(Grade 3 Testing in May)

FRENCH  Click Here		Book Talks  Click Here

May 15, 2012

CLASS PHOTO TOMORROW!!!!  Please be advised that we will have our class photo taken tomorrow May, 16 at about 2:30 p.m.  The individual photos were taken in October.

Here are some examples of persuasive writing that the students did to convince Pita Pit to donate $200.00.

Click on the tabs at the top of the box to see the three samples.

 Grade 3's- Please do not forget your pennies!!!

Also, remember that Friday is Jersey Day! 

May 14, 2012

Great News!  The students worked on some persuasive writing and we were successful in persuading Pita Pit to donate to our Dance-a-thon and help raise money for a new Playground at Millen.

Some students wrote letters or comics and Pita Pit read all of the writing and donated $200.00!!!!  Great work grade 3.  I will post samples of the writing at a later date. 

The students continue to work hard at perfecting their reading responses that showing deep thinking and inferencing.  We have sample of questions that ask us to explain, describe, give instructions and much more.

May 9th, 2012

Your children have brought home permission forms for the Groundwater Festival at the Kitchener Museum on May 30, 2012.  please be sure to sign the permission and forward the fee of $6.50.  We will also need parents to volunteer so please indicate if you are available.  Thanks.  Today we are going to start our towers.  we have studied design strategies for building them strong and stable. It is time to show what we know!

April 29, 2012

I have put a link to all of the Book Talks in the menu items above. Please click there to view!  I have also added some new area and perimeter math games.  Click Here or got o the math tab

April 26, 2012

Please be sure to look at May's calendar and Newsletter.  It lists important dates for you to make note of.

Click here or go to the Calendar and Newsletter tab above.  Thanks!

April 24, 2012

More Book Talks to enjoy!

April 22, 2102

Hello Everyone.  Unfortunately, I have been away from class this past week due to the passing of my beloved Father-in-law.  We had a wonderful celebration of his life this past weekend and I have spent time with my family.  I appreciate your understanding during this necessary time away.  Ms. Eberhard continued with the learning goals in my absence!  

April 20th, 2012

Hello Grade 3 and parents. It is Miss Eberhard just wanting to direct you to my page again with updates about our

classroom. I am not sure how to get the pictures on there, but if you click on the links it will take you to them.

Hope you enjoyed your PD Day:)

Miss Eberhard (Click here)

April 16th, 2012

Just a quick note about our classroom.  We are finding as the mild/ warm weather is approaching that students are needing more and more water.  It is very disruptive for students to leave lessons to go to get a drink by leaving the classroom.  We want them to be fully engaged in discussions and group work.  We are asking that students have a clean water bottle at school for drinks.  On that note students are working on the goal of using the washroom and filling water bottles during their break.  This what the break is designed for!  With all of the students asking for drinks and washroom after the bell there are many minutes of instructional time that is used up. Thank for your support.

Also, Ms. Eberhard has added some information posted in her page.  Please be sure to have a read!  Click Here

Home reading:  We make every effort to get to the Home Reading bins to exchange for daily reading.  As only 4-5 students require exchange from the bins in the library is getting harder to find time for the whole class to travel to the library without disrupting our schedule or classroom activities.  I trust the Home Reading selections made by students are longer in length and therefore can last 2-3 nights.  Also many readers have surpassed the selection of books available in the bins and are choosing their own books at home or from the classroom (newspaper, research websites, recipes, manuals, our website reading section.  Please record any reading you are doing at home.  Students should be practising their strategies on a daily basis.  Thanks for your understanding.

April 12, 2012

New area and perimeter worksheets to try at home.  Click here (or click the Math tab at the top)  Have fun!

April 10, 2012

Hello Family!  I hope you have been able to ask friends and family to sponsor our child for the upcoming dance a thon!!  The money is going towards a playground at Millen!

Pledges and money are due April 16th.

More book talks for you to enjoy:

 April 5, 2012

Your students will have their 3 digit add and subtract quiz with the rubric in their planners today! The front page was a set of 9 questions using formal algorithm to solve.  There were also 2 problem solving questions where the students were asked to use pictures, numbers and words to solve the equation and communicate their process of thinking to get the final answer. These 2 questions were given levels on the rubric.  Please remember this is a snapshot of your child's progress in grade 3 so far.  Learning is never over!!  The mark on the report card is based on daily tasks, observations and group work in class as well as this quiz.

Our Money Unit is going well.  They have adapted nicely to adding and subtracting money amounts by applying what they learned in number sense! They are also very capable of counting money amounts up to $10.00 using a variety of coins.  Keep practicing counting by 25's!  Our big learning goal now is to MAKE CHANGE!!!  Using a 5 dollar bill to pay for something that is $3.65.  When you get chances at home or while out shopping give this a try.

Wishing you all a very nice LONG WEEKEND!!! 

Test out your knowledge of forces and strong and stable structures.  A new Science exercise click here.

Julia's Book Talk

Many parents have asked to see some reading/writing samples as they love to tune in to what the kids are learning in class.  We have been working diligently on strengthening our reading skills so we read for meaning each and every time!

Our Learning Goal is: To use clues from the book to know what the author is hinting at, but not writing in words.  Deep thinking about reading, making decisions about reading without the words telling us!

We are also working on communicating our thinking in writing so it makes sense!

Below are some examples of reading comprehension for a story called Two Bad Ants.  We had to make lots of inferences during our reading and use the author's clues.  I posed the question, "Why did the ants decide to return home?"  The students were to write a response, using clues from the story and their own ideas.  We also created an organization that gives the reader a clear understanding of our answer (topic sentence, proof and evidence and closing sentence).  

These are some student samples of our work toward the learning goal:  To read, click on the pictures below and a full scale image will load.

The next sample of writing involves a more open-ended piece.  The students were given a very general scenario (How does the weather effect the way people dress?) and asked to write a paragraph about the topic.  We reviewed how to communicate our thinking clearly by stating our idea and giving supporting details and a closing sentence.  Check us out! 

April 2, 2012

I can't say I am disappointed that April Fool's Day was not a school day!  Hee hee.  Please be sure to read the April Calendar- click the link "Calendar and News" above.  I found that I have not needed to make a newsletter as there are so many updates on the website that provide current information about curriculum and events.

The students will be doing a quiz for multi-digit addition and subtraction on TUESDAY April 3rd.  Review work, parent letter and their notebook was sent home last Thursday.  Keep practising!

For a quick link to the calendar click here

Counting Money ($) amounts-PRACTISE HERE

March 29, 2012

The students will be coming home with a parent letter and some review sheets for multi-digit adding and subtracting.  We will be giving the students a quiz on Tuesday, April 3.   There will be some review/ practise sheets attached to the letter. There are also many sheets for practise on this site click here.

During our Literacy block today our learning goal was to "use clues from the text to know what the author is hinting at without saying in words".  I encouraged the students to listen carefully to a fable and draw conclusions about big ideas.  We shared our thinking in a chat room created just for these fables.  When students made an inference they typed it on the ipod and the ideas were collected for all to see.  We really found some great examples of inference  check out our chat room by clicking on this link:  http://todaysmeet.com/inference

March 28, 2012

3 More Book Talks Complete

March 26, 2012

Harjas's Book talk!

March 22, 2012

As we begin to dig deep into problem solving, the students are actually enjoying the higher level questions similar to what they may or may not see on the EQAO assessment at the end of the year.   I Love their reactions to the sample test questions:  "This is EASY!!", "We have already done this!", "This is what we already do in class!"   They are very relaxed and confident.  They have expressed an interest in multiplying and dividing.  Unfortunately, our learning goals in Math are still 3 digit adding and subtracting and measurement (coming soon)...so I reminded them that they do not have to wait for the class to be working on it to learn it.  I showed them the multiplication table (both in their planner, and one online).  MY BIGGEST TIP to them is to take that multiplication table and eliminate the facts they already know such as 1x2, 1x3 etc.  You may also be ready to eliminate 10 x table which they seem to grasp quite easily.  NOW, look at the multiplication table and eliminate any of the opposite (reverse) facts.  Such as 7x8 is the same as 8x7. You only need to learn it once (remember that the reverse fact is the same answer).  Now you only have a little more than half of the table (30+ facts) to learn.  It is less overwhelming.

Here is what I mean:

Helpful links

http://www.mathsisfun.com/tables.html

March 21, 2012

Sarah has produced a Book talk!  As the students work through their independent reads, we want to share our understanding of the story by writing a book talk.  We saw some examples of book talks and created a list of criteria for a Good Book Talk.  We do not show students faces online so the students created a picture of themselves, or the character to say the words and an App on the iPod called PhotoSpeak brings their art to life!  

Sarah's Video

March 19, 2012

Welcome back. The students seem to have enjoyed their break and the wonderful weather that came with it!

We have worked on 3 digit addition and I gave the students their first quick write!  They were asked to describe how the weather affects the way they dress.  I felt it was good topic in light of the recent weather.

After making a tower of newspaper we are beginning to investigate how we could make the towers more strong and stable.  We began to investigate STRONG shapes.  We made a cube and tested if the square shape was strong enough to hold a load (a book).  After testing we realized that it was not a strong shape...so we added triangles.  VOILA! The structures were much stronger and held the load.  It was interesting how the students added triangles.  We have some great scientists willing to take risks!

March 7, 2012

Your children make me smile each day.   Today, I had an even bigger smile.  They danced wonderfully at the assembly. So confident and cooperative. They really gelled as a class, a team and friends.  I hope they will look back on all they accomplished to learn the moves and teach others about teamwork!  I wish I could show you the video online, but for the safety of our students we do not publish faces on our website.  I will look into getting a copy to you somehow!

March 6, 2012

TOMORROW IS OUR DANCE. The students are super excited and they have worked so hard.  I am not sure if they told you I was grumpy today?  It was just one of those days with "nothing going right!"  I realized that the assembly requires the stage for all of the other performances,  but we choreographed it to be done with a large area and the stage can not be used!!!!  The principal has told us that since we are at the end of the show we can ask the audience and parents to move back and we can DANCE. Bring your Jersey's kids!

The kids were also disappointed that we could not re-visit our initial structure experiments.  We had no time today ;-(.  They are going great. The task:  Build the tallest structure you can to hold a load (a tennis ball).  The students are working through how to make it strong and stable. They are only using newspaper and tape.  First question they had to answer as scientists was how to make newspaper stronger?  Some rolled it, some stacked it, some folded or crumpled it.  Here are some pics of where we are at so far...check out the process of thinking!

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