October 12 — Writer’s See, Writer’s Do
General Studies with Hilary
Dear Third Grade Families,
Over the past two weeks, we had a first for the school year — our first full week! I would say we did exceptionally well throughout the week, keeping up a positive attitude and eagerness to learn.
Social Studies:
We have learned a bit more about US Government, such as checks and balances, how bills become laws, and how these three branches of government relate not only to New York State, but also to our classroom.
This week, we talked a little bit about the earth — specifically continents, oceans, and mapping. For the geography section, we watched these two YouTube videos (plus others, that have different tunes, but these are my top 2 for this topic), to help us learn the names of the 7 continents and 5 oceans. Please feel free to watch them at home, but beware — the tune is a little TOO catchy!
We, also, worked on how to find coordinates on a map. The class related this to the game battleship. In table groups, we worked on creating our own food map, using given coordinates to find the location on the map.
Writing:
In writing, we have chosen the seed idea in which we will continue our piece! Some topics that students are writing about is going to a Yankee game, drinking hot cocoa, building a snow fort,
This week, we worked on retelling our story in different formats, to help us in elaborating the story. We started by reading the piece aloud to a partner. The next day, we retold the story without looking at our book — just from our memory where we could elaborate and flourish what’s already been written down. On the third day, we created storyboard drawings of the different parts to our story. Who knew that writing had so much to do with writing, retelling and revising?!
Creating our Storyboard Ideas
Sharing our storyboard ideas
Social Emotional:
Over the past two weeks, we have been working on physical characteristics of showing someone we are focused on them, as well as the act of listening. In this classroom, we tried it through two different techniques. The first was working on giving eye contact to the Person A (who has speaker power), while Person A tries to make Person B laugh. We did this by telling jokes and making silly faces. One reviewer said “This is the most fun I’ve ever had in a morning meeting!”
The second way we worked on this technique was by playing “telephone.” The goal of the game is to get all the way around the circle telling the same phrase each time — which can be REALLY hard to do. During the first round, the sentence to repeat was, “do you think it is going to rain all day?” The other two phrases were, “chocolate chip cookie,” and “will we have a snow day this year?” I must admit that this crew did an EXCELLENT job listening carefully to the person before them.
Math:
This week, we learned a new math game — one that can even be played at home! This game is called, “Addition Top It,” though we referred to it in class as War.
Single Digit Addition Top It
| Number of Players | 2-3 people |
| Materials Needed | 1 deck of cards → remove the face cards |
| Rules |
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| How to Win | Be the player who is in control of ALL the cards in the deck |
Please reach out if you are curious about how to play more advanced levels of this game!
Reading:
We recently started listening to the Kate DiCamillo story, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Of 17 people in the room, last Friday, 4 students said that Edward is someone they would want to be friends with, while 13 students mentioned that Edward was not someone they could see as a friend. Today, we created a chart of Edward’s inner and outer traits. Some of his outer traits have to do with him being made of china. He has rabbit fur on his ears and tail, and his whiskers come from a different animal (one that Edward would rather not think about). Some inner traits Edward has is his selfishness, his inability to love Abilene, and the first emotion he realized he had — fear.
Conversation Starters:
- What are the names of the 7 continents? 5 Oceans?
- What happened to Edward on the boat ride?
- How do we play Addition Top It?
Dates to know:
- Wednesday, October 17 → Picture Day
- Friday, October 19 → Aliza’s official last day before maternity leave
- Thursday, November 8 → Parent Teacher Conference, 4:00pm-6:30pm
- Friday, November 9 → First day of 1:30pm dismissal
- Monday, November 12 → Parent Teacher Conference, 8:00am-6:30pm
Judaic Studies with Aliza and Margaret
This week in Judaics, Third Graders began learning the Chumash text of Parshat Lech-Lecha. They learned how to identify and highlight character names, places, vocabulary words (buzzwords), and the Shoreshim (roots) of Hebrew verbs. We also started putting together our definitive list of Shoreshim, which we will be using to play our Shoresh game. This game is a combination spelling/memory game we use as a tool to help kids learn Hebrew verb roots in a fun way. Today we played our first practice game, and the kids had a lot of fun. We were especially proud of their great sportsmanship!
Hebrew with Ilana Swisa
Shabbat shalom, from the Third Grade Team!
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