Animal Communities to Human Communities; We All Need Each Other
Mrs. Thonus

    Do you hear animal noises coming from room 17? Don't be surprised. We are studying animals, their needs, habitats, food chains, and some causes of endangered animals. The children are working on an in-class project using research to answer the question: Why do we have endangered animals?  Some vocabulary words we have been using during class are: consumer, producer, predator, prey, food chain, pollution, endangered, extinct, etc. Then we chose a project format to share our information. We loved making 3-D dioramas, drawing posters, designing a folder project, or creating a Glog on the computer. These projects help the students to better understand how animals live in communities in the natural world. For animal web links please visit Amazing Animals.

    This month the students will investigate what components make a successful human community. Each third grade class will design a classroom community with features and aspects that identify it as unique. Some community components students will create will be a system of government, laws, monetary system (economy), symbols, greeting, clothing, etc. How the community will function will be determined by the students. As we study the history of Massachusetts this year, we hope this simulation will help third graders to relate to the various communities that have lived here: Wampanoag Native Americans, Pilgrims, Puritans, and communities of today. Students will see how communities can be different in appearance but meet the same human needs. They will discover that we need our community and our community needs us, too! Our community unit will be part of a whole school theme for October.

Writing Adventures!

Scritch, scratch, scritch. If you walk by room 17 you’ll hear the sound of busy pencils writing wonderful things! The students have been learning and applying new skills to their growing writing abilities. More importantly they are learning to have fun with writing. Our writing program consists of writer’s workshops to learn and apply new writing techniques. Some techniques the children will be learning are how to write "grabber beginnings" and how to "elaborate details". By analyzing how their favorite children’s authors do these "tricks" they are also becoming more critical readers. We will be composing personal narratives, autumn poetry and scary stories. Watch for these writing projects!