Dreaming of Someday

This week the third graders were busy planning their hopes and dreams project. We read the book Someday by Eileen Spinelli and used the story and lovely artwork to begin thinking about our own dreams for what we will be "someday" and what things we can work on this year that will help us to achieve our dreams. We have future scientists, authors, and engineers who are all taking small steps towards their goals by working as teammates, reading books about topics that interest them, and developing their math problem solving skills. These projects will hang in our room as a reminder of our goals for the whole year.

We have also been busy with word study. Students have learned about the different types of sorts and last week they got together with their small groups to learn about their first list of words. They have been working together to sort their words and reflect on what they notice and how understanding patterns in words can help us as spellers and readers.

The Green Group collaborates on a writing sort to practice long a and short a words

In math we have been thinking about what it means to solve problems efficiently. The mathematicians have a variety of different strategies for solving addition and subtraction problems and now we are working on showing our thinking in a way that is clear. Finding the difference has been a focus this week and many of our work place games have provided the kids with  fun, interactive, hands-on practice to develop their strategies and fact fluency. Next week we will be focusing on measuring to the nearest centimeter accurately.

These mathematicians practice subtraction with Blast Off To Space workplace

We ended the week learning about insects during our first Four Winds lesson. The kids (and adults) took away a lot of new learning about insects anatomy, vision, diet, and how they do not like to be labeled as "bugs!" Thanks so much to our amazing volunteers. If you would like to join them let us know.

There was a mistake about our dessert social in the Bell last week. We will be having a dessert social on Thursday, October 2nd from 6:30-7:15pm. We invite you to join us in the courtyard (or dining room for a rain location) to enjoy dessert and get to know the families, students, and teachers that make up the Mosaic Team. We are asking for third grade parents to bring desserts to share. The fourth grade families will take care of other supplies. Please be mindful of allergies and provide a label for treats that may contain nuts. 
We hope to see you all there!

Happy Fall!