Exploring Invisible Forces

What a week! Even with so many starts and stops, we’ve quite a list of accomplishments. We completed our paper airplane competition – ask your child about the difference between a hard, fast push to launch the planes and a slow, gentle push. Ask your child if he or she has an idea about what shape makes a paper airplane go straight and fast. Ask your child if he or she has ideas of the forces that make an airplane go once it leaves a hand. We know about the push of thrust and the pull of gravity. We know the air provides lift if the wings are just right… We are going to continue our exploration of Invisible Forces over the next few weeks and then we will have another go at folding planes to go straight and fast. I wonder what we’ll discover.

Writing Letters of Gratitude

We spent some time writing letters to soldiers for the 500 letters for the 50th day of school. The class took time to thank our service men and women for their time and effort to keep each of our families and us safe. We are grateful to be living in a country with so much. The class expressed its appreciation of the risks taken to grant us freedom and safety. Our class was excited to be part of this project. We look forward to writing more letters to service men and women in the future. It felt good to take a moment to think of the many things we have to be grateful for.

Habitats and Food Webs

We are continuing to research and write about our zoo animals. We are getting ready to create our “zoo exhibits.” As we learn more about habitats and ecosystems we are thinking more about the interconnectedness of all creatures in our world. We first wondered what would happen if there were no more mosquitos. Some said it would be a good thing, while others were not so sure. Once we’ve explored the idea of food chains and food webs more, we’ll go back to that question – perhaps mosquitos have an important place after all.

Self-Awareness – Learning to Set Goals

We are putting together our work samples and reflections for our student led conferences. We are thinking about what we are doing now as readers, writers and mathematicians. From that starting point, we are thinking about what we hope to be able to do and what we’d like to accomplish throughout this 3rd grade year. It seems amazing that a third of it is nearly over!