 |
|
|
 |
Mrs. Bouwman
Mrs. Oricchio
Mrs. Scholl
Top
"Good Morning"
The students take down their chairs and copy their homework from the board. They start their morning work which is written on the board. As they are hard at work, they take time to say the pledge of allegiance and take lunch count.
Their Wednesdays start off with Phonics. Spending fifteen minutes quizzing a friend on the grammatical structure of their Word Wall Words helps their spelling skills tremendously! The class learns how to classify words that have a vowel + r sound like in the words shore and yard. Each child comes up to the overhead and writes a word in the correct column that they think sounds like shore and yard. The children then individually write the words in their Language Arts notebook and underlined the short o or short a sound in each of the words. They self-corrected their own papers and discuss any differences that they might have had.
In Language Arts, the children add on to their knowledge of pronouns and discover that pronouns not only can take the place of people, but of places as well! The students go through the current story to find them and share their knowledge with the class. The children share the sentences they discovered and have to listen for the pronoun in the sentence and what it was referring to! They then apply their knowledge of pronouns to their Practice Book page. Aside from phonics, the focus in third grade is also on grammar, vocabulary, spelling, story structure, author's purpose and author's craft.
Top
 |
Read A Loud: Whew! With all that work, snack couldn't come soon enough! Third Grade loves listening to Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. 'Some Pig' are the words Charlotte the spider writes in her web. These words tell of her feelings for a pig named Wilbur. As a culminating activity, the students create their own mobile of what friendship means to them. |
Top
Reading: Our third grade curriculum consists of Houghton Mifflin Reading, picture books, chapter books and Explicate Small Group Reading Instruction (a.k.a. Guided Reading). The focus concerning all of these reading materials is:
Comprehension/Critical Thinking Fantasy/Realism Cause and Effect Drawing Conclusions Main Idea and Details Sequencing Compare and Contrast Predicting Outcomes Visualizing Children are required to read and keep a reading log each night. The student's goal is 150 minutes per week.
Every Monday, the children turn in their Reading Log to their teacher
Reading Links
Top
Science: Third grade students blast off the year learning about Rocks and Minerals. This engaging unit teaches students about different types of rocks and their compositions. Properties of Matter and Recycling will be the focus for mid-year. Rounding out our science curriculum is a study on Long Island Sound with a culminating field trip to Light House Point Park in New Haven.
Science Links
Recycling Links http://www.deq.state.or.us/wmc/solwaste/rethinkrecyc/rethinkrecyc.html
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/swfa/kidspage/
Water Cycle Linkswww-k12.atmos.washington.edu/k12/pilot/water_cycle/grabber2.html
www.kathimitchell.com/water.htm
www.epa.gov/safewater/kids/kids_k-3.html
www.epa.gov/safewater/kids/flash/flash_watercycle.html
Math: The third grade math curriculum is very exciting! There are many aspects that are covered throughout the year such as four digit addition and subtraction, learning the multiplication tables up to nine and being able to divide with a remainder of one. Along with these computation strategies, the concepts that will be addressed are:
Estimating Number Sense Time to the nearest minute Fractions and Measurement Geometry Place Value to hundred thousand Money Graphing Problem solving is addressed daily through classroom instruction and homework. The children have a daily Problem of the Day (P.O.D.) that is challenging and keeps their problem solving skills sharp!
Currently the children are reviewing circumference and weight. This is a great, hands on activity with pumpkins.
Math Links
Here are some fun multiplication games:
http://www.aplusmath.com/games/matho/MultMatho.html
http://www.aplusmath.com/games/picture/MultPicture.html
http://www.aplusmath.com/Games/Concentration/Multiplication_Concentration.html
Social Studies: It was tough leaving the manipulatives, but on to Social Studies! Every Tuesday, the children read Scholastic News and challenge themselves with the questions and answer section on the back. Throughout the year, the children will be exploring map skills, communities and culture, land forms and continents and oceans. Last year, grades three through six chose a musher to follow along the Iditarod trail. The students went online to locate their musher each morning, posted the results and moved their appropriate colored string along the Northern Route. There were lots of cheers in the 3-6 hallway!
Animal Webquest
Blue Planet Biomes
Writing: Within the forty-five minute period, the children edit, rewrite, use their dictionary skills, brainstorm and improve their individual writing styles. The students use this time to compose descriptive pieces, journal writing and/or narrative pieces.
To date, the children are working on developing their own Pourquoi tales. Pourquoi, in French, asks the question, "Why?" Some of their friends are writing about "How the Cat Got its Whiskers", "How the Snail Came to Be", and "How the Leopard Got its Spots". They are coming along well! After the students finish writing their scripts and creating backgrounds and puppets in Art, the students perform the plays for their peers, siblings and parents-just like real actors! They are anxiously awaiting this day in June!
To read more about poems for children, here is a good link:
http://heatheranne.freeservers.com/childrens/PoemsChildren.htm
End of the Day: They always double-check the board when collecting their school books to go home to see what they have for homework. They wouldn't want to forget anything! The children line up quietly and listen to see if Mrs. Caputo calls their name or has an important announcement to make. Then with a skip, a jump and a wave to their teacher, the students are out the door, already looking forward to returning the next day.
