Time and Temperature

Ms. Habbane has begun her practicum in our class, and she is teaching Time and Temperature until the Christmas Holiday.

Our first lesson focused on identifying how long some common standards of time are:

1 minute = 60 seconds
1 hour = 60 minutes
1 day = 24 hours
1 week = 7 days
1 month = about 4 weeks or 30 days
1 year = 12 months or 365 days or 52 weeks

With these times understood, students are asked to determine how long they might do a task for. For example, is there a way to state these time amounts in a more easily understood way: "I am going to watch my show in 220 minutes"?

This is probably the most challenging aspect of our time unit, and student generally need quite a lot of practice at this skill. In class, I will allow students to use calculators to add or subtract time amounts, since they will be allowed to use them on our provincial testing at the end of the year. It is important they learn how to use them properly throughout the course of the year to help them build success.

The next lesson we are working on is actually reading time amounts on both an analogue clock and a digital clock. We learn to do this to the nearest five minutes. This is generally easier for students, although practice does not hurt! Try to have your child tell you the time when you get a chance to see how they are progressing in this area.

The final important lesson in this unit will be reading and understanding temperature in Celsius. We will also be learning some important benchmarks for temperature such as:

• water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius
• A hot day is 30 degrees Celsius
• A warm, comfortable day is about 20 degrees Celsius
• water boils at 100 degrees Celsius

We will test this unit at the end of this week. There is no need to study, as students should be well prepared in class. If we feel they are not ready, then we will wait until next week in order to review some more. 

As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. 

How to Write a Comparing Paragraph

Lately in language we have been learning how to write a paragraph which compares two things. We started by reading the story "Stella Luna". Click here to see the Youtube video we watched of the story. Afterwards, we created a Venn diagram to compare the similarities and differences of bats and birds. Finally, we used the Venn diagram to help us write a comparative paragraph.

In Grade 3 I always stress the importance of using an opening (topic) sentence. I also try to encourage students to write a sentence that is a "Big" grade 3 sentence - a compound sentence. Students are encouraged to use a linking word to join two ideas together. For example, "You might think that birds and bats look similar, but in fact they are very different."

Next, we might discuss some of the similarities of birds and bats for a sentence, and then discuss the differences. I usually ask students to write one sentence for bats, then one for birds and then repeat that pattern.

Example: "Bats have sharp, pointed teeth, which they use to bite things with. Birds have beaks, which can be pointed or flat depending on what they eat." (This is the type of sentence I would love to see!)

I would usually ask students to do three repetitions of this for a good paragraph - essentially covering three main differences between the two items.

Finally, at the end, I ask students to write a closing sentence, which should restate the main idea. For example, "Birds and bats are very different, but they are both amazing animals."

Here is the example that we wrote together in class. If you are practicing this type of writing at home with your child, please encourage them to follow this format.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me any time.

Homework for Week of December 2-6

This week for homework we will be writing multiple choice questions for our App Project again! We need to finish these so that the students at Holy Trinity can finish the code for their app. Please have your child write 10 multiple choice questions about their topic.

December Newsletter

Math

We will soon be wrapping up our Patterning Unit in Math and will then move on to Measurement.  The expectations that we will focus on are:

– read time using analogue clocks, to the nearest five minutes, and using digital clocks
– estimate, read and record positive temperatures to the nearest degree Celsius
– identify benchmarks for freezing, cold, cool, warm, hot, and boiling temperatures as they relate to water and for cold, cool, warm, and hot temperatures as they relate to air

Please ask your child regularly to tell you what time it is using an analogue clock.  Ask him/her questions such as: “How many minutes have passed since 2:00?” and “How many minutes will it take to get to 3:00?”.

Language

We have been loving descriptive writing!  We had a great time describing our classroom pumpkin and our Crack-Ups (Pop Rocks).  Our next project will be to create a Missing Dog Poster.  The children will create an actual poster with large print and bright colours.  They will describe their missing dog using the features that are important when writing a descriptive piece of writing.  I will eventually be sending  their descriptive writing home.  The next style of writing that we will focus on is Persuasive Writing.

Science

We have completed our Forces unit in Science and are just finishing up our class presentations about Forces. Our next unit will be Forces Acting on Structures. In this unit, we will learn about what forces act on structures, and how we can design and build structures to mitigate those forces.


Religion

We will be entering the season of Advent this week. We will have weekly Advent Liturgies in the gym with the rest of the school.  We will be talking a lot about the birth of Christ in class and reading Bible stories along with other Christmas stories.

Angel Tree

We will be kicking off our annual Angel Tree Campaign this week.  If you would like your child to pick an angel from the tree in order to purchase a gift for a child in need, please give your child permission in his/her agenda or fill out the permission form on the email that will be sent out with regard to the Angel Tree Campaign.

Christmas Concert

On December 20th, from 9:30 to 10:30 is the primary Christmas concert.  The children have been busy preparing something special for you.  They are very excited!  They may come home and ask you for a few items to bring to school (e.g., Santa hat, reindeer antlers).  Please do not buy anything for this.  Only send it in if you have it at home already. I will send more details as we get closer to the date.

Christmas Party

On the last day of school in the afternoon, before the holidays and after the Christmas concert, we will be having a small Christmas party in the classroom.  They can bring some board games if they would like.  Please do not send any treats to the class as we have a few students with some severe allergies.  I will be providing treats that are appropriate for everyone.

Important Dates for December

 Friday, December 20th – Primary Christmas Concert 9:30- 10:30AM/
                                                   Junior Christmas Concert 10:50 – 11:50AM
                                                   Christmas Party!

Monday, December 23rd - Friday, January 3rd: Christmas Holidays!