Settling in (aka Diving in!)

Hello Wonderful 3rd Grade Families,

It's great to be back in the classroom. Thank you all so much for your support, kind words and thoughts. I have really felt them, and needed them. Rebecca and Jonathan were a wonderful addition to our classroom and I am beyond grateful for all that they did while I was gone, and continue to do as needed. It's so wonderful to be part of such a supportive school community.

We began our classroom economy last week and it is going really well. The purpose is to teach students personal financial literacy and accountability. This week, students are harnessing their natural entrepreneurial spirits and starting businesses using the money they earn from our classroom economy. They are creating products and services to sell in the classroom. This project is all done at school, nothing should be created at home. Their excitement for this project is energizing and fun to be a part of!

We finished up our rovers and learned about teamwork and handling failure, struggle, and disappointment. But there were also some huge successes with the rovers! It has been fascinating to see the creativity and problem solving skills that these young minds posses.  To end our space unit, students are writing their own constellation myths, which are equally as creative and outstanding as their rovers.

We have continued our daily quotes and words of the day. One of our favorite quotes was "An effort made for the happiness of others lifts us above ourselves."-- Lydia M. Child. And a very popular word was sciamachy, which means sham fighting for exercise or practice. What a crazy word!

In math, we are studying the engineering and structure of different types of bridges. If you have magazine pictures or photos of any bridge, please send them in with your students! Next week we will begin engineering our own bridges and measuring their capacity for load-bearing, problem-solving as we go to find out how to construct the most stable and sturdy bridge using everything that we have learned throughout the year about geometry, measurement, and accurate calculation, as well as learning more about the scientific method in this process.

In literacy, we are learning about the water cycle and the importance of water conservation through reading One Well, A Long Walk to Water, and various scientific articles about water conservation. Students will begin writing an essay about the topic of water conservation, culminating in creating a public service announcement about how and why we should conserve water. 

I'm looking for volunteers who can help with our gardening initiative this last month of school. If one or two parents would like to get their hands a little dirty and help teach students about gardening, please let me know! 

We have a fun run coming up next Friday! Students should have brought home information about this yesterday. If you did not see it, please check with the main office or myself. We may have extra handouts. For more information about pledging, etc. please visit this site: https://funrun.boosterthon.com/a/s/259FB6D5

This is my absolute favorite time of year, where we get to see everything we have learned all year culminate with incredible project-based learning. It's messy, it's sometimes loud, it's a little hectic. But it sure is awesome!

As always, thank you for your support.

Best,

Olivia