Literacy Read & Writing:
Poetry
Throughout National Poetry Month, we read all types of poetry; rhyming poems, haikus, short and long poems. Within poetry, we discovered many elements that poets used to strengthen their poetry. Some of those elements included; similes, metaphors, and alliteration. While reading, we also noticed the Point of View poets wrote from, the main idea and the overall theme of a poem. While exploring and writing responses about our discoveries within poetry, we carried this knowledge into writing our own poetry into writing.
Some of the poetry that we wrote was more interpretive; not following the typical structure of writing but using line breaks, stanzas and verses. The use of writing with our five senses was essential to create poems that will help the reader visualize the scene. While poems are typically short, sometimes those with few words can be so powerful and descriptive.
Story Structure/Fairy Tales
We will be focused around fictional narrative writing. This will include reading some of the classic fairy tales along with reading different versions and noticing the different ways authors will adapt classic fairy tales, we studied the basic structure of a fiction story (plot). Typically, the beginning is where the author will introduce the characters and setting. The middle is where the rising action takes place and the main character’s problem/goal is addressed. The ending is where that problem/goal is solved in some way. Noticing the type of characters the author writes is essential to the plot of the story as well. Are the characters greedy, kind, mysterious? Each type of character adds a certain type of flow to the overall story. We will also touch on different points of view author’s can write their stories from; 1st, 2nd and 3rd person.
Within writing, we are picking our favorite classic fairy tale and writing our own adaptation. Eventually this type of writing can be applied to writing our own fairy tales and then converted into a reader’s theater where each character has a specific part that they will speak.
Social Studies:
Economics
The 3rd grade economics unit is by far one of the most anticipated units of the year because it includes our famous “Sell Day”! Before students get to create and sell their own products to fellow third grade students and family members, they will develop an understanding of producers and consumers and how goods and services are exchanged.
Students will explore how production and consumption are essential components of markets and affect everyday life. Through literacy and social studies, students will learn about economics and how goods and services are exchanged in multiple ways and are a part of everyday life such as purchasing or trading items. Third graders will see how production, consumption, and the exchange of goods and services are interconnected in the world. Students will also learn the important roles of citizenship and the difference between their rights, roles and responsibilities. This entire unit builds on the 21st century skill of Systems Thinking by allowing students to describe the function of the whole system, naming all the parts, describing the function of each part, and predicting what would happen if a part were missing.
Science:
Life Cycles
Students
have enjoyed learning about life cycles and observing the growth in a plant
with their terrariums and watching a tadpole develop over the last month or so.
In May we will be getting chicken embryos and again will be able to observe the
growth and development of an
organism. Students have also read and learned about other life cycles and have
a good understanding that stages start with an egg, cell, or spore, to birth,
to growth, to reproduction, and eventually death. They have discovered that many
organisms’ life span vary. Some can be very short and other organism’s life
cycle can last for thousands of years. This has been a great unit to end our
science for the year!
Math:
Number
Sense
This unit focuses on understanding the operations of addition and subtraction, and solving multiplication and division problems. Students are learning division facts, identifying arithmetic patterns, and solving multi-step problems. Students develop strategies to solve multiplication and division problems, including problems with remainders. In
this unit students will solve problems that involve liquid volume and mass. Students will share, discuss, and compare different strategies, to build on their number sense.
