Love That Dog

This week Third Grade readers started a new novel to dive deeper into their poetry unit. Love That Dog is a novel length poem written as a diary narrative of a boy named Jack. Jack hates poetry and he thinks that only girls write it, until his teacher, Ms. Stretchberry, inspires him to read poetry including the work of Walter Dean Myers. This week Third graders examined the difference in the ways to read poetry and prose. They paid special attention to line breaks and white space in poetry to guide their reading and noticed that we really slow down when reading poetry. Brave readers made inferences about Jack’s teacher, Mrs. Stretchberry, by paying close attention to Jack’s journal entries. We even studied the same poets as our main character did, during our own writing workshop! Scholars were exposed to some of the poetry greats including Robert Frost, William Blake, William Carlos Williams, Valerie Worth and Walter Dean Myers!

Multiplication and Division

This week brave mathematicians dove deep into multiplication and division in new ways. Third Graders were introduced to number models with parentheses. Scholars faced this challenging work head-on, and learned that when they see parentheses they must first solve what is inside the parentheses before working through the problem. We then moved on to practicing our extended multiplication facts. Scholars practiced multiplying 1-digit numbers by multiples of 10, 100, and 1,000 and dividing such multiples by 1-digit numbers!. Third Graders shared solution strategies and found new ways to think about solving these problems!

Reading Buddies        

This week we got to be mindful listeners and partner with First Grade friends as they read their favorite Cynthia Rylant books. Read below to see what Third Grader, Maya Bundy wrote about this sweet opportunity!

“This Monday, Third and First Grade had special reading buddies! After finishing their Cynthia Rylant study, First Graders shared their favorite books with Third Grade friends. Buddies were paired up and found a cozy spot in the backyard to share books and make memories. Third Graders practiced mindful listening while giving positive and helpful feedback to First Grade Friends. It’s amazing how grades combine to read and end up making life long memories!”     -Maya Bundy

Important Dates:

• Friday March 25th- April 1st                         Spring Break
• Thursday, April 14th, 21st, & 28th              JICP Climbing Wall
• Thursday, April 14th                                       TCS Silent Auction
• Friday, May 6th                                               Grandparent’s Day
• Friday, May 6th                                               Pass-It-On