Hello Third Grade Families!
Here’s the latest on Room 7:



We’re continuing our multiplication unit. Ask your child the strategies they’ve learned to solve multiplication problems, as well as the tricks to remember the times tables. Some concepts we’ve focused on include:

• Arrays
• Repeated addition
• Adding equal groups
• Comparisons in Multiplication
• The Commutative (order) Property
• Order of Operations
• The Identity (one) Property
• The Zero Property
• Solving word problems and writing to explain
• Creating Multiplication Stories
• Patterns in Multiples of 9
  

This week, our spelling words all contained a prefix. On Wednesday, Ms. Pacheco taught a lesson and facilitated an activity in which the students engaged in a hands-on activity using prefixes, base words and suffixes. Students were given several strips of paper, each containing a prefix, a suffix or a base word. Students were asked to sort the strips and use them to create words. Ask them to give you some of the words they created with their paper strips!
Next week, our spelling list will include words with suffixes.







The students have been preparing to make their biography posters by reading several biographies and filling out informational worksheets about the people they are reading about. They will eventually choose one biography to create a poster on.
Students are also continuing to switch classes for reading and are participating in small group guided reading and activities.








Students are just finishing up letters to their pen pals from Charlestown Elementary School. They are learning the fundamentals of letter writing, and are excited for the end-of-the-year field trip to Charlestown Elementary School where they will meet their pen pals!
Students have also been given opportunities for “quick writes” lately. Mrs. Berggren has a can of popsicle sticks, each containing a word, phrase or other topic that the students base their writing on. Mrs. Berggren’s creativity is very apparent each and every month when she puts out a new set of popsicle sticks (examples: October-pumpkins at the top of the sticks; November-Turkeys; January-Snowmen; March-Shamrocks) They may write about something in their lives, or engage in creative writing to come up with a story to match the topic on the Popsicle sticks. Some examples are…

• Yuk!
• Junk
• Why the sky is blue
• The funniest day ever
• Bubble gum
• 100 Years from Now
• I feel sad when...
• Oops!
• When I am 10 (12, 20, 50)..
  

We have just finished our science unit on sound. Students seemed to really be interested in the investigations, and they have used what they’ve learned about sound to create their own musical instrument. We have just begun sharing instrument projects. Thank you so very much to all of the parents who helped their third grader with this project! I was so impressed with the instruments, and the kids are all excited to learn about their classmates’ creations.
A special thank you to Mrs. Willeford and Mrs. Potts for helping prepare materials for some of the science lessons. We couldn’t have done it without you!







Ms. Pacheco will be beginning her integrative social studies unit on the community of Richmond next week. Some of the activities and concepts in the unit are:

• Researching the Town Council on the Richmond town website
• Participating in a mock town council meeting in which they will all engage in real-life problem solving
• Learning about the population of Richmond by age group and creating bar graphs
• Identifying community services and who to call/what to do in various emergencies
• Investigating how water pollution affects the bodies of water in Richmond
• Drawing maps of the route from each student’s house to the town hall
• A Richmond Relay Race
• Richmond Bingo, encompassing social studies, science, math, language arts, physical education, health and art concepts
• And more!
  

This week was spirit week! There was a dress-up theme for each day this week at Richmond Elementary School:

MONDAY (3/16)





TUESDAY (3/17)





WEDNESDAY (3/18)




THURSDAY (3/19)



FRIDAY (3/20)





The students were told that the class with the most spirit would win a popcorn party. Mrs. Weber was so impressed with all of the school spirit at Richmond School that she decided to award the entire school with a popcorn party next Friday!
Mrs. Berggren and I took pictures of the students showing their spirit, and they will be posted to our class’ online photo album next week!



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I would like to thank each and every student in our class for the beautiful birthday cards you all made and gave me on Wednesday. Words cannot explain how much they mean to me :)







Finally, Mrs. Berggren and I would like to thank the generous families of Room 7 students for making an overwhelming amount of donations for the Pennies for Patients fundraiser. Every classroom in Richmond Elementary collected money to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Student in our class collected the most money in the 3 weeks of the fundraiser—from pennies and nickels to larger bills and one extremely generous check—and won a pizza party for doing so.
The unbelievable totals for each week collected by Room 7 are as follows:

Week 1: $50.50
Week 2: $72.69
Week 3: $154.47

For a grand total of…..

$277.47


Bravo, Room 7!








--Ms. Pacheco