We have had a great start to the year in Grade 3D!

Wow, it is hard to believe that we are already heading towards the end of September.  The students are settling in and getting more familiar with our daily classroom routines.  Way to go 3D!

We have spent time over the last couple of weeks reviewing important language and math concepts.

In math, we have been focusing on mental math strategies when adding and subtracting 2 digit numbers.  It is so great to see students approach addition and subtraction in a variety of ways.  The students really have benefited from hearing each others' strategies.  We have been doing some other math warm ups in our math books called "How Many Ways" and "The answer is...". We have also been looking at the features of pictographs and bar graphs and coming up with conclusions about the data and graphs we see.  This week the students will practice gathering data and creating graphs with the data they collect.  Students will need to remember to include a title, labels, a scale, categories/choices, a key, etc.

During learning circles, the students are becoming more comfortable sharing their ideas and work with each other.  Our classroom community is getting to know each other better and therefore trust is growing and the children are taking more and more learning risks.  Amazing to see GRIT in action and that the students are approaching learning with a growth mindset.  We are looking at the vocabulary we use and replacing words such as "I can't" and "I am not good at..." with "I am going to keep trying" and "I am not able to yet, but I will work at it."

In Language, we have read some wonderful stories such as "First Day Jitters", "One", "The Dot", "The Kingdom with No Rules", and some story books that children brought in for their birthdays to donate to our classroom library alouds, we have been discussing the Author's Message and Purpose for writing the book - what was the author wanting us to learn from the story?  We have also been discussing personal connections and text to text connections as well as text to world connections.  We ask ourselves, "How was the main character feeling?  Have I ever felt like that before?"  The students did a great job co-creating an anchor chart about what they think "Good Readers Do".  In Writing, we have been reviewing Recount writing and have written a recount.  We are learning about features of a recount such as Time Order Words (T.O.W.) and Past Tense Verbs (P.T.V.) as well as including an interesting opening and closing sentence.  A reminder that sentences should begin with a capital and end with a period (or !, ?) and the letter i should be capitalized.
Another important concept we have been learning about and working on putting in place is choosing "Just Right" level books for Independent Reading time.  The books shouldn't be too easy or shouldn't be so hard that comprehension is lost.  Ask your child about the "5 Finger Rule."
(Amazing!!).  During read

In Religion, we have been learning about our names and that we are all God's children and God calls us by Name.  We are all unique, special and exactly the way God intended us to be.  We are so loved by God.  We also set up our classroom prayer table and discussed all of the religious symbols on our table and what we might like to add to our table.

During Gym we have been talking about personal safety while in the gymnasium.  We have been warming up our bodies and muscles and actively participating in cooperative games.  The students are really enjoying our gym time with Mrs. Smith's grade 3 class.  It is so fun getting to know other grade 3 friends.  Also, ask your child about our sing along with all of the other grade 3 classes in our outdoor classroom and our colouring workshop (Visual Arts) in the Learning Commons with Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Coomber's grade 3 friends.  We learned some colouring techniques such as blending, pressure, shading, gradating and highlighting.  The students have started to use the techniques they have learned while completing their Religious Kites for our classroom.

Some important upcoming dates and information:

Tuesday evening is Meet the Teacher Night - Begins at 6:30 p.m. in the school gym
Reminder:  Activity Fees are due and last call for Pizza and Milk                                                                orders due by Oct. 6th
School Photo Day: JK-Gr.2 Tuesday, Oct. 6th
                               Gr.3-6  Wednesday, Oct. 7th
                                                                                     Retakes: Thursday, Nov. 5th

Reminder to check the school website for important information and upcoming dates www.sce.ocsb.ca

Keep an eye out in your child's agenda for Dreambox and Prodigy logins coming home early this week.
We are still waiting for Raz Kids setup...stay tuned as that information will be coming home very shortly.

I hope everyone has a safe and terrific weekend and I look forward to meeting everyone on Tuesday evening.

Your Partner in Education,

Mrs. Caluori