'Tis The Season for Family in Math Workshop!

This week, we have been learning about the many members of the polygon family! Like a real family, all polygons share certain traits: flat, closed, made of line segments, do not cross themselves. Specifically, we’ve been looking at triangles (any polygon with 3 sides…equilateral, isosceles, scalene, acute, right, obtuse) and quadrilaterals (any polygon with 4 sides…trapezoid, parallelogram, rectangle, rhombus, square).

On our scavenger hunt, students were on the lookout for triangles around the school! We stopped to measure a few to describe them by their sides (equilateral, isosceles, scalene).

We also learned that the sides of a paper are perpendicular/form a right angle and have been using this to help us tell if an angle is right (lines up exactly with both edges of the paper), acute (lines up with one side of the paper/one side of the angle goes on the inside of the paper), or obtuse (lines up with one side of the paper/one side of the angle goes past the other edge of the paper). Here we are using this trick to try to describe this triangle by its angles (figure out if it is a right triangle, acute triangle, or obtuse triangle)!

Gingerbread Geometry...sneak peek!

This week, we started a new unit, two-dimensional geometry! I decided to incorporate this into a holiday art project. The students started making pieces they will use to create a gingerbread house landscape. We used the pieces we made this week to learn about points, lines, line segments, and to model intersecting, parallel, and perpendicular. We will "keep building" next week as I introduce rays, angles (acute, right, obtuse), and polygons. (Yes, your child is still in third grade and not middle school :-))

Student leaders picked one of the concepts we're learning (intersecting, perpendicular, or parallel), showed their classmates what they chose, and checked their peers' models.

Veterans Day Tribute Project

(in case you did not receive my e-mail)
I would like to honor anyone in your family (or friends of your family) who are either veterans or active duty in the U.S. armed forces. On Monday, I will send home a sheet of construction paper to display your student's tribute...I just wanted to give you a heads up so you can start thinking about it (and digging through all of your old family photos like I will be this weekend :-)). When you get the paper, please include copies of photos, the active duty/veteran's name(s), branch, rank, years of service (if known), relation to student, and any other interesting information you would like to include. I am requesting copies of photos because I would like to laminate these for the students to keep as a reminder of their honorable heritage! Thanks for your support!

Patriotism

During the month of November, our school will be celebrating the character trait patriotism. We will tie this into our social studies standards about our country's government and constitution. Here is a fun song to get us informed and excited about our nation's history!

Drug Discussion Questions

We had some great discussion during our drug health lessons this week! Here are some of the students' questions we didn't get to answer...great starting points to talk to your kid about drugs!

-Why did people make drugs?
-If drugs are bad, then why do people try and use them?
-Will people that sell drugs destroy you if you don't buy the drugs?
-(We learned that some of the street names for marijuana are pot, weed, dope, herb, etc.) What are all the street names?
-How can you eat marijuana? Can you eat cocaine?
-What happens if someone puts a drug in your bag and you don't know and the police catch you and you tell the truth but they don't believe you?
-Are tobacco and alcohol related?
-Is a gun powered by any alcohol or drug or tobacco?
-What does a tobacco plant look like?
-Would nicotine affect children more that adults?
-Can the tobacco stains on your teeth go away?
-What if someone offers you tobacco and you say "No", but the person doesn't take no for an answer and hit you (or threatens you in another way) and made you do it?
-Is there caffeine in nicotine?
-How does alcohol get into your blood?
-Does alcohol cure people and make them go crazy?
-Would a sip of wine affect a child?
-Should I tell my parents to stop drinking alcohol if they only drink one glass? What happens if you drink alcohol every Friday?
-Do you know someone who drinks alcohol?/Do any of your family members get drunk?

Fall 2011 Photos

Check out our Shutterfly album for class photos...beginning of the year, science workshop, Hispanic Heritage Month art project, Naval Station Mayport field trip.

A PERFECT day for a field trip!

Today we were privileged enough to tour the USS Stephen Groves, a Navy frigot ship (and even a few helicopters) at Mayport Naval Station. I will be posting more pictures soon! A BIG thank you to all of our chaparones!