Dear Third Grade,
We had a blast on Earth Day on Friday, celebrating with a short assembly and then a giant service session for the school. Some of us were packing, some working in the garden, and some doing spring cleaning. It was a productive, purpose-filled day. Ms Kiefer also shared a secret with the children regarding the incubating eggs. Ask them to tell you!
And we’re finally sewing together our rag rug! We’ve been cutting up old clothes, joining the strips, and braiding them off and on in Practical Arts class these past months. This work continues, but this week we starting sewing the braids together to finally make the rug itself. Very exciting!
UPCOMING EVENTS
- Thursday, April 26, 7pm – Understanding Waldorf Education, session 2. This lectures cycle offered by Ann Burfeind, previous class teacher, is designed as a discussion about the basic ideas at the heart of Waldorf education. Come to any or all sessions. Next session is May 15.
- Friday, April 27, Reading Group: Sign-up here to volunteer to help with one of our last reading group sessions of the year
- Special Friends Day, Friday, May 4: The invitation went out in an email this week for you to pass along to Grandparents or other special friends. Here is the RSVP link.
- Parent Evening Rescheduled! – Tuesday, May 8, 7:00-9:00pm. (originally scheduled for April 18).
CLASSROOM HIGHLIGHTS
This week we followed King Saul’s life until it led us to David, complete with the dramatic story of David and Goliath. It was fun to do a height comparison based on several different measurements mentioned in scripture. As with the story of the prophet Deborah last week, the students individually composed summaries of the David and Goliath story. This week the expectations increased slightly, and the students rose to the challenge of writing more sentences in cursive with good vocabulary.
In our artistic work, we focused on the human form in action, trying to capture what the bodies of David and Goliath would look like in a specific snapshot of their battle. The third graders were then able to clothe them and add a background setting as they saw fit, taking into account what they knew from the story (bronze and leather armor, earth tone dyes as opposed to expensive blues and reds, etc).
Every day we have about 10 minutes of math practice, even though we are not in a math block. This includes mental math problems and then a math practice sheet that focuses on specific math facts. The students are progressing towards knowing these facts. They all know how to get to the answer, and are working on knowing them instantly instead of having to solve them every time. In Math Games lesson this week we reviewed vertical arithmetic for those who needed the reminder, while those ready for a challenge worked on vertical problems with some tricky variations.
Each day we also worked with the basic parts of speech. At this juncture, the students more or less understand noun, verb, adverb, adjective, but working with them and identifying them in the context of a sentence still presents a challenge. Their confidence has grown this week, and they even worked in pairs to diagram sentences pretty successfully! (insert dorky teacher excitement here)
WORDS OF THE WEEK
Every Friday we have a dictation of a handful of sentences that include the words of the week. This is like a spelling test, except the dictation format allows them the opportunity to work on more skills than just accurate spelling. I expect them to be studying the Words of the Week during homeroom time and, if they like, at home in preparation for Friday. Check in with your third grader around Wednesday and see if they are putting in the work.
Upcoming Words of the Week: sleep, seized, dreamed, screamed, thirteen, queen, plead, banquet, Esther