Mrs. Ferguson's Third Grade

3/21/2018

Mrs. Ferguson's Third Grade

Above, a student solves and shows the other students how to complete the "Problem of the Day."

In Math, we have learned about the associative property and writing and evaluating expressions! The students enjoyed learning the order of operations using the sentence, "Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally!" We learned to solve numbers in parenthesis first, followed by exponents, multiplication and division, and then addition and subtraction! We also analyzed single and multi step word problems and created and solved expressions for them too! Students also learned to use fractions to represent numbers equal to, less than, and greater than one. They have been solving problems that involve comparing fractions by using visual fraction models and strategies based on noticing equal numerators or denominators. We have also explored measurement through capacity and mass. We learned learned how liters, milliliters, grams, and kilograms can be used to measure with and solved a variety of capacity and mass word problems. Next, students explored how to Represent and Interpret Data. We began with collecting and recording data using tally marks and frequency tables. We then learned about scaled picture graphs. We learned that picture graphs have keys to analyze. The key will often predict a number that is represented on the graph. Students then learned about line plots to represent data! I feel like we are now expert graph interpreters! We also learned how to measure to the inch, quarter inch, and half inch using rulers!

We have dug deep into so many Reading and Writing concepts and skills! We just finished up our figurative language unit as we learned about similes, metaphors, idioms, onomatopoeia, hyperboles, personification, and alliteration! We can identify these types of figurative language and use them in our writing as well! We even made posters providing examples of each!
Who is telling the story is a question we ask ourselves every time we read a book! We learned how to identify the narrator of stories and how to identify and write in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person points of view. We learned key words to look for and how different characters can have different perspectives of the events that are taking place! It is amazing to learn how different people can see things totally different! This concept is also helping us to see things from different perspectives with our classroom peers! We have been working hard to identify and use nouns, proper nouns, plural nouns, pronouns, homophones, compound words, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs in our reading and writing! We have also began learning how prefixes and suffixes can help us determine word meanings. We will begin exploring greek and latin roots soon! We finished our Sounder read aloud and watched the movie! We have really enjoyed being able to compare and contrast the movie and the book and actually see the story characters come to life and compare them to the mental images we made in our own minds!
This quarter in Social Studies, we learned about The Civil war and its impact on slavery and South Carolina economy. The students were excited to learn about the very first submarine that sunk an enemy ship, the "H.L. Hanley." We had a wonderful field trip to Braxton Bridge Plantation where we all enjoyed to watch a battle reenactment. The reconstruction, which lasted 12 years, came with a price for South Carolinians. The war had destroyed the land, the work animals and the farm equipment and therefore the cotton production was low. Cotton mills gave them a chance to try something new. Unlike the farm, a mill job provided steady pay and people liked it. Even though the working conditions were very hard and dangerous not to mention child labor, mill villages became very popular. During WWI many South Carolinians made a lot of money. Farmers began to grow more cotton to keep up with the demand. People adapted to war time to save food. Many women worked in jobs that only men were allowed to do before the war. Black American soldiers were not treated equally after they returned from Europe. Then came The Great Depression, which greatly affected people all over the country! The New Deal program helped improve our state and provided jobs for many South Carolinians. The bombing of Pearl Harbor led our country to enter WW2. After the war many companies built factories in South Carolina, which caused people to move into the cities to find jobs. Entrepreneurialism emerged. New inventions created many jobs, and the economy was booming in the 1950's.
In Science, we have started to learn about life. This leads us to our Cabbage Project. We have integrated math (measurement) into our study of cabbages. Students measure their cabbages in centimeters each week using a ruler. We look at the growth in both length and diameter. Students record this growth by creating bar graphs, drawings pictures, and writing notes about what they notice and have learned about their growing cabbages.

Below are some pictures for you to enjoy!

Our 6th grade buddies...