February Fun

February is off to a great start with lots of fun learning activities happening in the 3rd Grade Learning Spot! Science has been "Out of This World" as we learn about the planets, sun, moon, and tools scientists use to study space. Activities included making planet sequence strips that students turned into hats and creating phases of the moon mats...

Our class visited the science lab to conduct an experiment using flashlights and inflatable globes to discover what creates day/night and why we see certain moon phases...

In reading, we're continuing our novel study of Charlotte's Web reading chapters 12-21 and doing extension activities about them. Our Charlotte's Web bulletin board is shown below. It includes "Word Weaver" student spiders holding cards displaying nouns or adjectives describing ourselves. Another section displays "Friend" acrostic poems as friendship is a big theme of the book. Small groups of students collaborated on "County Fair" brochures to publicize that Wilbur the pig is off to the fair...

In math, we're halfway through our "Area" unit. Students learned two strategies to find the area of a region are 1) counting square units and 2) multiplying length times width. Practicing the 2nd strategy also provides us with an opportunity to continue to strengthen our multiplication skills...

 Students used manipulatives such as unifex cubes to calculate the square units of shapes...

  and learned how to find the area of irregular shapes as well using grid paper.

Another new display is our classroom "Learn About Someone New! Read a Biography!" clothesline. 

Biographies are about famous people such as the children's author, Laura Ingalls Wilder...

and Jane Goodall, who taught us about chimpanzees and created  animal conservation programs...

In class, students are currently composing biographies on Jacques Cousteau, a "Manfish" who created the aqua lung, explored the oceans, and taught us about sea life and why we must conserve it. Students' biographies will be decorated with paper fish they created. Then, we'll be flying off to learn about Amelia Earhart's accomplishments.

Looking forward to a month of learning and fun!