Multiplication Mania and More...

Our class has been busy learning the multiplication times tables these past few weeks. We started our multiplication unit by creating lap books to learn multiplication terms and strategies we can use to solve equations...

 

Inside the lapbook are strategies we can utilize to multiply and a chart to help us learn the times tables 0-12.
 

 

We've played lots of multiplication games to practice multiplying two factors such as multiplication bingo...

 

 

multiplication concentration...

 

and "Build a Snowman". Pairs of students wrote equations on snowball patterns that would have the number in the snowman's hat as the answer and demonstrated the commutative property of multiplication.

 

The class has also been enjoying our new math center tub, which contains file folder and ziplock bag math games.

Students get to play a math game when they are done with class work.  "Build a Turkey" and "Roll a Snowball" are the most popular games right now; both reinforce multiplication skills. Other games reinforce solving word problems, place value, rounding, addition, subtraction, and division such as "Butterfly Division"...

We've been hard at work in Language Arts as well. In reading, the class completed our first novel study, Molly's Pilgrim, which was integrated with our Thanksgiving social studies unit. With the help of their family, each child created his or her own pilgrim doll representing the country their family is from or a country of their choice. Students also completed a questionnaire about the country, such as what its resources and landmarks. Here's a doll representing the Ukraine...

a doll representing Hungary...

and one representing Russia...

 

Our dolls are displayed on the bulletin board outside our classroom...

We also celebrated the end of our Patricia Polacco author study by having a publishing party with 4th grade as our guests. During the unit, 3rd graders practiced writing personal narratives like Polacco did in her books we read, culminating in writing a final childhood narrative that was read to a 4th grade partner. The partner then wrote a review about what he/she enjoyed about the story. Both classes enjoyed cookies during the party.

 

We also created a tally graph of our favorite Polacco book shared during our author study.

 

In Language Arts, we began our study of verbs with an anchor chart to learn about different types of verbs.

 

We also learned about "Vivid Verbs", which replace boring verbs to make our writing more interesting. Each student received a colored pencil pattern containing a "boring" verb. The student thought of 3 "vivid" verbs to replace the boring verb, then wrote a sentence for each.

 

We'll be continuing our study of verbs before moving on to adjectives in the next few weeks.