December 11, 2017

Adventures in Third Grade

December 11, 2017

News for the Week… Only 7 more days of school until the holiday break? We had a busy afternoon on December 7th helping in the holiday shop. What a wonderful opportunity to be responsible third graders and lend a helping hand to the younger students at Chippewa. The students got to do their own shopping and help others. When students weren’t shopping we were working on holiday projects in the classroom. Unit 2 Vocabulary Test: Friday, December 15. Holiday Party-December 19, 11-12:00 Current Events are due January 11, 2018.

ELA We just finished our second vocabulary unit. Students will have a cumulative test on Friday, December 15 on weeks 1-6 of Unit 2. They will be bringing their Vocabulary Journals home each night to study and we will also be doing some review activities in the classroom. We have begun using our research skills to do some research on how different cultures celebrate the holiday season. Each student got to choose the two cultures they wanted to research and were responsible for finding the answers to research questions. Each student will use the information they gained from their research to put into a Google Slideshow. They will also use the information to write a compare and contrast paragraph comparing the two cultures they researched.  The students will write a paragraph about how they celebrate the holiday season at their home. Please take this opportunity to discuss with your child some of their favorite holiday traditions.  After students have completed their project they will have the opportunity to share their slideshow.

Math We are continuing to work on  multiplication and division number patterns. We have been using a table to identify number patterns and we have also worked on multiplying by 10 and multiples of 10.  We will have a test over this chapter on Monday, December 18th. Students should also be practicing their multiplication facts at home in order to increase their math fact fluency. We are using the computer program XTra math for practice at school.  A letter about the program was sent home so that students are able to access this at home. We have begun our multiplication timed tests at school and a letter was sent home about our Ice Cream Sundae incentive. The students are also working on some project based learning activities. The Pilgrim Project will be completed this week as well as the Cocoa Bar Project. The students have been working hard to come up with a budget for their Cocoa Bar as well as a slogan and advertising. They will be putting their business sense into practice by setting up their Cocoa Bar and sharing it with our class and Miss Arko’s class. A letter regarding supplies for this fun culminating activity will be coming home.

Social Studies We have moved on to our Social Studies unit about Civics. We have learned about Citizen Responsibilities which includes: respecting the rights of others, being informed about local issues, paying taxes, voting and obeying the law. Students are using a Google slideshow template to further explore these topics. Our next topic will be solving problems for the common good.

November 27, 2017

News for the Week… 3rd Grade Musical-November 30th at 7:00 at BBH High School Auditorium. Third grade students will be helping the other grade levels shop at the Holiday Shop this year. Our class will be helping on December 7th in the afternoon. On December 7th our class will also be able to shop at the Holiday Shop.  All items at the shop cost $2 and students must bring money for the number of items they wish to purchase.

ELA Every Friday we will have a spelling test. Students are practicing their spelling words and the spelling pattern at school during their Word Work. Please have your child practice their words at home also. We are currently moving on to the comprehension strategy of problem/solution.  We will be looking at a story map which includes: characters, setting and problem/solution. We will practice this strategy with fables, fiction and non-fiction texts. We are working on finishing our opinion writing. We are finalizing these final parts of the writing: organizing their writing into paragraphs writing their topic and concluding sentences transitions editing and publishing.

Math We are continuing to work on  multiplication and division number patterns. We have currently practiced number patterns of  2s and 5s. We will be working on the number pattern of 10s and then we will have a test over these three number patterns. Students should begin practicing their multiplication facts at home in order to increase their math fact fluency. We are using the computer program XTra math for practice at school.  A letter about the program was sent home so that students are able to access this at home. The students are also working on some project based learning activities. There are two projects that different groups of students are working on. One group will be beginning a Hot Cocoa Bar project and the other group will be finishing their Pilgrim project.

Social Studies We will be moving on to our Social Studies unit about Civics. We will begin with Citizen Responsibilities which includes: respecting the rights of others, being informed about local issues, paying taxes, voting and obeying the law. Students will use a Google slideshow template to further explore these topics.

November 13, 2017

News for the Week… No School-November 22-24 Thanksgiving Break. Everyone will need to begin taking home their habitat projects this week. If they are not able to take their project home on the bus please be sure to make arrangements for them to get their project home. If you are scheduled for a conference this week you can take their project home at that time. We would like all projects taken home by Friday, November 17. 3rd Grade Musical-November 30th at 7:00 at BBH High School Auditorium

ELA This week will be the first Vocabulary assessment for the second quarter. This will cover the vocabulary for Weeks 1 and 2. We are currently working on whose point of view a story is being told from. While determining whose point of view the story is being told from we are also determining the author’s point of view (what the author thinks), which we have been practicing the last two weeks. After completing our short candy opinion writing we have moved on to working on a longer opinion piece. The students worked on generating ideas for their opinion writing. They were able to use these ideas and narrow it down to the topic they will be using for their writing. They have also used a graphic organizer to organize their reasons and examples to support their opinion. We will continue to work on: writing a lead revising their reasons organizing their writing into paragraphs writing their topic and concluding sentences transitions editing and publishing.

Math We are moving on to multiplication and division number patterns. We will begin with 2s and 5s. Students should begin practicing their multiplication facts at home in order to increase their math fact fluency. We are currently using a computer program called XTra math for practice at school. I will be sending home a letter about the program and how students are able to access this at home. The students are also working on some project based learning activities. There are two projects that different groups of students are working on. One project is a Thanksgiving Meal Project and the other is a Pilgrim project.

Social Studies Students are working on completing their Google slideshow animal research project. This is part of our animal unit and is also being combined with our integration lessons with Mrs. McKelvey. On Friday, November 17 we will have our animal unit assessment. Students will complete a study guide which they will be reviewing nightly beginning Tuesday night.. They will also be bringing home their science book to reread portions of the chapter in preparation for the assessment. We will be moving on to our Social Studies unit about Civics.

October 25, 2017

News for the Week… End of the first quarter-October 26 No School-October 27-Records Day October 31-Halloween Party. Please have your child bring in their costume for the party and parade. Hair coloring, make-up, violent or scary costumes as well as weapons associated with a costume should be kept at home for trick or treating. It was great to see everyone at Open House. I hope everyone enjoyed seeing all the wonderful projects that the class has completed. The third grade AIR testing is complete, all of the students handled the testing situation exceptionally and should be very proud of themselves..

ELA Everyone did extremely well on the first quarter Vocabulary Assessment. Nice job working hard and studying. We will continue to work on Author’s Point of View using expository texts. Author’s Point of View is a good connection to writing more opinion pieces. We have worked on completing a short opinion writing about our favorite candy. The students completed a graphic organizer to organize their writing. The graphic organizer included their topic and closing sentences as well as three reasons with examples of why the candy they chose was their favorite. We had a Candy Writing Celebration to celebrate the completion of our first opinion writing piece. We will be moving on to writing longer opinion pieces that are supported with text evidence or research.

Math We are moving on to our next chapter which covers division. The first lesson was about using partitioning to solve division number sentences. We will also learn about division as equal sharing and relating division and subtraction. The class participated in an Unlock the Haunted House challenge.. The students worked in teams of two to solve the following challenges: Eyeball, Pumpkin, Spider, Candy, Monster, and the Haunted House Challenge. This was a challenging review of multiplication strategies as well as problem solving.

Social Studies Our first Science unit will be about animals. As part of our Science unit students will be choosing an animal and creating the habitat that their animal lives in. The students already received an information packet about the habitat project and most have returned the bottom portion stating which animal they will be working on for this project. If your child has not returned the bottom portion stating which animal they will be using for their habitat project please do so. The animal they chose will also be part of a research Google Slideshow they will be completing in the classroom.

October 9, 2017

Adventures in Third Grade

October 9, 2017

News for the Week… Current Event forms were sent home in Friday Folders on September 8. All current events are due on October 20. October 12 is Spirit Day, so wear your Brecksville Bees gear to school.  The High School cheerleaders and football players will be coming to Chippewa for spirit day in the afternoon. No School-October 13-NEOEA Day No School-October 27-Records Day

ELA Last week we practiced the skill of Key Ideas and Details; Main Idea and Best Detail with fiction and nonfiction texts. We will continue to practice this skill as we move onto Theme/Central idea. We will also work on the accuracy strategy of Skip a Word. In this strategy if a word is not known the student skips the word and completes the sentence, then they go back and use the context clues to figure out the unknown word. We have continued our vocabulary study. We will have a test every two weeks on the new set of vocabulary words. Each test will include 10 vocabulary words. We will do review activities at school but beginning this week students will be bringing their Vocabulary Journals home every night in order to review a little each night for their test on Thursday. There are also Quizlet review activities that students can access on our Google Classroom. The week of October 16 we will be participating in review activities for our cumulative test of the words from weeks 1-6.  This Cumulative Review Test will be on October 20th. We have finished our Personal Narratives. Next week we will be working on using a graphic organizer as a strategy for organizing our writing. Our next writing unit of study will be Opinion Writing.

Math We have begun learning a variety of strategies to model Multiplication. We have learned how to make equal groups in order to model multiplication and as a strategy to solve multiplication problems. We also have learned how to use repeated addition when solving multiplication sentences. The final strategy we have used is building arrays to model multiplication. This week we will work on a City Scape project to apply our knowledge of arrays and multiplication.

Social Studies We have finished our project of making our own islands and making the maps of our islands. Now that we have completed our first Social Studies unit we will be moving onto Science. Our first Science unit will be about animals. As part of our Science unit students will be choosing an animal and creating the habitat that their animal lives in.

September 25, 2017

News for the Week... There is a STEAM survey that was sent out to parents, The district is trying to create a database of parents who are in STEAM professions that could be used for helpful for classroom based learning activities. The link to complete the survey is: STEAM survey Reminders... A Scholastic order will be placed on September 29. This is an excellent way to get good books at affordable prices. Please make sure each night your child is showing you their agenda and completed homework before  you sign their agenda. If your child’s homework is to read they should record the book title in the yellow box in their agenda. Current Event forms were sent home in Friday Folders on September 8. All current events are due on October 20.

ELA This week we started learning the CAFE strategy of cause/effect. We have used this strategy with fiction and nonfiction texts. We will continue to practice this skill next week and then will move onto the skill of Key Ideas and Details; Main Idea and Best Detail. We have continued our vocabulary study. We will have a test every two weeks on the new set of vocabulary words. Each test will include 10 vocabulary words. We will do review activities at school but beginning this week students will be bringing their Vocabulary Journals home every night in order to review a little each night for their test on Friday. There are also Quizlet review activities that students can access on our Google Classroom .   We are continuing to work on writing a Personal Narrative. This week we will be working on adding dialogue and punctuating the dialogue correctly

Math We completed our Place Value assessment and have moved on to a review of 3-4 digit addition and subtraction. We will be moving onto multiplication next.

Social Studies We have been learning about map skills and how to use a map. The students are going to be using the mapping skills they have learned to complete a map skills project. The students are going to be designing their own map of their island. They have guidelines they need to follow and items that need to be included on their map. They will also be writing directions to find the treasure that is buried on their island.

September 8, 2017

News for the Week and reminders… Heinen’s will be visiting us to talk about healthy eating habits on Thursday, Sept. 14. We will also have a school wide assembly on Sept. 15. The week of September 11-15 will be the school wide Bee Proud Fundraiser. Information regarding this will be in your child’s Friday Folder. A Scholastic order form was placed in each child’s Friday Folder. This is an excellent way to get good books at affordable prices. Attached to the flier is a letter explaining how to place an order. Please make sure each night your child is showing you their agenda and completed homework before  you sign their agenda. If your child’s homework is to read they should record the book title in the yellow box in their agenda.

ELA This week in Daily 5 we launched Work on Writing. We learned what it looks like and feels like when we are participating in this independently. We also learned the CAFE strategies of: summarize text including sequence of main events and use prior knowledge to connect to text. We have continued our vocabulary study this week. The students have 5 new words that we have determined the meaning of using context clues and we found synonyms and antonyms for each word. We have also learned our two new WOW words with the prefixes re- and pre-. Next week we will learn a variety of ways to study our vocabulary words in preparation for their test over their first two sets of words on Friday, September 15.

Math This week in Math we completed the first 3 lessons about Place Value. The students completed a Check my Progress for these 3 lessons on Friday. We will finish this chapter next week and will have a chapter test on either Wednesday or Thursday. Please check your child’s planner for the exact day.

Social Studies This week we started our first Social Studies unit on Geography. Our first lessons focused on map skills and different types of maps. As we continue our map study we will develop our own islands and maps of our islands. Students will be completing one current event each quarter. The explanation and sheet to complete the current event went home in Friday Folders. Current Events are due this quarter on October 20, 2017.

May 22, 2016

It is hard to believe that we are down to the final 8 days of school. It has been such a pleasure to watch everyone grow, gain new skills and develop new strengths. We will all be sad to see them leave Chippewa but I am confident that everyone is ready for the new adventures and challenges that await them in 4th grade. Thank you for sharing your children with me this school year they have truly been a pleasure to have in class.

ELA-We finished reading Charlotte's Web and throughout the story we practiced a variety of the strategies we have learned this school year. We sequenced events in the story, retold chapters, identified the problem/solution in chapters and wrote about the main idea of chapters. As our culminating activity the children were given a menu of activities they could choose from for their final project. These activities include:
1.  Drawing a new cover for the book using one of the main events in the story and writing a summary to include on the back,
2. Drawing a map of the fairgrounds using details from the text and including a map key, 
3. Conducting an interview with a partner in which each person chooses a character from the book to be and then writes thoughtful questions to ask their partner along with the answers after the interview,
4. Writing a diary from Fern's point of view of at least 5 events within the story.
The students chose their activities last week and began working on their planning sheets and rough drafts. They will be working on completing their final projects this week.

Writing-We have been working on developing personal narrative stories. Each student has chosen a seed story or in other words an event that created strong emotions for them and they focused on that one moment during that event to write their personal narrative story. We have been developing leads, dialogue, adding details including strong words and showing not just telling the story. Lastly, we worked on developing an ending for their story. The class is working on their final edits of their rough draft and are having writing conferences. Following their writing conference they will be working on their final masterpiece writing. 

Science/Social Studies-We finished our Rocks and Minerals unit and the student's tests came home in their Friday folders. We have moved on to our Social Studies unit about Cleveland. The students are working on a self guided learning experience called Cleveland Rocks! They have been given a slideshow template in which they have to research different aspects of Cleveland and they are adding pictures and answering questions on their slideshow. We began this before our field trip so they had some background knowledge before our trip and then the field trip also provided us with additional information that will be useful in completing the slideshow. The final product will be due this Friday, May 26.

Math-We finally finished our Fractions unit and have moved on to Geometry. We have learned about lines, angles and polygons. We will be moving on to triangles and quadrilaterals this week. 

Upcoming Events:
May 23-Wild-n-Wonderful Assembly
May 26-Bossie's Ice Cream visits Chippewa
June 1-Field Day/Last Day of School/Dismissal 1:40 p.m.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe summer.

April 24, 2017

I hope that everyone enjoyed their Spring Break and took some time to relax and spend time with family! As we are ending the end of the school year there are two activities the students will be participating in. One activity is the end of the year benchingmarking in iReady. Students have been participating in lessons all school year through iReady and have also completed two previous benchmarkings. We began the ELA benchmarking last week and will finish it this week and we will also complete the Math benchmarking this week. When we returned from Spring Break I sat down with each student and showed them their progress and growth on their previous benchmark and each student set a goal for themselves for this benchmarking. We have been discussing the fact that some of the questions they will know and some of the questions they may not know and that is ok. The program asks both types of questions to find the just right spot for each student. They were encouraged to continue to try their best in order to continue to demonstrate the growth they have made this school year. I see the growth everyday in the classroom as the students continue to amaze me with their ability to apply new and previously learned skills.

The second activity the students will be participating in is the state AIR Math test. This will occur on May 2 and May 3 during the morning. Please try to avoid scheduling any outside appointments during these two days. This will be the first time the students take this test as there is not AIR Math test that is administered in the fall. 

Science: In this Science unit we have been studying Rocks and Minerals. We began our study with minerals and the children participated in a Mineral QR Code activity. Each group investigated 9 minerals by first using a QR code to look up information regarding the properties of that mineral and then they performed the tests for color, streak, luster and hardness to see whether their results matched those that they found using the QR code. We have moved on to learning about the different types of rocks, so far we have investigated igneous and sedimentary rocks. This week we will continue to investigate metamorphic rocks and the rock cycle. I have tentatively scheduled to have the final test for this unit on May 1 but that may change according to how our lessons progress and students' understanding of each concept.

ELA-We began a book series called "Race the Wild" this week. This series is an adventure race in which teams of children are given clues about the habitat they are investigating as well as the animals that live there and they have to solve the clue in order to be the first to complete the race and win. The students have been put in teams and each team is reading about a different race in a different area of the world. While they are reading the students are looking for and identifying cause/effect relationships within the text. Students are working either during Read to Self or Read With Someone to complete the assigned daily reading, however, if they do not complete the reading in class they have been asked to bring it home to read. Each team was assigned the book that best fit their independent reading level. We will complete the books this week and next week we will move on to reading "Charlotte's Web." When we read "Charlotte's Web" all reading will be done at school in three ways, either Read to Self, Read With Someone or Listen to Reading. The students will then participate in a variety of activities that will allow them to apply the variety of strategies they have learned this year. At the end of the book the students will participate in an independent culminating project of their choice that they will complete at school. This has always been one of my favorite children's books and I am looking forward to reading it with the class.

Math: We are continuing to work on fractions and our next lessons will be about Equivalent Fractions. We touched on this last week as we worked on Fractions on a Number Line and the students were discovering how when they plotted certain fractions on a number line they lined up with other fractions on a number line. We also used fraction bars to start investigating how we could create equivalent fractions. This week we will take a short break from fractions and participate in some review centers in anticipation of the Math AIR Testing next week. 

Writing: We have finished our final opinion writing piece. During this process the students worked hard to create a three paragraph writing using two texts they were given. They expressed their opinion regarding what character traits they believed Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela had in common that made them successful and helped them make a difference or change. The students participated in all aspects of the writing process and especially saw how writers have to edit multiple drafts before they have a final copy. We are now beginning work on a personal narrative.

On April 19th Mr. Hartland came to visit Chippewa and told us all about Central School.

On May 4th we will be having our Banana Split Party in celebration of completing our multiplication facts. Please look for an email coming out shortly regarding a Sign Up Genius to provide the needed supplies for this celebration.

On May 11th we will be going to Central School for a visit and tour. The permission slip for this will be coming home soon. 

On May 18th we will be taking a field trip to Progressive Field and on Lolly the Trolley. Information regarding cost and the permission slip will be coming home shortly so please keep your eyes open for this in your child's mail pocket or Friday folder.

April 25-Biodome at Chippewa School
May 2-3-Math AIR testing
May 11-Central School visit
May 16-Science DZ
May 18-Progressive Field Lolly the Trolley Field Trip
May 29-Memorial Day-No School

March 23, 2017

One School One Book

Thank you to all families for encouraging family reading time of this year's book In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson! While some of the text may be challenging, this book brings great messages of friendship and diversity and we will discuss these themes in the classroom. I encourage you to also take advantage of the chapter read alouds that are on the Chippewa Portal Page, they can be very helpful. You can find the read alouds by going to the Chippewa Portal Page, clicking on the link at the top titled Media Center and then under the heading Reference K-3 look for the title of the book and click on there for the read alouds as well as a variety of activities that relate to the book. Please remember that chapters are only assigned for reading Monday through Thursday so you have the weekend to "catch up" on any reading you were unable to do during the week. I told the class that any reading they do for One School One Book or listening to the read alouds can count for reading minutes on their reading logs. If there are Math games you also find on the website those can also count for Math minutes. 

ELA

This week we have done some engaging reading skill centers to practice targeted skills. The students complete one activity at each center, when their whole group has completed their center work, as a reward they set a timer and are allowed to use the activity that has been paired with their center for approximately 10 minutes. Some of these activities include learning games, team games and tactile activities. Next week we are going to return to our discussion of comparing and contrasting fictional writing by the same author, the author we are focusing on is Patricia Polacco. I love her books and the lessons or theme that each of them have within them. Following this we are going to do a literature study of the book series Race the Wild and focus on the skill of identifying cause and effect. 

Math

We are currently working on finishing up our chapter about Area and Perimeter, our next chapter will be fractions. My goal is to have the final test for this chapter next Friday, March 31. As we continue this chapter adjustments may need to be made based on students' understanding, I will make sure that students write in their agendas the date of the test if it changes.

Social Studies

This week and next week we will be working on wrapping up our Social Studies unit about Economics. We have previously covered producers/consumers, goods/services, markets, economic benefits/opportunity cost, the next areas we will cover include budgets, positive and negative economic incentives and graphs. Next, we will move to our Science unit about Rocks and Minerals.

Reminders:

March 27th-Board of Education currently scheduled to be at the Board of Education at 7:00 p.m. Please attend to find out updates regarding the levy campaign and things that are going on in the district that may impact you and your family. I encourage you to become involved in some way with the levy campaign, the state continues to make cuts to our district's funding so it is imperative that we pass a levy so that we are able to continue to provide services and programs that make Brecksville Broadview Heights an outstanding school district for all students.

March 28 & March 29th-3rd Grade AIR testing. Please make your best effort to have your child in school those days. Testing will be done during the morning.

April 10-17-Spring Break

March 6, 2017

Parents,

We are coming to the end of the third quarter of the school year. Current events are due this week on March 9th.

Math
In class we are beginning the chapter about perimeter and area. We have used a variety of tools to learn these concepts and we will continue to use hands on techniques to enhance understanding. This week we are learning how to find the measurement of an unknown side in order to find the total perimeter of a shape. By the end of the week we will be moving on to learning how to find the area of a composite shape. 

Science/Social Studies
We completed our science unit about Matter and I am pleased with the outcome of our assessment. We will be moving on to our Social Studies unit about Economics. We have begun learning about goods, services, producers, and consumers. We will begin talking about economic incentives this week. Please don't forget current events are due Thursday, March 9th.

ELA
We have just completed a unit about theme. We used poetry as the genre we were studying and used a variety of different poems to identify theme and metaphors. We previously studied the strategy of compare and contrast using informational text and we are going to go back to the strategy of compare and contrast using the genre of Fairy Tales. We will start using a variety of different fairy tale versions of The Three Little Pigs. The following week we are going to look at a variety of different stories by the same author and compare and contrast those texts. 

Writing
The class has been working on a research project with biographies. Each student chose a biography to read and then used this text to complete a graphic organizer for their notes. These notes were used to complete different sections of a biography lapbook including a timeline, different time periods of each person's life, a question they would ask and information about the researcher. The students then used this information to complete a multi paragraph writing about the person they researched. Next, we will be working on an opinion writing. The rubric that will be used to grade this writing is modeled after the rubric used to grade the writing portion of the AIR test.