Katherine's Class - Grades 3-4
This year, our topics in science are biology and meteorology, and our topic in social studies is early American history, but as always, we begin the year by talking about our "burning questions" and hopes and desires for the year. After our discussions during the first week, it sounds like we will be doing at least one wax museum, a science fair, and a Shakespeare play. Our list of questions is long, and we already have plenty to keep us busy all year, but this is such a curious group that I'm sure we will have many more to work with before the end of the month.
We are beginning our studies in biology by learning about plants and insects and insect-like creatures. We have two students who really like scorpions, so I am working on finding resources for them. We are doing some exploring on school property and in the park to improve our powers of observation and to help us to generate questions to guide our studies.
In social studies, we did some time traveling back to the Ice Age, and Aden has let us borrow a great movie about prehiistoric life on the American continents. I have not seen it before, so I am really looking forward to learning along with everyone else in the class. We are also exploring different Native American cultures by reading and listening to and sometimes acting out some stories told in different parts of North America. We will use those stories to help us in geography as we learn about the different regions and biomes of the United States.
We will begin reading a novel as a class at the end of the month. Until then, we will be reading non-fiction books and Native American story books. We are doing many short writing assignments at the beginning of the year, including a "Dear Abby" letter from an insect aned its answer, a script of a Native American story for a puppet show or play, journal entries about events and activities, and a short report on an unusual animal.
In math, my class is divided into four different classes. All four classes are reviewing skills from last year and working on place value and number sense. I am teaching the 3rd grade class, and I am very impressed with how much they remember from last year. We will be able to move right along into the fun stuff.
This is an especially good class. The students have a lot of enthusiastic energy, they are creative, and they are very kind to each other. It should be a great year.