Fractions and Historical Fiction

Good day everyone;

This past week was a busy one.  The winter concert was a great way to end the week. It was amazing to see the work that the students do with Mr. Fowler. The students in 3P are a musical bunch.  Dita and Jihyun  did a great job introducing some of the performances.  For those who may not have been there on Friday, I have uploaded the grade 3 instrumental piece from their rehearsal on Thursday:

In the classroom this week we were busy wrapping up our unit of inquiry, Where We Are in Place and Time.  This unit was essentially a study of history, about important contributions made by various inventors, explorers and scientists.  We had the pleasure of welcoming some very famous people to our classroom, including but not limited to Isaac Newton, Henry Ford, Mirzo Ulugbek, and even Orville and Wilbur Wright.  Obviously the students were dressed up and in character.   :)  I was very pleased with the quality of their presentations and research, particularly the improvement over the last research projects from our previous unit of inquiry, How We Organize Ourselves.  The students were able to present their research verbally.  They were attentive to citing their sources of their research,  but also to deciphering between information which was relevant and which was not.    

In Language Arts this week, we continued our work with historical biographies, which is very much connected to our unit of inquiry.  The students used their background knowledge of their chosen inventor/explorer or scientist, and wrote a story.  They followed the basic structure of historical fiction, which is to base their story on a true major events or characters, but to also introduce story ideas and events which are fictional. We anticipate that this is going to be an ongoing literacy project, which will extend well into the spring.  As a class, we have decided to self publish an anthology of historical fiction.  Our objective is to print the book so each student can have a copy.  We will also give copies to the school library for other students to sign out.  The 3P students are very excited.  But they know that to get the book to print, it will require a great deal of pre-writing, planning, writing, editing and revising.  We will have more information about this in a few weeks.

In Math this week, we revisited shape congruence through the use of Chinese tangrams, tessellation, and reviewed the language of 3D and 2D shapes, and measuring angles.  On Friday we began our investigation into fractions, both in sets and whole unit format. This will be our precursor to working with decimals over the next few weeks.

Be sure to see the pictures above from the summative assessments, the winter concert, as well as other classroom learning activities.

Have a great Sunday!

Tomorrow we are happy to welcome our new student, Yejin.


All the best,

Mr. Shawn

Pictures from the Week of Jan 21-25

Back At It!

Welcome to 2019!  I wish all students and their families a very prosperous New Year, filled with happiness and a lot of learning! 


This week, the students were working on their research projects for our Unit of Inquiry.  They have each chosen a famous inventor, explorer or discoverer who made an important contribution.  They will be presenting their research using a variety of media.    They are very busy, documenting their research, taking notes, citing their sources, sorting information for relevance, and organizing their thoughts.  For their presentations they have a variety of choices of tools to use; from posters to models of inventions, to a book using the Book Creator App, a "Green Screen" video, among others. In addition, all students will be dressing up and getting into the "character" of their particular famous person.  The presentations will be made in class on the Monday, the week after next.  This will be the second presentation they do now in class and I can tell from the quality of their research that they will be pleased with their efforts, and that they will demonstrate more confidence and effective presentation skills.  I am looking forward to hearing them. 

This week in math we have been learning about measuring angles with protractors, but also about features such as obtuse and acute, and degrees.  Their work in Mental Math continues on a weekly basis.

This week we also continued our read-aloud of Ernest Shackleton's Journey to the South Pole.  It is an incredible account of valour, perseverance and hardship.  The students are quite captivated by the this non-fiction work.  The students have been doing a character sketch of Shackleton in their writing book.

Although this past week was only a four day week, we achieved quite a lot.

I look forward to sharing their learning experiences with you and your child on Tuesday during Student-Parent-Teacher meetings.  If you are uncertain about your time, please let me know!

All the best!

Mr. Shawn and Ms. Olga

Highlights of the Week; Nov 19-23

With the afternoon holiday for Thanksgiving yesterday it seems we have more things to do in less time.  The students worked diligently tidying up their folders, including their google folders.  Don't forget, all parents have access to their child's learning folders on the google drive.  Please let me know if you need help with this.

In literacy this week we continued our reorganization of the class library.  We still have more to do, but it is getting much better organized thankfully.  The boys and girls also worked on their persuasive writing skills.  They have been revising and editing their paragraphs they wrote a couple of weeks ago.  They are using the Six Traits of Writing protocols, and the writing process to revise and edit their work.  They will soon be able to compare their two paragraphs, and I am sure they will see much improvement.

In math this week the students continued their mental math  routine.  Today we did a learning activity connected to asking questions, and building understanding about a math concept.  The word "origin" is both a word about time, but also a word with a very specific meaning in math.  It is related to the coordinates of (0,0) on a graph or map.  The students made connections to the global positioning system (GPS) that we use to navigate.  This week we also found some time to write a short test to summarize where they are in grade 3 math expectations.  We also did some computational programming this week, working with the Blue Bots, small computerize gadgets.  The students are learning how to program, and about using coordinates to describe positioning.  Be sure to see the pictures of our Blue Bot Challenge.

Today we went on a field trip to the State Museum of History.  The tour guides were very helpful in helping the students build their understanding for our new unit of inquiry, Where We Are in Place and Time.  We learned about the stone age, the neolithic age, the bronze age, all the way to the science renaissance times of Amir Temur and Mirzo Ulugbek.  

I had the opportunity to go into their Art class this week and see the artists at work.  Ms. Lind begins each class with the students doing some sketching of still objects.  It builds their depth and use of shape, form, line and space. 

See the pictures of our week below!

Pictures for Week of Nov 19-23

Summative Assessments, Library Re-organization and Division!

It has been a very eventful week of learning in 3P. Reaching back to the previous week however, the boys and girls in both grade 3 classes came together to share their learning in the G3-5 PYP Assembly. As we were coming to the end of our Unit of Inquiry (UOI), the students wanted to share their research for How We Organize Ourselves. Their developing research skills were very evident to the grade fours and fives. I was proud teacher as I watched each and every student discuss their work. It was a great warm up for their summative assessment this week, where the students presented their full research projects to their grade three friends. Being able to articulate their ideas and research concisely is not an easy task for grade three students but I was very pleased with their efforts and results. The students took the time to thoughtfully evaluate their peer's presentations, and offered respectful and constructive feedback.

Despite our focus on their research and summative assessments, we managed to do some other learning tasks. In math this week, our focus was division--notably understanding that dividing sets into equal groups, and understanding what it looks like as a "division sentence", and how division is actually reverse multiplication. The boys and girls are understanding that there is more to multiplication and division than memorizing tables. "Mr. Shawn, multiplication is the opposite of doing division."

This week we also found some time to reorganize our class library as a learning activity. Understanding literature genres is not such an easys task. Our non-fiction section of the library has so many groups; from subjects such as transportation to countries and culture, to space and animals/zoology. Likewise, our fiction section now has books sorted by both author and series, to large picture books and chapter books. Finally, as recognition of the importance of multilingualism and home language, we now have a leveled reader section, and even a basket of books in other languages than English. We have also built a pretty comprehensive reference section, including dictionaries, thesauruses, atlases, a math reference series, and some encyclopedias to support their research. While we are not yet finished our library reorganization, the students certainly have greater understanding of the variety of genres.

In language this week students continued in their word study and writing groups. Our common writing focus this week was on persuasive writing.

This week we were finally able to decorate their "discussion jars." Next week, they will bring their jars home with a bunch of questions in them. The idea is that the questions will have some provocative discussion starters for students to ponder with their families, perhaps over the dinner table. Our new Unit of Inquiry, an investigation into Where We Are in Place and Time, begins in earnest next week. The questions will be related to our UOIs.


Four important pieces of information:

1) Next Friday, November 23, grade three will go on a field trip to the State Museum of History.  Permission forms and additional logistical information will go home on Monday.

2) On Thursday afternoon (November 22nd) is a half day due to American Thanksgiving. Students are to be picked up at 11:30 on this day.

3) On Wednesday morning there is a book sale in the MPR. Books vary in price from 60,000 to 200,000 cym.

4) I have been asked to post this information about Dita's birthday: Dita is turning 9 and she would like to invite all her classmates to her Birthday Party. Date and time: Sunday, November 25, 2017 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Place: I fly - trampoline center, 41/6 Mirabad Street, Tashkent RSVP: michaela@pospisilovi.eu or +998 90 359 83 46 Please come in sportwear. Invitations were sent home with your child.

I am sorry for the long post. Have a great week ahead. Be sure to see the pictures below! Mr Shawn and Ms Olga

Pictures for Week of Nov 12-16