Week of November 26th, 2017 - 18

Reminders for the Week

Parent Conferences
We look forward to meeting with all of you at conferences. During conferences, your child will take five minutes to reflect on his/her progress towards goal/s and accomplishments. After this time, the teacher and parent will discuss progress for the trimester and possible next steps.
READING

This week, in order to develop and take away big messages, third grade biography readers will study the choices a biography subject makes. As readers realize that most subjects are brave and determined, they will work on finding the precise words to describe the specific kind of courage or risk-taking that makes that person unique. At the same time, by studying choices and their impact, third grade readers will realize that biographies provide a window into the time and society that person lived, which will help deepen their knowledge of history.

WRITING
This short week in writing we are looking at choosing words that sound right and evoke emotion in the reader. We will study an example of a speech written by a 13 year old and read to the United Nations. Take a look at this video . We will also have time to reflect on what we do as persuasive writers. What moves have we learned and like using in our own writing.

MATH

During this short week of instruction, our mathematicians will begin by examining the multiplication table closely to identify patterns between multiplication and division facts. In particular, they will focus their attention on factors being multiplied that are either both even, both odd, or even and odd, and notice that there is a pattern among the resulting products.

Mathematicians will also apply the tools, representations, and strategies they have learned to solve two-step word problems using all four operations. When solving problems, students will be expected to evaluate the reasonableness of their answers using rounding to estimate their solutions and asking themselves if their answers make sense.

By the end of the week, students will use the place-value chart to multiply by multiples of 10. For example, to solve 2 x 50 they begin by modeling 2 × 5 in the ones place. They can then relate this to multiplying 2 × 5 tens, by shifting the same basic fact to the tens column. Mathematicians will see that when multiplied by 10, the product 2 x 5 shifts one place value to the left, allowing them to solve 2 x 50.

SCIENCE

This week third grade starts our new Science unit all about 'Light and Sound'. Our essential question is; 'How can we manipulate light and sound?' We will have a time to explore different materials and how they relate to different sounds and light movement. We will discuss some key vocabulary including - length, tension, thickness, vibration, pitch, frequency, reflection, refraction, absorb, opaque, translucent, transparent, transmit, light beam. We will look at: change in length, tension, or thickness of a vibrating object on the frequency of vibration. Light can be reflected by a mirror, bent by a lens, or absorbed by the object.