3B Round Up

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Maths: Fractions

We are learning about fractions! We have been learning how to share an divide delicious treats such as brownies into equal portions. We have also been studying equivalent fractions. One rainy day we kicked off our wet shoes and spent time playing with our fraction pieces, experimenting with equivalent fractions:

 

 

SWI: Fractions

During a maths lesson one of the Grade 3 students developed a question: “We know that <-ion> is a suffix, so does that make <fract> the base word?” The students discussed this question for a few moments, unsure if <fract> could be a word by itself. We wrote down the question and delved deeper at our next SWI session.

The students began their investigation by observing the word <fractions> and going through the four investigation questions to help guide their study.

After we spend some time looking at our word and going through the questions, we recorded the hypotheses and data that we had collected. Here are some answers that the students provided:

The investigation is still taking place and the students have developed a further question: “Does a base word need to mean something when it is by itself, or can the meaning come when affixes are added?”

Writer’s Workshop: Fairytale Drama

3B students have been crafting and writing fairytale adaptations! As they develop their story telling voices, the students have been asked to work together in groups to create and act out their own dramatic retelling of fairytales.

The students are enjoying the process of developing scripts and practicing their lines so that their voices and actions help to tell the story.

 

Reader’s Workshop: Research Presentations

The students have formed research groups to study their animal topics of choice.  They must work together to study a range of subtopics, sort through a variety of resources, and use technology to create a presentation to share with their classmates.

Each group is working on communicating so that they can collaborate on their shared presentation. In their own groups they have decided which task each member will handle so that they are making good use of their time. Their presentations are going to be awesome!

SWI: Investigating the <-ed> suffix.

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Grade 3 have done it again! Our amazing Word Detectives took a word inquiry case, sniffed out the clues, developed hypotheses and drew conclusions.

As we were reading from a class book some of the students noticed something interested about words that had the <-ed> suffix. They were not always pronounced the same way! This discovery led the students to create their investigation question:

 

When asked how they would begin their investigation, the students discussed their options and decided that the first step should be data collection. They determined the best way to study the <-ed> suffix would be to collect as many words as they knew with <-ed>.

They pooled their knowledge to create an extensive vocabulary list. Afterwards, they shared their words with their partners while paying close attentions to the phonemes (sounds) connected to each of their <-ed> words.

 

 

After writing and saying all of their words, the the Grade 3 Investigators created a hypothesis and presented many examples to back up their claim.

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SWI: Investigating the letter C

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Whenever a student has a pressing question about words,  the question is placed on our Wonder Wall so that we can revisit and investigate it later. During a recent Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) session, a few grade 3 students added a question for us to investigate.

They had noticed that the letter C made different sounds depending on the word it was in. They asked:

The students began their investigation by brainstorming as many words as they knew that contained the <c> grapheme. The <c> could be at the beginning, end, or middle of the word. Some of these words included: celebration, character, face, and communicate.

The student shared some of these words to be written on the white board and suggested categories for these words. We found so many words that we almost ran out of space!

After studying the categories they created, the students developed a hypothesis about the letter C and made plans to further investigate which letters (graphemes) changed the spelling of the letter C.

In the following session, the students studied their whiteboard data and discussed the location of specific graphemes and how this informed their pronunciation of the <c> in each word. The two groups are pictured below:

  1. <C> graphemes that create /s/ phonemes:

2. <C> graphemes that create /k/ phonemes…

The next day, the class took charge and presented what they had learned about the letter C and the jobs it can have inside individual words. They created lists of words they knew and organised them into categories.

Each student group reviewed their list of words and created labels for each category based on the function of the letter C within that word.

During this investigation the students became interested in the <ch> digraph and have started noting the different sounds it can make depending on the word. We have a new investigation waiting for us on our Wonder Wall!

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