Blogfolio Permission Letter and English Homework

Your child will be bringing home a permission letter for Blogfolios in their backpack. I have attached the signed permission slips from last year to allow for changes before the blogfolios appear on the class blog.

Today we took a look at blogfolios from different grades, and we even started our first post on a google doc. It will take some time to complete it. The students are beyond excited and have asked if they can work on it at home tonight. I said yes 🙂 We will work on this post over the next week at school as well. I have also put some suggested skills for multiplication work on IXL.

Tonight’s Homework

Work on your blog post (Don’t stay up until midnight )

Work on multiplication skills on IXL

If you have any questions or concerns please reach out.

English Homework

This week’s homework is to work on the IXL math website for 10-15 minutes a day. The students should still be working in the diagnostic area at this point. IXl username and password information is in front of the homework duo-tang.

The students will also work on writing a paragraph. The paragraphs should be 5-8 sentences long. You will find a graphic organizer and lined paper to plan and write the paragraph. Students can choose any topic they wish. If writer’s block should occur, there are some prompts below.

Paragraph writing prompts 

1.Explain how you feel after you just won something. (game, prize, etc.)

2. Tell what your favorite TV show is and why.

3. Explain what your favorite thing to do is.

4. What do you like or dislike about school most?

5. Tell how to make________________.

6. Describe your favorite teacher, person, relative.

7. Write about your least favorite or favorite school subject.

8. Write about your favorite story character.

9. Write about a funny thing that happened to you.

10. Write about an embarrassing thing that happened                              

 

 

Grade 3 News

                               Class Representative Elections

This past Friday was Election Day in Grade Three. Students who wanted to run for class representative made posters to announce their candidacy. They also shared their reasons for why they wanted to be class rep with their peers. Some of the candidates wanted to get candy to their class or help their peers earn extra free periods. The real reason six students from 3A and eight students from 3B ran was to make a difference and help their classmates have a great school year. Congratulations to Jonah from 3A and Coby from 3B, our new class representatives for the 2020-2021 school year. I know they will do their best to make this year a great one for Grade Three.

I am so proud of all the students who ran for class rep. Many children would like to have leadership opportunities this year. I get to make sure they all have the chance to be leaders this year. I am already excited about the year we will have together.

 

                                     IXL Math Website

IXL is a new Math website the students will be using this year.  The Grade Three students will start using the diagnostic area of this website to determine their level for working and practicing their math skills this year. Once the students have done some diagnostic tasks I will be able to assign specific tasks to each student.

Each student has their IXL information card inside the front cover of their homework duo-tang.  If your child does not have their information card in their homework duo-tang please let me know and I will give you the information. You can learn more about this website on Mrs. Cleveland’s Math Blog.

 

Grade Three Update

Grade 3 classes have been busy learning and having fun in school. We took an up-close look at worms and discovered how great they are for the soil. We had no idea they worked so hard for us to make the soil healthy. Worms are amazing! We even discovered worm castings (worm poop) all over the fields.

One rainy day a few weeks ago, the students and I ventured out to the schoolyard to see if we could find worms. In a matter of minutes, our containers were full of soil and worms. In the classroom, we observed the worms and held them. I am proud to say that with encouragement from the students, I handled three worms without fainting.

 

In class, we read a story about worm composting, and we were inspired to try worm composting for ourselves. We have big plans to compost some of our lunch waste and use the compost for Morah Ada’s plants and some plants we hope to grow over the winter. Wish us luck!

We are also learning about plants and how they grow. We have experimented with kidney beans, and some plants have started growing. It seems many of the students do have green thumbs after all.

 

In Math, we have focused on adding and subtracting two and three-digit numbers with regrouping. Some students have even challenged themselves with four-digit numbers. Subtraction is causing some frustration at the moment. I always love a challenge! I will find a way to have the students loving subtraction this year. Right now, we are looking at adding and subtracting money and making the connection to the work we did with regrouping. Multiplication and division will be our focus for the next few weeks. Many students have been asking to do multiplication and division since the beginning of the year.

We have been reading all kinds of fiction and non-fiction material in class each day. The students seem to be very interested in non-fiction material about anything science-related. They loved learning as much as they could on soil and plants; I sometimes even found them reading more on soil and worms in their free time (this is a teacher’s dream). The students have completed their first Star Reading assessment of the year. These assessments will allow me to personalize instruction for each student and even further improve their reading skills this year. The students are working on their writing skills through the use of journals, paragraph writing, and creative writing. Everyone is trying their best to use proper punctuation.

                                                                       Global Connections

The Grade Three classes have been connecting some global connections over the last few weeks. We have met with students in Tel Aviv to talk about life in Israel and Canada. We talked about how we are learning in school with masks, and how they are at home doing distance learning once again. This week we will meet with them again to see some of the students’ favourite places in Israel; we will share our favourite places in Canada. We really hope to continue the connection with our Israeli friends throughout the school year.

 

We took part in the Digcit Summit 2020 and talked about digital citizenship. The students shared how they worked on being good citizens in Grade Two and plans to continue the work in Grade Three. They did a great job presenting during the live stream event despite an initial technical glitch. We hope we inspired other students around the world to become good digital citizens as well. Who knows, this could be the start of their public speaking careers.

 

We also took part in Global Maker Day this past week. The children took on the STEM challenge of building a functional object with recyclable materials. The students were so excited to design and build. There was a buzz in the class; no one seemed to mind that the challenge needed to be independent due to covid. I overheard some students talking about how they want to be inventors when they grow up. They took the challenge seriously and were so proud to share their objects with the class. There were water bottle holders, robots that held school supplies, and even a greiger for Purim. We just wished there were more hours in the school day so we could have taken part in some more challenges.

                                                 Social Studies Research Workshop

The students were so happy to see Brigitte, our librarian, for a virtual research workshop this past week. For Social Studies, the students will be researching a city in Ontario. Brigitte taught us how to find information using books and the internet. The students remembered all they had learned with Brigitte last year with regards to using keywords to search for information.

This year we went to step further and learned to use indexes and tables of contents in books and how to find specific information on the internet as well. The fun part of this project is that the students will be writing a news report about their Ontario city. We hope to become real reporters and film a news show all about Ontario. Brigitte gave us some pointers on how to be kid reporters as well.

English Homework

English homework has been sent home in a red duo-tang today. Many of the students were really excited to get their homework today and they want to do it all tonight. I told the children they weren’t allowed to stay up until midnight to do homework. 🙂 Please send me a quick email if you have any questions or concerns. The homework should be returned to school next Wednesday.

A great start to the year in Grade Three

We are happy to report that our first few weeks back in the classroom have been amazing. The children are wearing their masks and keeping their distance. We are so happy to be back in the classroom!

Our first days in school we worked on measurement and metres. This gave us the opportunity to go outside and measure with metres and specifically getting comfortable with 2 metres for social distancing.  We started off the year learning all about soil. Did you know there are different types of soil and lots of animals that live in the soil? Our great big schoolyard has been the perfect spot to dig and examine the soil. Yes, we even found some worms and snails.

Next week we will be observing real live worms in the classroom and starting our own worm compost in each class. I am so happy that I have so many worm handlers in the class. It has been a long time since I held a real live worm. The students promised to help handle the worms. Now I  just have to get brave enough to do it. Stay tuned!

 

STEAM Fair- Thursday March 7th

Our class will be holding our STEAM Fair next Thursday morning March 7th. You are invited to come and see the projects from 8:45-9:30 AM.

The OJCS is still seeking about 10 judges for next week’s STEAM Fair. If you know of someone in the following fields (a relative, colleague or friend) who might be available to come on Thursday morning, March 7, 2019 for about 2 – 2 1/2 hours, please notify Ellie Kamil in the office (e.kamil@theojcs.ca). We are looking for judges with experience in the field of science, mathematics, engineering, technology and art. We also provide a light breakfast!

Grade 3 Research Workshop

The Grade Three class enjoyed a research workshop with Brigitte today. They learned all about researching on internet using key words instead of typing questions into Google. Brigitte helped the students look at research questions and figure what key words would be good to use when conducting a google search. Everyone was very engaged in the whole process and some children even started writing their own research questions and key words. Miss M. and I are going to enjoy helping the children use key words while researching in class to help the students become excellent researchers this year.