Here are this week's dictée words. Stay tuned for the book we are talking about...

This weeks dictée

Yes, it is a long one!

Stories in French

If you are looking for new resources for French reading, check out this website. It has lots of stories, fairy tales, and songs in French! http://www.lirecreer.org/index.html

Constellation Project

I have given the students a small research project to do at home. We went over it in class, and they have a paper in their agendas.

For the research, students can use the internet or books from the local library. Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to find information in French, so it is fine if students find the information and translate to French USING THEIR OWN WORDS, not Google translate.

Here are a few websites that might be helpful!

http://library.thinkquest.org/3645/constellations.html

http://www.kidsastronomy.com/astroskymap/constellation_hunt.htm

http://kids.yahoo.com/directory/Science-and-Nature/Astronomy-and-Space/Constellations-and-Stars

Today, we spent a good part of the morning looking at space information. It always amazes me how much there is to learn about space, and the amazing questions that the students ask! 

As promised, here are some of the things we looked at:

Apps:

'NASA'

'Space Images'

'NASA Viz'

'Mars Globe'

'Living Earth'

'Solar System'

'AstroApp'

'SkyView'

'Moon Globe'

'Hubble top 100'

'Solar System' by interactive minds

Be sure to look in the 'interesting links' section for other space links. I will also try to add some interesting photos we saw today to this post later this evening 

Wednesday help

Dear parents,

On Thursday, we will be doing a fun winter activity with our buddy class. If you have time Wednesday after school, I would love some help with prep. The more people, the quicker it will be. At the most it will be 45 minutes, and doesn't involve any special skills! If you're worried about what to do with your child, they can hang out in the classroom. If you're free to help, please come to the portable at 3:00 pm. I will get you started while I do supervision until 3:20pm. Merci!

A thought on writing

Monday and Tuesday, we worked on our 3-step write. I do this as a way for the kids to show me all they have learned about writing this term. This term, they wrote instuctions on how to build a snow man, and ALL the steps involved (when we first practiced, they sent me outside in a tshirt!!). Often, we think of writing as just writing stories, but it is important to practice all kinds of writing, such as non-fiction writing, instructional writing, and oppinion writing!

It's beginning to look a lot like winter

...both inside and out!

Photos from the first week of December.

Math Games

The students have been working very hard on math these past few weeks! We have been doing lots of math games in class with cards and dice. You can play games like 'war' but with addition. This can be played with one or two, or even three or 4 cards! We played a similar one with dice, starting with one dice each, and ending with three or four dice each!

We have now moved on to addition with regrouping, but it is still important to practice these basic math skills. Any of these games can be played at home with just a deck of cards or dice. Also, here is the link to a website that has many great math games! http://www.mathblaster.com/parents/math-games/3rd-grade-math-games