Horizons at Westminster

Because of the weather associated with Tropical Storm Elsa, we will not have school tomorrow, Friday, July 9. We will see everyone back on Monday, July 12 for week 4 of Horizons at Westminster!

Debido al a la tormenta tropical Elsa, no tendremos escuela el viernes 9 de julio. ¡Volveremos a ver a todos el lunes 12 de julio para la semana 4 de Horizons en Westminster!

It is true—we’ve hit the halfway point in this incredible summer of fun together. Though the holiday weekend and weather trimmed our week, we did not come up short in terms of highlights! From science experiments to morning circles and read-alouds to virtual field trips, we continue to learn and experience something new every day. Specifically, on Wednesday, everyone was thrilled to see birds of prey and reptiles up close with Christine’s Critters. Owls and falcons and snakes, oh my!

Wishing everyone a safe and dry weekend and looking forward to welcoming our Horizons friends back on Monday for the beginning of week 4!

Week three has been filled with a ton of exciting activities. In reading we continued our small group work to improve our reading skills and used fairy tales to discuss character traits. We also completed some fairy tale STEM challenges with The Three Little Pigs, Rapunzel, and Red Riding Hood. We continued practicing math strategies to add and subtract within 100. We also compared numbers using greater than and less than. Our trip to the library ended with not only new amazing books but also some molding clay. We used this to review our colors on the color wheel and practiced mixing colors to make new ones. After reading The Rainbow Fish we were reminded of the importance of sharing and being kind to others.

We have continued our study of capillary action in science using skittles! In math, we have been working on the concepts of greater than, less than, and equal to. We have also worked on adding and subtracting within a 1000 and mental math within a 1000. They are amazing!! In reading, we continue our small group reading instruction and learning to track characters, setting, and actions within a chapter book. On Wednesday, we were able to enjoy time outdoors learning about birds of prey and reptiles with Christine’s Critters and finished up the day watching a movie. Now that the weather is not as hot, we are also spending lots of time outdoors.

Another week of heat didn’t stop our third graders from doing all things cool! Our STEAM-based week of learning was filled with hands-on projects that became messy with silly putty, magical with lava lamps, and let’s not forget the "wow" factor of a small coding device, the MicroBit. In math, we are working on multiplication strategies and grouping to decompose numbers. We’ve started a social studies project where students will create a work of art displaying the Amazon Rainforest and the animals that reside in each layer. Each week, third graders continue to dive into learning and often express that they, “just can’t stop coming back!"

This week in fourth grade is off to a rockin’ start! In reading we are exploring themes and lessons in stories through read alouds as well as Pixar short films. This has led to deep and meaningful discussion around important and recurring themes such as diversity, perseverance, community, and empathy! In math, we are exploring how to use area models and partial products to solve 2 and 3 digit multiplication problems. We took a virtual field trip to explore the Sahara Desert and tried our hand at making fake snow! We also enjoyed Wednesday’s beautiful weather outdoors learning all about birds of prey and reptiles!