3FT Third Grade Thoughts: Happy Mother's Day!!

Our class worked hard creating a couple different Mother's Day gifts. One project was a writing contest that was judged by a group of ladies. Two students from our class were chosen as winners of the writing activity and went home with some lovely prizes for their moms!

The other project is top secret! The students worked hard to create beautiful gifts that they wrapped on their own. They are very excited for Sunday!!

The health nurses came in to talk to the students about the importance of wearing a helmet. The students had a lot of good questions for the nurses about head injuries. They also did a demonstration for the kids, showing them what happens when an egg is dropped with a helmet and without.

We had our school wide helmet check this week. Members from the Town of Devon Bicycle Association came to check helmets for proper fit. Please check your child's mailbag for the blue sheet that went home regarding this. We will be doing bike safety next week for gym class, so please bring helmets and bikes on Monday.

We had our first Yogurt Parfait Challenge test this week. The students were tested on their 1 times facts. They were given 2 minutes to complete 30 questions and had a few days of practice sheets before completing the test on Thursday. All students completed this test with 80% accuracy or better and have earned a scoop of frozen yogurt to go in their yogurt parfait! The 2 times facts flashcards went home to practice next week. The test will be on the 17th.

To prepare for our story writing, the students learned how to properly write dialogue using quotation marks. We worked together as a class and then they worked on their own to figure out where the quotation marks and proper punctuation were placed.

We have started writing our "Three Little Pig and the Big Bad Wolf" fractured fairy tales . This week the students created characters..."Three Little" ones and their "Big Bad" character. They were asked to give each character a name, personality traits, and what their house would be made of. Before the students started developing their characters we talked about different traits. For example, their first character needs personality traits that will not allow him/her to build a good house. As a class, we brainstormed words that could describe this sort of character such as, lazy, impatient or irresponsible. After creating their characters, they all had the opportunity to share with the class. They loved hearing everyone's ideas!!!

We started an extra practice, cursive writing book. It is a spring handwriting joke book that the students are working through. We are very impressed with the beautiful cursive writing that our class is able to do.

In Math, we are working on our fractions unit. We have learned that fractions are equal parts. The students started off the unit by folding paper into equal sections. We've been working through activities that have the students dividing shapes into equal sections and recording the fraction as parts shaded/total parts. They have also been using words such as...third, fourth, fifth, etc to describe fractions.

In Social this week, we read about traditions, services and environment in Ukraine. We have been discussing a lot during our reading, deciding what is important and should be part of our jot notes.

POW and Back and Forth will be activities we continue until the end of the year. Please make sure the black and yellow duotangs are returned to school EVERY Friday. The Back and Forth writing is independent and by this point in the year, you should see an improvement in your child's writing. There should be complete sentences with capitals and periods as well as good word choice and a variety of sentence starters.