Grade 3

This first week of March, students reflected on their Lenten Promise of almsgiving, prayer and fasting.  The saints of the month are St. Joseph and St. Patrick.  The Fruit of the Spirit is Faithfulness.  Students published and shared their science writing and will be continuing to develop and publish their second narrative stories next week.  In Math this week students practiced division with 3, 0 and 1 and labeled the parts of a division sentence (dividend, divisor, quotient).  They also identified the definitions of key vocabulary words like fact family, divide, partition and repeated subtraction.  During journal writing time, students had fun writing a caption and dialogue to describe the behavioral and structural adaptations of clown fish, cardinals, walking stick and monarch butterflies.  In science the students explored behavioral and structural adaptations of the cheetah and the gray jay.

https://kcts9.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nat37.sci.agility/cat-adaptations-agility/

https://kcts9.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nat15.sci.lisci.grayjay/behavioral-adaptations-the-gray-jay/

Interested in watching additional PBS animal adaptation websites? Click here link: https://kcts9.pbslearningmedia.org/search/?q=adaptation

What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary?  A Thesaurus.

Our FIELD TRIP is next Thursday 3/12 to the Burke Museum.  We plan to leave by 8:45am and return back to school around 12:15pm.  Students should wear the school uniform & bring a SNACK and SACK LUNCH.  ** Children under 4’9″ tall will need to bring their booster seat **

Congratulations to Student of the Week: Ethan Boorman

Next week’s spelling words:  suffixes -ful and -ness

Quote of the Month:  “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.”            Dr. Seuss

Positive Poms:  The students have 47 Positive Poms!

Happy Birthday this month!  Skylar Aguila & Saoirse Connelly

Upcoming Dates:

https://st-johnschool.org/calendar/

 Sunday, March 8 – *DAYLIGHT SAVINGS*

Wednesday, March 11 @ 8:30 – Mass with our 6th Grade Buddies — Parents we would love for you to attend!

Thursday, March 12 –  Burke Museum Field trip    *PLEASE SEE INFO ABOVE!*

Friday, March 13 – No School / Faculty Professional Development Day

Wednesday, March 18 @ 9:00am – All-School Mass St. Patrick DRESS UNIFORM

Wednesday, March 25 12:45-2:45pm – Jump Rope for Heart Grades 3-5

Thursday, March 26 @ 5:30pm – Family Stem Night

Monday, March 30 – Reconciliation Grades 2-8

It’s hard to believe this is our last week of February! Students studied the three pillars of lent: almsgiving, prayer and fasting. They created Lenten Promise butterflies after reading and discussion.  Students are continuing their science writing about animal adaptations.  In Math this week students divided by 2, 5, 10 and 4!

Congratulations to Student of the Week: Riley Wade

Student of the Week (last week): Mila Wellnitz

Next week’s spelling words will have the prefix -re and -un.

Quote of the Month:                                                                                                          Love is the key to the problems of the world.  — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Positive Poms:  The students have 40 Positive Poms!

Happy Birthday this month!  Zakayo, Jack, Lila, Ethan and Sophie

Upcoming Dates:

https://st-johnschool.org/calendar/

Thursday, March 5 @ 1:30 – School Musical

Friday, March 6 @ 2:30 – Stations of the Cross

Wednesday, March 11 @ 8:30 – Mass with our 6th Grade Buddies — Parents we would love for you to attend!

Thursday, March 12 – Field trip to Burke Museum ( Bring a SACK LUNCH)

 

 

Students had a wonderful time making their Valentine bags as well as finishing out the day completing the Parent Art activity.  Students created a Cardinal in Wintertime using oil pastel and watercolor.  As we make our way through this festive month of February, third graders had a special visit from our Counselor, Ms. Shaw.  She informed the students about the fabulous Emotion Potion.  The Emotion Potion helps us several ways. First it allows us (when we are feeling upset about a situation) to stop and reflect about why we are upset.  Next it helps us to communicate and verbalize our feelings slowly, calmly and thoughtfully.  Students acted out various situations and practiced communicating their feelings with the potion, which goes like this: I FEEL…WHEN YOU…CAN YOU PLEASE…?  For example…I feel frustrated when you took my eraser without asking.  Can you please ask me to borrow it next time?

This week in Reading, third graders were learning that finding the author’s purpose can be as “easy as pie”… P = Persuade, I = Inform, E =Entertain.  Before and after we read a text we should think about and answer the question: Why am I reading this text? Why was this text written? What does the author want me to take action on, know about, or imagine after I read this text? We were keeping a pie chart to keep track of which books were written to persuade, inform or entertain.  From Scaredy Squirrel to All About the Polar Region…we are starting to see a good mix!  Students were using context clues to clarify the meaning of vocabulary words like gruesome, perambulator and forlorn with a buddy in our BFG novel study.  Students were locating the definition of the words, they are drawing pictures to show an understanding.  In Writing, students next week will be drafting a second narrative fiction story.  We will continue to work on how to capture the reader’s interest by showing instead of telling when we write.  We will do a mini author study on one of my most favorite writers, Chris Van Allsburg.  The mentor text will be The Misadventures of Sweetie Pie.  Here is a website if you would like to peruse other books written by Allsburg. https://www.hmhbooks.com/chrisvanallsburg/

In Math this week we started our unit on Division! Students were learning how to use partitioning, drawing equal groups, using a number line and writing a number sentence in order to solve division problems.  Next week we will practice solving one and two-step division and multiplication word problems.  In Science we completed our study on six climate regions.  Next week, students will study plant and animal adaptions within these climate regions.  In Spelling, the focus next week is contractions.  Contractions are written with an apostrophe and the definition of contraction is “to shorten or tighten”.  The opposite is “to expand”.  Contractions can be very useful in speaking and writing.  Remember the famous story by Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham?  Read it and see if you can form contractions are you are reading this story. For example: “I do not like Green Eggs and Ham”.   The contraction you can make is….don’t.

Quote of the Month:                                                                                                          Love is the key to the problems of the world.  — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Positive Poms:  The students have 25 Positive Poms!

Happy Birthday this month!  Zakayo, Jack, Lila, Ethan and Sophie

Upcoming Dates:

https://st-johnschool.org/calendar/

Monday, February 17th – No School / Presidents Day

Tuesday, February 18th – No School / Winter Break

Wednesday, February 26th – Ash Wednesday Mass, Wear DRESS UNIFORM

Third graders had a busy week of learning.  In Religion we studied the story of the Good Samaritan. In Reading, students are clarifying the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials.  Next week students will look at the author’s purpose of writing a text and support the decision with evidence/details from the text.  Students took an assessment for 0-12 multiplication facts.  Next week we will begin our division practice.  In Science we described characteristics of the Temperate, Rainforest and Mountain climate regions.  Next week, students will study Desert, Mediterranean and Polar regions.  In Spelling, the focus is compound words. Our Fruit of the Spirit this month of February is LOVE!

Congratulations to the Star Student of the Week: Xavier Pelfrey

Positive Poms:  Students enjoyed the Chips + Science Theater party!   

Happy Birthday this month!  Zakayo, Jack, Lila, Ethan and Sophie

Upcoming Dates:  

Saturday, February 8th – Sweetheart Dance

Wednesday, February 12th – DRESS UNIFORM – St. Valentine Liturgy

Thursday, February 13th –  Pajama Day + Parent Art Activity + Valentine Party                                       (Valentine card swap is optional, please no food/candy)

Friday, February 14th – No School / Teacher Retreat

Monday, February 17th – No School / Presidents Day

Tuesday, February 18th – No School / Winter Break

  

Wow! Third graders enjoyed the Catholic Schools Week festivities!  We played board games with buddies, researched the beautiful land of Honduras (our Unbound friend’s home country) and got an up close look at some of our parents’ unique vocations.  Our class put their foot forward celebrating their Catholic School spirit!  In addition, this week in Writing we completed narrative stories and shared them with our teammates.  In Reading, students practiced identifying the main idea while reading passages from The BFG.  Also, we read and discussed character traits of Martin Luther King, Jr. in the text Martin’s Big Words.  7th graders led a meaningful exercise in Social Justice, where students Crossed the Line.  Next week students will practice re-reading and using context clues to find out the meaning of unknown words in a text.  Our Multiplication journey continued this week as we learned 7s & 8s.  Next week, we will explore 9s.  In Science students identified effects from severe weather.  Next week, students will be studying Climate Regions.  In Spelling, our focus will be words that end in -ed and -ing.  Our Fruit of the Spirit this month of February is LOVE!

Congratulations to the Star Student of the Week: Grace Luebbe Davidson

Positive Poms:  Students have earned 50 Poms, and we will celebrate on Friday, February 7th.  Students will have Science Theatre from  2:00 – 3pm!  Bring in your favorite bag of chips and a blanket.  We will watch a science show connected to our climate regions standard.

Happy Birthday this month!  Zakayo, Ethan, Sophie, Lila & Jack

Upcoming Dates:   

Thursday, February 6th @ 1:30pm – Spelling Bee

Thursday, February 6th – Progress Reports go Home

Friday, February 7th @ 2:00pm – Pom Party! Science Theatre

(Bring Blanket + Bag of chips)

Friday, February 14th – No School / Teacher Retreat

Monday, February 17th – No School / Presidents’ Day

Tuesday, February 18th – No School / Winter Break