Napolitano News!
IMPORTANT DATES
May 3- Early Release
May 14 + 16- Grade 3 Math MCAS
May 28- No School- Memorial Day
Pond Water Needed!
Our frog eggs have arrived and over the next month we need several jugs of pond water to help them grow.
Week of April 23
FIELD TRIP
We had our field trip to Plimoth Plantation this Thursday and it was a success! The students first went to the Mayflower II. This is an exact replica of the original Mayflower. We were able to walk on the ship and go through the three main levels. The students were shocked by how small the living space was that the 102 passengers lived it. It was a cramped space that needed to be shared with people and animals!
Next, we went to the 17th century English Village. This village is a re-creation of the small farming and maritime community built by the Pilgrims along the shore of Plymouth Harbor. In the Village, the year is 1627, just seven years after the arrival of Mayflower. The people that we met there were costumed role players portraying actual residents of Plymouth Colony. They have adopted the names, viewpoints and life histories of the people who lived and worked in the Colony in 1627. Most students found out where his/her pilgrim's house was and they may have even met him/her.
The final stop on our tour was the Wampanoag homesite. Here, we discovered how the 17th-century Wampanoag would have lived along the coast during the growing season; planting their crops, fishing and hunting,~gathering wild herbs and berries for food, and reeds for making mats and baskets. We saw different kinds of homes including a mat-covered wetu, and the winter longhouse. Unlike the people we met in the English village, the staff in the Wampanoag Homesite wasnít role players. They are all Native People- either Wampanoag or from other Native Nations - and they were dressed in historically accurate clothing, mostly made of deerskin.
The children had a wonderful learning experience on our trip. They were able to apply the knowledge that they have previously learned, as well as learning new facts.
SCIENCE
This week in science we learned about the life cycle of the frog. We discovered that there are 5 basic stages of a frog; egg mass, tadpole, tadpole with legs, froglet, and adult frog. Each stage lasts a given amount of time, until they undergo a complete metamorphosis. Take a look at how different each stage looks.
RESEARCH
The children chose their New England animal that they want to study for our animal research report. This project is a study on an animal that lives in the New England area. The children are going to work in class reading and researching through books to become experts on his/her animal. We started this week by learning some vocabulary terms that they may encounter while reading. These are key words they will need to know in order to understand concepts and factual information that they read. Each pair of children had two vocabulary words, which they made a poster of.
Week of April 9
CREATIVE ARTS
We were fortunate enough to have the creative arts program bring author and illustrator, Lucinda Landon to Bowen. She showed us the variety of books that she has created in the past and explained the process that is needed in order to publish a book. Lucinda is most famous for her Meg Mackintosh mystery books. We read a couple of them in class. Check out her website!
TYPING
Over the past few weeks the children have been practicing their typing using the typing program Type To Learn. Well, this week we put our typing skills to the test. The children were asked to open up a Word document and type a worksheet that they were copying from about frogs. They all had the same frog worksheet with a couple of paragraphs on it. They were practicing typing from a piece of paper, just as they would when they type from a rough draft they write.
MATH
Our class learned a new math game this week called Around the World. This is a math facts game using flash cards, we did it with addition facts but soon we will incorporate multiplication. The purpose is to practice our math facts and make them more automatic. Ask your child how to play this fun game!
Week of April 2
This week the students had project explore and they participated in Understanding Our Differences regarding blindness. They saw what Braille machines look like and how they work.
Our interim principal, Ms. Bencal, came to our classroom this week to introduce herself and get to know our class. She asked the students questions about school and their classroom. She also brought in her guitar and sang a song with us!
SCIENCE
This week in science we used our frog unit to incorporate writing, reading and poetry. So far in this unit we have focused mainly on the scientific facts of frogs and other amphibians. Over the week we read various poems (in different styles of poetry) related to frogs and wrote some of our own verses. The children read a type of poem that is called a free verse poem. These are poems that do not have a rhyme or a beat. The students saw how the poet used words to create a detailed picture of a frog. The children then had to make their own free verse poem.
Once we all read the poems and created pictures to match what the poems were talking about, each child had to pick one frog poem to recite in front of the class. They have been working on how present in front of others, focusing on reading with expression and paying attention to punctuation. The children have really shown growth in reciting and speaking in front of a large group. It's not easy, but they did great.
Later in the week the students created their own specific poem on frogs. They made a Haiku poem. This is a Japanese poem, which has certain requirements. This poem has 3 lines. The first line must have 5 syllables, second line 7 syllables, and third line 5 syllables.
MATH
In math, the students solved division problems with multi-digit quotients through hands-on activities. We explored problems that involve equal sharing and the children solved problems about equal groupings where they needed to interpret remainders.
We also began our first week of multiplication time tests. Each week the students should be studying and practicing their multiplication facts up to 10. At the end of the week the students will have a test of 50 multiplication facts and they need to complete as many as they can in 5 minutes. This is to strengthen their fact knowledge and to have these facts become more automatic.
Week of March 26
Happy Spring! It was so nice to sit down with each of you over the past two weeks to discuss the wonderful progress your child has made in school so far.
SCIENCE
Is that a frog or a toad? That was the question this week in our science lessons. The children learned the similarities and differences between frogs and toads. These two creatures are both amphibians, which means they both begin their lives in water, hatching from jelly-like eggs into tadpoles. They are also both cold-blooded, (body temperatures are similar to their surroundings) have no scales, and they have water-tight skin. Take a look at the two pictures to find out what the students learned about their differences.
READING
The reading MCAS are over and the children did a wonderful job practicing and focusing. They realized after the test, that they were very well prepared and it wasn't as "scary" as they thought it would be!
MATH
This week in math the students extended the partial-products method to products of 2-digit numbers and 2-digit numbers of 10.
WRITING
The students continued working on their first draft of their favorite place story. For this writing assignment, students will be going through each step of the writing process, and focus heavily on revising their work to improve organization and word choice. This week the students who finished their first draft worked with a classmate to do peer editing. This required the students to sit together and read each other's story two times and then make comments on what they liked about the story. They also were responsible to check for spelling and give suggestions on what they could add to make their piece richer and more detailed.
Week of March 19
SCIENCE
We have begun our unit on frogs. We started our unit by learning about amphibians. The students brainstormed and jotted down some characteristics of amphibians. We then compared our brainstormed notes to what we learned at the end of the week. The children found out that amphibians are a class of animals that spend part of their life on land and part in water. They breathe through their skin and with gills (when they are young) or with lungs (as adults). Amphibians are vertebrates, have scale-less skin, and most are born from shell-less eggs. There are 3 different groups of amphibians; toads and frogs, newts and salamanders, and caecilians. Our unit is going to focus on frogs. We are even lucky enough to have frogspawn in our classroom to watch
the complete life cycle of a frog. Take a look at some of the eggs and tadpoles that are forming!
MATH
This week in math we have taken our multiplication skills to a new level. We now know how to multiply 1-digit numbers by multidigit numbers using what we call a partial-products algorithm. The idea of using the partial products method is for the children to understand the concept of place value when multiplying. This algorithm provides useful practice with basic facts and their extensions, and also builds "number sense" for products. Here is how this method works.
Week of March 12
READING
This week the students had their first MCAS "scrimmage". This is what we call a practice MCAS. The students took an old MCAS test and followed the same rules that they will during the real test. We will have about 2 of these scrimmages a week until "game day", the real thing. The children are continuing to add more specific details when writing their open response answers. This is something that they need to work on anytime they write. Most students are too general when writing and don't answer the question fully. The day after they take a test, the students and I meet one-on-one to correct his/her test. All corrections are done in a colored pencil. The students will be taking home all work that they do for MCAS.
MATH
The students are continuing to work on their extended multiplication facts. We used the same strategies to multiply 10 multiples of 10. For instance, 20 x 40 = 800. We also took a look at estimating. The children discussed that there are times when it is not necessary to calculate exact answers. The class used their math reference books to look at some pages that had shopping items with prices. The children practiced using estimating to find out the cost of a given amount of an item. They found it easier to use estimation when youíre shopping instead of finding the exact cost. We also practiced and studied our 4's times table this week.
WRITING
In writing our class began their next writing piece, which is called My Favorite Place. The students received an outline of what their story should include. The final product will have at least 3 paragraphs describing his/her favorite place. They must include as much detail as possible and as many adjectives as they can. Their goal is to fill their story with rich imagery and vocabulary. The reader should be able to make a clear, mental picture of each studentís favorite place. This week we read a couple of examples of final pieces and discussed what we liked about them. The children brainstormed their ideas and begun to write their first paragraph. Ask them what their favorite place is!
SOCIAL STUDIES
Our social studies lessons for the week were focused on the first Thanksgiving. The students read a book called Giving Thanks: The 1621 Harvest Feast. This story was a great description of two perspectives about the same story; the harvest feast of 1621. The book chronicles the feast from two perspectives simultaneously; Dancing Moccasins, a Wampanoag boy and Resolved White, a pilgrim boy. Before we read this insightful story, each child brainstormed ideas of what they thought the first Thanksgiving was like. After the story, we compared or contrasted our preconceived thoughts to the factual information we had just learned.
Week of March 5
READING
We have already dived into our month long practice of MCAS. Each day in Reader's Workshop we take the time to read old MCAS passages and practice using strategies to help us answer questions. The children have realized that they are not required to do anything different in the MCAS than they normally do in class. They have to use complete sentences anytime they write, they ask themselves questions as they read, and they have to add details to their answers. We have been practicing all of this since the beginning of the year. We have gone over how to choose the best answer for multiple-choice questions. They need to get into the habit of reading ALL of the choices before picking the best one. They also are working on going back into
the story to find proof of their answer.
MATH
This week in math we have finished up on our geometry unit and are continuing a unit on multiplication and division. The children learned to multiply 1-digit numbers by multiples of 10, 100, and 1,000. The students used basic multiplication facts, such as 6 x 4 = 24, to get the answer to an extended multiplication fact like 40 x 6 or 4 x 600. They discovered that one way to find products such as this (4 x 600) is to multiply the nonzero digits, 4 x 6=24, count how many zeros are in the multiple (two), and attach the zeros to the product to get 2,400. They know that the zeros represent place values that have nothing in them. Have them show you this strategy of multiplying extended facts.
We also studied our 9's times tables this week. The students learned a fun trick to help them check their answer anytime they multiply by 9. You need to put both of your hands out flat. Let's say you are multiplying 9x4, count your fourth finger from the left and fold it down. This is what you would see. The number of fingers before the folded finger is the tens digit, and the number of fingers after the folded finger is the ones digit. So 9 x 4= 36.
SOCIAL STUDIES
The students learned this week about the complexity of getting and preparing food as the pilgrims had to do. They understood the importance of planning for procurement of food. They learned all of this through a play that the children acted out. Each student had a speaking role in our mini reader's theater. The play is called Food, Glorious Food. It took us through what it was like to go through a year of pilgrim life trying to find and make food. The children worked together with others in his/her scene and acted out the lines and parts. Have them tell you about their role during this engaging learning time!
Students also read historical fiction books about the lives of a boy and a girl pilgrim. They learned what their activities of daily life were like and the students were able to find similarities and differences between male and female roles and responsibilities. They worked in partners to read about Samuel Eaton and Sarah Morton, both seven year-old children living in Plimoth in 1627, seven years after the pilgrims came to the new world.
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