3FT Third Grade Thoughts: India Day

This week we concluded our study of India. We read from our textbook supplement "Many Voices - I Wish You Were Here...India".

We had our first "Culture Day"!!! The students enjoyed an afternoon of India culture while rotating through four different classrooms to experience a variety of different activities.

They made their own Diwali lanterns. Diwali is the festival of lights, celebrated every year in October.

They enjoyed some delicious food from the culture and watched a Bollywood video.

We read about henna tattoos and then the students were allowed to choose their own designs. They were also given some special bracelets.

The students then learned some new dance moves.

On Tuesday, it was National Handwriting Day, so we learned to form 2 more cursive letters and started some extra practice with a winter joke book. The students loved this extra practice and can't wait until we finish learning the last 3 letters of the alphabet. In the coming weeks, you will see more of their agenda done in cursive writing.

The mystery word for our making words activity this week was ENVIRONMENT. The students worked independently rearranging the letters to make words. We were impressed with the lengthy list some students were able to come up with. We always conclude this activity by sharing and making a list of all the words our class has come up with.

The students completed another reading assessment. They read the booklet on their own and then answered multiple choice questions about passage, making inferences and pulling important details from the text.

We continued our "Snow Globe" project from last week by writing a paragraph about what life would be like in a snow globe. The students were given choices of different sentence starters and encouraged to use descriptive words to give the readers a vivid image of their story. They worked with us one-on-one to help edit their work. Next week, they will type and illustrate their edited paragraphs.

After writing, the students shared their sentences with the class.

We began a new writing project this week. The students will be working through detailed paragraphs covering various topics about themselves. This 'All About Me' project will be completed over the course of the next few months and will include illustrations to match. Each paragraph will be constructed using a topic sentence, detailed sentences and they will end with a concluding sentence. After the rough copies are completed, the students will be typing up their edited work. The completed paragraphs and illustrations will be included in the Memory Books that will be given to each student at the end of the year.

In Math, we worked on subtraction with regrouping. After some practice, the students were challenged with questions where they had to decide if they NEEDED to regroup or not. You can practice this concept with your child by giving them questions such as 87-49 and 56-24.

We completed a "How Many Ways" activity with the number 178. Students worked on their own to build math equations and then shared their favourite.

We had a wonderful week at the rink and our class improved so much! Mr. van Huis had the students doing various games, relays and obstacles. The kids were taught the proper way to stop, how to get up after falling and even had some free time to race and play tag. Thank you to our volunteers who came to tie skates and be on the ice as an extra set of hands and eyes. We appreciate it!!

We have been using "listen to reading" and "read to someone" during our daily reading block. Some students have been reading independently to finish a novel they have started. Others have been plugged in to a chromebook or ipad using either Book Flix or Tumble Books, to listen to stories. This is an important component in improving reading fluency, accuracy and expression. These sites are used school wide and have numerous leveled books.