Looking back on our progress as the first trimester comes to a close

As we prepare for parent-teacher conferences over the next couple weeks, we can see that many of us have made significant progress since the beginning of the year, especially in reading, writing and math. Over the last week, we have been getting deeper into multiplication, with many of the the 3rd graders already having memorized almost all of their 0-9 multiplication tables. We have also been expanding our grammar and spelling skills, with a focus on different types of words, like nouns, verbs and adjectives. Our writing has been improving also, with many of us using up to 15 minutes of our daily writing time to write as much as a whole page and a half of story space! In science, we have been focused on seeds over the last week, with our experiment in growing wheat seeds without soil showing some budding results.

In other developments over the last few weeks, we have been meeting with our 6th grade reading buddies every Wednesday. The students are enjoying reading to, and being read to by their older peers from Ms. Erika's class.
We had a special class this week with miss Leanne from the Santa Fe Chamber Music association. She came and taught us about how to listen to classical music, and had us moving and interacting along with the music of Mozart and Brahms.


Another special thing we have started doing is sharing with one another about the books we have read and enjoyed. Our class loved hearing the detailed explanations of the plots of some of the best books that we have been reading lately. 
Our Halloween was fun, with lots of people dressing up and marching in the TISA Halloween parade. In keeping with our Spanish lessons, we talked about how in Mexico people celebrate the Dia de los Muertos, and we got to do some coloring of the traditional designs for that holiday while listening to a scary story being read. 
The weather hasn't been favorable every day. We have had to have recess inside because of the October snows. But we still enjoyed ourselves by doing creative designs with building blocks, even though we had to stay indoors. 


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