January 21 - 25, 2019

Sea Turtle Research Project

Third Grade is thoroughly thrilled about sea turtles.  Each child chose a sea turtle species and completed a research paper on that turtle.   The project focused on note taking, writing an informational piece using complete sentences, proper capitalization, and punctuation.  Sea turtles included: Loggerhead, Leather back, Green Sea Turtle, Hawksbill, and Kemp's Ridley.   Ask your child what he/she learned about sea turtles.  

Here are Anaya, Emily, and Willow reading excerpts from their research papers:

Spanish Class

The children are enjoying Spanish class with Senora Soto.  Currently, they are learning the letters and sounds of the Spanish alphabet.  Did you know that it has more than 26 letters?  They are working on writing the letters and learning the sounds of each. 

                 

   

The kids have fun singing in Spanish!!

Religion Class

This month, in religion class, we are learning that just as God kept his promises to the Israelites, he keeps his promises to us, too.  

Here are the 3rd boys reciting, "I am the Resurrection and Life."

Friday, February 8 - Parent Visitation 

8:00 Registration

8:15 Science Fair Expo

8:45 - 9:50 Classroom Rotations

9:55 - 10:15 Snack

10:30  Middle School One Act Presentations

Friday, February 15 - Monday, February 18 - Presidents' Day Weekend (No School)

  

January 14 - 17, 2019

Turtle Man Dan

Learning about turtle carapaces.

What an exciting opportunity the 3rd Grade had to Skype with Dr. Evans from the Sea Turtle Conservancy in the Innovation Lab this week!  Thank you to Mrs.  Zwilling for facilitating this fun experience.  The students learned a lot about sea turtles from an expert.  They heard about ways that they can prevent these amazing creatures from dying off.  The class was amazed to see real turtle carapaces and skulls.  Boy, do sea turtles have BIG eyes!  Ask you child about this fun activity that he/she participated in this week.  

Hey, it's Turtle Man Dan!

Amos and Boris - Opinion Writing

As part of our Oceans thematic unit, the class read the story, Amos and Boris in reading group.  The overall theme was that friends come in all shapes and sizes and that a true friend always sticks with you through the good times and the bad times.  Here are some of the students using their O-R-E-O graphic organizers to write an opinion piece about this story.  

    

  

  

Students with their Final Papers

    

Parts of Speech Scavenger Hunt

Students worked together to complete a parts of speech scavenger hunt using the book, Amos and Boris.  They located Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Contractions in the story.

    

"I Would Rather...." Writing Project

The class is learning how about persuasive writing this month.  They each picked an "I Would Rather..." winter themed card and wrote reasons why they chose one thing over another.  

Willow would rather live with penguins than polar bears.

Jude would rather live in an arctic area than a tropical one.

Ava would rather drink hot cocoa with marshmallows than whipped cream.

Quinn would rather eat snow ice cream than make paper snowflakes.  

Which would you rather do???

    

    

Monday, January 21st - School Closed for MLK Day

Friday, February 8th - Parent Visitation (More info. to follow)

January 7 - 11, 2019

Fraction Fun!

The Golden Pups practiced writing fractions of a group using Skittles candies.  Who knew math was so tasty!

     

   

Continental Math League

What is CML?  It is a math competition to help students improve their reading

comprehension and math problem solving skills.  HCA students in Grades 2 - 8

participate in this program.  There are six higher level thinking problems on each

test lasting 30 minutes.  The student from each grade with the highest combined

score of the three tests administered in January, February, & March will receive

a medal at the Student Recognition Ceremony in May.  Good luck!

   

Baby, It's Cold Outside

What do you do when the weather is getting colder? You snuggle up with your friends, of course.  Here are some friends having fun together at recess.  

Oceans Away

The Lower School has begun their thematic unit on Oceans.  We kicked off the unit with the Magic School Bus movie,  Magic School Bus, Takes A Dive".  The 3rd Grade will specifically focus on Sea Turtles and the Coral Reef.  Feel free to send in any ocean themed stuffed animals or seashells so we can decorate our classroom.  

The students are working on research papers about different types of Sea Turtles.  Also, we have been tracking the migration of various sea turtles on the Sea Turtle Conservancy web site.  Our favorites are Stella, a female Leatherback turtle, Colada, a Hawksbill turtle and Mr. Potato Head, a female Loggerhead turtle.  Here is the web site, if your child would like to keep track at home.  

https://conserveturtles.org/sea-turtle-tracking-active-sea-turtles/

Here are our class fish, Stella and Lucky.  Thank you to Willow for letting us borrow her fish for our Ocean Unit.