Geometry

Geometry is a unit filled with vocabulary! It all comes at once, so it can be challenging for children to remember all the different words and meanings.

Ask your mathematician about these words:

polygon 
quadrilateral
rectangle
square
triangle
rhombus
parallelogram

parallel
perpendicular

right angle

line

line segment

ray

You can even sort these words together!

Not sure what some of the words mean yourself? Click here for a wonderful, illustrated math dictionary.

Vacation Adventure

Your child should have come home with a Vacation Adventure assignment this week. Third grade writers should write a paragraph about something they did over the April vacation. Please note, this paragraph is due on Friday. 

The FCAs (focused correction areas) for this assignment are:

Small moment - The children should write about a small moment in time. It could be 10minutes, or even 3 minutes of their day. They should not write about their entire day, or even an hour. For example, jumping in the leaves is a small moment. Fall clean up day is not. We call the big topic (not a small moment) a "watermelon." We call small moments a "seed."

3+ specific details - Third grade writers should include at least 3 specific details telling about their topic. The details and the topic sentence should be about the same thing.

Proper Nouns - Third grade writers should put a capital letter at the beginning of all proper nouns (names of specific things).

Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions, comments or concerns you might have.

Area and Perimeter

Third graders have learned to measure the area and perimeter of some shapes. 

 Perimeter is the distance around a shape. We might measure the perimeter of a space if we want to put a fence around it. Third grade mathematicians know to measure each side of a shape and add them together to find the perimeter. 

Area is the measure of space inside a shape. We might measure the area of a space if we want to cover the space with a rug. Third grade mathematicians know to found the squares inside a shape to find the area. Or, to determine the area of a rectangle, you can multiply width x length, similar to the way we multiply rows x columns in an array.

Ask your third grade mathematician to tell you the area and perimeter of the shape below.