In grade 3 we are learning to round to the nearest 10 and the nearest 100. When we teach this, we often start by using number lines because they are a very visual way of seeing where a number is in relation to the nearest 10 or 100. Here is a video I made which explains the way that I taught rounding in class if you are reviewing this with your child.
Rounding to the Nearest 10 and 100
November 27, 2020
Dear Parents,
This week in language we began writing the rough drafts of our fiction narrative stories. Most of the students are finished, and next week we will begin revising and editing by focussing on strong lead sentences, character development, setting development, and deepening our story by using a “rising action” sequence of events.
In reading, we took a look at our short answers from the story we read last week called “The Sleepover”, and we bumped up our answers after looking at the exemplars. Students are getting much better at responding to texts by giving some details directly from the text. We need to work on making sure that those details are the best ones we can find to provide proof for our thinking. Next week we will be reading a story about snowshoeing and completing the short answer and multiple choice questions, as well as bumping up our answers later in the week.
In math this week we focussed on composing and decomposing numbers up to a thousand. We learned many different ways to represent the same number. For example using expanded form, written form, displaying numbers as a sum of other numbers (326 = 300+26, or 320 +6), using base ten blocks, and by showing the number on a hundreds chart. We also learned how we can represent numbers in uncommon ways. For example we can show 226 as 1 hundreds, 12 tens and 6 ones. Getting used to being able to manipulate numbers this way helps students a great deal later when we are regrouping in addition, subtraction and multiplication. Next week we will be focussing on comparing and ordering numbers by using number lines to assist us. We had a small check in on Friday to see how well students were understanding place value so far and students did a great job overall. Our next unit in math is going to be representing multiplication and division by showing equal groups, arrays, and as repeated addition.
Another area of math that we focussed on this week was coding. We started by writing simple codes to fill in squares on a grid, and in later lessons we learned how to debug code when we saw mistakes. Students greatly enjoyed these activities, and we will be continuing them throughout the year, as they are part of our new math curriculum.
We took a break from science this week, but will be beginning our next unit in science next week, which is “Soils in the Environment”. We will begin next week by learning about what soil is and the importance of it, and also by learning about some of the different types of soil.
Once again I want to thank you for your kind support, and if you ever wish to talk about your child's progress please feel free to contact me. Please click on the link here for some pictures from this week.
Yours,
Chris Pouliot
November 20, 2020
Dear Parents,
We had a fun ending to our week this week with a special play date to learn how to play a number of physically distanced games. We were outside for an entire block and students were very tired afterwards!
In language this week we began learning about writing a fiction narrative, or a short story. We began the week by learning what a fictional narrative was and then we learned how to create a main character and some secondary characters. Afterwards we learned that the setting is where and when a story takes place, and that there may be more than one setting in a story. In the course of learning all of this we filled in graphic organizers to plan out the characters and settings for our own fiction Masterpiece which we will be writing in this unit.
In Reading, we continue to learn about making connections and we read a story called “The Sleepover”, which is an old EQAO reading test from 2009. we did not have time to bump up our answers this week so that will be our task for next week. We also read some selections in ReadWorks and Raz-Kids. We are continuing to develop our ability to respond to text by restating the question, and providing two or more good examples from the text.
In math we began learning about place value up to 1000, and how to write numbers in a variety of ways. For example we learn how to write numbers in written form, expanded form, and standard form, as well as using base ten blocks on a hundreds chart. we learn how to compare numbers up to one thousand and how to count to one thousand by hundreds and fifties.
We had our Science assessment on Tuesday and on Thursday we played Plickers to gather some more assessment information about what students could recall about Forces Acting on Structures. Our next unit in science will be Soils in the Environment.
This was also Kindness Week, and students did a great job of showing kindness to others throughout the week. We had a small challenge to fill in a number of kindness tasks listed in a chart, and although we did not finish all of the challenges, we did a great job, so we took some time Friday during last block to watch a movie and have a little treat.
Next week, the virtual Book Fair will be taking place. A flyer and note was sent home in your child’s agenda today. If you didn’t get it, then you can find it here. Also, photo proofs were sent home today as well.
Next week will be continuing learning about writing fiction and developing our ideas for our masterpiece. In reading we will be continuing to practice writing detailed responses that use evidence from the text and our own ideas. In math, we will be continuing to learn about place value, but will also be taking some time to learn about coding, which is new for the Ontario Curriculum this year. If you wish to introduce coding to your child at home, here is a great website that offers a number of interesting tutorials that walk students through developing a small computer program. In science, we will begin learning about soils.
A reminder that homework has begun again after the science presentations, and we are going back to having our weekly word wall quizzes on Fridays. Please do not feel pressure to complete the homework assignments, as it is simply extra practice for students. The weekly word wall quizzes are based on the words from the homework however, so it may assist your child in feeling better about them.
Finally, below is a link to our class photo album, which I have updated with pictures from this week, mostly taken during our play day today. Have a great weekend, and thank you once again for all your support.
Yours,
Chris Pouliot
Dear Parents,
It was nice to meet most of you yesterday. If you were unable to meet with me and would like to do so, please let me know and I will make an appointment to do so.
In language this week we continue to focus on making connections when we read. We also continued our focus on responding to text using examples to support our thinking. This is a skill that we will be practicing throughout the year. Our next unit in writing will be focusing on fiction narratives, or short stories. We began this unit by writing a short story completely independently without any guidance from me, so that I could see where students were before we began the unit. We will be learning more about how to write good fiction stories over the next six weeks or so.
In math, we finished up our unit on addition and subtraction strategies using mental math and adding numbers less than 100. Students did quite well overall in demonstrating their ability to add and subtract these numbers. Our next unit will focus on representing numbers up to 1000 in a variety of ways. we will be learning about using standard form, written form, and expanded form to represent numbers, as well as using base ten blocks and other methods. One area that is challenging for students when demonstrating their understanding of place value, is being able to represent a number such as 183 in a variety of ways. For example students will usually recognize that a number like 183 has a one in hundreds column, an 8 in the tens column and a 3 in the ones column. They often struggle to find another way to show this. For example, this number could also be represented as having 18 in the tens column and 3 in the ones column. This is not the normal way we would represent the number, however it does help us when we get to adding and subtracting larger numbers so that students can understand the concept of regrouping a little more clearly. Being able to rearrange numbers in this manner is an important skill in understanding numbers deeply. We will be working on this unit for a number of weeks.
The science presentations were excellent! I was really impressed with how well prepared the students were and the quality of their work, not to mention their speaking ability. thank you to everyone for all the hard work that you put in with your children. I took a video of each child and have placed it in their Google Drive for parents to see. it is in their science folder. The filename looks like this:
Once again thank you for all your support and it was a pleasure seeing everyone yesterday. Please feel free to reach out to me anytime you have questions about your child's progress, I am always available to speak. I will try to send home the assessment folder on a regular basis so that you can see your child's progress as well. If I have concerns I will certainly call you.
I don’t have any pictures for this week, so enjoy the videos! Sorry!
Have a nice weekend,
Chris Pouliot
Dear Parents,
What a beautiful week this was! The weather really cooperated, and we had some great days outside. I hope you and your families are able to get outside this weekend to enjoy this unseasonably warm weather.
In class, we were quite busy this week. In Reading we looked at our EQAO reading sample from last week called "Sometimes it Takes Two”, and we learned how to bump up our mark. First we looked at the exemplars to see what a response from each level looked like, and then we self- assessed our own work, and tried to bump up our marks ourselves. We will be doing more of this as we go on in the year. When students self assess their own work before I mark it, they get a clearer understanding of what they need to do to achieve success when responding to short answer questions, which can be quite challenging for students at this age.
In writing, we began writing a procedural text about how to make toast with jam. We began by watching a short video about how to make toast with jam, and then we filled out a graphic organizer to help us plan our writing. On Thursday we wrote our rough drafts using the model that is posted in our classroom. Finally on Friday we worked on our final copies. I am finding that students are getting better at following the model and using the graphic organizer to help them plan their thinking. We will continue to develop the skill as we write more pieces throughout the year. Our next writing focus will be on narrative text, or writing short stories. We will likely be working on narrative writing until the Christmas break.
In math, we continued working on mental math strategies for addition and subtraction. Here is a link to a video I made about how we can add and subtract numbers less than a hundred using some mental math strategies.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ltrv5xR84O64obS2v4rBHG7vtYzMsF55/view
We will be finishing this unit next week and have a test towards the end of the week. The next unit we will be working on in math is representing whole numbers, which means being able to show the value of a whole number such as 568 in a variety of ways. For example we may show it as 56 tens and 8 ones, or 5 hundreds 6 tens and 8 ones. Alternatively we could also show it using standard form, written form, or expanded form. Students will be learning how to represent these numbers using base ten blocks in a variety of ways. Developing a strong understanding of place value in our number system is key for students to understand addition, subtraction, multiplication and division strategies later on.
In science this week, we built bridges out of popsicle sticks and glue and then put weights on them to see how much they could hold. By doing this we saw how strong triangular shapes make structures, and how beams support a platform from underneath. Students really enjoyed building the bridges and then seeing how much they could hold. Next week on Monday we will be presenting our structures projects to the class, and then on Thursday we'll have our science test for this unit. Study notes for this unit have gone home today in the students agendas. In case your child has misplaced it, here is a link to the study notes for the science test.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qC7WdHCWPOwvZr2iH7EKBaDZbko7E8bciVizSbMfu_M/edit?usp=sharing
In health we have been learning about healthy eating habits and the difference between processed and unprocessed foods. Over the next while, students will be working on a healthy food Google Presentation in which they have to invent a healthy snack and sell it to the class. We will be working on this in class, but I will make sure that the presentations are shared so that families can see them when they are complete. It will take us quite some time to finish these presentations, however, because we need to share computers and will mostly be working on this in our free time.
A reminder that if you wish to schedule an interview time with me, please use the link sent earlier this week from the school. Also, please return the assessment folders that were sent home on Monday if you have not done so already.
Upcoming events next week:
Nov 9th - Progress reports go home - a paper copy will not be sent home this year, it will be available in the parent portal.
Nov 12th - Parent-Teacher interviews (virtual)
Nov 13th - PD Day
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy the weather, and once again, thank you for all your support. Here is a link to some pictures from the week:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Fz3GnfqrJfdkoDoP6
Yours,
Chris Pouliot
Dear Parents,
What a fun week! Our Halloween Spirit Week was fun and we did a number of activities to celebrate the event. It is such a different Halloween this year, so we wanted to do as much as possible to make it a fun time for the children.
In Language, we did some Halloween reading in Readworks, and did an EQAO sample as well. We will be looking at examples of reading responses next week, so that students can work to “bump up” their answers and improve their ability to respond to short answer questions when reading. This is a difficult skill for many students at this age, and it is one we work on the entire year. The most important thing we try to teach students is to 1) Restate the question in their answer, 2) give their own opinion (or general answer), 3) give 2 or more examples directly from the text and 4) make a connection if possible. Students often struggle to provide all of that detail! It is a skill that we teach throughout the year.
In writing, we learned about writing procedural text (instructions, recipes, etc). We started with a teacher led model, so that students would see how a procedural text is written. We wrote the text for the pumpkin that we carved last week (which melted over the weekend! We did another one…), and posted it as a model on the bulletin board so students can look at it when they are writing their own. On Thursday, we learned about how to roast pumpkin seeds and then developed an organizer all together. Once the organizer was complete, students were asked to write their own procedural text about how to roast pumpkin seeds. In general, students had some difficulty organizing the text on the page so that the instructions were clear. I reminded them to look at the anchor chart sample that we had on the bulletin board to assist them. We will continue to work on this form of writing next week, and then will begin learning about writing a narrative, or a short fiction story.
In math, we have begun learning about adding and subtracting numbers less than 100, using both mental math strategies (doing it in your head), manipulatives (blocks), and the standard method. So far, we have only focused on mental math strategies. This is a very important skill for students to develop their sense of adding and subtracting, so we will be working on this over the next couple of weeks. When we use mental math strategies, I ask students to try to find a “friendly number” (usually a multiple of ten) to help them. For example, if we are adding 34 +48, I would ask students to make one of the numbers a multiple of ten. In this case, I might choose to add 2 to 48 to get it to 50. If I add 2 to 48, then I have to take away 2 from 34 to balance it out. So in my head, I would add 32 + 50, which is way easier, it equals 82!
It works differently when subtracting. If I wanted to find 67-23, then I would have to add or take away the same amount from both in order to get to the closest ten. In this example, I would take away 3 from 23 to make 20. If I take away 3, from 23, then I also have to take away 3 from 67 to balance it out. So….it now becomes 64-20, which is easier to figure out. The answer would b 44. As you can imagine, this is very difficult for many children, and so we will be practicing for much of next week. One thing that I often have them chant to help them remember is “Addition is the opposite, ssssubtraction is the sssssame”.
In science, we continued learned about strong and stable structures by learning about the different types of bridges (Arch, Beam, Truss, Suspension, Cable-Stayed), and we began building our own out of popsicle sticks and glue. We will be having a little contest next week to see how much eight they can hold! I hope students will enjoy this.
I hope all is going well with the structures projects at home. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. A reminder that they are due on November 9th. We will be doing the presentations that week, and will have our final structures test that week as well. I will send home some study notes next week so that you can assist your child in studying for the test.
In addition to all of this, we carved a new pumpkin on Thursday, and melted crayons on it to make “hair”. The students seemed to enjoy this. We also watched a little movie during 4th block on Friday as a little Halloween treat.
As I mentioned in last week’s update, I will be sending the assessment folders home on Monday so that you can get a small glimpse of your child’s progress so far this year. I don’t rely solely on their marks for the progress report, as this year is a very different one, so I also rely on my own observations of their daily work as well. When it comes to report card time, where there is an actual letter grade for each subject, then I rely on their assessment folders much more for their marks. Thus, if you see your child getting a lot of Level 3’s, you can guess that they will have a mark in the “B” range on their report card. If they have a lot of level 2’s, it would mean they would likely get “C’s”, and so on. Once again, if you ever have concerns or questions about your child’s progress, please reach out to me. If I have serious concerns, then I will always reach out to you.
Here are some pictures from the week. Hope you enjoy!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/A9Uv1b2owkqzeTgFA
I hope you have a wonderful Halloween and a restful weekend. Take good care!
Yours,
Chris Pouliot
Dear Parents,
Wow! This was a busy week. We covered a lot in all of our subjects. In language, we began learning about visualizing when reading, and writing procedural text. In math we finished our unit about 3D shapes and had a small assessment on Thursday and Friday. In science, we continue to work on our structures unit and this week we learned about how to alter the strength of materials by changing their shape.
In language we read an old EQAO story called "Building Nests is for the Birds". We talked about how to answer short response questions by using the method linked here, and how to highlight important information by first reading the questions that we needed to answer. In writing we began learning about what procedural text is and its main features. We developed our understanding of this type of text by identifying the steps to carve a Halloween pumpkin and then filling out a graphic organizer to help us plan our writing about it. We carved a pumpkin (I had some of the students draw the face on it) for the Halloween Spirit Week next week and will be further decorating it next week just for fun.
In math, we finished up our 3D shapes unit. We had a short assessment of this unit, both on paper and using Prodigy. In class we use a program called MathUp, which is very language based, while Prodigy relies heavily on multiple choice, so using both programs gives me a good overall picture of a student’s understanding. Our next unit will be addition and subtraction of numbers less than 100. In this unit we will be learning how to add and subtract in a variety of ways including mental math and the standard algorithm.
In science we learned about altering the strength of materials by changing their shape. We built a bridge out of books and paper and then tested the paper bridge to see if it would hold anything. We found out that it would not. Then we folded in half to see if thicker paper would hold, but it also would not. Finally we folded the paper in an accordion style so that it had many triangular shapes and found that this shape could hold quite a lot of weight.
Next week is the st. Anne Halloween Spirit Week! Please see the poster below for the events for each day.
Finally, progress reports will be coming home on November 9th. I am currently in the process of working on them and will be sending home an assessment folder with a number of samples of your child's work, mostly in math and language. I will send it home on November 2nd. Please look at each item in the folder and sign it so I know that you have seen it. Please return your child's folder by November 6th. .
As always, I thank you for your support and if you ever have any questions about your child's progress please feel free to contact me.
Yours,
Chris Pouliot
