Tuesday, March 30th

Hello wonderful 3rd graders and happy Tuesday! We began our morning by being fancy and greeting each other with a curtsy or a bow. After our greeting, we played a few rounds of mystery animal. We discussed a few announcements and then moved on to whole group reading.

For today's read-aloud, you heard about several tribes who still live in the Southwest and are descendants of the Ancestral Pueblo. One tribe you learned a great deal about is the Hopi. The Hopi lived in homes made of stone and clay, with wooden beams; people entered them through the roofs, using a ladder. The mother's side of the family was the most important family connection, and that determined which clan a Hopi belonged to. You heard that if the Hopi wanted to punish someone they gave them "the cold shoulder." For an extra dollar, comment below what this expression means.

During writing with Mrs. Day, you used the information you learned in our read-alouds to compare and contrast the Ancestral Pueblo and the Hopi tribes. You listed the ways the houses (how they built them, the materials they used, the entrances) and cultures of the tribes were the same and different.

In Math with Mrs. Meridith you continued comparing and classifying polygons. The attributes you looked at today were right angles and parallel sides. You also learned about "regular polygons." To be considered a regular polygon, the shape has to have all equal sides AND all equal angles.

For Miss Gurley's group you read Chapter 4: Alo, the Spirit Giver. While you read the chapter, you listened for internal and external character traits of Alo and answered questions on your quiz. Remember, an internal trait is what we learn about the character's actions, thoughts and words. An external trait are physical traits we can see on the outside. So, one of Alo's external traits is that he has dark brown hair. An internal trait of Alo's is that he is kind.

Miss Erica from Exploration Place was here today for science. For today's lesson, you designed and built a bridge using 20 spaghetti noodles, 5 fettuccine noodles, tape, and 2 notecards. Your goal was to build a bridge that could hold the most pennies. This is similar to a mystery science lesson we did earlier this year, so you should have a good idea of what bridge designs work well and what doesn't work well. You will get to test how strong your bridge is next week!

For specials today you had library and Music. After specials we finished our afternoon rotations.

Unfortunately, we had a rough ending to our day. Some students are not acting like future 4th graders. If you can not follow our classroom expectations, your teachers will be forced to bring back the wall to divide the classroom and we will no longer do rotations. Please, please, PLEASE do not make this happen. Let's have a better day tomorrow. Your teachers love you and know that you are capable of acting the right way.

Have a great night, see you in the morning!