Week of November 27th-December 1st

Week of November 27th-December 1st

This Friday, December 1st is a holiday.

What a wonderful week we had with exciting science lessons and labs. Thank you to the ECO team that came into our classes and taught us about worms. Each class now has its own worm compost bin.

We also spent two days in the science lab doing our first experiment testing how animals survive in cold climates. Check out your child’s blog to see more!

Save the date for these upcoming events:

Tuesday/Wednesday, December 12/13th Field Trip to Klang Valley water treatment site. This field trip will be conditional depending on the water levels. Some classes will be going on the Tuesday and some on the Wednesday. Your classroom teacher will be sending home a permission form that will have more information in the next week.

Thursday, December 14th will be our learning celebration. It will begin at 8:15 and last 45 minutes. All parents are invited.

This week begins on a day 4.

Reading Students will continue to build on their knowledge of biographies. Students will think about biographies with a new lens. We will review how biography readers think “How is this person famous?” and narrative nonfiction readers ask “What is the timeline of events leading up to this accomplishment or disaster?” We will also be reading to learn more about human impact within ecosystems.

Writing Students will understand that writers reread their pieces carefully looking for confusing or undeveloped parts to clear up for their readers. They need to role-play with a partner to make sure their writing is not confusing. Students will work on publishing their pieces.

Math Students will continue to work on multiplication problems and apply their prior knowledge and understanding of place value to help with multiplying groups of tens. Division will be introduced alongside multiplication.

Science This week we will have investigations about plants. We will go to the Science Lab to dissect plants to see the different parts of a plant and examine how those parts help them survive.

Many thanks to the families that sent in reusable materials to make teaching resources for classes of students who are refugees in Kuala Lumpur. We had a great workshop on Saturday where teachers could make and take resources. 

If your child is looking for ways to practice their basic math facts at home Reflex Math (students have an online account) is proving to be very helpful for many students. 

Please remind your child to return class library books promptly. Everybody should be reading at home each evening as part of their daily routine and if your child wants to borrow books from the classroom they are welcome to at any time. Some books are very popular and students are waiting for particular books to be returned. 

Free Dress Friday

Dear parents,

This Friday the money raised from Free Dress Day will go to TCF (The Citizens Foundation) in Pakistan to help build new schools in Karachi and hire qualified teachers. 

You may ask why in Pakistan?  

The idea of where to send the money from this Free Dress Day was started by some fifth grade students. Pakistan is the home country of one of these students. Because Pakistan is his home country his family has sponsored TCF (The Citizens Foundation) in the past and this passion has been shared amongst his classmates.  In Pakistan the teachers in government schools are not very good, and neither are the school conditions. The money raised this Friday will go directly to building new schools and hiring better teachers. 

Thank you in advance for your donation and as always know that your donation truly makes a positive difference in the world.

Mr. Mangelsdorf, Kumail, Noah, Evie and Emily

Math Unit

Dear Parents,

We are starting our new Unit 3 in Math: The Relationship Between Multiplication and Division

Memorization is NOT a goal in the case of vocabulary words and multiplication facts. We encourage you to discuss the ideas and concepts through hands-on activities and conversations (in the home language) about how we use math in our daily lives. 

In this unit, students will:

• begin to understand the concepts of multiplication and division
• learn the basic facts of multiplication and their related division facts
• apply properties of operations (commutative, associative, and distributive) as strategies to multiply and divide
• understand division as an unknown-factor problem. For example, find 32 ÷ 8 by finding the number that makes 32 when multiplied by 8.
• fluently multiply and divide within 100, using strategies such as the patterns and relationships between multiplication and division
• understand multiplication and division as inverse operations
• solve problems and explain their processes of solving division problems that can also be represented as unknown factor multiplication problems.
• represent and interpret data
• students develop an understanding of the meanings of multiplication and division of whole numbers through activities and problems involving equal-sized groups, arrays, and area models; multiplication is finding an unknown product, and division is finding an unknown factor in these situations. For equal-sized group situations; division can require finding the unknown number of groups or the unknown group size.

Activities you can do at home as a Math learning connection: https://sites.google.com/a/iskl.edu.my/eslearningconnect/lc-math/grade-3/grade-3-unit-1-resources

(You will have to sign into your Panther Apps)

Key vocabulary word cards from this Unit to talk about in your home language at home are attached and ready to print. Should you need a copy of the vocabulary words, please let me know and I will send a hard copy to you.

Online Visual Math Dictionary: CLICK HERE

Online Learning Resources:

Quick Math: Choosing the right operation

Thinking Blocks: model and solve multiplication and division word problems

Meaning of Multiplication: create area models to match multiplication problems

Matching Math: finding unknown factors

Khan Academy: 3rd Grade Math topics

In partnership,

The Grade 3 Team

Week of November 20th-24th

Week of November 20th-24th

In 3EV the students have been working hard in our new math unit: The Relationship Between Multiplication and Division. It was a unit that many of the students were eager to begin. This unit will be continuing after the winter break.

Please look at your child’s math assessment that was sent home this weekend. Please sign the front cover and return the assessment on Monday.

A friendly reminder to check your child’s blog. They have been commenting on their peers' posts. It would be wonderful if you also commented on your child’s work and posts.

This Friday is a Free Dress Day. If your child will participate, please remember to send 5RM with them.

This week will begin on Day 5.

Reading Students will continue to build on their knowledge of biographies and other forms of narrative nonfiction. Students will think about these texts with new lenses. They will try using one lens to understand the story and the other lens to learn new information. As students read they ask themselves “what information am I learning here? What is the main idea and what are the key details? What boxes and bullets could I make?”

Writing This week we will publish our information books and complete the end of unit on demand.

Math Students will continue to work on sorting objects into equal groups. For example, here are 20 beans. How could you sort them so that each group has an equal number of beans? How many different ways could you group them? We will also use the number line and arrays to solve multiplication problems.

Science This week we will have investigations about animal adaptations. We will be examining the concept of how an adaptation helps an animal or plant survive in an ecosystem.

It was great to see so many families at last week's International Fest.
Looking ahead we have some busy weeks coming up at school. In December you will be invited to the Grade 3 Learning Celebration (Dec. 14), Swim Carnival, and more. We will also go on a field trip to the Klang River Gates.

Math Unit 2- Coming Home Friday

Hello Parents,

Students will bring home the Unit 2 Math assessment on Friday. Students will add their thinking or corrected their mistakes with a different color. We will continue to review these concepts in our "brain warmups" at the beginning of math lessons. One of the main standards we focused on during this unit was fluently adding and subtracting 3 digit numbers. This is a concept we will continue to work on all year, moving from the strategy of base 10 drawings to more efficient strategies such as partial sums, expanded form, and chunking. As always there are more ideas on the Parent Page.



       

Week of November 13th-17th

Week of November 13th-17th

In class we have been busy with our non-fiction reading and writing unit. We will continue our work with this unit for the next few weeks. Next week we start our new math unit.

It was a wonderful week of learning and celebrations. Our international flag parade was a huge success and showcased how fortunate we are at Melawati to have such a diverse group of students. Check our photo folder to see the pictures of the parade and assembly.

Thank you to all the parents who came to school to help with making our Christmas ornaments. These decorations will be placed on a Christmas tree and displayed in the hallway during the holiday season.

Math 2 unit assessments will come home in the week ahead. Please sign and return.

The Swim Carnival is coming!

Home Learning for the week is on the blog, please look if your child would like to get a head start.

This week will begin on Day 6- our day for Library is Wednesday this week.

Reading Students will begin to read biographies. Students will rev up their minds by asking and thinking: What sort of text is this? What will this most be about? What parts/subtopics? Recall prior knowledge and build expectations Students will also practice summarizing narrative nonfiction by including only important details and keeping the characters/subjects motivations and problems in mind.

Writing Students will work on connecting the information in their chapters by balancing facts and ideas. We will revise our work and use strategies that will focus on word choice and structure. If we do not have enough interesting facts, we will become researchers who can research and find more information to enhance their informational books.

Math Students will begin our new unit in math. This unit focuses on multiplication and division and the relationship that they have with each other. It begins with students solving problems that ask them to think of ways they can share into equal groups a given number of items. For example: “How many apples are in 4 baskets of 8 apples?” The students will work on grouping the apples into 4 groups of 8. Lastly, they will count all the apples to find the answer.

Science This week we will have composting and worm experts come to our room. Students will examine the concept of decomposition by looking at how worms play a vital role in the process of composting our food waste. Each class will have their own container of worms to study throughout the weeks. This investigation will help students better their conceptual understanding of the interdependent relationships in an ecosystem.

Week of November 6, 2017

In 3EV we have been busy with our nonfiction reading and writing units. We were fortunate to have skyped with the author Melissa Stewart. She sparked our excitement for information writing and taught us that nonfiction writers revise, revise, revise! The students were able to ask questions and learn more from the author. This was a special opportunity for them to meet an author we have been studying in class. We actually worked with three authors last week- lucky us! Please ensure that your child is reading each day at home (ideally as we are in a nonfiction unit at least part of the time should be spent reading an informational book). A few minutes a day of basic math fact practice is important for many third graders unless your child already knows the addition and subtraction facts (to 20) fluently. In 3EV students have online access to Reflex Math and Prodigy. Students also know many games they can play to practice. Many students have fact triangles they can use to practice as well.

This past week we celebrated Deepavali. It was a wonderful day of performances and hallway activities. Please check the class blog for a few pictures from this event.

Friday we will have our annual International Flag Parade. Your child can come to school dressed in either the traditional attire or the colors of their passport country. Each student will be given an individual flag based on the passport they are enrolled with at school. We will walk around the school and field for a flag parade. Parents are invited to attend this wonderful ISKL tradition. The flag parade will be from 8:15-9:00. Please do send in PE uniforms if your child has PE on odd days.

Thanks to the parents who have started commenting on our blog posts. You can access all the student blogs from the right side of our class blog. Students are starting to comment on each other's blogs too using: a compliment, a connection, a comment, and a question. We are asking students to include at least three parts to their comments.

This week will begin on Day 1.

Reading Students will continue their work on talking about texts in conversation with their reading partners using prompts such as: This makes me think that... I wonder... It is important to notice that… Students will also determine perspective. One of the questions they will ask themselves as they read a text is: “Is the perspective or point of view of this topic different from the reader's’ point of view?” This foster the concept that authors can write about the same topic, but have varying perspectives.

Writing Students will work on connecting the information in their chapters by using different transitional strategies, phrases, and words. They will continue to study mentor texts to help develop ideas on how to best transition in their own informational books.

Math Students will continue to look at different subtraction strategies for three digit numbers. They will be using place value, number lines, decomposing, and a standard algorithm. As students become more familiar with subtracting strategies, they will select a strategy that they feel is effective. We will also begin to work on rounding when solving subtraction problems to check the reasonability of their answer. This is the last week of this math unit.

Science Student will examine the interdependent elements of an ecosystem. (The consumers/producers, food chain, food web and the competitive relationships that help promote adaptation in the ecosystem.

On a personal note: As you know, I am working with teachers who are teaching refugee children here in KL. At our next session in late November ( the 25th) we will be making teaching resources from everyday items.  I am hoping to collect plastic bottle tops, cereal boxes/similar thin cardboard boxes, toilet/kitchen rolls, cardboard egg containers. Many thanks to those of you who have already sent things in and please keep sending in items. In February we will be collecting gently used picture books to donate.  

This week we will have two teachers from a local Malaysian school visit one of our math lessons. These teachers are learning more about the way we teach math and will be in for six math lessons over the course of the year.