January 28 - January 31

We are officially half way through Grade 3! I can't believe how quickly time is flying by. I'm so proud of the growth each and every one of my students has made so far this year. Thank you so much for all of your support at home. It's greatly appreciated!

 

Reader's Workshop

With the snow that we are getting, it seems fitting that our mentor texts for Reader's Workshop this week focused on "snowflakes."

I read "Snow Globe Family" by Jane O'Connor to the students.  This is a wonderful story about a little family who lives in a snow globe. They long for a swirling snowstorm—if only someone in the big family would pick up the snow globe and give it a great big shake.

  

We also read a non fiction booklet about how snowflakes are formed.

The kids loved "Snowflake Bentley" written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. From the time he was a small boy in Vermont, Wilson Bentley saw snowflakes as small miracles. And he determined that one day his camera would capture for others the wonder of the tiny crystal. Bentley's enthusiasm for photographing snowflakes was often misunderstood in his time, but his patience and determination revealed two important truths: no two snowflakes are alike; and each one is startlingly beautiful.

The students were asked to identify the story elements and summarize the main ideas of "The Snow Globe Family."

The students also partnered up to compare and contrast the two different families from the story.

Writing Workshop

The students really enjoy their journal writing time on Mondays.

"The Snow Globe Family" inspired our writing project this week about Life in a Snow Globe. The objective for this writing activity is to vary our sentences starters and to use vivid verbs in our writing. The students will finish this writing project next week.

The students also illustrated their second All About Me paragraphs.

Making Words

Our mystery word for making words was the compound word "Snowangel."

Math

This week we focused on skills that lead up to multiplication. The following outcomes were covered:

- use repeated addition to find the total amount in a set of equal groups.

- practice skip counting forwards by 2s and 4s from multiples of the number we are counting by.

- identify patterns in the digits of numbers we skip count. 

- connect skip counting forwards to repeated addition. 

Science

The students are loving our Survivor Building unit. We completed four challenges this week. Each challenge we face is a result of our emergency landing on the deserted island.

Challenge 1:  We have landed safely near shore and made our way to the closest beach. Ahead of us is a dense jungle and we see a huge storm heading our way, so we decide to seek shelter. As we reach the edge of the forest, we notice a large crack in the Earth. Alayna takes a step forward to take a closer look. It is very deep and looks like it may have been caused by an earthquake. She tells us that she can not even see the bottom. There is also hot lava spewing from the crack. The crack is not too wide, but we definitely can not jump over it. We will need to build something in order to cross onto the other side. We have decided to make a foot bridge out of bamboo we see nearby. We need to figure out if bending the bamboo to make a square frame or bending it into an arch will be stronger. We should remember that this structure needs to hold each classmate and teacher one by one as we step over the crack.

The students engaged in an activity that compares an arch shape to a square shape in order to see similarities and differences in the strengths and weaknesses of the design.

Testable Question: Will a square shape support more mass than an arch shape?

Conclusion: The students discovered that arch shaped designs are very strong and support more mass than square shapes do. The students concluded that they should bend the bamboo into an arch shape in order for their foot bridge to be strong enough to cross.

Challenge 2: We made it safely across the crack in the earth, narrowly escaping the spewing lava.  As we continue to explore the island, we hear the roaring sound of a river nearby.  Approaching the river, we realize that it is too fast and deep to cross.  But we really don't want to turn around and go back to the beach.  We can see banana trees across the river with ripe, delicious bananas hanging from them.  Our stomachs growl at the sight of the fruit.  We decide that we need to cross the river to reach the bananas.  In order to cross the river we will have to build another bridge.  Nearby we see some tree bark that we can use as beams to support our bridge.  Our job is to test a variety of beam designs to see which one will work best for our foot bridge.

Testable Question: Do all beam designs support the same mass?

Conclusion: Through this challenge the students learned that not all beam designs support the same mass. The students discovered that the box girder was a stronger design than the accordion or the rectangle.

Challenge 3: Hooray! The beams for the foot bridge are strong enough for us to cross the fast moving river. We are finally able to enjoy a few bananas. Now that we have full bellies, we can concentrate on building some shelter. The fierce storm is still heading our way and we need somewhere to keep dry and get some rest for the night. Keegan has a brilliant idea and takes us back to our aircraft. We see that a few pieces of tin have come off the side of the plane during our emergency landing. Makaylah and Noah decide to haul the tin to a small clearing in the trees. Ava decides to bend the tin to make an arch for our shelter. The clouds look dark and heavy with rain. We need to make sure our arch is strong enough to hold the downpour. Does a wider gap cause the arched shelter to be stronger or weaker than a shorter gap? We need to test this so that we can stay dry for the night!

Testable Question: Will an arch spanning a gap of 20 cm support more mass than an arch spanning a gap of 30 cm?

Conclusion:  Through this challenge, the students learned that a wider gap causes an arch to be weaker than one with a shorter gap.

Challenge 4: What a success! We haven't been on the island for very long but have already found a bit of food and now we have some shelter. We do have one problem though! The rain has started to come down quickly and it is beginning to make small puddles around our sleeping area. We are also worried that with the amount of rain falling, the river not far from us may begin to flood. We need to raise the area where we are going to sleep so that it is not on the ground. We head back to the plane and grab another large piece of tin for the floor of our shelter. It won't be the softest place to sleep but at least we will be out of the puddles and safe if the river floods. We drag the tin back to our shelter and start thinking about how we are going to raise it above the ground. Cas decides that we should use some tree stumps near by to make a pillar to hold up the floor.

Testable Question: Which design will hold the most weight? Should we use one larger pillar in the center or four smaller pillars in each of the corners of our tin floor?

Conclusion: Four smaller pillars hold more mass than one large pillar in the middle.

We loved our parent visit this week. Thank you so much for coming in to share some wonderful stories about our friend.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!