Dec. 9 - Dec. 13

In grade three this week….

Students explored another reading strategy: asking questions. They talked about the importance of thinking about what they’re reading, asking questions, and then continuing to read to see if they can discover the answers. During read aloud times, we read about different holiday celebrations, including Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. These stories led to excellent discussions about similarities and differences we all have which was very relevant to our Social Studies exploration of the four countries.

In writing, students continued to share their interests through fire writing. Some students made connections between their holiday celebrations and shared these during this writing time. We also continued to talk about the importance of descriptive words and different sentence starters to make writing more interesting.

In math, we did a review of a variety of skills, including data collection and number sense. Students had some time to catch up on work they may have missed or have not had time to finish.

Students continued to explore different ways to identify minerals. They performed scratch tests to determine the hardness of minerals. They compared and contrasted different minerals based on their hardness. They also used Mohs Hardness Scale as a way to try to identify the minerals they were working with.

It was an exciting week for students to be able to explore different artifacts from India, Ukraine, Tunisia, and Peru. Students made observations and also shared some of their wonderings. Then, they started to look for similarities and differences between these countries. Some of the connections students made were that stories are important to different cultures, even if they may be about different things or characters. They also noticed that music seems to be important to different cultures.

Students had a chance to go snowshoeing this week. They did a great job being active and moving throughout the field in a different way. We will also be snowshoeing next week so please continue to ensure that your child is dressed appropriately (warm layers and boots).

This week was full of creating beautiful art that will be on display during the winter concert. The task required a few different steps and students have worked very hard on it. It was also a busy week practicing for the concert which will be amazing! The students are sounding great!

Reminders

For information about the winter concert (dates, times, outfits, song lyrics, etc.) please check out Ms. Harris’ wonderful blog at:

http://asmusicmakers.blogspot.com/

Upcoming Dates

Dec 17 > Christmas Concert (K-2) 1:00 & 6:00

Dec 18 > Christmas Concert (Gr 3-6) 1:00 & 6:00

Dec 19 > Christmas Carolling 8:05 and 12:05

Dec 19 > Last Day of School before Winter Break

Dec 19 > Report Cards go home

Dec 20 > No School (PD)

Dec 21 > Jan 5 – Winter Break

Jan 6 > No School (PD)

Jan 7 > School resumes

Dec. 2 - Dec. 6

In grade three this week……

The grade threes reviewed the different comprehension strategies that we have covered. They include making connections (text to text, text to self, text to world, and text to media). They have also focused on identifying character traits through what their characters say, do, and think. This week, students focused on making predictions. We read the story The Three Little Pigs by David Wiesner. Students made predictions based on their prior knowledge, information in the text, and their own personal experiences.

For word work, students focused prefixes. They looked at the prefixes un-, pre-, re- and dis- and talked about how these prefixes change the meaning of words. Students also looked at parts of speech, including nouns, adjectives, and verbs. They worked to identify each part in sentences.

After working so hard on their oral stories, students now put their oral stories into writing. We co-created criteria that included the important story elements we have focused on, such as introducing the characters and setting, a problem, solution, descriptive words, as well as capitals and punctuation. Students also recognized that we need to include different sentence starters to make writing more interesting. Some of the sentence starters included were “suddenly”, “first”, “then”, “all of a sudden”, and “meanwhile”.

Students continued to work on number patterns and identifying missing variables in equations. They also played a fun game of Go Fish to work on their mental math which can be applied to identifying missing variables. Students also gathered data and organized it using tally marks. They then represented this data through creating their own graphs. Students also looked at graphs and interpreted the information in order to answer questions.

The grade threes continued their rocks and minerals investigation. They looked at more ways to identify a mineral, including colour and lustre. They looked at rocks and used descriptive words to try to identify them. A very exciting part of the rocks and mineral study was having a parent expert come into the classroom. This parent, who is a geologist, presented a slideshow about rocks and minerals, showed the Earth’s timeline with a very long rope, allowed the students to explore different rocks, and also had them look through a microscope. Students had a wonderful time learning from this geologist who shared his expertise!

The students looked at different aspects of their own lives. They determined things and people who make an impact on them. They then categorized these and identified that all of these pieces impact their quality of life. Students discovered that we have a balance of things that help us achieve “happy me, healthy me, smart me,” and “safe me.” Students also looked at our continent, country, city, community, and official languages. After examining their own lives and elements that are important to their quality of life, students will investigate other countries.

This week was a fun week of ringette! It was also the last Sibbald U class!

Reminders

For the next two weeks, students will be snowshoeing. Our first day is on Tuesday. Please ensure your child is dressed appropriately (and wearing boots) to enjoy this fun outdoor activity!

Upcoming Dates

-Dec 9 > Kinder S4 presentation

-Dec 17 > Christmas Concert (K-2) 1:00 & 6:00

-Dec 18 > Christmas Concert (Gr 3-6) 1:00 & 6:00

-Dec 19 > Last Day of School before Winter Break

-Dec 19 > Report Cards go home

-Dec 20 > No School (PD)

-Dec 21 – Jan 5 > Winter Break

-Jan 6 > No School (PD)

-Jan 7 > School Resumes

November 25th - 29th

It was another awesome week in grade 3 and the students did a great job dealing with our BLUE days and lack of getting fresh air due to the crisp, cold weather!

In math this week we did some review of 3 digit addition with regrouping.  Students have been working on demonstrating an understanding of adding 3 digit numbers up to 1000 concretely, pictorially as well as symbolically by using personal strategies. We have also worked on solving problems in contexts that involve addition of 3-digit numbers. As well, students have been working on their estimating skills and solving one step addition equations that involve a symbol (x) to represent an unknown number.

Here is our Math Discussion about X representing the unknown number:

Question: What do you think the 'X' in this question means?

JV – "I think that the 'X' means that there is a number missing"

DB – "It’s a number you don’t know or what you call an unknown number"

Question:  X + 7 + 10

GT - "I think X is 3 because I know that 3 +7 = 10."

CL – "I got 3 too because I took 1 away from the 3 and added it to the 7 which made it 2 + 8 and I know that's equal to 10."

Question:  5 + X = 10

KB – "I made 10 with my fingers and took away 5 and then I had 5 left."

Question:  20 = 10 + X

SH – "X = 10. It’s the same thing but it's just backwards. It's really like saying 10 + something = 20 and I know that 10 + 10 is 20."

Question:  100 = X + 60

KG – "I think the X is 40 because I know that 6 + 4 is 10 so then that means 40 + 60 = 100."

Question: 12 = X + 6

EV - "X = 12 because I know that 6 + 6 is 12 so I just read it backwards."

In science we have been looking closely at Minerals. So far we have discussed:



What is a Mineral?

Minerals are defined as solid, inorganic, naturally occurring substances. They have a definite chemical formula and general structure - like Grandma's special cookie recipe!



What is the difference between a Rock and a Mineral?

Each mineral has a specific chemical structure which is the same throughout the entire mineral - it has a specific recipe that is always the same. Rocks are composed of a variety of different minerals and are not consistent throughout their structure - meaning each rock can have a different version of the cookie recipe and the recipe is not always consistent...maybe we were out of butter so we used margarine instead!






Over the past few weeks the students have been working really hard on developing and practicing their oral stories about the Hoodoos. We have just started recording our these stories using iMovie and a green screen! Stay tuned for the sharing of their awesome work!

We continue to discuss and work on understanding Character Traits in both the stories we are reading as a large group and independently. This week students listened to the story Me...Jane and shared their opinions about the type of character they thought Jane was. Ask your child to tell you how they described Jane's character.

This week for gym class we started to learn about the awesome game of Ringette! We talked about player equipment, some of the sports unique rules as well as the similarities and differences between ringette and hockey. So far we worked on our stick handling skills, partner and lead passing skills as well as the flip shot. Next week we will talk a little bit about the history of the game as well as continue to develop our skills, ending our week with some game play.
To learn more about Ringette you can check it out here: Ringette Canada

On Friday your child was given a green paper with information regarding tickets for our upcoming Christmas Concerts. If you would like tickets, please fill out the form and return it as soon as possible!   Thank you :)

Upcoming Important Dates and Reminders

• Dec 17 – Christmas Concert (K-2 performance times @ 1:00pm and 6:00pm)
• Dec 18 – Christmas Concert (Gr 3-6 performance times @ 1:00pm - 6:00pm) 
• Dec 19 – Last Day of School before Break 
• Dec 19 – Report Cards go home 
• Dec 20 – No School (PD)
• Dec 21 – Jan 5 – Winter Break 
• Jan 6 – No School (PD) 
• Jan 7 – School Begins