Grade 3 Class Blog

Good afternoon Grade 3 parents and families,

This week, in Grade 3, we are wrapping up our final unit of inquiry ‘How we Organise Ourselves’ and starting to begin provocations into the new unit ‘How the World Works’. We are really excited to begin this unit and fascinating unit which emcompasses all things science. We will be exploring ‘Earth continually changes due to natural forces which affects communities‘.

As we are in this transition stage and we are in a short week, we have decided not to send homework books home this week. Please continue to work on daily reading and the tasks set alongside the math on IXL.

In addition this this, we also have the launch of a new poster competition that students can choose to take part in. It would be great to see lots of entries from Grade 3:

In other news we have a few pieces of information to share with you so please take note of these below:

Tomorrow we will see the return of the Book Fair in the PS Atrium.

SEA.word

We would also like to remind you that there is a red box collection coming up for which you can find more information here…

Red BIns

Finally, dates to save; 4th-8th November we will be holding our parent teacher conferences with more information to follow shortly.

We hope you all have a wonderful and well deserved October break and we look forward to hearing about what you have all been up to in the holidays.

Warm regards and thank you for your continued support!

Grade 3 Team

UOI:

Following our successful trip to the Red Cross Headquarters, Grade 3 have been diving into how the interdependent systems within an organisation work together to achieve their mission. Achieving a mission is something we will be exploring this week, the idea that the mission is never fully achieved as the mission is continually evolving and changing to meet the needs of the consumer. We are looking forward to our guest speaker Ms June visiting on Thursday to discuss how the KIS mission statement is constantly changing and developing to make sure we always working to be the best school we can be. 

Maths:

In mathematics, we are exploring different strategies for approaching word problems with a focus on addition and subtraction. Using a RUCSAC method supports the process for students to take time to carefully read a word problem and identify both key information and the operation required to arrive at the answer before checking their working. 

Language:

In connection with our unit of inquiry into How We Organise Ourselves, we are learning about how an author will organise their own ideas to make it most appropriate for the reader both in fiction and nonfiction texts. Grade 3 are enjoying using the library to explore different genres of books and comparing/contrasting how the text is orgnaised within them. 

Upcoming events and dates to remember:

30.9.19-11.10.19:We have the MAP tests coming up this week and next, please take time to read the letter below that was also sent home last week which gives further information on MAP testing and includes the schedule for the next 2 weeks. 

11.10.19:House sports (please remind students to wear their house shirts on this day)
14.10.19:School closed (In remembrance of HM King Bhumibol)

Good afternoon,

We are excited for all our families to keep updated with what we are learning in class. We have started using SeeSaw as an online portfolio and platform for reflection.

It would be great to see all our families connected to our classroom, to do this, you will need to follow this link and select the name of your student to receive notifications on their updated SeeSaw profile. https://app.seesaw.me/s/555-381-070

If you have any problems with connecting, please let one of the Grade 3 teachers know or alternatively our computing coordinator, Mr Eric.

We look forward to having you follow our Grade 3 journey,

Many thanks for your continued support.

G3 Team

Thank you for your patience with this week’s blog post, we were excited to share with you all about our fantastic field trip to the Red Cross Headquarters in Bangkok yesterday. Our new unit of inquiry: ‘Organisations use individual contributions and interdependent systems to achieve their mission’ explores different types of organisations and the systems working within them. In class, we have been learning about the International Red Cross Committee and how they are a world wide organisation who support through a huge range of projects. In Thailand, the Red Cross developed a snake farm to support the research of anti-venom and over the years has become the main supplier of venom to combat deadly snake bites in Asia. This is just one department within the Thai Red Cross Society. 

Students were engaged when learning about how the snake farm has developed over the years and how they reach out to thousands every year. Grade 3 enjoyed seeing all of the different types of snakes that are housed at the Red Cross and were fascinated to get up and personal with some. 

The extraction show was a highlight for many, actually seeing first hand how they snake farm takes the venom from and the process from this to creating anti-venom which saves lives around Asia was fascinating. 

We are now excited to be back in the classroom thinking about how each of the departments and systems within Red Cross are all simultaneously working together, striving to achieve their continually evolving mission statement. Following this we will begin to compare and contrast other organisations who have different purposes and missions.

We can’t wait to see where the students are going to take this unit as we begin to sorting out and going further into our inquiry.

As always if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Many thanks,

G3 Team

Today in the Primary School we have been celebrating international dot day! We are so impressed with the amount of effort from the students to get involved with dressing up with all the dots. Around school there have been lots of fun activities happening including the art installation recycling plastic bottle tops.

After this week, all the bottle tops will then be donated to the local NGO, Precious Plastic Bangkok, to be upcycled into baskets, mats and other useful products which are sold for local charities.

In the classroom we have been busy getting dotty in our math. Students were exploring the number of different m&m’s that can be found in a single packet. They organised and sorted before tallying their final numbers to find out which was the most frequent colour in their packet and representing this as a fraction and in a chart. 

In other news, last week we started to tune into our new unit, how we organise ourselves. This unit has many connections with who we are as we begin to explore how interconnecting systems work together to achieve a mission. Beginning to identify different roles within a group and discover the power of effective teamwork. Students worked in mixed groups across the grade to design and create the strongest bridge using only newspaper and a limited amount of sellotape. Students had to work together to share ideas before trialing and testing different ideas. The teamwork that came out of the challenge was fantastic along with exploring ways to solve problems which they faced.

Looking ahead will be looking into different organisations and the systems that are fundamental within them as we prepare for our first field trip next Tuesday (24th September) to the Red Cross Headquarters in Bangkok. 

PLEASE NOTE:

Please can we ask all parents to check that they have signed the field trip consent form ASAP as we have a number of them outstanding. Without this document your child will not be able to attend the field trip. 

More information regarding the trip can be found on the letter below which was sent to parents last week. 

Homework:

As we have a short week this week, we will not be sending home homework books. Instead please can we ask that all students continue to work on the following:

• RazKids (reading)
• IXL (Math – timestables F.1-F.13)
• Hit the button game (timestables practise: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
• Book review to be completed on seesaw

Thank you for your continued support and if you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

Have a great week and an enjoyable long weekend!

Grade 3 Team

This week has been all about Grade 3 taking action. As part of our UOI we have been exploring what it means to take action and what it can look like. This week, we saw many students taking action in different ways. We found out that we have 3 shining musicians, Peace and Prai who brought in their violins and wowed us with their talent.

We would really like to encourage sharing of passions and hobbies, so if you have something you would like to share with the class or grade please let us know.

In other news for taking action, Eli & Mia from Grade 3 shared their passion for the Amazon Rainforest and raised awareness of some of the horrors happening to it. They organised a group of Grade 3’s to share the message with the whole PYP in the assembly on Friday asking for people to help by planting plants at home. In addition to this they have organised for a group to make and sell bracelets at 25baht next Friday to raise money to send to an organisation who are battling the fires there. 

This week we are starting to wrap up our Who we are unit and beginning to tune into our next, How we organise ourselves. Before finishing we reflected on what our values and beliefs are and how they impact the action that we take. For example, Malala believed that every child has the right to education regardless of their gender. She then took and continues to take action to change this around the world. After writing their own values and beliefs, we shared these as a grade and added our belief leaf to the Grade 3 values tree.

Maths:
We have been carrying out a longer term inquiry math project exploring different types of data and different methods of collected and presenting information. We have begun an exciting inquiry into the amount of money spent by an average family in countries around the world! Thank you to all of you who participated with this as part of last week’s home work.

Other information:
Grade 3A: Swimming time will be changed from Friday’s to Monday’s for the rest of the year and therefore students will need to bring their swimming kit in on a Mondayfrom now on. Both class 3B & 3C will continue to have their swimming lessons on a Friday.

Homework has been sent home today and can now also be accessed on the homework link from this blog.

As always if you have any queries of questions please let us know via email.

Looking forward to another great week.

G3 Team.

Marvelous Math:

This week we have started to explore data handling, what it is and it’s purpose. Students have brainstormed what it means and different ways data and information can be represented. Making connections to our current unit of inquiry ‘Who We Are’, students are looking into how the statistics of children’s access to rights, around the world, can be represented. We have started an inquiry into weekly food budgets around the world and ways we can represent this data. 

Please can you support us with this by sharing weekly food budgets with your children, it has been added as a task on the weekly home learning grid. 

Language:

Students are really engaged with learning the inspiring story of Malala and the courageous action she took to ensure equality of rights in her community. Every child has the right to education. This week, we will begin to dive deeper into the story and reflect on how these events impacted her life, beginning to share this understanding and compassion through their first person writing.

Other notices and information:

Naming belongings:
We have lots of different equipment and kit coming into school, please can you make sure that anything being brought into school is clearly named; PE kit, recorder, pencil cases etc. 

Bottle Tops: Dot Day Art Installation:
As part of our creative curriculum, Mr Matt will be raising awareness of reusing plastic by asking students to each bring in a plastic bottle top. More information will be sent out closer to the time, however if you could start saving them, we would really appreciate it. We will set up a deposit box in the shared space so students can begin to bring these in. 

Homework:
We have been so impressed with the quality of the home learning that came back last week, so a big thank you for all your support with that. Home work will now be sent weekly on a Monday and due on the Friday. The Home Learning Grid is accessible each week in the link on the right side of this blog. 

We are looking forward to another busy week ahead and as always if you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us. 

G3 Team.

A really big thank you to all of those who were able to make it to the coffee morning, it was great to see so many of you there.

As promised, please see below the slides used in the presentation and if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

G3 BTS powerpoint 2019ppt

It’s been another busy week in Grade 3 with lots happening in and around the classroom. We also have a few reminders of upcoming events to look out for…

House communities: House Day! 

On Friday, in the PYP, we had our first house day, it was great to see all the students, across the school, joining in with the first house assembly. To kick start the day, Grade 3 enjoyed playing games outside with water balloons, it was a brilliant way for our students to get to know other children in the same house, earning some well deserved house points and having fun getting a bit wet. 

UOI: Who We Are! 

Grade 3 have hit the ground running with our first unit exploring ‘Who We Are’. We have been tuning into our central idea of ‘People can develop fair and inclusive communities through taking responsible action’. Children have set rights that they are entitled to and through learning about these we have started to think about what our responsibilities are within this. For example, all children have a right to education but what are our responsibilities within this?

Language: Dream Jars (identity)

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support with gathering items for our students to begin to create their dream jars to share a bit about themselves. This week, we will be writing our explanations of why these items are important. 

Math: What makes a good Mathematician?

In Mathematics, we have been exploring what makes a good mathematician and what skills are required to be successful in math. Grade 3 came up with some brilliant ideas about which of the learner profile are needed; open-minded, principled, inquirer, risk-taker and committed. 

Dated to remember:

Wednesday 28th August: Back to School Coffee Morning @ 7:55am in the AudiBox on 4th Floor.

Homework has also been sent home for the first time this week. Homework is due in on a Friday along with library books.

We hope to see as many of you there as possible on Wednesday and if in the meantime you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
G3 Team

Parent Forum BTS 23819