Civil Rights Collaborative Projects

 

Understanding the Civil Rights Movement is no easy task for third graders, but they are passionate, amazing young people and are clearly developing an understanding about the big ideas about fairness, equality, inequality, discrimination and segregation.  It seemed fitting with the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday on Monday, that we launched full force into our Civil Rights unit this week.


Students are working in collaborative teams of 2-3 students learning about important individuals in history who supported ideas associated with equality for all.  Each team will work on learning about a one person in depth and then teach the rest of us about his/her role in history.

Teams are studying:

• Abraham Lincoln
• Harriet Tubman
• Mohandas Gandhi
• Rosa Parks
• Nelson Mandela
• Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Please ask your child who he/she is studying and what they've learned so far.  Many times students are really still trying to sort out big ideas, so your help with this through conversations at home would be great!

To support non fiction reading development, student teams have four projects to complete.  We hope to have them all completed to share at the EMES Celebration of Learning scheduled for the evening of Thursday, February 23rd.

• A timeline of important events in the person's life.
• A list of key vocabulary associated with the individual and what the vocabulary means as well as its importance.
• A compilation of detailed facts about the person's life.
• An information book that depicts key aspects of the person's life.  

We live in a world that is constantly changing.  It is important for students to learn how events from our past can shape our future.  Please talk to your children about civil rights and what that means to you and your family.  The kids are really working hard to understand these big ideas, and your help would really make a difference.  

Here are a few helpful tips to help your child prepare for this week's sharing.

We have been focusing much of our math time on the four models of multiplication, Repeated Addition, Groups Of, Arrays, and Area.  Here is what each model looks like for 4 X 3

Repeated addition

3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 12

Groups of 

                 3         3                                                                         XXX                   XXX

              OR               

                      3         3                                                                     XXX                   XXX

Array

X  X  X

X  X  X

X  X  X

X  X  X

Area

     3

4▯

As a way to connect our work in math to our everyday life, I was thinking it would be fun for kids to think about the math around them.  Multiplication is all around us, especially items with equal groups.  Below, kids will find a few ideas to help them as they plan for this week's share.

This week's share may best be addressed as a talk share with a possible drawing or picture to illustrate the equal groups.  Remember students should be prepared to include 2-3 relevant pieces of information about their share.

Maybe you play a game that involves equal groups.  At our house, we play Mancala.  It is a game that begins with each player having four stones in each of their six sections of the the board, making equal groups.

Maybe you craft or have a bracelet or necklace with an equal groups pattern such as 4 purple beads, 4 green beads, etc.)

Maybe you participate in a sport such as dance or swimming.  Your sport may have equal groups of counts, laps, or movements.

Maybe you want to show your model car collection of 8 cars, each with four tires, making equal groups.

This is a tough sharing week, but I bet you can be creative!  Good luck finding equal groups in your everyday life.  If you have difficulty please do not hesitate to contact us.

Have a wonderful Monday, see you Tuesday!

Highlights of the Day!

Today was an exciting day in 3rd grade! Mrs. Lyford visited us and read a fabulous book about kindness, decision making, feelings and doing what is right.  Please ask your child to tell you all about A Bike Like Sergio's by Maribeth Boelts.  If you ask him/her to review the book with you using a 5 Finger Summary strategy that would be great!

Our second highlight was sharing technology projects.  Students worked on multiple learning intentions/goals for these projects. They included:

• Collaborating with a partner (s).
• Writing summaries for picture books.
• Incorporating dialogue.
• Building scenes with Legos.
• Using the application of "Story Visualizer" on the iPads.
• Writing with proper grammar, spelling and punctuation.
• Presenting as a team.

Ms. Arlyn and Mrs. Christy were very impressed with the final results, students really persevered on these projects!  Pictures of team presentations are below.  The actual projects can be seen via this link, Visualizer Project.  Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

Welcome back!  We've had a great first week of 2017.  It was wonderful to greet happy faces on Monday.  We were also happy to welcome a new third grader to our class, it's terrific to have a new third grade friend!  The week got off to a very productive start and we're cruising right along with a variety of new units and events.

Literacy
We launched new units in both reading and writing this week.  Both focus on the genre of informational text.
In reading we've started a unit called: Reading to Learn~Grasping Main Ideas and Text Structures.
Key ideas of this Unit

• Previewing text
• Studying text features
• Understanding the difference between narrative and expository text
• Organizing and summarizing new learning
• Expanding vocabulary
• Identifying main ideas and supporting details
• Summarizing 
• Reading multiple texts on the same topic
• Comparing and contrasting
• Growing individual ideas about a text based upon what has been read

Our writing unit will blend very well with our reading unit, it is titled: The Art of Information Writing
Key ideas of this Unit

• Writing to teach
• Exploring text structures of narrative and expository writing
• Categorizing and Grouping information into topics and subtopics
• Researching facts and staying away from plagiarism
• Working collaboratively to create writing that will teach others
• Improving accuracy in pargraphing, spelling and punctuating written work correctly.

Discovery

Students are doing a great job observing and learning about weather.  This week we've focused on learning about clouds, their names and what they look like in the sky.  We've been collecting and recording weather data through observational journals and reading many books on weather.  Please ask your child to tell you about this work.  It's wonderful to live in such an exciting place where the weather changes many, many times, often within one day!


Next Week's Sharing
Next week's topic is to share SOMETHING NEW.  This does not mean a material item, rather a new experience, goal or activity.  Some examples:

• Trying new foods
• Reading a new series of books.
• Trying a new fitness activity (skating, skiing, snowshoeing)
• Playing a new board game.
• Learning how to cook or trying a new recipe.
• Training a pet.
• Etc.

Updates

• New book orders are included in Friday Folders, they are due Wednesday, January 18th.
• Winter Wellness sign up forms are also in folders.  Please get them filled out and back to us asap!
• No school for students on Monday, January 16th.  This is a teacher inservice day!

As always, please feel free to contact us if you have any questions!

Have a great weekend!

Christine & Kathy

CC-3 Updates!

Chex Mix
Our Chex Mix making was a huge success.  As I write this blog post Friday morning, I'm excited about the sale!  A tremendous THANK YOU to all the families that donated supplies.  We made 18 double batches of mix, that is 432 cups of mix!  We had wonderful help from Tracy Phillips, Dave Christy and Monique Trepanier when it came to baking and bagging!  Students truly understood how their kindness will make a difference for Central Vermont children.

Dusting for Prints!
This week we've been finishing up our mystery unit.  On Wednesday, we did an exploration that involved using cocoa powder to dust for fingerprints.  Many of our students were very successful in seeing prints appear after dusting.  Please ask your child what he/she thought of in regard to this event.  We may have some future forensic scientists in our midst!  A positive outcome of this event was the fact our classroom smelled like a chocolate factory!

Mrs. Christy demonstrated the "dusting" process.

Literacy
This week we've working on reading skills associated with reading and sharing nonfiction text. Students learned a discussion protocol, called GoGoMo.  They did a great job reading an information book, deciding on key ideas, and then sharing their ideas with others.  Please ask your child to explain how GoGoMo works, it's a lot of fun!

In writing, we've been working on sentence structure, punctuation and neatness in our written work. Students have been improving their ability to write with complete sentences, making sure they have a subject and predicate.  We've been creating "lap book" resource guides for parts of speech.  So far we've added complete and fragmented sentences, common and proper nouns and plurals.  We'll be adding work with verbs and adjectives in the near future.

After break we'll be really concentrating on our informational writing unit.  This week students reviewed their pre-assessments and we talked about setting goals for this next unit.  Many students shared the fact that spelling and punctuation are key goals for them to work on.  As we tackle this next unit, students will be writing about something they are "experts" about.  It would be a great help if you could talk to your child and promote their thinking about what he/she truly knows a great deal about.  The possibilities are endless from raising puppies, to camping, sports, travel, collections they may have, a favorite activity, vacation spot, etc.  This is always a really fun unit to teach and students make amazing writing gains.

Upcoming

• Monday 12/19 -Gifts for Giving-Students need to bring a bag or box to transport their gifts in.
• Friday 12/23-K-3 Music concert at 1:45 p.m. in the EMES gym.  Students need to remember they will be playing their recorders.
• Friday 12/23-Classroom Celebration right after the concert.  If you'd like to join us, you are welcome to!  Please let us know if you'd like to send in a goodie to share!

Have a great weekend, stay warm!  We anticipate a VERY BUSY week next week, so we'll send our best wishes for a wonderful holiday week today!  ENJOY the break with your kids!

Christine & Kathy

Holiday Celebration

Next week will mark the end of 2016!  On Friday, the 23rd, students will have a concert in the gym beginning at 1:45p.m..  3rd graders will be playing their recorders.

We thought it would be nice to have a small class celebration after the concert.  We'd love for you to join us!  If you'd be willing to bring in a goodie to share it would be appreciated.  It will be a low key even,t to send us off for a great vacation.  If you are willing to bring something in, please email us so that we know what we will have and/or need.  Thanks so much, please let us know if you have any questions!
Christine and Kathy

Wednesday, December 7th

December Book Orders

December book orders are due tomorrow.  I will be submitting the paper and online orders tomorrow after school so they arrive before vacation.

Basketball Season Is Upon Us!

New or changing sports schedules can be confusing for students and teachers.  It is a tremendous help to us, and the front office if you send in notes when your son/daughter needs to stay after school for an event or practice.  Thank you!

Chex Mix

We are collecting donations for our Chex Mix sale until Wednesday, December 14th. We are making and mixing on Thursday, and will be selling it on Friday. We can use a couple of parent volunteers to help bake and bag the mix beginning at 1:45 p.m. Thursday, the 15th.  If you can help please let us know!  cchristiano@u32.org and kchristy@u32.org.

Following is a list of types of cereals, etc. we can use:

Wheat Chex                 Goldfish style crackers

Corn Chex              Cheez-it style crackers             Mini melba toast

Rice Chex              Cheerios (no honey-nut) 

                   

Small Pretzels-check labels to make sure they are from a peanut-free facility
* We have all the spices, bags, etc. that are necessary.*

            

The 2nd and 3rd grade classes will be having their annual Chex Mix Sale on Friday, December, 16th.  Bags of Chex Mix will cost $1.00.  All proceeds will benefit THE SANTA PROJECT.  This important Central Vermont project, sponsored by THE WORLD newspaper, buys new winter clothing for Central Vermont children in need.  Thank you for supporting this great cause!

Next Week's Sharing

Next week students will be sharing information books. Students have been taught how to fill out the forms to accompany their sharing.  Students are welcome to borrow information books from our classroom library, EMES library or share one from home.  Here is the link for the form: December Information Book Sharing. Mrs. Christy is happy to help any students who need more support with this assignment.