Spring Time in the Rockies

What a wonderful weekend filled with dance performances and...snow?  Even though it feels like winter outside, we are in full spring here in our amazing third grade class!

Here is what we'll be up to this week:

Reading:  This time of year is all about book clubs and reviewing all the skills and strategies that we've learned so far this year.  This week we will revisit character traits and supports with our book clubs and self-selected books.  We will also be reading some more Junior Great Book stories in class.  I have some older additions that have a few more stories yet to be enjoyed!  These readings and discussions will be just for "in-class" only as I don't have enough copies to go around.

Poetry:  As you know, we will be reciting poetry in our class this Friday at 2:45.  We hope that you can join us for this wonderful celebration.  Please be sure to be on time as you don't want to interrupt the performers.  

Writing:  We wrapped up our poetry unit and are moving on to an end of the year newspaper unit.  This is a fun and meaningful way to reflect on our year together and also review non-fiction features, leads, details, and conclusions.  I'm not sure what our end result will be (maybe a blog, electronic newspaper, old-fashion hardcopy, or something I haven't thought of yet),  but I'll keep you posted!

Math:  We just finished up our unit on fractions and we expanding our knowledge on multiplication and division. In this unit, we will learn about partial-products algorithm for multiplying 1-2 digit numbers and strategies for mental multiplication.  Wondering what a partial-products algorithm is?  Here's an example:

That's all for now.  As always, thank you for reading and please feel free to contact me with any questions, suggestions, and/or concerns.

Melissa