Teaching Through Innovation: March 2012

Monday, March 26, 2012

Curriculum Update March 26-30

We really had some wonderful weather this weekend! I hope everyone was able to enjoy it.

This week, we will be taking our math state assessments on Tuesday-Thursday. Please make sure your child get a good night sleep and a healthy breakfast. We will take them from 12:00-1:30.

Please see the enclosed link regarding classroom placement for next school year.

www.usd232.org/education/components/docmgr/default.php?sectiondetailid=34591&

On Friday, we will take a walking field trip with Mrs. Margheim's class, identifying goods and services in our community. We will stop at McDonald's. Please send money in with your child if you would like them to purchase something from McDonald's. If it rains, we go on the walk next week. Please look for a permission slip in your child's Monday folder.

Rigby Reading
We will continue to focus on author's purpose, identifying why the author writes. We will also identify symbolism throughout the story that helped us come up with our conclusion and identify the theme.

enVision Math
Monday, we will have the math Super Bowl all day. We will do some math writing on Friday and begin Topic 9, fractions on Monday, April 2.

Spelling
There is no spelling this week due to state testing. It will resume next week.

Social Studies
Last week, we played a game where the students could understand bartering. We identified the difference between a want and need. We also had our class store, where the students filled out consumer decision making and opportunity costs papers. We also identified the difference between spending and saving. We will identify goods and services this week.

Science
We continued force and motion. The students learned about friction, kinetic energy and potential energy. They also applied Newton's Three Laws of Motion through their plane sense investigations. We will continue experimenting with force and motion this week.

Writing
Our published books have been completed and sent off to the publisher. We will begin persuasive writing and poetry.

Have a fantastic week! :)

Monday, March 19, 2012

2012 PRE Survey

The 2012 Prairie Ridge Parent Survey is open! The school’s Site Council worked to shorten the length of the survey, so it will only take approximately 5 minutes to complete. Please note, surveys are set up by grade level, so if you have more than one student at PRE, we ask you complete one per child. This will allow you to provide specific feedback for each of your children. The survey closes on March 26^th. The school uses the survey information as a part of our continuous improvement process, and your feedback is valuable to us! Thank you for taking a few minutes to complete the survey(s).

Third Grade Prairie Ridge Parent Survey 2012

www.surveymonkey.com/s/HFYNVCG

Friday, March 9, 2012

Curriculum Update March 12-16

I hope everyone has a wonderful spring break! Enjoy the break. I can't believe we are already beginning fourth quarter. The year has really flown by!

Just a reminder, Monday is crazy socks day and Friday is wear red or blue.

Rigby Reading
Last week, we learned about personification and worked on creating questions to discuss stories. This week, we will focus on author's purpose and we will also continue with the students leading their own discussion groups. As we review skills, we will begin to look deeper to extend the kid's thinking of the story. We will focus on characterization, tone, foreshadowing/flashbacks and will look for symbolism throughout the different stories.

enVision Math
We will have math boot camp this week to review all the concepts for the math state assessments that will take place March 27-29. Please make sure your child is reviewing their math playbook.

Spelling
We will focus on reference materials for our word study in Rigby. The words are brother, food, inside, left, atlas, sneeze, index, contents, data and source. The extension list focus will be trans (across, through). The words are transatlantic, transcontinental, transcribe, transect, transfer, translate, translucent, transparent, transpiration and transport.

Social Studies
We recently learned about responsible borrowing, credit, interest, capacity, character and collateral. The students learned about responsible lending. Is the person credit worthy to lend to? We will now focus on goods and services, spending, bartering, scarcity and opportunity costs. We will have our class store to reinforce these concepts and play a fun bartering game.
The students will determine what taxes pay for goods and who provides the services. We also determine if something is a want or need.
Science
We ended our study of sound. Our last experiment, screaming balloons, focused on sound but also introduced our next concept, force and motion. The students learned about Newtons Three Laws of Motion and learned about centripetal force. Here is a short video demonstrating the concepts learned.

We will now focus on describing th motion of an object.

Writing
We will complete our published books this weeks. We will then begin looking at point of view and persuasive writing. The students will write their own persuasive writing piece.

Have a fantastic week!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Personification Voicethreads

We learned about personification. In Rigby, we read, "I've Been Working in the Factory". We identified the different types of personification and what it means. Then, we went outside and observed nature. Each child wrote their own personification poem and created a picture to go with it.

Jake's Personification

Ava's Personification

Josie's Personification

Brady's Personification

Amanda's Personification

Dace's Personification

Ellie's Personification

Sabrina's Personification

Lake's Personification

Libby's Personification

Austyne's Personification

Adam's Personification

John's Personification

Abigail's Personification

Emily's Personification

Kenzie's Personification

Friday, March 2, 2012

Compare and Contrast Videos

KSA Reading Super Bowl

We had our KSA Reading Super Bowl on Monday. We played kinesthetic learning games that helped us review for the assessments. We competed against all the other third grade classes. The kids had a great time and demonstrated they were more than prepared for assessments. Go Super Pandas!

Curriculum Update March 5-8

Phew! Reading assessments are over. Today, I informed your child what level they scored on the test. Please remember these are only preliminary results. You will receive official scores with exact percentages and levels at the end of the school year. We will now begin reviewing for the math state assessments that will take place March 27-29.
If you haven't returned your published book form, please do Please remember there is no school on Friday, March 9.

Rigby Reading
We will continue focusing on compare and contrast and reviewing determine importance. We will also look for personification in our stories.

enVision Math
We have finished Topic 15, which focused on liquid voluma and mass. We will review on Monday and take the test on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday, we will go over things for the state assessments.

Spelling
Spelling resumes this week. The Rigby focus will be proper nouns. This list is bring, fast, green, hand, Kansas, Shawnee, Johnson County, Topeka, United States, Capitol, and Washington, D.C. The extension list focus is circ, circum (round, around). The list is circle, circlet, circuit, circulate, circumference, circumflex, circumnavigate, circumrotate, circumspect and circumvent.

Social Studies
We continued learning about economics this week. We learned about interest, saving, borrowing and spending. The students used graphs to understand the concept of the book, Less than Zero that focused on these concepts. Afterwards, they created their own savings goals. We also learned about what goes into creating and running a business. They can reinforce this concept at home at
http://disney.go.com/hotshot/hsb3/index.html

Science
We began a unit on sound. We learned about pitch, frequency, vibration and friction. On Tuesday, we had a balloon experiment where students learned that sound vibrations travel. They also learned how to use their senses to determine different vibrations. Students learned how vibrations can be changed to alter pitch. On Thursday, we had did a chicken in a cup experiment. The students tested the difference in sound between a dry string and a wet one. They learned about friction being formed form the wet paper towel. This increased the sound.