Mrs. O'Connor's Third Grade Class: January 2015

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Candy-Free Valentines

Did you know that Graland has a Pinterest account? Consider checking out Graland's "Candy Free Valentines" board!

Monday, January 26, 2015

Our class Valentine’s Day celebration will take place on Friday, February 13^th at 12:15. Students will be bringing valentines for each of their classmates. They can be homemade or store-bought, but students may NOT include candy with their Valentines. Please help us monitor this. Happy Valentine's Day!

Addie Julian

Bricin Marco

Bryce Neela

Caroline Nina

Charlotte C Phillip

Charlotte W Sam

Chloe Sami

Estella Ty

EY Walker

Friday, January 23, 2015

Service Learning Project

Third graders have a wonderful opportunity to participate in a Naturalization Ceremony as part of our Service Learning project. Señora Christi James came to third grade and explained what a Naturalization Ceremony is all about. She explained that people from other countries immigrate to America for a variety of reasons. She shared that her family came from Mexico to America for the schools and for their family business. Mrs. Justine Hall joined us and explained her husband's desire to coach soccer in America, so she joined him from England. Mrs. Jill McSwain told the students that she came to America from Wales for the hiking, mountain biking, and snowboarding. Señora James then explained to the students that immigrants sometimes decide to become citizens of our country and why (voting rights, sponsor other family members, the love of America).

Señora James shared the process of becoming a citizen. After studying hard and passing a test, new citizens go to a Naturalization Ceremony where they receive their official certificates. This ceremony is often attended by friends and family (once Mom or Dad are citizens, then the children in that family are, too).

Since our third graders are becoming experts on Colorado, they will be playing an important role in the next Naturalization Ceremony - welcoming residents of Colorado to their American citizenship ceremony. Those interested will apply to be Ambassadors who will pass out programs and greet the new US Citizens. All third graders will be writing the new citizens notes of congratulations on the back of a framed Colorado postcard. They will also be making them decorated canvas bags with Colorado maps inside. During the ceremony, our third graders will be singing a song.

This great event will take place on February 18th at the History Colorado Center. All are welcome to attend. More details will be coming soon!

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Rendezvous Research

Yesterday, Mrs. Cook's class joined us for a lesson on Mountain Men and their summer trading meetings (Rendezvous) with Native Americans and other non-natives. After the lesson, the students worked on ipads to locate common trading items (beaver fur, salt, beads, gun powder, etc.). Then, each student recreated that trading item in a drawing, added details, and wrote a slogan. Tomorrow, our class will create digital posters advertising the trading items. These posters will be posted on the student blogs!

Friday, January 16, 2015

Morning Meeting Greeting

Every morning our students greet one another in a fun way. Addie came up with a clever yarn/spider web greeting! First she rolled the yarn to a student and said, "Good morning!" to him/her. This continued until everyone was greeted.

January Newsletter

Dear Third Grade Families,

Happy New Year! We hope you had a wonderful winter break. Students and teachers are already back in the thick of things, and we want to share with you what is happening in the classrooms.

Our exciting journey through Colorado history continues. We culminated our study of Native Americans with a wonderful presentation by Reed’s mom, Amy Swanson, and a Native American colleague of hers. They focused on the lives of Native Americans today Now we are learning about the trappers and traders who came to Colorado to hunt for beaver. We will also travel to Morrison to visit the Tesoro Cultural Center where the first replica of Bent’s Fort is located. There we will experience the many cultures that traded at Bent’s Old Fort, from the Cheyenne, Ute and Pawnee tribes to French, British and American fur trappers.

In our Journeys’ curriculum, we are exploring story structure, homophones, comparing and contrasting texts, as well as various spelling patterns that are reflected in the weekly spelling lists. A very exciting third grade reading incentive, called the Newberry Club, begins in January. Students will have the opportunity to read award-winning books to become part of the club. The process involves independent reading of appropriate level books reaching different goals along the way. Be on the lookout for more information about this project to come home soon.

During our Math in Focus work this month we are tackling multiplication, begin division and work with measurement, including perimeter and area. Now is the time for students to master their memorization of multiplication facts. Some students have shared that they believe once they’ve done multiplication work on Moby Max, they are done with it. This is not true. Unless they have rapid recall, they need to repeat the exercises. Flash cards in the car and before bed quizzes are important as well. At this time in the year, we expect students to have mastery of addition and subtraction facts and to be working daily on multiplication. Writing practice for the WrAP test continues monthly. Please be sure that your children follow the directions for brainstorming (15 minutes), developing the rough draft (45 minutes), and editing their work using the checklist (15 minutes). Remind them that brainstorming does NOT mean complete sentences, but rather dash notes about ideas they want to develop in their stories.

Finally, please send your child to school with appropriate clothing for winter weather. We go out for recess whenever possible, and the children need warm clothing and snow boots. Feel free to leave extra mittens and hats in the lockers. This is an exciting time of year and lots of learning is taking place!

Warmly,

The Third Grade Team

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Multiplication

Math Chapter 6, Multiplication Tables of 6, 7, 8, and 9, is well underway! Ask your student to define multiplication. He/she might respond by saying "repeated addition" or "equal groups."

Consider giving your child a multiplication equation, or better yet, a multiplication story problem! Then, ask your child to draw an area model, explaining which factor represents the columns and which factor represent the rows. What is the product? How does the area represent the product? This is what we have been working on in class. Our students are working hard and learning a lot!