Reaching for the stars
//This is my absolute favourite holiday Math problem!
I challenge YOU to work through this problem at home tonight as a family… it can be a great discussion starter over dinner or a problem to solve after lighting the candles!
Please comment below and share your thinking!
//This week we took our problem solving skills and applied them to a series of Chanukah themed Math problems!
We worked on 4 different problems;
Morah Lianna made latkes for her friends and family. She fried up 72 latkes for her 18 students in 3A and all of the 35 teachers at OJCS. How many did she have left after 3A and all the teachers ate their latkes?
Morah Lianna was collecting gelt to play dreidels with. She collected 80 chocolate coins, but while she was on recess duty, Mrs. Cleveland ate 17 of them and Ms. Beswick came to take 25 of them. How many chocolate coins did Morah Lianna have left?
Morah Lianna and Cooper were getting ready to light the Chanukiah. She had 28 candles ready for the holiday, but Cooper accidentally ate 6 candles and broke 4 more. How many candles did Morah Lianna have left?
Morah Lianna was making Chanukah gift bags. She made 8 bags in total. Each bag will have 2 dreidels, 2 sufganiyot, and 5 chocolate coins. How many dreidels does Morah Lianna need to buy? How many sufganiyot does Morah Lianna need to buy? How many chocolate coins does she need to buy? What if she wanted to make 10 gift bags in total, instead of 8?
The students worked in small groups to answer their problem.
Then they all shared their thinking and reasoning in order to learn from each other! We even worked as a class to correct some of the errors we made with our Math operations (#NorthStarAlert! We Learn Better Together)
Stay tuned for next week’s Chanukah related Math problem!
//Today in Math class we warmed our brains up with a Would You Rather problem.
We encourage you to comment below saying which you would rather AND explain why!
(don’t read our answer until you’ve commented your answer!)
In Grade 3, we decided that a nickel for every day is better because during the months with 31 days, you would end up with $1.55. This means some months you would get 5 more cents than the option of $1.50 per month.
//This year a Grade Three parent inspired me to involve the whole class in the JOIN Challenge for JDAIM month. I thought of a cross-curricular project that would excite and engage all the students.
In Science, we designed and built our STEM structures ( 3D Architectural Models).
Here is a peek at some of our buildings.
In Social Studies we created our own ideal community and made our own maps.
The students decided to create a radio show talking about inclusion and kindness. They wrote and recorded what inclusion and kindness mean to them. They loved recording the radio show so much that I think we will launch our own OJCS News Radio or podcast.
OJCS Radio 3A & 3B
Here is a presentation Livia and Nikki made.
We didn’t win the JOIN Challenge, but we had so much fun creating the ideal community and recording our radio show. Perhaps the students should pitch their inclusive community to Mayor Jim Watson and some city planners. A teacher can dream!
Special thanks to Yossi for inspiring this project.
//Dear Grade 3 Families,
The Grade 3 classes are excited to continue their journey of becoming good digital citizens by launching personal blogfolios. Blogfolios are a combination of a blog and a portfolio. The students will learn various ways of capturing their learning and reflecting on their process.
They will also become more comfortable with documenting OF learning, documenting FOR learning, and documenting AS learning. Our goal is to introduce students to blogfolios, where they will continue practicing the skill of documentation OF, FOR, and AS learning on a platform that will follow them from year to year.
Documenting OF learning focuses on the product. It answers the questions:
These questions can often be answered by looking at a final project or video recording of a student doing something. This is the most common type of documentation.
Documenting FOR learning requires a little more thought and purposeful selection. Students think about what they are capturing and why. This is an area we’d like to focus on more. It’s not just about the final product, but the journey of how they got there. The questions now become:
Documenting AS learning goes even deeper, where students not only interpret their findings but also think about how they can share their learning. They are even more planful before, during, and after documenting.
With blogfolios, students can archive, reflect on, and reactivate what they’ve learned from previous years to help them in their current learning and beyond! Blogfolios mean connections can be made from around the world, offering opportunities for richer dialogue, feedback, and of course, revision. As Silvia Tolisano explains, “The writing process used to end with the last period in the last paragraph. Hitting ‘publish’ on a blog might just be the beginning.” Blogfolios also serve as a meaningful platform to teach students about appropriate online safety and behaviour.
There are a few things you should know:
Understanding that this may feel new and uncomfortable to some of you and our students, there are a few privacy settings to choose from:
Please ensure you have carefully read through all the information above. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to Mrs. Bennett. We ask that you complete and return the permission letter that was sent home today in your child’s note tote.
Sincerely,
The Grade 3 Team
//The month of November sped by this year. We were so busy learning and developing good work habits that time just flew. Our social studies projects were finished and recorded for our friends in Taiwan and Israel. We hoped they liked learning all about Ontario.
Four students recited the poem, I Dream a World, by Langston Hughes. This video was part of the Remembrance Day Assembly.
The classes also spent Remembrance Day talking about Peace and what it means to them. They wrote peace similes and put all of their work together into an iMovie.
Multiplication was introduced and students loved learning how to multiply through equal groups, arrays, skip counting, and repeated addition. The children who already knew multiplication were challenged with some problem-solving activities.
3B also had fun connecting with a grade 4 class in Tennessee, and playing a mystery number game. 3B taught the game to 3A and had fun with the game during one of our Friday community meets. 3A will be connecting with the same class from Tennessee for a future mystery number game.
Thanks for helping us connect and practice our number sense today @MrsBennett92 ❣️ We enjoyed our game of #mysterynumber on @zoom using @Classkick to keep track of our clues. #iteachmath #oakrams #oesrams #interactiveclass pic.twitter.com/DvOni5JWfQ
— Heidi Samuelson (@swampfrogfirst) November 13, 2020
In Language Arts, we have been reading the novel Mr. Popper’s Penguins. The classic novel by Richard and Florence Atwater is lots of fun to read and is exposing the students to rich vocabulary.
The students have also been working on their first blog post. It is amazing to see how much the students can write when given the freedom to write about a subject they love. All the students have been engaged and excited to write this way. One boy said, “This is so much fun to write this way”. The topics range from animals to cars, the human body to covid-19. I am so excited to see the students so motivated to write each day. I cannot wait for them to publish their work.
Our plants grew beautifully in class. We only had a few incidents of overwatering and moldy beans. The class took part in a STEM challenge last week to design and build a device that could water the plants. The classes were filled with 8-year-old engineers building and testing their devices. I manned the hot glue gun and made holes with scissors. The students learned to persevere, be patient, adapt their designs, so the watering devices ultimately succeeded. Yes, we had some water on the floor, but the joy on the students’ faces was well worth it!
This week we will be taking part in the Chanukah Door Decorating Challenge, and recording our song for the Chanukah Family Program. We are taking part in a special CBB Ruach experience this Thursday morning.
//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.