There’s a lot going on in 3E. We’re learning about food chain and food webs, making our zoo habitats and working to complete our informational paragraphs. We’re planning to set up a new “art gallery” featuring our animals so you’ll have a preview of what you’ll be seeing as you enter our zoo. We’re reading and writing and doing science and math projects most days. We’re also working very hard to behave in thoughtful ways to support learning for everyone.

SEL – Self-Awareness and Responsible Decision Making

We’ve gathered together our reflections and set learning goals for the year. We’ve set goals as a class, and the children have set their own. They have an idea about what they would like to achieve as readers, writers and mathematicians. They know what their strengths are and what their challenges are. Each child has chosen work to show who they are as beginning 3rd grade learners.

It is challenging to write about thinking and learning. Some of their reflections and goals will make you smile. They are beginning to realize that they are in charge of what they accomplish. They are growing each day and working to positively impact our learning community.

Pushes and Pulls All Around

This week we’ve continued learning about invisible forces – pushes and pulls – and how engineers use what they know about lines of force to create and build. We explored pushes and pulls by creating “Hopper Poppers.” We learned how to launch them and then tried to think of ways to modify them to change or increase their lift. Next, we learned about bridges and how they are built. We learned about pillars and arches. We learned about suspension bridges and about trusses. We learned some about the story of how The Golden Gate was designed. Later, we used our information to build a bridge with two sheets of paper. At first, “that’s impossible” was heard throughout the room, but then we discovered how folding (making trusses) makes the paper stronger. We learned how arches change the lines of force by pushing up. Our strongest designs used pillar to support the span of the bridge. It was fun to see how the groups worked and persevered. Our next challenges involve learning about friction and gravity.

Hands-on science is fun. You may notice that your child is coming home with unfinished papers related to these topics. At this point in our study the class is quick to make and build, to do and create. Planning and recording are low on the priority scale at this point and that’s fine. When you talk to your child about these projects you can hear what they are learning and thinking and discovering. We can tell their curiosity is growing as well as they understanding and that’s what science is all about – developing a sense of wonder and asking, “what if…”

Rounding Numbers and Learning More About Problem Solving

This week we learned about rounding up and down. We are comfortable rounding to the nearest 10. We are learning how this process extends toward rounding to the nearest 100 and 1,000. Larger amounts are challenging for the children to think about and organize. They can easily picture how tens group into hundreds. Beyond that is a challenge, but they are working to feel more secure about the rules of mathematics – 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 round up; 4, 3, 2, 1 round down whether ones, tens or hundreds.

We’ve also been working to solve problems as efficiently as possible. You’ll notice changes back and forth between adding and multiplying. We need to practice different fact sets. In class we’re working to bring automaticity to 2’s and 5’s and we’re exploring the power of 10.

Bits and Pieces –

We all participated in the Trust Fall Challenge with Mr. Caron. It was scary and exciting. Even though we have a very talkative class and one that jokes when it might be nice to be serious, we all realized we can count on each other. That’s nice.

We began our fourth chapter read-aloud, School Days According to Humphrey. We are looking forward to what happens in Room 26.

We are looking forward to our conferences and sharing our work with you.

We are also looking forward to setting up our zoo. We’ve been creating our habitats and writing about our animals. We’ve explored a variety of leads so you’ll be encouraged to stop by and read our information posted with our exhibit.