Saturday, February 7, 2015

Ready To Research



We were fortunate to have the opportunity to enjoy two artistic events this past week. We supported our friends as they made their debut at the WCS chorus concert. They all looked great and sang beautifully. Then we headed to the Flynn Theater on Friday to see A Light In The Dark as told through dance.

We all made our choices for Passion Projects and we've got a great variety of topics from Joe Montana to Covered Bridges in Vermont to Prairie Dogs! We have split the researchers into four groups based on their topic category. They met in these groups to come up with specific questions to research and now they will use several different research sites that are located on the class blog to find the answers to their wonderings and practice their note taking skills. Next week we will learn more about how to use an engaging writer's voice when creating informational writing pieces. Then the students will have the opportunity to put all of their findings together into a small report before moving on to their individual projects. We can't wait to share all of their wonderful discoveries with you at our Passion Project breakfast. This will be held the week after we return from February vacation on March 12th. More details will follow.

Next week we will celebrate our 100th day of school and Valentine's Day. Information about these events should have come home in this week's Friday folder, so be sure to check it out. We encourage you to remind you students to bring in 100 (alergy-safe) snack items on Wednesday for us to celebrate with a 100th Day Gorp Snack. (i.e. Cheerios, raisins, Chex, etc.) We will also be exchanging Valentines on Friday afternoon and we remind students to please include all classmates in  when making out Valentine's cards. We also included the names of students in the other third grade class that your child may want to send a message to.

We have been having lots of indoor recess and Mrs. Eaton  has been made aware of a need for new board games for the classroom by the students! If you have gently used games that are looking for a new home please don't hesitate to send them to Mrs. Eaton's room where they will get lots of love before the temps rise again!

Thanks!
Jess, Liz, Sara, and Kristyn 

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Get Passionate!

We enjoyed investigating forces and motion this past week. We learned about Sir Isaac Newton and his important laws of motion and  we also got to use the EDP once again to design our own Pendulums. To prepare for our trip to the Flynn next week we read about Helen Keller and wrote strong opinion pieces about whether or not the library should carry braille books for each title or not. The students were very convincing and we shared them with Ms. Hennig to get her feedback on the matter. We also participated in a simulation of what it must have been like to be Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller. We are looking forward to learning more about these two amazing women when we head to the Flynn on Thursday, where a dance company will tell their story thorough their beautiful movements.
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On the day of the field trip we will be eating lunch at 10:45 to make it to the 12:00 showtime. We would like to request that you let us know by Tuesday if your child will be needing a bagged lunch on Thursday since the cafeteria will not have their regular hot lunch option at the time. We are also hoping that we will represent our team by wearing our white Mosaic House t-shirts on that day. Please help to remind your child as the day approaches.

This week we will get passionate about research for our Passion Projects! The students came home over the weekend with the assignment of deciding on a topic they would like to research over the next few weeks. They will learn about note taking and informational writing and then they will have the choice to present their work in another form as well. Kids in the past have done posters, slideshows, boardgames, homemade books, cooking, artwork, collage, etc. We will work on most of this at school and you do not have to buy any additional materials, though kids usually get really into the project and might want to do some extra work at home. We will celebrate the students' hard work with a breakfast the first week in March. More details will follow about the date and time.