It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like the Holidays

It was a pleasure to meet with all of you at conferences and share your children's progress.  I am so thrilled with how well all our 3rd graders have adjusted to the more rigorous demands of the 3rd grade curriculum!  This is such a WONDERFUL class.  As I told many of you, we're like a family, and I could not be luckier to work with such a great group of kids!

Over the past week or so we have begun a unit on Poetry in language arts, which everyone is LOVING!  We have read all kinds of poems and discussed the "tools" that we can use to write our own poetry--things like rhythm, rhyme, line breaks, similes, metaphors, personification, etc.  In addition, we have focused heavily on visual imagery.  I have been reading many poems to the students while they close their eyes.  As I finish a stanza, they have been drawing a picture of what they pictured in their mind while I read the lines.  At the end we discuss how their idea of what the poem is about has changed and how the poet used visual images to help them better understand the poem.  Then students title the poem.  I have to say, their titles have blown away the originals!  You have very creative kids!  One thing we have learned is that poetry can mean a lot of different things to each reader!  The children also tried their hands at writing their own If I Were in Charge of the World poems.  Next week they will write an few more original pieces.

Students continue to work with Mr. Bassett learning about matter and doing all kinds of fun experiments.

In social studies, we continue to learn about our state and about how to use symbols on a map.

In math, students finished up Module 2 and are working on multiplication again in Module 3 focusing on the 4, 6, 7, and 9s tables.  We've also been playing a lot of games to help with math fact fluency.

Please remember to bring in a wrapped book for the classroom book swap by Friday.  Our swap will be held during our holiday party on Monday before Christmas break.