What's Happening in Grade 3?
Mrs. Lamoureux, Mrs. FitzGerald, and Mrs Kleinebreil, Mrs. Salisbury
Writing
In third grade we have been working hard to strengthen our writing skills. We started the year learning about the different genres of writing. We then moved on to learn about the Writing Diamond. The students have learned about the types of entertaining beginnings, which include using an action, dialogue, thought or question and/or sound to start a story. The students have practiced writing beginnings using these techniques as well as revising “boring” beginnings. They enjoy doing Free Writes in their Writing notebooks using these techniques and even used them to complete a fun activity called “Crankenstein” where they wrote a descriptive writing segment and then completed a directed drawing. The students enjoy sharing their writing with their classmates. Third grade is looking forward to learning about elaborative detail and identifying story critical characters, objects and settings in the upcoming weeks.
Students in Mrs. Kleinebreil’s class writing, sharing and some examples of Crankenstein stories.
Reading
Third graders have been enjoying digging into our Into Reading Curriculum, which Attleboro is in its second year of implementing.. So far this year we have covered 3 modules. Module 1 explored what makes characters unique, while Module 2 was all about how words can be used to express ourselves. Third graders are currently working on Module 3, which is called Let Freedom Ring! In this module students are learning about national symbols, such as The Washington Monument and the Liberty Bell.
Students are enjoying engaging stories, such as Dear Dragon and The Flag Maker. They are learning many comprehension strategies and are spending time having class, group, and partner conversations about what they are reading. It is exciting to watch how excited these 3rd graders get to share their ideas!
Something new the students have been working on is called Close Reading. When children do a close read of a given text they are focusing on the specific details of a passage or text in order to find some deeper meaning. In our third grade classrooms, this is a lively lesson where students reread sections of text, annotate, discuss, and write short answers about how certain comprehension strategies are being used. Through using close reading, students are learning to become independent readers who interpret the text and connect with it on a deeper level, bringing their own ideas and perspectives.
Students in Mrs. FitzGerald’s Class Participating in a Close Reading Lesson
Mathematics
The third graders have been very busy learning about many exciting things in our Everyday Math Curriculum. Unit 1 was learning about math tools, time, and beginning multiplication. Unit 2 was practicing number stories and arrays. We are currently working on Unit 3 which includes learning about strategies we can use to prove our understanding and answer correctly. With each unit, vocabulary words are introduced and students are encouraged to use them in their explanations. We will be improving our Fact Fluency as we learn fun strategies and ways to practice and learn them so we reach mastery of basic facts.
An effective math strategy called Three Reads is what we have been using to carefully read a math word problem to make sense of it so it can be solved correctly and completely. The goal of Three Reads is to understand what the problem is about, identify the question, find the important information and understand what the numbers mean, and finally make a game plan to show how the problem was solved. The game plan includes figuring out the steps and strategies to solve the problem. and make sure the question is answered. Slowing down to read and analyze each step is important in understanding the problem and showing how it was solved using numbers, pictures, and rich vocabulary.
The Third Grade continues to make progress in our STMath journey. In school, students are expected to be prepared with scrap paper/white board, charts, manipulatives, or whatever tools to help. They track their progress to make sure daily/weekly goals are met. Each day we try our best to work productively each session earning more puzzles than minutes. Our monthly goal is to complete at least 10% progress. So, by the end of November, all students are striving to reach the goal of 30% or greater.
Students in Mrs. Lamoureux´s class in class and at Maker Space