Hello Dear Parents of 3rd Graders! I apologize for how long it has been since my last post. November was a busy but short month in terms of teaching days. I really enjoyed getting to connect with you all last week and discuss the progress your children are making at school. I hope everyone had lovely vacations with their families. I was able to enjoy my first American Thanksgiving in three years! It was delicious.
Here is what we have going on this month:
Literacy: We are wrapping up our Personal Narrative Unit and will have an Author's Tea/ Publishing Party this Friday afternoon (please let me know if you are interested in being a part of this event). We will also be wrapping up our read aloud book The One and Only Ivan this week before moving on to our study of Native American Folktales. Students will continue to build stamina by reading for at least 20 minutes on their own every day (we also have two to three volunteers reading with first graders every day). Starting next week they will be working in small groups to read and discuss the message of the short Native American folktales and present them to the class.
Math: We have wrapped up our unit on Place Value and multiple digit addition and subtraction and have moved on to Two and Three-Dimensional Geometry. Before our break from school we read a story called The Greedy Triangle and practiced drawing and thinking about where we see shapes in our everyday world. This week we will be creating our own tangram sets and working with geoboards to continue to build geometric vocabulary and a deeper understanding of geometric concepts.
Social Studies/Science: We had a fabulous time at the Lelooska Cultural Center on November 20th. We weren't able to take pictures of the actual performance itself but we heard a variety of folktales were told in front of the campfire and were then reenacted with dancing, singing, and colorful masks. We then had some time to explore the artifacts in their museum before heading to Lake Merwin Park for lunch and a group photo ( see below). Students will be bringing in their Gifts of Nature next week for our in class potlatch and gift exchange. We will continue our study of local indigenous cultures through the reading and discussing of folktales in the coming weeks. As of now it does not look like the Tribal Heritage Night will be happening this year.
Our Salmon Fry continue to thrive! We have only had a few casualties thus far and one minor "crisis" which ended up not being a big deal after all. We will be learning more about the salmon life cycle and anatomy in the next two weeks before we say farewell to the salmon and release them to their natural habitat on Thursday, December 11th. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Education Department will be coming in on Tuesday December 9th to lead an activity on Salmon Dissection, it should be very informative and slightly smelly and gross.
I hope you all have a wonderful week!
