3rd Grade Specials
Newtown Friends School :: February, 2016
Art
Third grade artists will continue to study the Renaissance masters throughout the month of February. They will be working with subtractive sculptural techniques to get a feel for what it must have been like when the great Michelangelo worked on "David." We will move on to look at the work of his rival and recreate one of the most famous works of art in the world, The Mona Lisa.
Library
Third Grade will finish The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins. We will read The Butter Battle Book and a narrative poem, Showdown at Pangaea Creek. We will compare their differing story structures and then their common theme, specifically as it relates to conflict resolution and the Quaker SPICE of peace.
Music
The third graders will be continuing their unit on world music this month. We will be traveling to various countries through the use of Google Earth, Youtube and Music Express. Our February composer of the month is Cole Porter.
P.E.
This month we will continue to develop our physical fitness and work on skill development in each class. Our lessons at the beginning of this month will focus on jumping rope. Students will participate in a variety of jump rope games, skills and challenges in preparation for our school wide event Jump Rope for Heart. During this month we will also play a team game called Speed Ball, which is a combination of soccer, basketball and football. Each class will use the rock wall once in February and our fitness challenge for each student will be how many times you can jump the rope in one minute. There will also be a bonus football activity the week of the Super Bowl!
Science
Third graders delve into the interconnectedness of organisms. Through playing a predator/prey game and finding out how energy moves though the ecosystem they better understand why biodiversity is so important. We will discuss what animals need to survive and the type of environment they might live in. Then they will make an animal of their own creation complete with the animal’s adaptations, diet and habitat which help it survive. In a short presentation they will make a scientific argument (which includes making a claim and then backing it up with evidence) describing how they would survive in the stated environment.
Spanish
Third graders are wrapping up the planning and writing of scripts for their “En el restaurante” skits. They will now spend a little time on props, practicing, costumes and sets. Then we will be recording and wrapping that up. Given the way the weather can work in February, this may take us the rest of the month. Our next unit will be learning the verbs for lots of common activities and expressing likes and dislikes. We have started adding questions about the weather to our classroom routine and we will continue practicing those phrases, along with other calendar vocabulary, each class. We will continue to recycle and review answering basic questions such as: What is your name? and How are you?
Upcoming Events:
Thursday 2/11 - Noon Dismissal, Parent-Teacher Conferences
Friday 2/12 - No School, Parent-Teacher Conferences
Monday 2/15 - No School, Presidents' Day