Hi Parents!

It feels like it has been awhile since the last post.  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families and are now enjoying the season of the birth of our Savior.

We have been busy this week in 3rd grade.  Here is what we have been doing:

Reading:  Our book clubs are going great.  Each day your child completes a reading assignment that his/her reading group assigned to themselves and then prepare to meet and discuss for the following day.  I have been very impressed with the students ability to refer back to the text to prove their thoughts and explain their ideas.  It is amazing to listen to them.  Thank you to Cathy Potts for reading with us this week.

Writing:  We are busy editing our final personal narratives.  Our lessons have focused on identifying punctuation in our stories, looking to see if we are writing in complete sentences and knowing what makes a complete sentence, while locating all of the capitalization in our rough drafts.  This is detailed work and takes a lot of time and patience.  :)

Bible: We are following Abraham as he continues to follow in obedience to God.  The class discussed what a covenant is and we looked in depth at the covenant God made with Abraham.  We learned about God changing Abram's name to Abraham.  We enjoyed looking up the meaning of our own names.  We also discussed the story of Abraham and Sarah learning they would have a son and how Sarah laughs at this.  We see how God is fulfilling his promise to them.  We are also focusing on Luke 2:6-20 each day in class and illustrating the verses as we learn them.

Math:  This week we focused on time.  This can be a very difficult subject so we spent several class periods reviewing the hour and minute hand and then telling time to the minute.  We learned about half hours and quarter hours.  We concluded this week with knowing how to say a time after and before the hour.  (For example 12:33 is 33 minutes after 12:00 AND 27 minutes before 1:00).

Science:  We had a full week of experiments as we learned about changes in motion.  We focused on force (pull and push), balanced and unbalanced force, friction, and gravity.  Each day was a new experiment which thrills the 3rd graders!  Make sure to ask your child about their favorite day in Science this week!

Balanced vs. unbalanced force

Experimenting with friction

An experiment with gravity, friction, and mass

 Upcoming events:

• Thank you for all of the Kleenex donations!  We are once again stocked and ready for winter. 
• Gingerbread houses:  We will be creating these on December 15.  A signup genius has been created (in red at the top of the blog) so you can participate with your child.  I would love as many volunteers as I can get!  Any stale candy you have at home to donate would be welcomed as well.  
• The class party will be on December 17.  Beth Klingenberg is planning the details of this.  If you are willing to bring a snack or help with the games please contact me or Beth.  
• Thank you for your generosity to Positive Options!  We have had many cute baby items come in this week and our class has collected 40 items.   The collection will continue until December 16.  We will have a special chapel on December 16 where we will give these items to Positive Options.  
• Reading Minutes due Monday
• Spelling test on Friday
• Bible Memory (Luke 2: 6-20) due December 16
• No School December 21-January 1 for Christmas Break 

Have a wonderful weekend!
Lynae