Holiday Party

We celebrated the season of kindness 

by making cards for Southpoint Terrace nursing home residents,

stockings,

a healthy snowman snack,

playing several "Minute to Win It" games,

exchanging gifts with the "Right Family",

having Chik-fil-A for lunch with friends and parents,

and a Florida snowball fight!

A special thank you to all of our parents for sending in party items and volunteering.  

Our party was a great success because of you!

Hope the winter wreaths we made this week will bring back happy memories
of third grade
when you hang yours up every year!

December Flag Raising

Hopefully you were able to make it to this morning's Flag Raising!  The third grade classes brightened up a gloomy, grey day by dressing in holiday attire and beautifully singing "Let There Be Peace on Earth".

Holiday Traditions

My dad's family is from Holland (also called The Netherlands).  It is a small country in the western part of Europe.  Can you find it on the map?

My dad and his family came to America in 1954.

This is Oma!

Oma means grandma in Dutch.

Some facts about Oma:

Oma lived in Holland during World War II.

Oma walks two miles every day.

Oma still dances with the young people at family weddings.

Oma still has the cleanest house I've ever been in.

Oma was born in 1919.  

How many years young is she?

My dad spoke Dutch with Oma and Opa (grandpa), but unfortunately, no one taught my brother and me.  The only words I know are in a lullaby they sang to us.

Growing up, we celebrated St. Nicholas Day.  On the evening of December 5, we put our shoes by the front door (sometimes leaving carrots for his horse).  When we woke up the next morning, our shoes were filled with treats!

 

Sometimes we got the letter of our first initial made of chocolate.

 

I loved finding Dutch salty licorice in my shoes!  Sometimes we'd get licorice griotten, which look like sugar cubes, but have a marshmallowy texture and a slightly salty licorice flavor.

On this holiday, we also ate stroopwafels, thin wafer cookies filled with caramel.

Tonight at our house we are putting out our shoes and look forward them being filled with treats when we wake up!

Since many of our third grade social studies standards cover geography and culture, specifically in North America and the Caribbean, we will be learning about some of the winter celebrations that take place in those countries.

What winter holiday traditions does your family celebrate?

Flag Raising Performance

 

Students, make sure you are practicing our song for Friday's performance (8:30 in the courtyard).

Please note the change in lyrics:

Let there be peace on Earth
and let it begin with me.

Let there be peace on Earth,
the peace that was meant to be.

With teachers and students,

we are family.

Let me walk with my brother,
in perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me,
let this be the moment now.

With every step I take,
let this be my solemn vow,

To take each moment and live
each moment in peace, eternally

Let there be peace on Earth,
and let it begin with me.

Let it begin with me.

What is Multiplication?

We have spent the past four weeks investigating this question and have had many thoughtful conversations, like the ones we had today after reflecting in our math journals and sharing our entries:

Sydnee lead our discussion of multiplication as repeated addition, a more efficient way for combining equal groups.

Shardaisa reminded us of some of the properties of multiplication we're starting to learn:

 

Commutative Property of Multiplication: numbers can be multiplied in any order, and the product will be the same (just like in addition!)

Zero Property of Multiplication: the product of any number and zero is zero

(Students: There are two other properties we'll learn, but I'm going to wait until one of you discovers them before I tell you! :-) )

 

Shardaisa also gave a good try at using a more challenging example to support her explanation!

Ryan R. connected multiplication to skip counting.  We also had an interesting discussion of his statement, "It is not adding or subtracting."  He modeled multiplication using arrays, one of my favorite multiplication strategies!

Garrett also remembered the Commutative Property.  He did a great job connecting skip counting (multiples) to multiplication.

Joseph helped us understand what "times" has to do with multiplication.

 We will continue looking for and discussing patterns to help us learn our multiplication facts!

Boosterthon Fun Run

We are so proud of all of our students for running 35+ laps on a chilly morning!

Ms. Kirkham and I were so busy marking laps on t-shirts that we will probably have strange dreams about running away from numbers tonight!

Our school is 22 years old, and in recent years, we've had to remove some aged, weathered, and unsafe playground equipment.  We are looking forward to using the funds raised to replace equipment on the playground behind us! 

Thanks to those of you who came to cheer on our students.  We would also like to give a special thank you to our room moms for sending in post-run orange slices.

Today students received an envelope for collecting pledges--please return any outstanding pledges to us as soon as possible.  We are even planning a surprise bonus reward for our classes if we collect all of our pledges.  If you didn't have a chance to contribute, you can still send in flat donations in the envelope, which will count towards our class' points.  Thank you once again for supporting our school!