January Update

Hello all, I hope 2014 is starting off wonderfully for you. I thought I would update you on the goings on here in 3rd grade.

Field Trips
At last they are finally here! The kids are super antsy to go. They are certain that Matt’s class has gone every week since school started but I assured them we will go on an equal amount of trips, it’s just that ours are all after winter break.
First we will be taking a trip Friday, February 21st to Forrest Park. We will be participating in an ivy pull in order to do our part to make the world more beautiful, which is the main theme of our storyline. We will be leaving school at 9:20 and we should be back before 2:00.
Second we will be taking a trip to the Oregon Food Bank on March 5th. Our classes will be participating in Project 2nd wind (more info to come on that later) and we get the opportunity to see where the food we gathered goes. It is also an opportunity to make the world more beautiful in a different way. We will be leaving first thing in the morning and be back by our 11:40 lunch time.

We need drivers for both of these trips. If you are available for one or both please let me know.

storyline
We have reached the point in our story where Ms. Rumphius is traveling to far away places. The beach, the jungle, the mountain and the desert. We are traveling to “faraway” places in Oregon. The coast, the desert, the forest and the mountain. They have been doing light research about places in Oregon and they will present this info next Friday. I know you will be tempted to come in on Friday to watch them present, but they have asked that the audience be just our class. In March they will be presenting Ms. Rumphius, a shadow puppet performance that we will be inviting you to. I also will record the performance and put it up on the website so you can watch.

Math
Multiplication is here! We have been focusing on multiplication and it’s relationship to division. We have looked at fact families and how they are related (see below if you are unfamiliar with fact families). We have started to memorize our facts, 0’s, 1’s and 10’s have been discussed so far. We have also continued practice on that traditional algorithm. Many students should add and subtract using the algorithm with ease (with no borrowing or carrying) and they can borrow and carry with a little more effort.

Fact Families
Fact families are the 4 problems that use all the same numbers but they are rearranged. For example:
9X4=32
4X9=32
32/4=9
32/9=4

11X5=55
5X11=55
55/5=11
55/11=5

As we memorize our multiplication tables thinking about the families help us to get more information out of each memorized fact.