Third Grade 9/25

Community Building

With the full weeks of school we have been doing a lot of community building activities. Third graders have played “Would you Rather?” games to learn more about what they have in common. We have read books about perseverance and taking chances even when we are worried we may fail. We shared instances where we needed to persevere to achieve a goal, like riding a bike or practicing academic skills. We also discussed what we will need to persevere through this year, like wearing masks, staying a safe distance, and learning new things through Zoom or in person. Many of us shared how we can help each other persevere when things are hard, like saying “I can help you try again”. We are so proud of how kind and understanding the third graders have been in reminding each other of our protocols in school, and in wanting to support each other.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

We also took the time to learn about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life, her accomplishments, and goals. In Social Studies with Jessica, third graders heard new terms like “unconscious bias” and asked  questions about why there weren’t more women on the Supreme Court and why things weren’t already fair between men and women. In Judaics with Shira, students started to learn about Ruth’s Jewish background and how her Judaism informed her work in the court. The kids had so much to say about Justice Ginsburg, that we will continue talking about her next week. This is just the beginning of the deep thinking about history and the world around us that the third graders will participate in this year.

Reading, Writing, Social Studies

In Jessica’s ELA classes the third graders have been exploring new library books, beginning to write their small moment narratives, and learning about continents and oceans. In reading, we have practiced filling out reading logs to help us keep track of what we are reading, how much we are reading, and for how long. In writing we have started rehearsing and brainstorming ideas for our small moments narratives. We have even started using our new writing notebooks, and learning how to set up our writing pages. In social studies we have begun our unit on mapping, starting with identifying the 7 continents and 5 oceans, and learning about how continents were formed as well as reviewing landforms. We are so excited to be delving into new learning and skills in third grade!

Over the weekend, look at a map with your child and practice identifying the continents and oceans. You can also mark areas on a map that your family have visited. 

Math

Over the past two weeks, we have been focusing on ordering and comparing numbers. Continuing from Second Grade, we use the image of an alligator (or Pacman) eating the greater number, when comparing two numbers. In Third Grade, we expand on this by explaining the order of the words. Students are understanding that we answer greater/less than questions by comparing the left number to the right number. For example, if we are comparing 3,795 to 5,379, we would say “3,795 is less than 5,379” or “3,795 < 5,379.” The students are also learning how to round to the nearest tens place and hundreds place to enhance their estimation skills.

Judaics with Shira

We learned about two holidays: Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur. These holidays mark the start of a new Jewish year, and for us, the start of a new grade. Students wrote wishes for our selves, our family, and our class that we shared last week at the Rosh Hashannah Zoom event. This week we got down to the hard work of making our wishes comes true. If we want something new in the new year, we also have to do new behaviors. Students wrote down behaviors that they want to change and things that they feel sorry about from last year. This year we cannot leave the building to do tashlich, the practice of symbolically casting our sins away to a body of water, so instead, we painted things we felt sorry about with water color. Ask your child what they want to work on changing this year. 

Art with Iviva

Students have been developing drawing and collage projects in their sketchbooks. This week, we made collages sharing our Rosh Hashanah celebrations. We learned a lot about each other’s rituals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Music with Heidi

It has been such a treat to see your children again and to meet our new student! In Music class, our Third Graders have also been learning Music Class expectations through the words and movement of our Music Rules Rap and getting used to performing it with the steady beat of a metronome. This week, students each received and spent time getting to know the ukulele they will be using for this school year. They learned the different parts of the ukulele, the names of the strings, left hand finger numbers and a little bit about tuning. Check out our Third Graders in action below!

 

Science/Technology with Sammi

Over the last two weeks, the third graders have really taken on the big responsibility of caring for their own chromebooks. They are constantly showing me the new skills they have discovered on their own, letting me know how charged their chromebooks are, and asking “What are we going to learn next?!”. So far, the third graders have learned…

• Some new vocabulary words. Ask them to point out the system tray, the shelf, the launcher, the browser, a tab, and the waffle!
• The buttons across the top row of their keyboards.
• How to access Google Classroom with the waffle.
• How to add a class to Google Classroom.
• How to find teacher announcements and class assignments.
• How to answer short answer and multiple choice questions on classroom.
• How to fill out a Google Form quiz on classroom.

Google classroom can be challenging because it also involves learning apps like Google forms, docs, and slides, but we will continue to learn more and more until they are experts! As they continue to learn more, they will start using their chromebooks and Google Classroom across all subjects as we transition them away from Seesaw.