Friday comes so quickly!
This week we continued to work on adding and subtracting in math. Third graders are learning how to combine hundreds and how to combine tens to make hundreds.  The strategies they are learning will prepare them well for regrouping when they learn the algorithms next year. Today we made a chart of various addition strategies including a number line, adding by place value, and keeping one number whole and adding on. They rocked at their math work today!  Fourth graders have mastered the addition algorithm but aren't fluent with the subtraction one quite yet, particularly across a middle zero. They will all get it with a little more practice next week!

With the snow day and the delayed opening, we didn't have much time to explore our new writing unit yet, but we will dig into it more next week. So far all we have done is "rehearse" by telling about something we feel we are experts in.  We will start planning and writing next week. Our non-fiction reading unit is under way, and the things students are noticing about non-fiction books as they read will help them when they write.  So far, we have discussed text features and the difference between narrative and expository non-fiction.  They are loving the books I have borrowed from BRMS by Peter Menzel -- Hungry Planet and Material World. Ask them to tell you about those. To go along with the topics in those books, I showed them the website Dollar Street today, and they were fascinated by the images comparing homes, toilets, beds, toothbrushes, etc. around the world. Check it out!

Finally, we are starting to learn about renewable versus nonrenewable energy sources. So far we have learned what the terms mean, but we will get further into which energy sources are fossil fuels and which are renewable next week. I love this unit because it really helps the students understand how they can be activists in their own way! 

Two new vocabulary words this week: sullen and contemplating. I hope you can slip these into your everyday conversations!

We have decided not to go the Essex Hydro Dam after all. Between the upcoming holiday, getting a bus, arranging the field trip with Green Mountain Power, and finding dates that work for all 4 classes, it seems like an impossible task. By the time we make it happen, the unit will be over!  We will take a virtual tour of a hydro dam instead, and I think it will be far less disruptive.

That's the week. I hope you all enjoy the weekend!