Quadrilaterals
This week, third grade students began their geometry studies as we dove into our learning about quadrilaterals! We found that a quadrilateral is any polygon that has four sides and we also found out that there are many members to the quadrilateral family! Most of the members are a lot alike, they almost all have 2 pairs of parallel sides, but the poor trapezoid brother stands out because he only has 1 pair of parallel sides! Take a look at some of our geometry learning and our creations!
Happy New Year!
Welcome back and happy new year! Its 2020! To start off our new year in 3rd grade, students in room 104 wrote some resolutions (goals) that they would like to meet this year. SOme students chose resolutions that would help another person or thing. Other students chose academic goals that they wanted to meet and we also had some students who wanted to get better at their personal hobbies including soccer and gymnastics! Take a look at our lofty resolutions!
Happy Holidays from 3rd Grade!
We had the best week of school ever this week as we got ready for the holidays and our winter break! On monday, we had elf day where Ms. snyder and her 3rd grade students turned into elves and completed academic assignments that were all elf themed! on tuesday, we all turned into reindeer and enjoyed tons of activities that were reindeer themed. On wednesday, we celebrated holidays around the world, as we traveled from country to country visiting different classrooms on our hall and learning how each of those classrooms (countries) celebrated the holidays. On thursday, we completed a detective mystery as we all used our "unwrap" ela passage decoding skills to find out who kidnapped rudolph....and we also had a gingerbread house making party!
From the best class in the world- Merry christmas!
From the best class in the world- Merry christmas!
Changing States of Matter
After 3rd grade students learned what matter is, what its made up of and its three different states, they discovered something amazing:
matter can change states!
matter can change states!
That's right, matter can change states when energy is added or taken away! To learn a little more about changing the states of matter, 3rd grade students participated in several experiments this week. Our first experiment was melting matter! During this project, students were given a ziplock bag full of chocolate chips (solid) and were challenged to use their bodies in order to melt the chocolate chips into a liquid! Once the experiment started, some students used their hands, while some students even tried to sit on their chocolate chips! The most successful students found out that by breathing on their chips, they could melt their chocolate faster because the air in our bodies is so warm!
Our following experiment was even more fun as students mixed pop rocks (solid) with soda (liquid) and found out that the mixture released a gas! To complete the experiment, groups of students poured their pop rocks into a balloon and then placed the balloon on top of a soda bottle. When the students held the balloon upright and the pop rocks fell into the soda, the soda started to melt the candy coating off of the pop rocks. Without the candy coating, the carbon dioxide in the pop rocks was released and our balloons began to grow!
Matter
This month, third grade students are studying the topic of matter in science. We learned first that matter is anything that takes up space and has a mass (weight). Following, we found out that there are three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas.
We also learned that matter is made up of tiny particles called atoms and its because of how the atoms behave that each state of matter gets its shape. The atoms in a solid are very close together, so all solids have their own shape. The atoms in a liquid are somewhat close together, but they have enough room to move around so a liquid takes the shape of whatever container its in. Finally, the atoms in a gas are all over the place which is why a gas takes the shape of its container, but it fills it up! To demonstrate our knowledge of the atoms in matter, we used fruit loops to craft just what these objects might look like under a microscope!
Will you Escape?
3rd Grade students have been working hard with addition and subtraction word problems this week. We have learned to use the strategy of "Read a little, do a little" to help us solve these tricky problems! With this strategy, 3rd graders are encouraged to really take their time and read the problem in order to find out what its really asking them. Then, students are encouraged to use the numbers in the problem to find their answer.
As a little mid-week challenge, Ms. snyder decided to lock us in the classroom until we solved all of our addition and subtraction word problem challenges! (Don't worry we weren't really locked in, but it sure was fun pretending we had to escape!) to complete the activity, students were allowed to work with a partner and were challenged through three different levels of problems. The first level was pretty easy, we could simply look at the problem to add and subtract and find our answer. However, as we all moved on to our level 2 and level 3 challenges, we realized our word problems were getting harder and more complex! Don't worry though, we used our strategies to solve all of our problems correctly and eventually everyone did EScape!!
As a little mid-week challenge, Ms. snyder decided to lock us in the classroom until we solved all of our addition and subtraction word problem challenges! (Don't worry we weren't really locked in, but it sure was fun pretending we had to escape!) to complete the activity, students were allowed to work with a partner and were challenged through three different levels of problems. The first level was pretty easy, we could simply look at the problem to add and subtract and find our answer. However, as we all moved on to our level 2 and level 3 challenges, we realized our word problems were getting harder and more complex! Don't worry though, we used our strategies to solve all of our problems correctly and eventually everyone did EScape!!
Santa's on Vacation?!
This week, 3rd grade students began their narrative writing unit with a fun writing prompt: where is santa going on vacation this year and what is he going to do when he gets there? students absolutely loved this prompt and worked hard to create ideas and details that would really engage and entertain their audience. Complete with a topic sentence, conclusion and sequenced transition words, these holiday compositions are something to be proud of! Take a look!