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.