Second Quarter

Second quarter has passed by so quickly. In our previous post we shared all the special events of Advent. It is such a joy to be I. A Catholic school and share our faith in such special ways. We started the New Year with our unit on prayer. Special prayers have been written and placed in our prayer corner. This quarter we explored Native American cultures. Working in cooperative learning groups we researched using the iPads different tribes and designed posters to share with our classmates. Book reports were on Native American themes and a scene from the book was painted and created into totem poles. To culminate the unit we made dream catchers that are on display in our classrooms. In reading we shared as a group the novels The Best Christmas Paegant Ever and Annie and the Old One. We continue reading a variety of literature in guided reading and working on comprehensions skills of predictions, analyzing information and inferences. Writers' workshop has involved writing about personal events in our lives. It's fun writing on special memories. Our skills are improving as we work on nouns, verbs, and sentence structure in our grammar book. We continue reinforcing cursive writing. Math has been a challenge in understanding multiplication. Many strategies have been introduced such as illustrating groupings, arrays, using counters, and specific strategies for 2,4,5, and 9's. The challenge is to transfer this knowledge to fluency of the facts. The motivation is an "Ice Cream Sundae" party in completing our multiplication facts. We are finishing our units on Earth Materials and Sound. We are looking forward to starting Project Lead the Way. We will keep you posted!

 

Advent

Advent is a special time of year for the third graders. We did many activities to make the season meaningful and fun as they prepared their hearts for the birth of Jesus. During this season we had an Advent wreath and each week we lit a candle and had a prayer service on Monday mornings. Each day we shared the Jesse Tree story where we discussed and learned about Jesus' ancestors through the different bible stories leading up to Christmas. Each child had a coloring packet of the story that illustrated the story. We enjoyed learning the history of Jesus' family. The "Kindness Elf" visited each classroom and left messages of kind acts that the children could do each day. We made cards for a soldier in Syria who lost his friend in a bomb explosion. Cards were also made thanking the lunchroom helpers, Mrs. Holton, Mr. Leonhardt and Mr. Charlie. Cards were also made for the residents at Newcastle and LaSata. We helped the 3K kids make a special ornament for their parents. They are fun to be with. The Christmas program was a huge success and we loved our songs. The whole school gathered at the end to sing Silent Night. It was a special night that will always be remembered. We read the Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It is a beautiful story helping us to understand the true meaning of Christmas and how we need to be thankful for all that we have. On our last day before vacation the teachers made a delicious "Pancake Breakfast." What fun! We decorated cookies with our 8th grade  buddies and took them to share with the residents of LaSata. We sang many Christmas songs for the residents and shared the cards we made for them. It was a joy to bring happiness to the residents. We have been truly blessed at Lumen Christi and we are thankful for God's gifts to us.  Wishing blessings to everyone in the New Year!  

Adventures in 3rd grade - First Quarter - 2016

We have just finished our first quarter of third grade. It has been busy and fun with challenging learning activities.  In religion we learned about St.Francis of Assisi who is our class saint. Mrs. Ausloos provided our classes with two beautiful bird feeders that are in our Rosary Garden. We created art pieces of our favorite thing of God's creation and they are hanging in our rooms. We have planned our class Masses, celebrated Grandparents Day, All Hallows' Eve, made " Happy Halloween" cards for the residences at Newcastle and we made bookmarks for the Veterans. We celebrated a beautiful Veterans Mass. In academics we are mastering grammar. We understand the types of sentences, compound and complex sentences, coordinated conjunctions, and subcordinated conjunctions. We have begun narrative writing and we do journaling in PE. We are doing guided reading and enjoy discussing books in small groups. Hands on investigation have been an interesting way to learn about concepts in science. In Mrs. Callahan's class earth Materials "mock rocks" were picked apart and many experiments were performed in order to discover the ingredients in a "mock rock." In Mr. Bucheger's class the children experienced many ways that sound is made. At times it sounded like a symphony was bing played. We are challenged daily in math with ADD and we just keep getting smarter. We have completed two standards: place value and rounding and the other one is adding and subtracting to 1,000. Each morning we do Number of the Day and try to see who can come up with the most ways to come up with that number. It is fun motivating and challenging each other every day. The elections this fall allowed us to explore the local, state, and federal government and the leaders at each level. The children studied the election and voting process and were in charge of a mock election for grades 4K - 3rd grade. The candidates were Splat the Cat, Grace and Teacher who are characters in three books that were shared among the classrooms. In small ggroups groups they studied the books and what each candidate promised they would do if they were president. Each group made campaign posters and campaigned in the classrooms. We had everyone register to vote. We even had the real "I Voted Today" stickers. It was a great way to learn how voting works. In case you are wondering Grace won for president. We are looking forward to second quarter and more adventures in learning.  

 

Adventures of First Quarter 2016

We have just finished our first quarter of third grade. It has been busy and fun with challenging activities. In religion we learned about St. Francis of Assisi who is our class saint.

Welcome Cards for our Neighbors

The students decorated cards that they shared with the neighbors. The message was for God to bless us all in our new neighborhood.It was fun delivering them during the day.

Discovery World

We had an amazing field trip to Discovery World. We started the adventure at the aquarium and we had a behind the scenes tour by Michael Kim's sister Theresa who is a marine biologist and an alumnae of Lumen Christi. We observed the different types of fish and we were able to touch some of them. Other highlights included being able to fly a plane, excavate soil using a huge machine, lay on a bed of nails, explore electrical currents and laugh as we shocked each other. 

We also explored the Great Lakes where we observed a simulated thunder storm. A fun activity was learning and observing how water from Thiensville travels to Lake Michigan. We were able to play on a ship that sailed on the lakes. 

The trip was a wonderful learning experience and we hope we can go back. 

Famous People

During the month of April the third graders read biographies. They had the opportunity to dress up as their famous person. Each child was interviewed to share information on their famous person. Walt Disney, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Bill Nye, Mia Hamm, and Harriet Tubman are just some of the people we learned about.