discussed what life was like in Europe at that time, and how important Christianity was to them. We also talked about why the Europeans were so interested in exploring North America. Based on their understanding of the natural resources available to the Lenape, students brought up that the food and land space in what we now call America was of great interest... Read More
A Prideful Publishing Party!
Dear Third Grade Families, How wonderful it was to see so many of you at school today, both through the wonders of technology and in person! A round of applause to our Third Graders for presenting all of their hard work through their Judaic Studies, Hebrew and General Studies projects. We all were beaming as we returned to the classroom after the publishing party. For the majority of this week, students were devoted to putting the finishing touches on our nonfiction pieces for the publishing party. As we worked with our Social Studies partners,we took all of our Lenape knowledge... Read More
Happy Thanksgiving – 3rd Grade
Dear Third Grade Families, While the week has been short, the learning has not stopped! We have been researching even more about the Lenape culture, as well as life for the Algonquin Tribe (who also lived in this area). Students can’t wait to share their research with all of you at our Publishing Party on Friday, December 1 (aka next Friday!), which will begin at 8:40am. They have been gaining knowledge about what the Lenape ate, their religion, wampum, clothing and more! On Wednesday, students were able to meet up with many of the Seventh Graders to share in Buddy Time. Third... Read More
Field Trip!!
Dear Third Grade Families, It was another very busy week in Third Grade! Third Graders went on their first field trip of the year to the Eastern Woodland Indian exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. It’s one thing to read and visualize in one’s mind what life was like for the Lenape people, but this field trip added great substance to the students’ understanding. Students relished the opportunity to see first-hand, artifacts and models from the Lenape and Delaware Native American Tribes, including tools used for hunting, men and women’s clothing, musical instruments, and life-like models of scenes... Read More
A Week of Investigation!
Dear Third Grade Families, It was great seeing many of you at conferences yesterday and we look forward to meeting with the rest of you on Monday. Social Studies In Social Studies this week we continued our exploration of the Lenni Lenape tribe, delving deeper into what day to day life was like. After reading different articles about the separate gender roles within the tribe, and the different types of clothing worn by men and women, third graders had the opportunity to put on their teacher hats, teaching each other about the topic they read about. Students were excited to... Read More
A Busy Ninth Week!
Dear Third Grade Families, We learned so much this past week! In Social Studies, we started learning about the Lenni Lenape, which is the Native American tribe that lived in New York City back in 1600. We started by looking at a map of Manhattan from the 2000s, and comparing it to a map of what Eric Sanderson (a landscape ecologist) — through research — believed Mannahatta (land of many hills) looked like in 1600. Students noticed that the Hudson River looked wider back then. Some wondered if the water level had dropped and maybe that’s why the land is... Read More