3FT Third Grade Thoughts: Pet Rocks!

The highlight of the week was creating pet rocks out of the rocks collected at the River Valley last week. The students were really excited to design, paint and decorate their rock. The rocks will be used in a descriptive writing project next week.

We really enjoyed reading about all the exciting Thanksgiving activities our students did this past weekend. Journal writing is something we do on the first day back after a weekend. The students independently write about their weekends and are encouraged to use capitals, periods and complete sentences. Journals will be shown at parent/teacher meetings and will be included in their memory books at the end of the year. We look forward to seeing growth in their independent writing.

We are still working through 7 spelling words a week as part of our review before doing Words Their Way. The students were introduced to Spelling City this week. This exciting way to practice their words can be accessed via our blog at 3ftthirdgradethoughts.blogspot.ca. The students know where to find the link on the left hand side of the blog.

The students also work through a variety of spelling activities in their word wall booklets. Monday is Clap, Chant and Write, Tuesday is Alphabetical Order, Wednesday is Read My Mind, Thursday is Word Wall Riddles and Friday is Dictation Sentences.

We completed another Star Reading Assessment. The students complete a series of 34 reading comprehension questions on the computer for this assessment. We use the results of this test along with other reading assessments to choose their reading levels for Read to Self.

In Math, we are almost finished our review of decreasing patterns. We will wrap up the unit on Monday and the students will complete a Show What You Know quiz on Tuesday. To help your child prepare for this quiz, please practice skip counting with them starting at various numbers. eg count backwards by 5's starting at 83. Their POW for the week will also include questions to practice for the quiz. Please make sure your child can complete these questions independently.

We have begun our study of Rocks and Minerals in science. The students created a title page for their duotangs and a KWL chart that outlines what they Know, Want to know and when we have finished the unit, they will record what they have Learned. We also started our lapbook cover, which will be an exciting way to organize all the facts we study.

For gym this week, the students words on developing various motor skills and balancing by rotation through stations set up in the gym. Some activities were cooperative and some were independent.

We continue to have MANY students flying to new countries. We are VERY impressed by how much home reading our students are doing. This extra reading practice will definitely affect their growth in becoming better readers! If you are not reading with your child, please make sure you test their comprehension by asking them what they have read about. This is an important aspect in their growth.