Welcome to grade three! Our class (a.k.a. the "Snipe" room) has been working hard all year. Each week we start and finish the week by meeting with the whole school in the gym, where students read the Mohawk Thanksgiving Address. Many of the third grade students are now competent and confident enough in Mohawk to stand in the middle and lead the reading. We begin each day by writing in our journals, followed by Language Arts. After recess we do Math. At 11:15 we have circle time, when we do the calendar, listen to a novel, and discuss any class business. Then we do Callirobics, which is a new program where students practice different handwriting patterns to music. Everyone enjoys this! After lunch we have Science, Mohawk, and Social Studies. Twice a week we get 45 minutes of gym. In addition to our regular curriculum, we have worked on several interesting units. In September and October we studied earthworms and their habitats. After observing worms in nature, students created worm farms in the classroom, using 2L soda bottles with the tops cut off filled with layers of sand and soil. We fed the worms leaves and pieces of fruit and vegetables, and were amazed to see how they pulled the food down into their burrows! Some of the worms even had babies while living in the farms! We observed and read about how worms move, how they benefit the soil, and their body parts. We also worked on a bread unit, which proved both delicious and interesting! We taste tested several varieties of bread and graphed the results, with white bread winning, followed closely by rye and multi grain. Rye with carroway was a unanimous "thumbs down"! Students observed, sorted and classified grains and seeds which were kindly donated by a local Co-Op. We read "The Little Red Hen," and then attempted to grind our own grain, using a variety of tools ranging from rolling pins and hammers to rocks. At different times throughout the unit parents came in to make bread with the students, including banana bread, bread-machine bread, and Indian fried bread. We read about how yeast works, and tried and experiment where we grew yeast in a soda bottle and blew up a balloon with the carbon dioxide gas it produced. This unit was concluded with a trip to a local bakery where we saw bread being made "en masse", and learned about mass production and distribution of bread. We have tried different and exiting units over the course of the year, and would love to hear ideas from other grade threes! We hope to hear from you!