Hello 3rd Grade Families!
LITERACY
Last week we read Rocks in His Head by Carol Otis Hurst.
Rocks in His Head was about a man who was passionate and knowledgeable about rocks and minerals. The plot of the story revolved the man's passion for rocks, and despite many things going wrong for him, he perseveres and lands a job in a museum as the curator of a rocks and minerals exhibit. The theme of the story communicated that if you follow your passion it will lead you to good things in the end.
Our Tuesday Reading Response task had the students going back to the text in order to analyze the use of the phrase "He's got rocks in his head". Not only was this the title of the story, but throughout the story the author repeats this phrase, six or more times. The meaning for this phrase changes throughout the story, and takes on different meanings in different contexts.
Tuesday's task had the students locate each instance, and describe it's meaning. They filled out the graphic organizer above before writing their response.
READER'S WORKSHOP
This week we used Reader's Workshop to begin our Important Person research.
Research Task #1
Get to know the person
The students were asked to begin reading their biography, with the purpose of getting to know their important person. This required close reading with special attention to the person's words, thoughts, and actions, in order to begin to describe their person's character.
Students recorded character traits and evidence in their notebooks.
Research Task #2
Assemble a timeline of your person's life
For this research task, the students learned how to skim the text in search of dates, read the context clues surrounding the date to gain an understanding of an event, and think about the relevance of the event and whether or not it should be included on their person's timeline. This research step encouraged critical thinking skills and required good reading comprehension.
Coming up next week, Research Task #3 and #4. What influences led your important person to be who they are? What accomplishments did your person achieve in his or her lifetime?
WRITING
This week many students finished their second informational articles and completed their writing conference with me.
This week we will continue our Important Person Research during Reader's and Writer's Workshop.
MATH
This week in math we focused on division word problems and the various representations used to represent it. All of the groundwork has been laid, as most of the strategies we've been exploring for multiplication are applicable to division as well.
Once our initial introduction to division was complete, we spent time comparing and contrasting it with multiplication.
The examination of this relationship set us up nicely to explore multiplication and division fact families.
To practice this new skill, I had each student create an array and display it on their desk.
Each array represented a multiplication and division fact family.
The students then scooted around the classroom recording the fact family being depicted on each student's desk.
We completed our first map scavenger hunt using the maps the students brought from home.
MAP SCAVENGER HUNT #1
The Compass Rose
Our first scavenger hunt of our maps was the hunt for the compass rose. The intention was to expose them to as many different maps as possible while at the same time, reinforce the idea of the compass rose and the 4 cardinal directions. The students worked in partners as they visited each other’s maps, locating a landmark on the map for each of the 4 cardinal directions.
They recorded information from 4 different maps in the classroom. The students were super engaged and excited to show off their maps!
(photos complements of Mr. Galati)
We also worked on our Compass Rose Watercolor pictures.
I discussed the use of contrasting color schemes in their pictures, so the compass and the background wouldn’t blend into one another.
Ultimately, students were allowed to make whatever color choices they desired.
Art
On Friday, we welcomed a guest artist to our classroom. Chrissie Shaffer, Marlowe's mom, has a background in fashion design illustration.
She taught the students how to draw people using correct proportions.
Thank you Chrissie! I will give the students several more opportunities to practice their new people-drawing skills this year.
