Virtual Field Trip
Today was a Tuesday like any other, except our beloved Mrs. Day had to be gone. She will be back tomorrow! During morning meeting we greeted each other like our favorite zoo animals, shared what time we go to bed, and played a quick game of Categories; today’s category was quite fitting --- animals!
After Morning Meeting, you were introduced to our new reading unit which is all about Animal Classification. During this unit, you are all animal researchers. Who remembers the special scientist name for an animal researcher? Comment below for an extra ticket! In this unit you will research and read about different kinds of animals and how they are classified. We began by going on a virtual field trip to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park to observe animals. As we viewed live webcams of a Naked Mole Rat, a lion, Giant Pandas, and Elephants, you wrote down your observations such as:
What is the animal doing?
How would you describe the animal?
How would you describe the habitat?
What would animal researchers notice about this animal?
We finished our observations and then began our reading rotations. In today’s rotations, you read Chapter 1 in your new little reader with Mrs. Meridith. While you read, you looked for different text features. Text features are parts of the text that stand out, or are different from the rest of the text and information. Many authors use text features to highlight or call attention to important information. During Mrs. Day’s writing group you wrote a reflection piece on animal researchers in your field journal. You had to decide if you enjoyed being an animal researcher today or not and what you liked or disliked about it. With Miss Gurley and Miss Malorie you got a new list of spelling words. First, you looked at a list of root words and then you added the suffixes -ed and -ing to each word. The words that end with CVC must double the final consonant before adding the suffix. If the word already ends with two consonants, the suffixes -ed and -ing are simply added. You will practice this pattern/rule for 2 weeks and then have a test on words that follow this rule!
In Social Studies, we continued learning about different types of maps. Today we discussed physical and political maps, as well as biome maps. For another bonus ticket, comment below what type of biome we live in!
We ran our math rotations a little differently because Mrs. Day was gone. We all started with either Prime Time or Math Menu, then we did our math lesson together, and we all ended with Reflex.
Have a great evening, third graders! See you tomorrow!