| From the Teacher's Desk | | Dear Parents, February is a short but lovely month. It is the second half of third grade, and the children are ready to take off. Be on the lookout for a supply list that is coming home. Some of the students are in need of some new supplies to carry them to the end of the year. February will be a month of giving to others. We will be making muffins for our senior Barnesville supporters and neighbors. We will continue our pen pal exchange. The children have been blessed with wonderful letters from their new friends in India. I was touched by their enthusiasm when Ruth McLenaghan arrived at school to deliver this special mail. On Monday, February 14th, we will be celebrating the beauty of the day with an "Elegant Tea Party" to practice our manners. This lovely signature event has become a third grade tradition that brings oodles of joy to the hearts of all our young ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for all your kindness and support. Your children have definitely stolen my heart! Sincerely, Melanie Gekas
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| Extra! Extra! Extra! Read All About It!  | | Third graders will read a number of short stories related to the topic of courage and friendship. Some of the people we will highlight are Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Jackie Robinson, Anne Frank, and Ruby Bridges. We will define such concepts as segregation, diversity, and racial prejudice. Our goal is to extend their understanding of events by using clues, inferences, and comparisons and contrasts. February is Biography Month. Our February book report will be to read a biography about a famous American. The children will complete a written form as well as design and make a book float for our Barnesville book parade. A simple costume will be needed for this event. Soup and Sandwich Day was wonderful. Our book talks were very interesting and well done. The best part of the day was watching the children make and eat their sandwiches for lunch. They ate with such gusto! | |
| Writer's Corner | | Hats off to Hat Week! The children are thoroughly enjoying all the different hat activities we have been completing. We are reading lots of books about hats, and the children are making a wonderful hat booklet to publish their written work. They can’t wait to create their own hats from materials at home, so they can proudly show off their creations for the younger children with a hat parade. We continue to explore the traits of good writing. Together we are striving to become a community of readers and writers. The “Writing Café” will become the place dedicated to writing, sending the message that writing is important in our classroom. The children are so excited to continue writing letters to their pen pals in India. We have some exciting activities planned for the children to communicate with their new friends. This exciting project is a golden opportunity for the children to make life long friends as well as become immersed in a rich culture from another country. | |
| Math, Math, and More Math | | We have begun our study of Unit 5 which focuses on the place value of whole numbers through millions and decimals through thousandths. Reading, writing, and comparing whole numbers and decimals are keeping us busy. We will continue our practice of basic multiplication and division facts. Please keep up the work at home as well as taking the time for First in Math. | |
| Where in the World Is...? | | The cold weather and the children’s interest have kept us in the Polar Regions for an extra week or two. They are ready to cooperatively work in a group researching, planning, and preparing to report about a chosen penguin. Each group will create a life-sized poster accurately colored and filled with many facts about this feathered creature. Our “explorer bear” is about ready to gather his supplies to take us on an adventurous safari to Africa. We will spend the rest of the year becoming totally immersed in learning many facts about this diverse continent. The study of Africa will have us all buzzing with excitement. Explorer Friday is our most favorite day of the week. The children have been enthusiastically exploring and discovering the wonders of nature in our “Explorer Woods.” Bright, cold winter days have been the perfect time to explore nature and record our observations. The children had a fabulous time building their own Inukshuk, an Inuit symbol of communication, in our “Explorer Woods.” On Friday, February 18th the young explorers will be marching off with their explorer bags to the Museum of Natural History and Museum of American History. A wonderful scavenger hunt is planned for the children to explore the wonders of a museum. | |
| Science | | In Science, the students study forces
and motion and inquire about machines and work. The students learned about the
advantage of simple machines and tested various machines to determine how they
make work easier. They discussed how some animals use parts of their body as a
simple machine. The students learned what forces affect objects on Earth every
day and how forces make an object move. They tested various surfaces to
determine how friction affects a moving object. | |
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| | Upcoming Events | | - February 9th: Parent Visiting Day
- February 10th: 1:30 Dismissal
- February 14th: 1:30 Muffin Delivery, Valentine's Day Tea
- February 18th: Field trip to Washington D.C.
- February 21st: No School (President's Day)
- February 25th: No School (Professional Day)
- March 2nd: Biography Book Report Due
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| Physical Education | | Second grade is jumping to the top! They have been working hard to master their jump roping skills. They have been jumping forward, backward, crossing their arms, jumping on one foot and two feet, they are improving with each class. They are also in a challenge with the third and fourth graders to try and jump rope across the state of Maryland. Each class they are given a minute and a half to accumulate as many jumps as they can. Each class’ total is added together to try and reach our goal of 389,000 jumps!! | |
| Music | | In music class, the Third Grade students have rung in the New Year with bells, and songs about bells. They sang about Peace. They have also sung songs of Initiative and Courage, the Virtues-Of-The-Month for January and February. They are singing songs about Winter, and they continue to build their repertoire of traditional and fun folk songs which have originated in our great big, diversified country of America. They are playing their recorders in music class, learning new notes while mastering good tone production. They have been listening to instrumental duets, and piano trios by Chaminade, Beethoven, and Dvorak.
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| Art | | Third graders spent December and January learning about Australian Aboriginal art. They created artifacts typical of "Dream" paintings and "X-Ray" art. After completing our unit about the first peoples who made art we are now learning about the modern artists, Rousseau, Picasso and Matisse who were inspired by African art. The children have just completed a Rousseau jungle scene and will now work on Picasso distorted heads which were inspired by African masks. They will next do cut-out paper shape art typical of Matisse which were sometimes inspired by Moroccan interiors and Islamic designs.
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