*I will try to highlight new dates and information with red text.
April 25, 2014: Kid Fest 5:00 till 8:00pm (Rain or shine!)
May 6, 2014: 3rd Grade Reading Ohio Achievement Assessment for all students. Please avoid appointments and absences.
May 7, 2014: 3rd Grade Mathematics Ohio Achievement Assessment for all students. Please avoid appointments and absences.
May 10, 2014: Windermere Wish Run for the Ugandan Water Project
You can register at https://www.premierraces.com/viewevent.asp?eventID=1054
May 14, 2014: Early Release at 1:15 for professional development
May 26, 2014: No school: Memorial Day
June 2, 2014: Field Day
June 3, 2014: Field Day Rain Date
June 4, 2014: Last day for students
June 5, 2014: Teacher Grading Day
What We Learned This Week
Word Study
We studied verb tenses (past, present, and future) this week. Students learned how to determine the appropriate form of a verb using context clues. Students also learned generalizations for spelling the present and past tenses of verbs:
- Many verbs simply add -s to the end to become present tense (e.g., walk becomes walks).
- Verbs that add a syllable when they become present tense end in -es (e.g., crunch becomes crunches).- Present tense verbs ending in a consonant and -y change to -ies (e.g., fly becomes flies).
- Verbs ending in a short vowel sound and a consonant double the consonant for past and present tense (e.g., flip becomes flipped or flipping).
- Students studied many irregular past tense verbs (e.g., teach becomes taught).
Students reviewed contractions and the use of the apostrophe as a place holder for the missing letters when two words are combined. We composed contractions (e.g., can not becomes can't) and decomposed contractions (e.g., can't becomes can not).
We reviewed that synonyms mean "same" and antonyms mean "opposite." We rely on the rhyme between "synonym - same" and "antonym - opposite" as well as sign language to help us remember this. See if your student can share their respective signs. You can play Synonym Says with them or see if they can generate a longer list of synonyms and/or antonyms for common words such as "big" at the dinner table.
Reading
Students learned how to organize responses to non-fiction texts. It is a challenge for many third graders to provide two contrasts for a reading selection. If asked to provide to contrasts between cats and dogs, most students will list only one and provide both sides (e.g., cats live on land and fish live in the water) or they will list two contrasts, but only for one idea (e.g., cats live on land, fish have scales) without providing the other subject's contrasting point.
We are studying Brer Rabbit Tales and Aesop's Fables to develop the ability to determine the message or lesson implied in a fiction story, a primary purpose of folk tales.
We recently started reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. This dovetails nicely with our first fiction writings.
Writing
A tiny voice asked, "Is he the one?"
Math
We explored two step story problems. We began by determining all of the sixteen possible operations combinations we could have in a two step problem (I encourage students to use sum and difference instead of plus and minus):
sum sum, sum difference, sum multiplication, sum division
difference sum, difference difference, difference multiplication, difference division
multiplication sum, multiplication difference, multiplication multiplication, multiplication division
division sum, division difference, division multiplication, division division
I find this helps them to guess less often and really look at the questions closely to determine which two operations they need to do.
We concluded (but will continue to practice), multiplication strategies. Students are expected to have a strategy for any multiplication operation including a 0, 1, 2, 5, 9, or 10. Students should also understand that multiplication is simply addition of same size groups. They can rely on this understanding to quickly and mentally find products of factors of 3 and 6.
If a student knows 2 x 4 = 8
Then they can use the distributive property to solve 3 x 4 by breaking up the groups into two groups of 4 (which they know) and one more group of 4.
3 x 4 = (2 x 4) + (1 x 4)
I would actually use the specific language of, "Three groups of four can be redistributed into two groups of four and one group of four."
Likewise, an operation including a factor of 6 can be found using students' mastery of 5's.
6 x 8 = (5 x 8) + (1 x 8)
This can be extended to larger numbers.
28 x 6 = (20 x 6) + (8 x 6)
Students multiplying a single digit (e.g., 6 in the above example) by a multiple of ten (e.g., 20 in the above example) understand they use the basic fact (2 x 6 = 12) and then multiply by ten (20 x 6 = 120). This is far more complex than how most of today's adults learned multiplication, but it requires students deeply understand what they are doing, which supports catching errors, mental math, and problem solving. It will support them next year as well when they begin multi-digit multiplication.
Fractions are one of the key distinguishing mathematical concepts that support students identifying (or not identifying) as mathematicians. Because mastery is also dependent on knowing division, I like to return to fractions at the end of the year, once students have had time to develop multiplication and division fact fluency. For example, a student who knows their facts can quickly recognize that 3/12 is equivalent to 1/4, whereas the student who does not know them must labor through the process. We are currently placing fractions on a number line, focusing on determining how many "equal parts" (n) there are to the whole (the 1), labeling the 0 as 0/n, the 1 as n/n, and determining distances from one point to another on the number line. I'm really encouraged by students progress.
