Happy 5778!

Dear Third Grade Families,

Shana Tovah! – we hope you have had a wonderful start to 5778! Third Graders started many new activities this week, including homework, social studies and narrative writing strategies.

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 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.”

Literacy:

We started this week by coming together to talk about what is hard about writing. One student mentioned that it’s hard to remember a story they were previously in the middle of working on the following day. Many students talked about how they get caught up in trying to spell a word, and not knowing how to continue. A few students agreed that it can be really hard to come up with an idea for what to write about.

For this, we worked together as a group to come up with strategies for how to help us develop these initial ideas for our narrative writing. The first step was thinking about the people in our lives who are important to us. Each student made a list of those people, and wrote quick notes about small moments they had with them. From there, each student picked one of their moments and zoomed in on what happened. Another strategy we explored was drawing a map of a place that matters to us. On the map, we jotted notes about experiences we had at that place. From there, each student picked one of their memories from the location and zoomed in on what happened. While our class is not required to pick ideas for personal stories based on these strategies, it is a process that helps students come up with what to write.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social Studies:

We had our first official social studies period this week! During the class, we took time to discuss our prior knowledge about maps (what they are used for, where we find them, what they look like, etc) before exploring the maps students brought in from home. A student mentioned that maps give you directions and can tell you where to go when you become lost. Another student mentioned that maps have been around for a LONG time — like with pirates! One student noticed that paper maps are not used as often now a days. A few remembered that there can be a compass found on the map, as well as a key. “A map key is something that shows you what each special symbol means. Like a triangle means a hill.” Students were excited when provided the opportunity to go around the room and look at each other’s maps. As we observed the multitude of maps, we noticed that maps are created for different reasons. For example, some maps are of the world or an entire country, while others zoom in on a small section of a city or town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We wish you all a good Yom Kippur.

Hilary and Alisa

Judaic Studies with Aliza

This week was a very eventful one for the third grade. We walked to the Gowanus Canal to take part in Taschlich. We also learned all about Gematriah (Hebrew-numeric code), solved riddles, and figured out math problems using Hebrew letters. To prepare for Yom Kippur, we read the book “Gershon’s Monster” and discussed the idea of throwing away misdeeds versus seeking true atonement for things we’ve done wrong. We continued out Chelm folktales and heard one of our favorite class stories, a fable about Onions and Garlic. Next week, we continue on to Sukkot.