In Math this month, we've been continuing to use the Building Thinking Classrooms model, fostering collaborative problem-solving in math. Working in groups of three, our students engage in active discussions, leveraging diverse perspectives to tackle math problems. The students often look forward to the problem of the day, and are excited for their peers to see their thinking when we frequently do a gallery walk at the end of our work time. By encouraging teamwork and critical thinking, this approach empowers our young mathematicians to deepen their understanding of math concepts. The Building Thinking Classrooms model cultivates a growth mindset, as students embrace challenges, learn from mistakes, and persevere in finding innovative solutions. This equips them with essential problem-solving skills for real-life applications. We finished off an amazing week at the Winspear Centre with some math, architecture, construction, and an organ demonstration! This morning we planned a pretend budget for a visit to the Winspear including tickets and concession which made for some great math conversations! Mr. Wiley gave us a very special tour of the Winspear's construction site, and then the students created blueprints for their very own planned Winspear addition! Perhaps the unanimous highlight of the day was an organ demonstration. We learned all about the incredible 6,551 pipes on the Davis Pipe organ, how it was constructed, how it works, and we got to hear "Ode to Joy" on the organ. At the end of the day we created a time capsule of our Sound School memories that we'll open when we're in grade four. It's been an incredible week, and it's definitely left an indelible mark on the students! 3B has been working hard in our look at 2D shapes math this week. Geometric shapes are all around us, and mathematics can help your child recognize them. Understanding geometric form will help your child appreciate the geometry found in art, design, architecture, and nature. In this unit, the students will:
You can encourage your child to look for geometric shapes and objects around the home and neighbourhood, and talk about them. Here are some suggestions for activities that you can do at home:
So far we’ve learned how to describe and compare shapes and objects using words like vertices, edges, faces, and length. You can see one of our explorations in the pictures below!
Here are some suggestions for activities you can do with your child.
This week we started our Math unit on fractions! Students will build upon their real-world experiences of “fair shares” to recognize a fraction as an expression that relates a part and a whole. In this unit we will:
We use fractions every day in many different situations. Encourage your child to recognize the use of fractions in daily life, for example, when filling a glass half full, measuring ingredients for a recipe, or sharing an apple. Here are some activities you can do with your child to help reinforce the concept of fractions: Fraction Activities
We've been busy working on our multiplication and division skills in math this month in math! Students are working on facts up to 100 now which is a big leap, but we've had lots of fun practicing our multiplying and dividing with some math mysteries, games, and group work. You can test out your math thinking using the math mystery below! How many donuts are in a box if the box is...
10 donuts by 6 donuts 8 donuts by 7 donuts 5 donuts by 9 donuts How many donuts per class if we split... 54 donuts between 6 classes 42 donuts between 7 classes 24 donuts between 4 classes
Our amaryllis plants have continued to rocket up in their growth! Because we learn about life cycles in grade three, we're continuing to observe our plants as some bloom and some are just forming foliage. Our plants "Eloise," "Dawn," "Jack," and "Nicky" have grown exponentially in the past month, and many flowers have bloomed this week. Our latest measurement of "Jack" had the plant pegged at a height of 65 cm which means it has grown 59 centimetres since we planted it! You can watch the video below to see a time-lapse of another amaryllis growing. This month our class is starting a Math unit on multiplication and division! Multiplication and division are basic computational skills that children must eventually master in order to succeed in higher levels of mathematics. The focus of this unit is developing an understanding of the process of multiplication and division in order to develop strategies for multiplying and dividing within 100. Children will use counters, number lines, and arrays to develop their understanding. We are beginning this unit with multiplication and division with whole numbers up to 5 x 5, and will build up our skills to within 100 as the weeks go on. In this unit, the students will:
You can encourage your child to share different strategies used to multiply and divide. We use multiplication and division in many day-to-day situations. Here are some suggestions for activities you can try at home:
This week in Coding School the class was thrilled to code with Adafruit's Circuit Playground Express! We created code for a Christmas light display, created an instrument that we could play Jingle Bells with, and created some music and light sequences. This interesting device sure made for a fun week! Although Canada didn't fare as well as we might have hoped, we enjoyed watching some of Canada's World Cup matches at school over the past couple of weeks! We talked about time in the game as we're starting our work with measuring time, and it was neat to see countries from around the world compete as we learn about global communities in social studies this year! This week, the students were excited to crack out their rulers and begin our unit on the measurement of time, length, and perimeter! In this unit, the students will:
Here are some activities you can try with your child:
This week in Coding School we've been working hard on creating our own video games! Each student created their very own Capture and Evade game, and then we started on making a Platformer game. The class was very impressive with their computational thinking, and we made plenty of use of our skills in algorithms, decomposition, pattern recognition, generalization, and abstraction. You can play your child's video game by using the link they posted on Seesaw!
In grade three, we are learning about measuring height in centimetres (and millimetres, decimetres, and metres) and we also learn about life cycles. To get started on these learning outcomes, this week we got some amaryllis plants in our classroom. We will be tracking the growth of these plants over time and observing changes as their life cycles progress. The students especially enjoyed naming their plants, and we are curious to see how the plants grow in the weeks ahead!
We had our second coding session this week with the Northern Coding Academy from Telus World of Science! This week we learned about some of the foundations of computational thinking including pattern recognition and decomposition. It was fun to explore computational thinking with some interactive activities, and we learned so much from our coding expert Amanda!
This week we started our new Science unit on Testing Materials and Designs! The students are getting all set up as pretend testing contractors, and we’re feeling very ready to tackle this new mission in 3B since we got a business license and our own individual contractor pencils! In this unit, students will study the materials and designs used in construction tasks. They will compare paper, clay, cardboard, styrofoam, and other available materials to see which are the strongest—which ones resist bending, crushing, or tearing—and which are the most easily shaped and joined. They will test different shapes and thicknesses to find out what makes a structure strong and stable and to find out how much material is needed. Students will learn that many factors are considered the materials and designs are selected and that different tasks may require different materials and designs. In the coming weeks, students will learn to:
In Math next week, we are starting a new unit on addition and subtraction. Your child will develop strategies for adding and subtracting whole numbers by using open number lines, addition charts, mental math, estimation, Base Ten Blocks, place-value mats, and pencil and paper.
In this unit, your child will:
Here are some suggestions for activities you can engage in with your child:
We wrapped up our focus on money in Math for the past couple of weeks with a food truck festival today! This week the students practiced counting and keeping track of different amounts of coins and bills, and we had fun with a scavenger hunt and card game to practice those skills. Today, those students put their knowledge of money to the test as they had to create a budget, apply for a business license, and then create a menu with prices. Afterward, students got to shop at each other's food trucks, and they had a blast calculating the totals of orders and pretending to enjoy each other's food. Our class is beginning a math unit on Numbers to 100 000, and the students are always thinking of interesting ways to count, represent numbers, and compare amounts! In this unit, the students will:
Here are some activities you can do at home to support this learning:
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Mrs. BarkerMrs. Barker is a grade three and literacy teacher at Millgrove School. She loves science and reading, and lives in a little brick house with Mr. Barker and her kids Jack and Ellie. Archive
June 2024
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